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Our Pastor’s Retirement Announcement

Twenty-three years ago this week, under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, I became your Pastor.  It was the beginning of an absolutely wonderful journey with our Lord and the Eastern Hills Baptist family.  Now it is time for me to share with you some words about our future. 

Some of you know that my ministry as a Pastor is not only my twenty-three years here, but twenty-two years before that.  In fact, it was in June forty-five years ago I became Pastor of a small church in Alexander City, Alabama.  From there God led me to Huntsville and following those years to First Baptist, Clanton, where we served prior to coming here.  Additionally, I was licensed and doing Youth Ministry over six years prior to being a Pastor.  I have now served just over half my whole full-time ministry here and have been the Pastor more than one-third the history of this church.

I have not lost my love for preaching or ministry.  However, after much prayerful consideration over the past year, I believe it is time for me to transition into retirement from the rigorous schedule and daily responsibilities which go with full-time ministry.  We are blessed with a fine team of ministers and support staff who have been such an integral part of my ministry here as well as good friends.

This certainly has not been an easy decision.  As you know, I have a deep love and appreciation for this church and felt God wanted me to complete my full-time ministry here with you.  If I had it to do all over again, this is still the place I would have wanted to serve.

Words are not adequate to express the joy, blessing, comfort and support you have been to Judy and me through all the moments of our lives while serving here.  When we came here there was just Judy and me with our three children.  You were with us through the passing of our parents and the marriages of our children.  Now we are blessed grandparents of seven precious grandchildren and one due in August.

I also want you to know that my decision does not mean we are leaving you.  This is the church home for our family.  Judy and I look forward to continuing our membership here as Montgomery will be our home. 

My final Sunday in the pulpit as Pastor will be September 24, 2017, the last Sunday of this church year, with the official date of my retirement October 31st following accrued vacation time.

Let me add just one other word which is also important for you to know.  I will support whatever the church wishes to do in electing a Pastor Search Committee, whether before or after September.  I want to make it clear that even though this will be our home church, I will not be involved in the selection process of who serves on that committee or of the next Pastor.  But just as much I want you to know, whoever the Lord leads to this church as the next Pastor will have my full support and prayer.

I realize this may seem sudden to you, but it has not been without much prayer.  Let’s not make this a sad time, but rather, one of gratitude about how God has blessed us as a Pastor and people through the years.  Let us not look back, but forward.  I pray that God will in His time gloriously bless this church with a new Pastor and for those days to become some of the greatest in the history of our church.

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FOCUSED

One of the casualties of aging to which I find myself a victim is the dimming of the eyes.  Ecclesiastes 12 counsels the young person to remember God, their Creator, in their youth before the aging process takes over and various faculties, as listed in verses 1-7, are diminished.

Clear eyesight when we are young may be something we take for granted. However, as we age the realization that our vision is not as sharp as it once was takes hold. “Readers” become standard fare for all intricate tasks. Our once keen laser sharp focus is now blurry and in need of help to restore its youthfulness. That restoration is found through glasses or some sort of rejuvenating surgery. Especially in the early stages of this degenerative eye problem we may be able to fake it and get by, but eventually we must relent and do something to correct the problem.

There is a parallel between physical and spiritual vision. “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” was written in the early 20th century. The hymn writer, Helen Lemmel, was strongly influenced by the artist and later little-known missionary, Lilias Trotter. Miss Trotter started off as an aspiring artist but early on felt a call from God to reach the lost. She began her ministry by rescuing prostitutes from the streets of London. Later she went to Africa, without missionary funding, and served for over forty years. While there she penned a poem that would greatly influence the writing of the hymn “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.”  The poem was entitled “Focused: A Story and Song.” 

The poem centers around focusing one’s attentions fully and completely upon God. She writes that Satan knows that if a person uses all their powers of concentration on being led by God’s Spirit, they will have a great intensity and impact upon those to whom they are called to minister. Lilias Trotter, writing in a more formal use of the English language than we are accustomed, shares some timeless insights which could very easily have been written today but with a different accent. She writes: “Never has it been so easy to live in half a dozen good harmless worlds at once—art, music, social science, games, motoring, the following of some profession, and so on. And between them we run the risk of drifting about, the ‘good’ hiding the ‘best’ even more effectually than it could be hidden downright frivolity with its smothered heartache at its own emptiness.”

The “good” hiding the “best” leads us to emptiness.  Could this be true of us today especially as American Christians? Have we sought the “good” while missing the “best”? The chorus of the hymn, which we will be singing in worship this Sunday, says it best.

                Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face,                                                                                                                                        And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

Keith Pate

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