\u201cThe young birds, referred to as \u201cfledglings\u201d or \u201cbranchers\u201d at this stage, typically leave the nest and move about on the ground and on low branches for a few days before they can fly. Their parents are nearby and continue to care for the birds, answering their demanding calls with regular deliveries of food.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
Dear friends,<\/p>\n
Our Methoduck church family is being called, in this coming month, to bear the parenting \u2018pangs\u2019 of our duckling, Pastor Eddie, launching from our nest! Pastor Eddie has been with us since September, learning and growing and serving among us; and he has not only been a great staff asset but has become a part of our Methoduck family!<\/p>\n
In the midst of this experience, you \u2013 the church community \u2013 have also grown! You have practiced well the tenants of a teaching church as you have encouraged, gently corrected and gracefully groomed Eddie for pastoral ministry. Your willingness prayerfully begun over a year ago with discussions at the Staff-Parish and Finance tables and affirmed through Administrative Council, have paved the way for another minister in this Wisconsin Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church to begin his journey in ministry. This is one of our greatest gifts as a connectional church: that we can be available to the Seminary (Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL) as a host sight for seminarians. It has been a blessing to receive such an enthusiastic, capable student pastor, and a further blessing to have willing persons here to walk with him through his tenure here.<\/p>\n
My thanks to team leaders, to Eddie\u2019s site team (who met with him monthly), to staff for your willingness to include Eddie in meetings and to the congregation for your willingness to welcome Eddie among you.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, September 21st<\/sup> we presented Pastor Eddie with a robe and a baby, glow-in-the-dark duck, representing his eagerness to learn to \u2018shine\u2019 the light of God in our midst as herpracticed the craft of pastoring. On Sunday, May 10th<\/sup>, we celebrate Eddie\u2019s growth, his bright spirit and future he has ahead of him with graduation (receiving his Masters of Divinity degree), his marriage to Katie, his commissioning into ministry at Annual Conference (3:30pm on Sunday, 6.14 in Middleton) and the beginning of his first appointment to Danbury, Webster, Siren and Lewis on July 1, 2015.<\/p>\n Please plan to be present in worship on Sunday, May 10th (Mother\u2019s Day) to join in celebrating our fledgling duck as he launches into his life and his ministry!<\/p>\n Peace to each of you!<\/p>\n Pastor Kelly<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cThe young birds, referred to as \u201cfledglings\u201d or \u201cbranchers\u201d at this stage, typically leave the nest and move about on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[516,110,445,184,515],"class_list":["post-561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pastorkelly","tag-messages","tag-ministry","tag-pastor-eddie","tag-pastor-kelly","tag-the-fledgling-effect"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}