Who’s This New Guy?

“Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus.”

That’s how Paul starts his letter to the church in Rome. “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus.” He goes on after that, but that’s how he starts.

And there’s a lesson there for all of us. See, Paul is writing to the church in Rome, and this church is a little different than many of the other churches that Paul writes to—unlike many of those other churches, Paul didn’t plant this church. Some in the congregation had probably met Paul; most in the congregation had probably heard of Paul and knew a little about him; but few really knew Paul yet. And so this letter was Paul’s start to their relationship, and this is how he starts: “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus.”

In this newsletter article, my first one as your new associate pastor, that’s how I want to start, too. Pastor Duncan, a servant of Christ Jesus. I want to start that way for, I suspect, the same reason Paul started his letter to the Romans in that way.

Because Paul knew about the church in Rome—but he didn’t really know them, any more than they knew him. And so Paul knew that, as with any human relationship, there might be things they wouldn’t like about him. Maybe they wouldn’t find his jokes funny. Maybe the things that interested him would bore them. So Paul doesn’t start with any of these things—he doesn’t start with a joke, or by introducing his hobbies. He starts with the one thing he knows they have in common, the one thing that’s the most important thing: “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus.”

So too, I know that we’re all only human. I can’t promise you’ll think all my jokes are funny. I can’t promise you’ll find all my stories interesting. I can’t promise you’ll like everything about me—I can sure hope, and I think you’ll like most things about me—but here’s the thing that I want to start with because it’s the one thing I can promise: Pastor Duncan, a servant of Christ Jesus. We all—not just me, but all of you, too, can start this way: ____, a servant of Christ Jesus.

And that’s a pretty good way to start. Because we might not have everything in common, we might not agree about everything as a congregation, but here’s the one thing that holds us together, the one thing that’s the most important: we all have the same Lord, and we are all called to serve Him together as His church. I am so excited to be your new associate pastor here at Faith, and to serve Christ Jesus alongside all of you.

Pastor Owen Duncan