A Note from Pastor Jolin Wilks McElroy

“But now thus says the LORD . . . Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine.” Isaiah 43:1

As I write, Wednesday, July 30th, I remember back to my first day in the pulpit at First Christian Church, July 30, 2000, and many of the circumstances surrounding that time in our shared history with God.

I was recently reminded about the power of how it is we tell our stories. Are we the hero in our story? Are we the victim? Was the obstacle in our path a harbinger of even more terrible days? Or was that obstacle a last step needed to gain the skills to live into the better days ahead? Is our story one of adventure or monotony or tragedy? Are we people who choose our lives or are our lives chosen for us? Or is it a mixture of both? The way we tell our stories can reframe everything. And I’m here pondering all this on a day built for telling the story: the 25th anniversary of our partnership, pastor and congregation.

The way I often tell the story is that I didn’t want to come to Charlotte. I grew up in the Chicago area and was used to that part of the country. Much of my family is from the Midwest, and I’d gone further West for college in Colorado. Seminary had been in Kentucky, which was, for me, like visiting another country. I’d moved to Washington, DC, and was serving a church in Northern Virginia, which was in some ways closer to my comfort zone, but still far from home. So the last thing I wanted at the time was to travel even farther from home. And I had expressly said out loud to God that I didn’t want to go any further South. While all this was going on with me, you all were on your own journey. You’d had some fits and starts with pastors who came for a while and left, with various clashes and controversies. There was a time in the 1990s when you were even talking about closing the church’s doors. But, by the late 1990s and early 2000s, you had this core group of people who were really invested in the church living into its best future. And some people in this core group made their way onto your pastoral search committee. The consensus was clear. You wanted a new pastor and given all the history you’d lived out together, you had these expectations: 1) this pastor needs to be a lifelong Disciple; 2) this pastor needs to be seminary trained; 3) this pastor needs to be ordained as a Disciple of Christ; 4) this pastor better not be a woman. I fit in all the criteria but that last one.

So here was a pastor who didn’t want to go any further South and certainly not to Charlotte and a congregation that gave the pulpit committee the mandate to not a call a woman as pastor. Those were our plans. But God had different plans.

And, thankfully, God’s plans won out.

Our shared story is a recounting of the times God showed up in realities that we didn’t imagine could have been possible, back when we first became part of one another’s lives. There was the 2003 General Assembly in Charlotte, with some 600 or more people coming through our church doors that Sunday in October. Seats were taken up in the sanctuary, in the fellowship hall, and the party spilled over onto our lawn with cookies and lemonade afterward. There was the Lily Endowment Grant that allowed me to take a sabbatical and all of us as a congregation to go on two paid retreats – one to Bethany, WV, and one to Cherry Log, GA. There were seventy Montagnard refugees deciding to make FCC their church home in 2008 and members of this congregation saying, “Come on in, darlin’.” There was a soup kitchen to start and a tremendous partnership with Allen Saxe that reframed how we used our building to God’s glory. Baptisms, weddings, memorials, babies born, crises endure, healings, recoveries, dear ones missed, music shared, Christ proclaimed, meals served, showers offered, dreams dreamed, goals set, scriptures studied, life lived, God praised. Together.

People seem surprised when I tell them I’ve been the pastor here for this length of time – like it is somehow my own achievement. But I know the truth. Every partnership requires more than just the one partner wanting to make it work. It takes both partners engaged and involved, willing to bend a bit and open to what gifts the other brings. With a pastor and a congregation, we all know we are not the only ones in this partnership. We know that we have to be open to more than one another. We have to be open to God and the leading of the Holy Spirit. This 25th anniversary isn’t my triumph here at FCC. It is ours, with God’s help.

And, perhaps, the greatest triumph is that we can actually point to times when God led us beyond where we’d dreamed we would go – starting with this stubborn pastor coming further South and this congregation calling the woman to its pulpit.

Friends, with tears in my eyes today, I thank you for being on this journey with me. And I look forward to what God is doing with us all next. Given the past 25 years, and with God at the helm, I can promise it won’t be boring!

Peace,
Jolin