In his weekly update, Pastor Danny recaps a big week with our next senior pastor, George Wright, and he also looks ahead to our new sermon series looking at miracles of God the Israelites experienced in the wilderness. Take a look!
Hello Church!
This past Sunday was historic as George Wright proudly accepted our call to become the next senior pastor at Shades. The day began with a powerful worship service as George challenged us to be stewards of the gifts that the Lord has entrusted us and to leverage those to bring glory to God. Then we returned on Sunday evening and we got to learn more about George’s heart, his story, his family, and his excitement about coming to Shades.
We asked George and his family to step outside while we conducted a formal business meeting. Once we began our meeting, Steve Foster, the Chairman of the nine member Pastor Search Committee shared about the six month process and why they felt that George Wright was the man to be the next pastor. Then three members from the committee shared their experiences and why personally they were supportive of the Committee’s unanimous recommendation.
Steve made the motion that we call George Wright to be our next pastor. There was a second and then a unanimous vote of approval. But before we brought the Wright family back in, we took a moment to give a standing ovation of appreciation for all the members of the Pastor Search Committee for a deserving job well done!
The standing ovation continued as the Wright family came back in and Steve Foster introduced George Wright as our next pastor. To close out the service the Pastor Search Committee along with Janice and myself laid hands on the Wright family and two members of the Committee lifted them up in prayer. If you missed any part of the day, you can visit shades.org/pastor to watch his sermon from Sunday morning, see my interview with him that night, and read a short story we wrote on his journey to Shades.
Words cannot express enough my appreciation for the Pastor Search Committee, the Pastor Transition Prayer Team, the Leadership Council and the Deacon Body all who directly had a hand in this search and transition process. And I thank you the Shades family for your constant prayers for the pastor, process, staff personnel and our people.So let me review the schedule. My last Sunday as pastor will be August 15 and then George will officially begin as Senior Pastor on that Monday the 16th. We are giving him about a month to get his family settled, learn the city and get a much needed time of rest. Our staff members will be responsible for the preaching on those next three Sundays and then on September 12 George will preach his first sermon as our pastor. Then sometime later that day there will be a huge reception welcoming George, his wife Megan, and their four children McKenna, Brody, Anna-Beth and Everett to the Shades family. Please continue to pray for George and his family as they make their transition to Birmingham and to Shades.
This Sunday, July 4th, I will begin a 5 week sermon series entitled 40 for 40.
I have identified 40 miracles that occurred during the 40 years of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness. Now I don’t have 40 weeks to preach all 40 miracles but I will take 5 categories and identify the top 5 miracles in each category. As we look at these miracles we will be reminded that our God continues to be a miracle working God. And one of the greatest miracles is transformed lives.
In each sermon we will revisit a Shades Story video from the past and get a present day update on how God is continuing to work miracles. I am so excited about this series and what God will do in each one of our lives.
So this Sunday we will have only one worship service at 9:00. We will not have Sunday School but we will have worship care for preschoolers and younger. I know this is a holiday weekend but I am hoping you will include worship at Shades in your plans and I look forward to seeing you either in person or online.