I started blogging the other night about how I said "Good Bye" to my boss Steve. He left on Sunday after 4 years of leading our church. It was an odd feeling saying "Good bye". I'm not quite sure how you say it to someone who has been so significant in your life, to someone who was always your boss and sometimes your friend. I couldn't think of anything to say so I just said "Thank you for your leadership" and it just felt lame. We shook hands. That felt lame too. He said "I'm sure the new guy will be good. Your job will be safe. Actually, it won't, but I doubt he'll want to get rid of you." That was funny.

Anyway, it was just kinda surreal. On Monday I listened to the service from the day before. It was about 30 minutes of people standing up and talking about what Steve meant to them. That was nice. He was well loved.

On Sunday night he didn't come to the last service, though everyone thought he would. So they showed a Powerpoint of memories of him and his family, and people could stand up and share what Steve meant to them. But not many people did. I think maybe because it felt a bit like a funeral rather than a farewell.

Now the office without Steve is rather quiet. It's a little strange. It's not like he was around a lot when I was, but now, it just seems to have lost a bit of buzz. Like everyone was holding their breath till Steve left. On Sunday we exhaled, and now we're waiting to breath in again. How very strange.

Steve was a good pastor. He liked to make sure we were doing alright. I hope he and his family are doing alright now too. Holidaying I think. That'd be tops fun. I hope they like it.

I hope the new guy builds us a new building with television production facilities. I think it's a reasonable hope.

"Hi I'm Tom French and welcome to Church News..."