Sunday will be the last day of the year and the last day of my term as ad hoc interim pastor at Ossian First Presbyterian Church in Ossian, Indiana. Retrospectives on 2023 abound online, so I will confine myself to a retrospective on my 20 months at OPC, as the congregation calls her.
Just after Easter 2022, I received a call from the chair of our presbytery’s Ministerial Committee. A good friend, he told me the story of one of our congregations that had just gone through a difficult separation with their pastor. Would I be willing to moderate their upcoming session (board of elders) meeting? Sure, I’d be happy to give a Tuesday night to a church in need.
The third Tuesday in April 2022 became 20 or more Session meetings as the elders worked through the immediate and then the longer term “what next?” questions, and, in time, called a congregational meeting to elect a pastor search committee and then, some months later, another meeting to call a new pastor.
Per our presbyterian polity, I preached and administered the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper on the second Sundays in May, June, and July. By fall I was pretty much preaching every Lord’s Day and coming to the Lord’s Table every second Sunday, and Becky and I were enjoying our 45-minute drives through the cornfields between Auburn and Ossian on our way to worship with a congregation we were growing to love.
Our time at OPC has been great privilege and pleasure, and while I wasn’t the “real” pastor and this is not a “real” retirement, these 20 months have been a surprising joy for which we will be ever thankful.
Sunday’s opening hymn will be Isaac Watts’ 1719 paraphrase of Psalm 90, O God, Our Help in Ages Past. I will use the words of the first verse in my sermon:
O God, our Help in ages past,
our Hope for years to come,
our Shelter from the stormy blast,
and our eternal Home.
As OPC welcomes Pastor Andrew Morton on the first Sunday of the new year, the hope for years to come is bright even as the congregation rests on the past 184 years of God’s providential care. To say that I am excited to see how God is going to use Andrew and the OPC congregation even in our times of stormy blast is a great understatement.
Our closing song was written 299 years after Watts’ hymn, and like O God, Our Help in Ages Past, Yet Not I But Through Christ in Me from City Alight in Australia finds its meaning in the words of Scripture. I will use the words of the last verse in my sermon:
To this I hold, my hope is only Jesus,
All the glory evermore to Him,
When the race is complete, still my lips shall repeat,
Yet not I, but through Christ in me.
The lyrics reflect 2 Timothy 4:7–8, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”
I don’t know what courses in the race may lie ahead for us, but as our time at Ossian comes to a close, both Becky and I sing with joy in our hearts, “When the race is complete, still our lips shall repeat, yet not I, but through Christ in me.”
Thank you, God, for Ossian First Presbyterian Church and for its hope for years to come.