Dr. James Moore served as senior minister of St. Luke's United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas.  Dr. Moore has written numerous books, including one entitled Some Folks Feel the Rain, Others Just Get Wet.  As the rain fell all weekend in our area, I was reminded of that saying and felt the quote to be very appropriate for our work together in the Pensacola District.

As our denomination moves toward General Conference, it is apparent there are some storm clouds on the horizon.  Debate over proposals with the Call to Action and security of appointment of elders headline over 1000 pieces of legislation that delegates will consider in Tampa.  The realities of declining membership, increased costs, and the effects of the economic recession necessitate serious conversation about our methods for going about the work of ministry at all levels of the church.

This week, all active clergy under appointment will receive a copy of Dr. Lovett Weems new book, Focus:  The Real Challenges That Face The United Methodist Church.  Dr. Weems offers insight for us leaders as to some of the changes that we need to consider and enact at the General, Jurisdictional, Annual Conference and Local Church level.  I offer it to you to help you guide your congregations during this very important time of year in the life of our church and pray you will find it helpful in your work to confront the challenges you face in leading your congregation.  How we respond to the challenges is up to us.  We can either feel the rain that is falling on our church or we can simply get wet. 

Basking in the glory of Christ's Transfiguration on the mountain, we now begin the descent into the Lenten season that will begin on Ash Wednesday.  I do hope you participate in some form of Lenten discipline over these 40 days and encourage your congregations to do the same.  The Lenten season reminds us of our need for repentance, reconciliation, prayer, fasting, redemption, grace, salvation, and perseverance.  As the great hymn declares, "Lord, who throughout these forty days for us didst fast and pray: Teach us, with thee to mourn our sins and close by thee to stay." 

Over the next few days, I will continue in consultations with pastors and SPR committees in relation to the appointment season.  I will be preaching on Ash Wednesday at First UMC, Pensacola as well.  Please remember to submit your church's goals for the Vital Congregations website.  Three of our churches have fully completed that task and their goals have been approved.  Eight congregations have partially completed the work.  The rest of the churches in the district have yet to enter their data.  The deadline for this is Wednesday, February 29th. 

What a "Great Night of Methodist Singing"!  Eight Okaloosa County area United Methodist Churches came together once again to witness in song as the message of Christ was proclaimed in what has become one of the tremendous annual events in the Pensacola District.  It was an awesome evening at the Mattie Kelly Arts Center on the campus of Northwest Florida State College.  Many thanks to all of the directors and members of the choir and orchestra for their dedication and hard work in making such a "Great Night" possible.

I spent the weekend in Okaloosa County, attending the Asbury Theological Seminary Breakfast as Dr. Timothy Tennent lectured on "Christianity, Islam and the Post-9/11 World" on Saturday.  I also had the privilege of worshiping at Trinity United Methodist Church in Fort Walton Beach as part of their Sunday services.

Please remember to submit your preference forms online by Wednesday.  If you are planning on making a change in your appointment, please know that I will be contacting you to schedule further consultation.  I will be holding these consultations on Monday, February 6th, and for part of the day on Tuesday, February 7th.  In some cases I will conduct these via telephone if it is necessary.  Also, Year-End Reports are due to the Conference Office on Tuesday.

During this week I will be in the Pensacola area on Monday, with several appointments and spending some time in the office.  I will be in meetings during the morning on Tuesday in Santa Rosa County, and will travel to Blue Lake that afternoon, as the Cabinet is meeting with the Board of Ministry.  On Wednesday I will be in the office in Pensacola.  On Thursday I will be in Shalimar for a General and Jurisdictional Conference Delegation meeting.  If you do have need of me please feel free to email or call.

I want to thank you for your attentiveness to the administrative matters we are addressing during this time of year.  You assistance with year-end reports and with the profiles and preference forms for appointment season is of great benefit to me in ensuring our work in the Pensacola District is complete.  I know this is a stressful time for all of us and I am praying earnestly for you.  Persevere and let us encourage one another in the faith and continue to commit ourselves to the cause of Christ.  It is a joy to serve with you.

Greetings in the name of Christ! I hope you enjoyed a great day of worship at church today. I had the privilege of worshiping at St. Paul United Methodist Church, our only African-American congregation in the district, and at Ensley United Methodist Church.

I appreciate your prayers for me while I was away last week at the Cabinet Consultation. Dr. Gil Rendle led our gathering and offered outstanding insight into the state of our denomination, as well as the work of the superintendent in the United Methodist connection. I have already found the time to be beneficial and I look forward to sharing more in the weeks and months ahead.

I also had the opportunity to hear from the 13 episcopal nominees from across the Southeastern Jurisdiction as they were presented to the superintendents on Wednesday afternoon. Our own Dr. Larry Bryars, pastor of Shalimar UMC and the episcopal nominee from the Alabama-West Florida Conference was there. Larry did great in representing all of us at the event and offered his vision of what he would bring to an annual conference as an episcopal leader. I would invite us as a district to remember Larry in our prayers daily as he travels the jurisdiction and continues to serve at Shalimar.

This week, I will continue the initial consultation process with our district clergy. I will be in Shalimar on Monday, at St. Luke UMC on Tuesday, and in Niceville on Wednesday. I will have my annual consultation with Bishop Leeland on Thursday in Montgomery. Please remember to submit your forms online after you and your SPRC have had opportunity to share in conversation about the appointment preferences for 2012-13. After I have received the information from both pastor(s) and congregations, I will schedule follow-up consultations where necessary with both pastors and SPR committees. The deadline for the forms is February 1st. Also, do not forget the Year-End Report Data, which is due January 31st. Please contact Mary should you need any assistance with uploading or inputting any of the information on Appointment Preferences / Church Profile or Year-End Reports.

Thank you for your expressions of care for me and Abigail. As many of you know, we had to put our 14 year old cat, Sugarfoot, to sleep on Friday evening. It has been a tough weekend and will continue to hurt for a while. I inherited Sugarfoot when Abigail and I got married. We are grateful for the time we had with him and are starting to make the difficult adjustment of life without him. Keep us in your prayers and know that all of you remain in ours. I count it a joy to serve together with you in the Pensacola District and I want to thank you for all that you do for the cause of Christ!

In his 1965 commencement address at Oberlin College, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.”  On a weekend where we remember Dr. King's dream of equality and his pursuit of justice for all persons, I find myself drawn to this quote which underscores the connected nature of our lives and work.

We United Methodists celebrate our connection in the body of Christ and in the denomination, perhaps better than any other tradition.  At our best, we join together in efforts to affect the lives of people through ministry in the name of Jesus.  We provide home for children who have no other place to go, we offer the some of the finest educational opportunities conjoining a thirst for knowledge with a vital piety, we care for God's older children through homes for the aged, we sponsor missionaries who travel the globe sharing in the Great Commission, we help those who have heard God's call to be theological trained for service in the Church, and so much more....

As we continue to focus on our spiritual and financial well-being, the health of our connection is predicated on all of us living into covenant, being accountable to each other, and upholding one another in prayer, mutual encouragement and support.  We are all aware of the effects of the Great Recession on our congregations.  The devastation of a real estate bubble, a market collapse, an oil spill, and our own inability to live within our means has been difficult and is still causing stress in some parts of the district and conference.  But issues in another area do have consequences for us, whether we realize it or not.  At the same time, we are still here and there is still work to be done.  By focusing on the mission - making disciples - and by focusing on fruitful ministry we will, by God's grace, persevere and indeed thrive.  The road ahead will not necessarily be easy, but we do not travel alone.  We are assured of God's presence and we have one another to walk with on the way.

To that end, I would encourage all of you to make a point to take part in the Self Care Workshop at Cokesbury UMC this week on January 18th.  If you are needing to develop healthy habits for the work of ministry, this is a great place to start.  Continue to encourage your congregations to live faithfully into their covenantal responsibilities.  Perhaps setting aside 10% of weekly offerings now will allow your congregation not to slip into a place where fulfilling their fair share will be of greater difficulty later in the year.  Share your best practices of ministry with one another as well in the hopes that greater fruit will be borne in our district.

This coming week, I will be participating in a continuing education experience at St. Simons Island, GA.  I will be taking part in the Cabinet Consultation, joining with other District Superintendents from across the Southeastern Jurisdiction as we hold conversation with one another, crossing conference lines to see what other groups are doing in their areas that might be of benefit here.  If you do have need of me, feel free to email or call.  I will get back in touch with you as soon as possible.

Lastly, congratulations are in order for Reverend Mark Dees, our pastor as Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church.  Mark was named the Community Leader of the Year by the Pace Area Chamber of Commerce.  What a great honor and a testimony to public leadership!  I want to thank all of you for the ways you "lead beyond the walls" in your communities.  I celebrate our shared labor for the Kingdom and count it a privilege to serve with all of you.  I pray that we will all become what God would desire us to be! To God be the Glory!

Happy New Year!  I hope you all had a great holiday and are looking forward to an exciting adventure with Christ in 2012.  I know all of the resolutions have been made, we're continuing in the season of Christmas and hope springs eternal at the possibilities before us in the next 365 days.  We're quickly making our way to Epiphany, remembering the gifts offered by the Magi, as well as the Baptism of Our Lord, recalling how the spirit descended and the voice of God was heard giving approval of Jesus and his ministry to all the world.

I want to thank all of you for your participation in our meetings prior to the Christmas holiday.  I know there is a tremendous amount going on in the next few weeks related to appointment profile forms, Vital Congregations, and Year-End Reports.  I look forward to talking with each of you during the consultations which start this week and are being held throughout this month.

Several years ago, I read an article written by a pastor recalling a men's ministry gathering that featured a commercial pilot as the speaker.  The pastor shared that the pilot showed the group slides of beautiful sunrises, sunsets, mountain chains, and cloud formations and that his experience in the skies had informed and strengthened his faith in God.

During the question and answer session following the presentation, a man in the audience asked the pilot, "How do you live with the stress of being responsible for the lives of other passengers?"  The pilot's answer was remarkable.  He said, "If I just concentrate on getting myself there safely, when I look behind me, all the passengers are safe as well." 

The pastor went on to note the obvious lesson for us who serve in ministry:  The health of the pastor's soul is directly linked to the safety of his or her congregation.  If the pastor is on an authentic spiritual adventure with Christ, the congregation will be fruitful and prosper.  If we are able to deliver our souls safely, chances are when we look back, those following us will be safe as well.