Week of February 9 column

I want to share some news with you regarding our church staff. Our Director of Music Ministries, Matt Moody, has decided to resign in order to spend more time balancing his primary work and his family commitments. Matt and Mindy and their young family continue to be members of our church and we look forward to their continued participation in the life of our church. Matt, as we all know, is extraordinarily talented. His gifts for singing and musical excellence have shined in his leadership of our Hand Bell and Chancel Choirs for the past year. We thank God for Matt’s leadership. I am personally grateful for the friendship that Matt and I share and for the “can do” spirit that he has always demonstrated in his work on the staff. Thank you Matt for your service to Christ through Woodville United Methodist Church.
As with any staff transition, our Staff Parish Relations Committee (SPRC) is the group charged with personnel decisions and they will work with me to find a new director of music ministries. Representatives from our choirs will be involved in the process as well. All of you are welcome and invited to give input. We maintain our commitment to excellence in all areas of staff ministry leadership including in our music ministry. Meanwhile both of our choirs will continue to meet and rehearse on Wednesday evenings.
On that musical note, our Children’s Choir had their debut in worship last Sunday and did a great job! Yolanda Griffin is directing the choir with assistance from Judy Brown and Jackie Fultz. What a wonderful blessing our children and their leaders are to the church.
This Sunday I am concluding the sermon series on “Biblical Wisdom for the New Year.” I have really enjoyed this series with you and have learned a great deal about the wisdom books of the Old Testament. I hope you have too. This Sunday I’ll finish in the Book of Job. I will be preaching from excerpts of the dialogue between Job and God. One of the famous lines from Job is that verse that introduces God. After a period of silence, God comes to Job, “out of the whirlwind.” Have you ever had an experience of God that comes out of nowhere like that? Maybe we’ll experience God that way together this Sunday.