Woodland Has a New Pastor

It's been almost ten years (!), but we have a permanent full-time pastor at our church again.  Today is her first official day on the job.  Her name is Julia Pizzuto-Pomato, and she is absolutely dynamite.  (Her husband and her 9-year-old triplets ain't bad, neither.)  She also teaches at Palmer Theological Seminary, and previously pastored a church in South Jersey.  You'll want to check her out some future Sunday morning. 

It's been quite a time for our congregation these past ten years.  Interim pastors, temporary pastors, a pastor who was forced out because of sexual misconduct . . . yup, we've seen a little bit of everything this past decade.  It's a testament to the resilience of these people, and to the strange but sure ways of our God, that good stuff has happened in the midst of and even through some of the more painful chapters in our personal and corporate life.


With the arrival of a new senior pastor and head of staff, it is not time for the congregation to relinquish its role as the true ministers of the church.  But we are thankful to have a new leader, and ready to submit to her, work with her, and see how God uses her gifts and ours to do a new thing in this particular time and place.  Big ups to our pastor nominating committee for all their hard work in seeing this recruitment process to its successful conclusion, and to all congregants who pitched in these past several months when we were far less staffed than we usually are.