Probably not a day goes by (except perhaps during the quadrennial session of the General Conference) when some minister's books, clothes, furniture, equipment, and bric-a-brac are not in motion over the roads in moving vans or in railroad trains or across the ocean in ships, or even sailing through the air in planes—for we Seventh-day Adventist workers are a moving people. Reviewing our Christmas-card list every year reminds us of that!
Do we regard this frequent moving as a trial or a challenge?
True it has its trials. The actual job of transferring all one's possessions from one house to another is about as unpleasant a task as faces anyone. Then it is difficult to leave the church, whose members we have learned to love, and whose joys and problems have been ours too.
We may feel, also, that our work is not finished in the place we are leaving. We may not have carried out all the plans we had for the church and the neighborhood.
But no matter how long we stay in one place we can never say that we have finished our work there. There will always be new interests to follow up, departments to be organized or improved, work in new places to be opened up. However, others will follow us, and though they may neglect some of the things we have thought of first importance, they will strengthen other areas where we may have been weak.
The policy adopted by our church of moving workers is a good one for another reason, and that is that the personality of one minister may reach some who have not been touched by the previous worker.
A new place offers a challenge. It gives us a chance to keep new resolutions, to do a better job than we did in the last church, to benefit by mistakes made, and to learn from past experiences. The new church won't be like the last one, and we should not endeavor to make it so, for churches differ as much as human beings do.
If a new church is challenging, making a new home may be even more so. The drapes are going to be either too short or too long in the new house—you can be sure of that, and there will be more floor space than you have furniture for, or you will feel you need a shoehorn to get yourselves and possessions into the new home. We have to learn to be very elastic! Each house or neighborhood will have something appealing in it that the previous one did not, so learn to enjoy the new one.
Remember that your attitude is reflected in your children. Be sure to make the move an adventure for them. Tell them that daddy has been called to a new place to do some new work for the Master, that there are people in the new city or area who need his help and need to be told that Jesus is coming again soon. Never let them get the idea that you are unwilling to move. Let them plan with you to make the new home attractive and comfortable.
Help them in making the necessary adjustment to their new school and in making friends. As they grow older the move may be more difficult for them as they form stronger ties with their school and church friends, but you can show them the advantages of living in different places and help them to adjust happily.
Make it easier for the new minister coming into your church. Build him up to the congregation, and don't give them the impression that you are a pawn in the hands of those ogres—the conference committee. Let them know that you are going where the Lord indicates, and are glad to go.
If it should be that your move takes you from your home country to an overseas post, remember that your happiest place is where the Lord calls you. You will, of course, miss your loved ones, and will feel lost for a time without the familiar things you are used to. You may have inconveniences and deprivations. But you will gain in other ways. Learn to love the people among whom you are called to work. Learn all you can about your new country. Adopt it. You will come to appreciate what it has stood for, and what it has to offer, and as you do this you will find your way into the hearts of its people and help them to accept the great message you left home to take to them.