Dear Friends and Family of LBC,

With a heavy heart but a rejoicing spirit, I offer to you my last Mid-Week Informer article.  My final day as interim pastor of LBC will be Sunday, May 27, and since I will be out for two weeks on the study tour of Greece and Turkey, this will be my final weekly installment.

When I arrived back in August 2011, only 10 months ago, I found a church in need of love and care.  From all accounts, emotions were raw, tension was thick and conflict was brimming on all sides.  Walt Browning and Bill Oliver tried to prepare me for the difficult situation the church was facing.  I sensed I was coming into a battlefield. 

Yet when I arrived, I found something very different.  There was an immediate connection between us.  I didn’t find a church engaged in battle, I found a people wanting to love their leader.  I was told by Walt early on, “Our people want to love their pastor and want to be loved by their pastor.”  Those words became the hallmark for what I believed God was calling me to do at LBC – simply love the people. 

And you, my dear brothers and sisters, returned that love immediately back upon me and my family.  There wasn’t a Sunday or Wednesday that went by where I didn’t “feel the love” in our midst.  In our times of worship, in prayer, in Bible study, in meetings, when eating around the table, with the children, the teenagers, the senior adults, the various Sunday school classes, with the staff, the deacons, the ministry teams, everyone showed us amazing, abundant love. 

I’ve often been reminded of Paul’s words to the churches in Galatia when thinking about you, my LBC family.  He writes, “For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me.” (Gal 4:15b)  I think you might have done the same for me if I asked.

Deep love and kindred spirits are hard to come by these days.  For that I am so grateful to have shared this time with you.  I will look back on our Wednesday night studies with sincere fondness and a smile on my face for every time I made you do something new.  I will cherish the times I spent with Pastor Nehemiah & Stephen on our Google+ video conference staff meetings.  I will remember with joy walking up and down the aisles on Sunday mornings talking with you, shaking hands, asking how your week has gone.  I will continue to celebrate the increase in giving and attendance, the number of children baptized, and the explosion of community awareness and outreach.

Pastor Harold & his family are going to be so blessed because I know you will extend to them the same love you’ve extended to our family. I love each of you and will be praying God’s best for you in the days to come.

Grace and peace,   Shane

Lewisport BC - LBC 1

My home church was LBC – Lewisport Baptist Church.  I love my 1st faith family at LBC with all my heart.  They led me to Christ, grew me up in Jesus, and adopted me as one of their sons in the faith.  I am, and will always be, eternally grateful for the people and minister of LBC.

Lancaster BC - LBC 2

But over this past year, I got a chance to meet and love another LBC – Lancaster Baptist Church.  My new faith family at LBC 2 has become so precious to me. 

They allowed me to lead them in worship, teach them from God’s word, challenge them to lean on the power of God, and reach their community in new ways.  They opened their hearts to me and for a second time I was adopted as a LBC son.

I will officially be completing my fourth interim pastorate later this month.  Each has been a new experience for me.  Living Grace Church in 2008 was all about learning how pastoral transitions work.  Parkway Bapt Church in 2009 taught me what it means to teach on a larger scale to wider diversity of people.  Bethany Bapt Church in 2010-11 stretched me personally and spiritually.  I always thought ministry in a major city would be easy because of all the people and needs, but it was much harder than I expected.

And now Lancaster Bapt. Church.  LBC 2 taught me it is possible to deeply love a people in a short amount of time.  I learned that I really love ministry when people love to be loved by their pastor.  I have teared up more than once thinking about these fine brothers and sisters in Christ who I’ve only known for 9 months, but feels like we’ve been friends for a lifetime. 

Thank you LBC 2.  Your new pastor is going to be awesome.  Your ministry in the future is going to be bright.  You will always hold a very special place in my heart.

Here is the Garrison version.  Play close attention to the superhero on one side and the stick-figure on the other.  Who’s leading who?

And in BW.

I have entered the way of the Dragon and for that, I must become a Kung-Fu master.

Man, I look cut!

With so many churches being extremely small and unable to afford a pastor all their own, sharing was a must.  So the itinerant pastor traveled between locations, most often by horse and much later by car. 

So far in my ministry life, I have been far more of an itinerant pastor/preacher than anything else.  I have been on 6 church staffs in KY & TX, in nearly every position except Senior Pastor (i.e., Youth Minister, Associate Pastor and Interim Pastor) and in only one of those positions did I live in the actual city of the church.

Here’s the list and the drive time, one-way, to church.

• First Baptist Church, (part-time staff) Millsap, TX – 45 minutes away
• Trinity Baptist Church, (part-time staff) Fort Worth, TX – 30 minutes away
• Main Street Baptist Church, (full-time staff) Alexandria, KY – we lived in Alex.
• Parkway Baptist Church (interim), Bardstown, KY – 50 minutes away
• Bethany Baptist Church (interim), Louisville, KY – 90 minutes away
• Lancaster Baptist Church (interim), Lancaster, KY – 75 minutes away

Itinerant ministry can provide some benefits and challenges. 

Benefits
- First, there can be a benefit to having some space between you and your people.  Especially in the smaller community, pastors can feel as if they are always “on” whether at a restaurant, the grocery store or even driving from place to place.  Over time, this amplifies the glass-house syndrome.
- Secondly, itinerant ministry demands the pastor/minister and the church select only the most important of ministry tasks.  When you don’t live in the city, you have to come and go, which demands everyone to be selective and prioritize what is going to happen and what is going to be dismissed.

Challenges
-  No question, relationships.  It is possible to build great relationships in itinerant ministry, but they will not be as strong as other types of connection.  It is hard for the people to ever view you as an insider and local, if you live 45 minutes away.
-  No coffee shops conversations.  No bump into’s in the Walmart parking lot.  No seeing each other at the Memorial Day parade.  Just as space can be a benefit in preventing the glass-house syndrome, space can also be a huge disadvantage in that you are too far away to be completely available for the non-calendared meetings