#1,285 The Andersons.

So before Ben was a youth minister in Laurel, he made the 40 minute drive each day to Oak Grove UMC where Mark Anderson was the preacher. They were fast friends and hit it off immediately. They worked together so well and we loved him. His preaching style is really engaging and conversational, and as Ben’s boss he was always easy to work with and they had a lot of fun coming up with new ideas for the church. They had a lunch date every week, and were friendly competition against each other in the church flag football games. When Ben got the offer to move to our church, he couldn’t say no since the commute would be 100% shorter and we loved Laurel so much. It’s always been home. It killed him to tell Mark we would be leaving.

Then a few months ago we got word that our minister at Laurel was retiring and our new minister would be… Mark. We were so relieved. It’s hard starting over with a new leader in your church and it’s exciting and comforting to know we can just skip that step and pick right up where we left off.

The Andersons moved this weekend and today was Mark’s first day on the job so we showed him around town and took him to the farmer’s market. I’m so excited they’re here. It’s going to be different around FUMC, but I know people are going to just adore he and Mrs. Melinda.