Grace Presbyterian Church, Montclair, New Jersey

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View from the Loft

by Brandi Wolf Drake, Associate Pastor

Saying Goodbye

July 2009

Proverbs 16:9: In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.

A letter to our beloved Grace family,

At our joint meeting of Session and Deacons on Tuesday, June 16th, I announced my resignation as the Associate Pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church. In August, the Drake family will be moving to Darien, CT, where I have accepted a call to serve as the Associate Pastor of Pastoral Care and Women’s Ministry at Noroton Presbyterian Church. I will be with you through July 26.

It has been a blessing to serve as a pastor to you for over 11 years. Since 1998, Evan and I (and later Ethan and Miles) have known the love and grace of this body of believers. From mission trips with High School students to our Women’s Retreats, to the regular discipline of worship together and conversations in Adult Sunday School classes, I have seen the movement of the Holy Spirit in our midst, and I rejoice at the growth enabled through such movement. I know that this body will continue to thrive and grow in the strength of Christ.

Grace is a difficult place to leave. Though I will no longer be your pastor, my affection for this family of faith will not waver. We have grown deep roots in this community, and though we are confident in the Lord’s leading to Noroton, our hearts are filled with sorrow as we say goodbye.

Grace Presbyterian Church is a unique place. I have seen God use this church to minister to the community through its diversity, music, children’s and youth ministries, mission work, and Bible studies. As you continue to be faithful to Christ, my prayer for you is from Ephesians 3:16-21:

I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever.

Prayerfully in Christ, Brandi