“Speak, for your servant is listening.”

1 Samuel 3:10b

 For quite some time the above scripture has been running on repeat through my mind.  I wasn’t sure why I couldn’t shake it, nor could I figure out what brought it to my attention.  But nevertheless, God’s voice always meets us where we are. And this was a reminder of that eternal truth. 

The verse from 1^st Samuel above is from a story where Samuel was working with the Priest Eli.  While sleeping, Samuel heard a voice which woke him up.  He thought the voice was Eli so he went to see what Eli needed.  But Eli had not called him.  So, Samuel went back to bed.  But again, two more times, Samuel heard the voice while he was sleeping and thought it was the voice of Eli. 

Eventually Eli figured out that it was God calling to Samuel and instructed Samuel to respond to the voice by saying, “speak, for your servant is listening.”  And God did speak and Samuel understood what God was telling him to do.

Recently, I’ve heard some voices.  I thought they were regular voices; the voice of Jessica and the kids, the voice of others around me, or even my own inner voice.  And while all these voices seemed to be saying something different, underneath it all was the same message, “be ready for change.” 

Be ready for change? What does that mean? So, with curiosity and some hesitation I responded like Samuel did when he heard Eli.  “What’s up? What do you need? What are we changing?”  But that’s where this verse from 1^st Samuel came to mind.  What if it is indeed God speaking?  So following Eli’s advice to Samuel, “speak, your servant is listening” became my prayer. 

And as my attention focused on listening to God speaking, the message became clearer.  God was closing some doors and began opening others.  It was a bit disorienting, but I continued to pray, ‘speak, your servant is listening.”

Right now you might be wondering why I’m writing this letter and if I’ll ever get to the point.  And honestly, I am delaying a bit in saying what I need to say next because it is not easy to say. As I have been seeking God and doing my best to listen, I began to understand what God was doing and what God was calling me and my family to do next.

This past Sunday afternoon I gathered the board together to submit my resignation as Pastor of WNC.  God has been preparing and calling the Griffins to serve elsewhere and we finally know what that is.  We have accepted the call to Pastor First Church of the Nazarene in Battle Creek, Michigan.  September 6^th will be our last Sunday at WNC.  I will speak more about this on Sunday August 16^th in service, but I didn’t want to wait until then to share this information with you. 

This was not an easy decision to make and is one that we have been praying about for months.  We’ve invested a lot of ourselves in this church and community and it’s not easy to step away from that.  But more importantly, we’ve developed some amazing relationships with you, the WNC family.  You’ve been our family for the past three and half years and we’ve walked through many things together.  That is not easy put aside.  You all have made your marks on our lives and I am especially grateful for how you’ve loved and cared for our children. We know in many ways Winamac will always be home. 

And I believe that great days are ahead for WNC.  Your church board and your ministry leadership are hardworking and faithful people.  While there are many questions to be answered in weeks ahead, I wouldn’t be able to step away if I didn’t know you were in great hands. 

And I believe that God is already preparing someone to say yes to your call to be your pastor when that day comes.  And their gifts and abilities will uniquely equip them to minister to you and with you.  It’s going to be great!  They will get to celebrate milestones and wonderful moments with you.  I hope to continue to hear good reports about the wonderful works that God is doing through WNC. 

We will spend the next few weeks saying goodbyes and preparing for the transition.  God will continue to walk with us and bless us all as we do our best to be faithful to which we have been called to do.  Jessica and I are grateful that God called us to Winamac nearly four years ago.  We have learned so much and have grown during our time here.  And through the magic of technology we will never truly be that far away; we’ll be checking in on WNC as I’m sure you’ll be keeping an eye on what we are up to.    Thank you for your love, support, encouragement, and friendship over the past few years.  The WNC family will always have a special place in our hearts. 

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Tanner