I want to share with you something that has mattered a great deal to me. Leadership in Ministry is a post-graduate leadership development program for clergy. Rev. Dr. Larry Matthews, then pastor of Vienna Baptist Church, an ABCUSA congregation, founded LIM well over 30 years ago. For the last 12 years, I’ve been among those pastors helped by LIM.

Twice annually, I have pilgrimaged down to Columbia Theological Seminary to work on myself. I never miss. In fact, I just returned home to my nonnegotiable professional development commitment. It makes me a better person and a better pastor. Last week, before my biannual pilgrimage, I received a letter from Rev. Dr. Israel Galindo, the Coordinator of LIM (he’s an American Baptist, too). The letter is an invitation to join the faculty

of LIM for their annual August retreat to consider becoming LIM faculty.

LIM has three in-person sites (Asheville, NC; Atlanta, GA; and Richmond, VA) and online workshops. Part of what I’ll be asked to do if I become faculty is teach plenaries and lead small groups of clergy around the subject of pastoral leadership when they gather twice a year for these workshops or online. I’m honored by this invitation and the LIM faculty’s affirmation of my growth, which it reflects.

Sharing my celebrations has long been part of my pastoring of my congregation, and now that you are my congregation, I’m choosing to share with you. I believe that one of the large and mostly unnamed sins in church life is the failure to celebrate together. We get [or stay] anxious, we get together, and we “get down to business.” When we get together for meetings and suppers and fail to celebrate God’s goodness, what makes us Christ’s Church is harder to see.

This week, I am celebrating what I choose to receive as affirmation from the professors, counselors, and ministers who make up the LIM faculty.

What have you failed to celebrate this week? It’s not too late to turn aside, remove your shoes, and notice that you, too, are standing on holy ground.

~ Rev. Zach Bay