Pros & Cons: December 2024

The Wrap Up!

At the end of each month, I publish a post reviewing the highs & lows of the month.

These posts are for the paying subscribers of The Son Do Move, as their generous support helps make a lot of my creative endeavors possible. However, I’m not ignorant as it pertains to the economic situations many of us are facing. I don’t want money to be the barrier to community. If you’d like to participate in these posts or take advantage of all of the other benefits of a full subscription to The Son Do Move (like accessing the full archive of posts), but a paid subscription isn’t for you right now: send a message to teamtrey05@gmail.com and we can get you plugged in.

2024 has drawn to a close.

I often joke about “getting old,” but the more times I wake up, the more I am confronted with the rapidly accumulating number of days I’ve experienced. One of the ways this reality continues to speak to me in incrementally louder volumes is how the years seem to be growing shorter and passing faster as they go by.

But when a friend of mine (Chanea Bond) invited people to brag about something they did in 2024, I realized that—as quick as it may have been—this was a pretty cool year for me.

Just to frame this a little bit:

• In January of 2024, I became a published author.

  

• In December of 2024, I was installed as the pastor of a community of faith I helped launch in September.

And that’s just some of what 2024 looked like for me.

I gotta say… I’m feelin’ sort of blessed.

With that said, it’s time to look at the final month of the year in review. Let’s get into some pros & cons!

Pros:

1. As I mentioned earlier, I was installed as pastor of The Intention Church!

   On September 8, 2024, we launched The Intention Church. It is an intentionally online fellowship that encourages people to gather as families and in in-person community to the degree that they are able and feel comfortable.

   
   We haven’t abandoned or disavowed the local church (in fact, I still serve as the Executive Pastor of The Refuge Church in Homestead, FL, and many of the people at Intention are also involved in local churches), but we intend to serve people who—for a number of reasons—do not find belonging in local church communities right now or are looking for something different.

   

   A screenshot of the installation of Trey Ferguson as pastor of The Intention Church.

   And, on December 15, I was formally installed as the pastor of this beautiful community. My pastor & mentor was there to take part in person (as well as many members of my family). The Associate Conference Minister of Central District Conference of Mennonite Church USA joined us in person to officiate the installation. The Conference Minister (and many others) were able to join us online for the occasion. It was a really special moment I’ll remember for a long while.
   
   I consider myself fortunate to be able to serve this community in this capacity.