Dear Blacknall family,
I remember the first time I walked into the sanctuary of Blacknall Church, (an experience we have sorely missed in these past ten months). I was a visitor on a Sunday morning, and the church was saying farewell to one of its staff members. I was struck immediately by the architecture of the room, its simplicity, and especially its curved pews. I was also drawn in by the sense of warmth and worship that emanated from a fellowship I did not know. I had no idea at the time that most of my adult life would be in shared pilgrimage with this congregation.
A few years after that initial visit, now thirty-five years ago, I accepted a call to become Blacknall’s first associate pastor, joining Ed Henegar whom I had come to respect as a pastor, friend, and mentor. Blacknall quickly felt like home; the congregation welcomed me in all of my youthful enthusiasms and flaws, and then welcomed Betsy, followed by our three children, Ellie, Sam, and Sarah. As Ed approached retirement in 2000, the congregation extended to me a call to stay on as a co-pastor, and then, in 2006, to become its next senior leader, and so it has been for the last fifteen years. Blacknall has always had my heart; no pastor has had such good fortune as has been mine over these decades of life together, and I have never ever, wanted to be anywhere else.
So it is with nothing but gratitude for our long life together that I want to let you know that Betsy and I intend to retire from Blacknall on June 1, 2021.
In October 2019 the Session approved the formation of a Personnel Planning Team and tasked that team with the responsibility of setting a strategy for Blacknall staffing for the next five years. I knew at that time that retirement was approaching for Betsy and me, and I said as much to the planning team, the Session, and the Personnel Committee. The first phase of that approved plan is in place, and it is the right time for this next step.
Although no one could have foreseen the tumultuous year that we have just weathered together, Blacknall nevertheless enters 2021 with a clear sense of mission and resolve, to do all we can to respond faithfully to the gracious call of Jesus Christ, and, together, to embody his life, even with the extraordinary limitations imposed on us due to the pandemic. The coming of spring, with its warmer weather and the promise of a vaccine, offer the real hope of a gradual reopening of important aspects of our life together that have always been Blacknall’s heart: our regular gathering in worship, fellowship, and mission, all of it an offering to our gracious Lord. It has been a year of adjustment, adaptation and change, to be sure, and yet the Lord has been faithful, as he promised. And he will continue to be. It is the right time for me to bless and to thank and to step aside. Blacknall has a strong group of elders and deacons and a seasoned staff, who will be well led by David and Goodie, and I have every confidence in their leadership through this next season.
I imagine many of you will have questions about plans and protocols for the interim period as required by our constitution when a senior pastor retires. One of those protocols mandates that Betsy and I, although we are not leaving town, step away from Blacknall. Our polity wisely recognizes that the congregation needs the freedom to welcome its next leader without any complications caused by the continuing presence of the previous pastor. You will also not be surprised to learn that the Presbyterian process is not a speedy one; it is designed to provide the congregation with an important opportunity to take stock of its strengths and weaknesses, and to discern together a vision that will determine the next pastor that you, with the approval of the Presbytery of New Hope, will select. The Personnel Committee is already at work with the Session on the next steps, and you can look for a letter soon detailing something of the process ahead.
Between now and June 1, I know you will pardon me if I am caught unawares by tears. Rest assured that they are simply my way of recognizing the great and undeserved gift that has been mine, to serve, however imperfectly, a congregation that I love, as together we have sought to do a challenging but remarkable thing, which is to be, together, an outpost of the Kingdom of God, a “temple in which God lives by his Spirit” (Ephesians 2.21). What a privilege.
With confidence in Christ, and with deep affection for you,
Allan