Thirteen years ago, our church in Bridgton, Maine welcomed anew pastor.  Ed Boon, along with wife Karen and teenaged children David and Chantal, moved to Maine from France where Ed had pastored most of his career. Prior to France he had served two years in Africa.  They came to us when our previous pastor was dismissed, not for moral or theological reasons, but due to something the church has struggled since the days of Paul’s epistles: factions.  Simply put, small groups within the church who decided that their own agendas took priority over God’s agenda.  Many of the biggest ‘stirrers of the pot’have long since left Bridgton Alliance.

So it was with this baggage that we welcomed the Boons in2000.  Pastor Boon came to us after 30years of foreign ministry.  He is a NyackCollege graduate, but beyond that, he grew up on the Nyack campus as the son ofthe college president.  There is even aBoon Hall on campus named for his father. Coincidentally, Ed’s first ministry was as Christian education directorof the Alliance church in Cranford, NJ, the same town my parents were from.

So, by the time he arrived in Bridgton, he had a wide rangeof experiences in ministry.  In fact,Pastor was 60 when we hired him.  Youwould never know it to meet him, though. Since moving to Maine at this age, he climbed every 4000 + foot peak inNew England, including one last climb of Mt. Washington last week.  I know for a fact that he routinely put in 80hour work weeks split between meetings, hours of sermon prep. (a rarity thesedays), visitation, teaching and more.

But, of course, it is his ministry in Bridgton that hasmeant so much to our family.  Besidesdoing an amazing job bringing healing to our struggling congregation, he hasministered to our family personally in huge ways.  He baptized all three of our daughters,dedicated Rose, and led Sue and me in the renewing of our wedding vows.  He came to my father-in-law’s funeral andcelebrated our two oldest girls’ high school graduations.  He is even an Atlanta Braves fan.  While this is not so uncommon in New Englandthese days since the Braves have had a couple outstanding decades recently,Pastor, like myself, is an old school Braves fan from the days of Hank Aaron,Phil Niekro, and 95 losses a year.

The thing that I always appreciated about Ed is his beliefthat the goal of ministry isn’t so much getting people in the church, butchurch out to the people.  Consequently,when I presented him with the idea of SPARK week (see recent blogs) he not onlytold me to run with the idea, he also wanted this to be the ‘last big thing’the church did before he moved.

Many times over the 13 years I went to see Pastor Boon foradvice about ministry.  From fund raisingto whether or not a certain ministry project was reasonable, his years ofexperience were always a beneficial.  Heand Karen joined us on mission trips into Appalachia twice, and we alwaysworked well together. 

Yesterday we had a retirement party at our church for Pastor Boon, and I was blessed to be asked to emcee the event.  He and his wife will be leaving Saturday for Georgia.  They will be entering into a well- earned retirement from fulltime ministry.  They will be leaving behind a healthy church,a better town, and I, for one, can attest at least one family better from their years of service.  Perhaps I’ll get down his way to catch a Braves home game some day.