“I ran to the Methodist Church because I know how Methodists love,” says this laywoman from Tennessee.
REBECCA K. REYNOLDS
United Methodist News Service
Yesterday, our minister delivered his last sermon.
Joe and his wife have been in church ministry for over 40 years, and the sweetness of two lives well spent filled the sanctuary with gratitude as this beloved couple urged us onward in love. I felt the eternal heft of their service. And somehow, it felt like the passing of a baton.
As I sat there, I scribbled out a confession. “I miss being a pastor’s wife.”
This was a big deal for me—a sentence I thought I would never write.
I suppose the ache was similar to the ache a former dancer must feel in her legs while watching a ballet, similar to the ache a retired musician must feel in his fingers while sitting in the audience during a brilliant symphony. That ache feels like, “Oh, there I am! That is who I am! But I am not that now.”
I ran to the Methodist church five years ago, after a hard breakdown in our last church. My denominational choice didn’t make much sense to some of my friends. They know Methodism through stories that hit the news—struggles over sticky cultural issues that will probably divide the denomination soon.
However, I don’t just know Methodism from the news. I know it from the inside.
Last Updated on October 30, 2023