I wrote this letter in the year of 2010. When I resigned from the church, I did not write a formal resignation letter to the church. I only wrote this “informal” letter to the congregation that I looked after from 2005 to 2010. I believe I had a good time. I am thankful for this congregation. I thank God for this pastoral ministry.
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Farewell Letter
To the congregation,
I have decided to tender my resignation from GCAC effective December 31st, 2010. I started to seriously think about resignation at the end of 2009. I formulated my mind around June, 2010. I waited until now because I promised to officiate the wedding. And I did not want to break the news before it. In August, 2010, there was no Governing Board meeting. Thus, I was not able to officially inform the Governing Board about my decision. After informing the Governing Board in September, 2010, I will send out this farewell letter to all of you.
Throughout the years, the thought of going back to school has oscillated in my mind. After pasturing the church for five years, I realize that I like to focus on three things in my pastorate: to make disciples, to teach, and to preach. I always ask myself, “What is the most practical way to fulfill the Great Commission?” (Matt. 28:19-20) Discipleship, teaching, and preaching are the three main areas in my pastorate.
When I decided to go to seminary eight years ago, I said to myself, “I need to be equipped for ministry.” I spent about four to five years to be equipped. In the past five years, I do see that I’ve been able to serve God and His church in certain ways in which I could never imagine myself doing it without the opportunity having theological and biblical training in seminary.
I am forever thankful for the chance to serve in the English congregation in which my understanding of Christian faith has been shaped and reshaped, and my pastoral soul and identity have been enlarged and established, respectively. It is in this particular context of ministry that I grew old and up as a person, a pilgrim, and a pastor.
Eugene Peterson notes, “The congregation is the pastor’s place for developing vocational holiness. It goes without saying that it is the place of ministry: we preach the word and administer the sacraments, we give pastoral care and administer the community life, we teach and we give spiritual direction. But it is also the place in which we develop virtue, learn to love, advance in hope—become what we preach.”[1] Thanks for being such a congregation so that I can become such a pastor.
In regard with teaching, I’ve started to ponder upon the possibility of pursuing further study. God willing, I’d like to be a pastor and a professor in the future. I do not know whether or not this is the best time for me to stop my pastorate and to start a new journey of faith. One night, I was meditating on and praying for this matter, Hebrews 11 came to my mind, particularly the life and the faith of Abraham. Then I turned to the Scriptures. In vv. 8-10, by faith Abraham obeyed God’s calling and went out to a place of inheritance. However, he did not know where he was going. In vv. 17-19, by faith Abraham offered Isaac with extraordinary obedience, for he considered that God would raise him up from the dead.
After reading these two passages, I asked myself, “What kind of faith did Abraham have?” I was thinking in my head, “The faith that Abraham had is that there would always be a new possibility before him, for he had the faith to believe the God of resurrection. Resurrection indicates new possibility. It foreshadows what is not yet to come. It points forward to the future hope.”
Paul said that the God whom Abraham believed was the one who “gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Rom. 4:17).
Jurgen Moltmann notes, “This God is present where we wait upon his promises in hope and transformation. When we have a God who calls into being the things that are not, then the things that are not yet, that are future, also become ‘thinkable’ because they can be hoped for.”[2] In between the two passages about Abraham, the author of Hebrews said, “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (11:13). There is no guarantee I will receive any promise. But I see it from a distance. I welcome it gladly with anticipation. And I accept the fact that I am a sojourner on earth. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1).
The God of new possibility led Abraham all the way through; Abraham acted upon the mystery of God with a leap of faith. The God whom Abraham followed is also my God who has rescued me and guided me through and through. A new possibility of pursuing further study, of teaching, and of ministering to another church ought to be out there, somewhere in the providential care and sovereignty of God. May the God of new possibility prepare me for another ministry.
Paul Tillich notes, “Theology, as a function of the Christian church, must serve the needs of the church. A theological system is supposed to satisfy two basic needs: the statement of the truth of the Christian message and the interpretation of this truth for every new generation. Theology moves back and forth between two poles, the eternal truth of its foundation and the temporal situation in which the eternal truth must be received.”[3] This is my theological dictum: Apart from the church, my faith is no longer biblical and theologically sound. The needs of the church must be served through the gifts that God has given us in Christ through the Spirit. A people of God needs to be edified; the church of Christ, be built up; the temple of the Spirit, be taken care of.
No matter where I am, I won’t practice my faith apart from His church, for biblical faith should always be communal, which is church-oriented, Christ-centered, and cross-focused.
I hope that you share this part of my communal faith in your faith journey.
Your friend
[1] Eugene H. Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), p. 21.
[2] Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope: On the Ground and the Implications of a Christian Eschatology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), p. 30.
[3] Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), volume 1, p. 3.
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