Be Like (Pastor) Mike
A week from now, we’re going to commission Pastor Mike and Amelia Schumann and their three kids to Louisville, where Mike will begin work on his PhD. And I speak for all the pastors when I say we’re so happy to see Mike take this big step of faith and go get trained to raise up another generation of students “who make joyful disciples of Jesus who remember his realness in all of life.” Mike’s already really good at that (some of you have had him in class) and, Lord willing, these next few years will complete his training and open new doors for him to serve and teach.
We’ll send them next week, but I wanted to use this last exhortation as fellow-pastors (at least for now) to honor our dear brother and sister.
Faye and I got to lead community group with Mike and Amelia for a time, and so we’ve seen firsthand how they have opened up their home again and again and poured into dozens of you over the years — opening the word with you, praying for you, walking with you through trials of various kinds. The Schumanns are and will be generous disciplers.
Mike and Amelia have invested massively in children’s ministry at our church (Mike oversaw this ministry for years, and Amelia helped lead it before he did). They’ve also watched the Segal kids as much as anyone outside our parents, and so we’ve seen just how deeply they embody Jesus’s love for children. Our kids love them, and many kids here know them and love them and will miss them.
At low moments in our home over the last several years, one family in particular has consistently been there for us. When we’ve gone down sick, the Schumanns have rushed to bring food or flowers or something to cheer up the kids. These two are and will be joyful servants.
Pastor Mike has served us so well in sermon after sermon, exhortation after exhortation over the years, and I’ve personally been able to watch him labor hard over the Bible to be able to feed our church on Sunday morning. He loves the word, and he loves you, and those are precious gifts in a pastor.
I assume most of you don’t know the thing I admire most about these two. For as long as we’ve known them, we’ve watched Mike and Amelia persistently engage the lost where they have lived. I really believe they are leaving those neighborhoods better spiritually than they found them, and I know that’ll be true in Louisville too. These friends are and will be welcoming witnesses.
And in all of that, the Schumanns are who they are (and will be) because they both love and worship Jesus. If you know them at all, you know they love Jesus, and isn’t that the legacy we all want to leave?
My exhortation for us, Cities Church, is to be like Mike. To be like Amelia.
More than that, though, I want us to be a Romans 12:10 church:
“Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.”
Look for every excuse to honor the believers around you — your pastors, your parents, your spouse, your children, your teachers, your roommates and friends, your community group leaders and the guys serving Sunday after Sunday on security. Outdo one another in showing honor.
