Reverend Mark Burgess

Rev. Mark Burgess

As Mark Burgess moves on to a new assignment, we will welcome a new pastor to our congregation. Here is a letter from Mark to the congregation of Benn's United Methodist Church.....................

Change, as most of us have discovered, is just an inevitable part of life. We may welcome it or shun it, but what we cannot do is avoid it. John Henry Newman put it this say. He said, “in a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.”

Benn’s certainly is no stranger to change. Since this congregation was still a part of St. Luke’s, it has undergone a number of remarkable transformations. I still remember the late Catherine Edwards telling me how her family used to come to Benn’s on Sunday mornings in a horse-drawn carriage. Bill Reid remembers the precise moment when the members of Benn’s decided to build the now current sanctuary. It was the same Sunday the floor collapsed in the old white clapboard structure! Bill says the church trustees held an emergency meeting immediately afterward and agreed—I hope unanimously!—to tear down the old facility and to erect a new one.

Now we are about to experience another change. United Methodists, as you know, practice what we call an “itinerant” form of ordained ministry. This means that from time to time our pastors are moved for one church to another.

There are many good reasons for this. One is so that churches, under new leadership, can grow in new directions. Pastors, too, often can be challenged to grow in new ways as a result of a change in pastoral setting. But perhaps the most important reason for Benn’s right now has to do with the decision we made two years ago to make the transition from the current parsonage to a housing allowance at the next most convenient moment in time. That moment, we thought, would most naturally come at the next change of pastors, resulting in the least disruption to both the church and the pastors involved.

Now that time has come. Your new pastor as of July 1 will be the Reverend O. H. Burton. I, in turn, will then begin my new responsibilities at The Church of the Good Shepherd in Vienna , Virginia .

I’ve enjoyed my ministry at Benn’s. During my time here we have retired the debt on the Family Life Center , renovated and made improvements to the educational wing, started a bell choir, added a Director of Youth Ministries to the staff, and worked closely with Isle of Wight County and area developers to insure the church’s future ministry. In the meantime, we’ve welcomed many new families into the life of the church who already have made many wonderful contributions to our ministry and mission.

My family and I, of course, will miss Smithfield . We’ve made Hampton Roads our home now for more than a decade. It’ll be hard to say goodbye to the many scenes with which we’ve become so familiar—the James River and its tributaries, the beach, the Isle of Wight countryside. Mostly we’ll miss the many close friends we’ve made.

But we know we’ll be back soon. Annual Conference, after all, will return to the Tidewater area in just a couple of years and we anticipate taking ample time then to revisit old friends and places.

In the meantime, Ruth, Nathan, and Noelle join me in wishing you a fond farewell and all of God’s richest blessings.

Yours in Christ, Mark

The space for this web site has been provided courtesy of the General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church. The content of these home pages is the responsibility of Benn's United Methodist Church. Please send feedback to bennsumc@yahoo.com (Jane Jones) or cindylou59@verizon.net (Cindy Vaughan)