Hello Everyone!
I am delighted to join this amazing community at Our Redeemer’s during this transition journey!!
Let me introduce myself, and share what I’ll be up to among you. My wife and I moved to the area in 2015, from the Twin Cities, where she began her call as pastor at St. Matthews Lutheran Church, Renton (yes, the same congregation pastor Gretchen came from a few years back, how cool is that?!), and where I began serving at the synod office. We have two children, Derek and Grace; our son will be a senior at California Lutheran University, is on the golf team and is studying music production; after high school our daughter decided to work at a piercing shop, is loving her social life with friends at UW, and especially enjoying the money she’s saving from her fantastic tips. Personally, I enjoy hot yoga, working out, getting my steps in, listening to beautiful music, and thoughtful conversations. I will be offering three areas of leadership among you: 1) facilitating the transition process, 2) assisting pastor Gretchen with worship leadership by preaching twice a month, and, 3) partnering with the adult education team.
Currently we are in the process of gathering the transition team, and will be meeting for the first time in July. This meeting will involve getting some clarity, and scope of what is involved in the transition process.
The gist of it involves taking some time to really listen well to where you are as a congregation, your hopes, expectations and dreams, and with a lens to listening to what future God is leading you to engage together as God’s people.
This is, as I understand it, discernment work. I have invited the transition team to consider this task as more than merely a volunteer opportunity, but a ministry of the congregation. Discernment is also more than decision making work; it is a spiritual formation process whereby we attend patiently and audaciously to what God is up to among us, who then begins to form us in God’s preferred future.
So, no matter who you are, and where you are able to be involved during this transition process, I would invite you to imagine yourself a part of this ministry, and discernment process. Within a short time, the transition team will be pulling together focus groups to begin listening and taking notes on a variety of emphases yet to be determined. This is an open-ended process, one of discovery, which means we don’t know yet what we will hear bubbling up among us. The only confidence we do have is the trust that God is already among you, waiting to be heard with more clarity about where you are now, and what kind of leadership and sustainability structure supports your emerging future.
On my end, I will keep you in my prayers as I get to know you better. Please don’t hesitate to introduce yourself to me!
When I facilitate the transition team I will continually ask the God questions:
What is God up to? What do you hear God saying among us? What partnerships do you hear God calling us into? Where do you hear God’s future emerging in light of who you are?
When I lead worship, I will preach the challenging, and liberating, love of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, hoping to enlarge our imaginations for where God is blowing among us. And when I participate in some learning time with y’all, I trust we will be able to engage in some thoughtful reflection as a necessary part of discernment.
To God be the glory for this transition time!
Pastor David Hahn