Here’s a life update for Ron and Cheryl Edmondson. We are in another season of transition.
As with so many people, COVID has changed much of what Cheryl and I have done professionally over the last couple of years.
For those who may need a little of the back story, let me recap.
In late 2019, Cheryl and I felt led to move back to the Nashville area and figure out what God had next for us. I believed I had done all I could do at Leadership Network and it looked like my next season would be full of consulting, coaching, writing, teaching, etc. Immediately, I went to work filling my calendar for the first half of 2020. And the Lord was faithful in that.
In early 2020, some of the leadership at our home church, First Baptist Clarksville, reached out to me about coming to be an intentional interim pastor. The church had experienced a difficult season and needed some help figuring out where they were going and finding their next pastor. Originally we said no because it wasn’t in our plans, but it is a church we love, so we agreed. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. One month in the door a pandemic hit and everything I had placed on my calendar was canceled – all in one week. Thankfully, we had employment at First Baptist.
That was such a great season and First Baptist is doing incredibly well today with their new pastor.
Mike Glenn, senior pastor at Brentwood Baptist was the first person to reach out to me from the Nashville area. While we were still in Dallas, Mike said he wanted to figure out something we could do together. Originally, Mike talked about me helping plant/revitalize 100 healthy churches in Middle Tennessee. That sounded exciting to me. We talked in terms of doing that part-time while I built out the other things I wanted to do. That job, however, wasn’t available at the time and we landed on me taking the role as Brentwood Region Lead Campus Pastor. (Mostly so I could have a really long title and a hard time explaining to people what I actually do. Just kidding. Sort of.)
I took the Brentwood job the same week I finished at First Baptist and we moved into our new house. Frankly, and I think both parties would agree, it simply wasn’t the right fit for me or them.
I have learned well in this season of life that once you come to difficult decisions like this the right thing to do in a ministry position is not to stay for a paycheck, but to make the hard call and figure out what is next. So, at the first of August, I submitted my resignation and agreed to stay until the end of this month.
What’s next?
Well, we are back at the end of 2019 again, just with different numbers on the calendar. We are waiting for the Lord to make it clear. I’ll likely do coaching/consulting/teaching and writing. I would be willing to lead another church or organization under the right circumstances. (You get pickier at 57 years old.) I’m talking to a couple of places about some transitional interim opportunities. (And I’ve got one really big opportunity there has been some discussion about.)
I know this. God is faithful. He is good. And He is not perplexed, so why should we be? It’s in the waiting that God does some of His best work behind the scenes. He never wastes a wait.
In the meantime, if you are a pastor/leader/elder board and I can help your church or organization, please let me know. I would love to help. I am especially interested in 5 T’s of leadership (some verbiage I just started playing with) – Traction, Transitions, Turnarounds, Trust and Team Dynamics. I’ll be writing more about that soon, but these are the areas of which I feel most qualified to help churches and organizations. Contact me for details on any of them. (And that trust one is HUGE. Trust me.)
Thanks for your prayers for Cheryl and me. (And, as in most of these seasons in our life, Cheryl has the greater faith.)
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