Hello Church Family, this is normally where I'd be talking about the upcoming Scripture text (Psalm 110) that we'll be looking at this morning. It's a great text, the most frequently quoted OT text in the NT. It'll be a great time of worship this Sunday and then the Christmas Eve service two nights later (who have you invited to that service?). But I want to take this space to tell you about what's happening in the Dorst family.

As you may have already heard, CenterPoint Church (PCA) in Smyrna, DE has voted to make me their next Sr. Pastor, and we have accepted their call.  This is the end of two years of searching for the right church that the Lord would connect me with, so thank you for your patience, encouragement, and prayers in that time!  CenterPoint has been going less than 10 years and is much smaller than Potomac Hills.  Though I will be a solo pastor for the foreseeable future, the church has elders and a deacon, a pastoral intern who is working through seminary, an administrative assistant, and lots of motivated volunteers to share the work of the ministry.  The church bought a bank building in the middle of the downtown area this past spring and have renovated it into a nice worship space that they’ve been worshipping in since August.  I think I’ll be a great fit for what they need.

As far as the timeline: for now I am the Interim Sr. Pastor at Potomac Hills until March as we give Dr. Silvernail some vacation time and an abbreviated sabbatical.  So I will be doing the majority of the preaching for the next three months here, then my last day will be Sunday, March 8th (assuming everything goes fine with transferring Presbyteries at the end of January).  I will then begin commuting to Smyrna until my kids finish the school year and the rest of the family moves in late June.  For that span from March to June I will drive every Saturday afternoon to Smyrna and work there until I come back to Leesburg Wednesday night to be with my family for a couple days.  You have another six months with my family still attending church, so it will be a bit of a protracted goodbye.

I will save my speeches for how much I love this church and how well you have treated my family and me for the past 18 years, but please know that I have nothing but love and wonderful memories from our time here.  Let me know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Dave Dorst