from Stand Firm:
[Received via email]
May 19, 2010
Dear Christ Church family,
I am writing to inform you that I will be retiring as your rector September 1, 2010. With the encouragement and support of our wardens and vestry, I will not be returning after my sabbatical and vacation this Summer. May 30 will be my last Sunday at Christ Church.
Nine years ago Clancy Wolliver called for the vestry and search committee to invite me to be your rector. It was a dream come true, and Ellen, our children and I all felt it was God’s calling. Ministering among you at Christ Church has been the most spiritually demanding and fulfilling years of my 29 years as an Episcopal priest. Thank you for your amazing and generous support when my family and I needed you, for your patience when I failed you, and for your steadfast commitment to God and his Word. It has been an honor to serve one of the really great congregations in The Episcopal Church. For my failures and successes, I have loved you, the people of Christ Church.
I’m sure it will not surprise anyone that my decision to take early retirement is because of a crisis of conscience. Even though I was born and raised in The Episcopal Church, it has moved further and further away from the Gospel to which I committed my life and I have concluded that there is no future for me in this spiritual environment.
As for the future of Christ Church, you continue to be served exceptionally well by the best clergy and staff I have ever worked with. They are absolutely extraordinary, loyal and hardworking. When I retire, the Senior Warden and vestry will become the ecclesiastical authority in accordance with our Bylaws and with the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas, and I’m sure the bishop and vestry will in good time initiate a search for a new Rector. I pray that God will send someone who loves you, who will have the respect of a great staff, and who will preach the power of God’s Word.
As for me and Ellen, please pray for us. I look forward to my sabbatical leave this summer. As you know, it was planned more than a year before my decision to retire. It may sound strange, but I will be focusing on reading and writing poetry, something that is deeply fulfilling to me at this point in my life. I trust it will be a chance to also pray and assess my future in God’s service. I love the Anglican heritage and I plan to devote my last years to serving God as an Anglican priest. I take with me deep and treasured memories of the times I have been with you in hospital rooms and homes, for baptisms, prayer services for sick friends and funerals, Bible studies through Daniel and Romans with passing references to Obadiah, and the privileged times I had your attention when I was in the pulpit.
This is the most difficult decision I have faced in ministry. Ellen and I have prayed hard and long about this and believe it is God’s will. I am especially grateful for a few friends who walked closely with me, who bought me untold numbers of beers (over a long period of time!), who fought for the concerns of my family and my retirement, and who never gave up on me. I am thankful for many others of you who prayed for me and for Christ Church regularly.
Please continue praying for me as I pray for you. I truly believe that “We have scarcely begun to see all of God that the Scriptures give us to see, and what we have not yet seen is exceedingly glorious” (John Piper).
Faithfully,
Chuck Collins
Rector
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