Rev. Joy Anderson

I loved being in ministry for 52 years, 40 at FUMCR. I was so proud, after working in the UMC for 25 years, to be ordained a deacon in 1997, then a newly created pastoral role. So many of my other proud moments came after mission events that made such an impact on people’s lives. Work camps and mission trips, raising over $100,000 in a weekend of International Christmas Market, providing totebags of supplies to 1000 unhoused individuals, helping children maintain and improve their reading skills and feel cared for by FUMCR through Read With Me, and so many more moments make me proud of my ministry.

I've been retired for 1 1/2 years now, and I'm still figuring it out. I love working in my yard and have spent a lot of time this spring doing that. I've been able to travel more on river cruises and with friends to places I haven't been before. And of course, I come home to FUMCR.

I recently came across a quote from the Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann He said, “Hope is the deep conviction that God has not quit.” My time with the lay people of Market Street UMC and in retirement at FUMCR reassures me that God has not quit on the United Methodist Church.

Market Street UMC is a brand new church in the Mabank/Athens area formed by a group of United Methodists who were distraught and saddened when their beloved churches chose to disaffiliate from the UMC. These lay people came together and asked if it was possible to start a new congregation in their area. I have just completed a five-month interim assignment with them, and with the help of the North Texas Annual Conference, we chartered Market Street United Methodist Church on March 26. It was a great day, and it has been a highlight of my ministry career to have played a part of it.

At FUMCR, lay and staff alike are all praying, serving, and encouraging one another to keep it special, as we all look to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. And the extra special thing about FUMCR to me is that my wife’s brother is the senior pastor!

My early years in ministry involved working with youth in the local church. Late one night, there was a knock on my bedroom window from a girl in our youth group. She came in and talked for a while about life issues upsetting her. I took her the next day to the local MHMR office where she talked with a counselor. When I encountered her some years later at a church reunion, she told me that visit and referral saved her life.

These days I try to listen to my life and to what’s calling me now. A few of my involvements include using my accounting skills (as a second career CPA) as a member of a resident committee at Highland Springs related to finance, enjoying some writing projects, and staying connected with family and friends. I choose to be connected to the faith community that is FUMCR because it feels welcoming, authentic, grounded in the gospel, and hopeful. My hope for the future church lies in God’s continuing relationship with his creation, even when signs of his activity are difficult to decipher, and with our continuing need for relationship with him and with each other.

Two of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in this season of life pertain to the importance of trusting God in the transitions, both collective and personal.

Feeling a call to work with local churches needing revitalization, I retired from itineracy 10 years ago, got trained as a church “transitional specialist,” and have since been fortunate to work with 25 churches as a coach/ facilitator and serve five appointments as an Intentional Interim Minister. I now assist in training others to help churches move from decline to vital health. Churches can transition from decline to revitalization when they work to discern a new God-sized vision for this time and trust the guidance of the Holy Spirit to make it happen in that place. I’ve seen it happen!

The more time I spend at FUMCR, the more evidence I see of this church embodying the very practices that I learned and teach to other churches to develop life-giving ministry: a clear mission/vision, radical hospitality, passionate worship, intentional faith development, risktaking mission and service, and extravagant generosity.

Transition from decline to revitalization on an individual scale can happen when people know they are loved and have hope for the future. As I share in the lives of my growing grandchildren (now 8, 5, and 3), I seek to love them for the wonderful individuals they are and hopefully help prepare them in body, mind, and spirit for a future that will likely be filled with transitions. As my wife, Shirley, and I spend time with her 92-year-old father on hospice with Alzheimer’s disease, we are sad, but we aren’t despondent because we trust that death does not have the last word.

God desires all of us to become “transitional specialists” in all the seasons of our lives.

Rev. Marilyn Dickson and I taught together for five years. It was such a joy to get to know so many women in our church at that deep level that comes from delving into scripture together, praying with one another, and sharing our deepest concerns. I continue now with a precious group on zoom.