This week I’m answering questions that I’ve gotten since my announcement on Sunday that I’ll be leaving this summer to start a church in Harrisburg.

5.  Is United going to change much? There’s a couple of aspects to this question.  First, does the leadership want to keep the style as an energetic, relevant, come as you are place for people who don’t like church or have given up on church?  YES!!!!   So the heart of why we do United will not change.  However, will some of the methods change in how to accomplish that?  Undoubtedly yes.  But that’s not a bad thing.  Even in the 3 years that I’ve been around, what United looks like in 2010 and what it looked like in 2006 is vastly different.  If we always just do things because “well that’s the way we’ve always done it”, then that is the same traditionalism that so many of us rejected as kids as boring and irrelevant to our lives.

Second, no matter how much the leadership wants things to basically stay the same, your next pastor will thankfully for him not be a Gilbert clone.  Your new pastor will bring in new ideas and a vision for how to accomplish the overall tasks he will be called to do.  Some things you’ll like better, some things you’ll hate (because none of us like change) however the key will be to give this new person 100% support.  I guarantee you that things will change, but what hasn’t changed is God.  He is still in control and with His leading, your new pastor’s leadership and your continuing support of United and CFCOG, I have no doubt that even greater things are in store for you.