Greetings from the Moderators,
We are using our space in the Palm Leaf this month to write you a personal letter. We want to share with each of you some of our thoughts and feelings about the joy and happiness we have experienced in our moderator roles. We started the year with some apprehension about the leadership roles we were assuming: Would we make good decisions? Would we have sufficient time? Would we meet your expectations and the expectations of the pastors? Did we have enough experience with church governance and politics to be good lay leaders in our church during these troubling times? You get the picture — we did not want to let ourselves down or let down the people who asked us to fill these positions!
Fast forward ten months. We love the roles we are in! We love working together for the benefit of Church of the Palms. Our love for Church of the Palms has grown, our love of the pastors has grown, our love of each other has grown, and certainly our love of all the members of our church family has grown! We, as a moderator team and as individuals, have been blessed far beyond our expectations. In discussing this phenomenon amongst ourselves, we think we have figured out why we have grown from worrying about the job we were tasked with to savoring every moment of the job we are doing. And here is what we have figured out. Remember the 1979 song by Sister Sledge, “We are Family”? Well, there is your answer. It’s in the slightly modified lyrics of that song:
We are family
We got all our sisters and brothers with us
We are family
Everyone can see we’re together
As we walk on by
And we fly just like birds of a feather
We won’t tell no lie
We are family
All of the people around us they say
Can they be that close
Just let us state for the record
We’re giving love in a family dose.
We are family
Living life is fun and we’ve just begun
To get our share of this world’s and the next’s delight
High hopes we have for the future
And our goal’s in sight
We are family
At Church of the Palms “WE ARE FAMILY!”
Thank you!!! —Suzanne, Jerry, & John