As a fellowship, we are seeing many spiritual pillars in our church family beginning to retire from ministry and other roles. On June 9th, the North River Church of Christ in Marietta, Georgia honored two of those heroes in the faith, Tom and Kelly Brown, as they transitioned out of serving as the lead evangelist and women’s ministry leaders. The Browns served in North River for nearly 20 years and also in California, Colorado, and Massachusetts over their 40-year ministry career. Over the last three years, my wife, Alexandra, and I have had the blessing of being mentored by the Browns as brand new church leaders since we took the leap from campus ministers to church leaders in Charleston, South Carolina.
At the beginning of 2024, Alexandra and I asked our church if we could hire the Browns part-time as official mentors for us in church leadership. And after much prayer and thought, our elders and our board eagerly pursued the idea. Every few weeks, the Browns have given us their time, encouragement, and wisdom via Zoom calls, along with two in-person visits this year alone. During these visits, they spent time with our members, leaders, and our elders helping us to work together as an even stronger team. Their expertise has blessed our whole church as they’ve offered us both training and support. As new church leaders, learning how to build a church family that glorifies God all while navigating the demands of our personal family life and spirituality has felt daunting at times. But the Browns’ influence and encouragement as expert church-builders has truly been invaluable to us personally and in turn to our local leadership team and congregation at large.
Last time they visited Charleston, I called Tom ‘Old Faithful’ after the geyser in Yellowstone National Park. For 150 years, it has stayed ‘on fire’ and active. Even though it has slowed down some, it shows no signs of stopping. And I love how after many years of service and sacrifice, Tom stays on fire for Jesus, hot spiritually, and active in building the church. He tells me, “Well, I guess it’s better to be an old geyser than an old geezer!” While they’ve retired and are now enjoying a different pace of life where they can visit their children and grandchildren, they also have continued leading a local small group in Atlanta. And they proclaim that their new role is to be the “CEOs” of the church – Chief Encouragement Officers! They have certainly been that for us! I can’t wait to see more and more leaders like the Browns in our fellowship serve in similar ways. Retired, but still inspired.
