Thursday, May 31, 2012

Settling In

I am really excited about the news I will share in this post, Katie and I have settled on a Church that we believe God is calling us to be committed members and involved ministers to (not a ministry position, but lay-ministry).  After visiting a few different churches, we have decided to plug back in with Bethel Baptist Church of Fruitport MI, the church which I grew up going to for something like 12 or 13 years.  I am very excited about this mostly because I have been longing to finally settle into a church and get deep in ministry!

Not only do the people at Bethel already feel like family, but the relationship that I have with them, and they with us, will allow us to get involved much more quickly.  Katie and I are particularly excited to work with the children, teens, and college age kids!  Bethel has a new pastor after a year and a half of searching, so the whole church is buzzing as churches usually do in that situation. We are excited to be a part of the new direction that pastor Paul is looking to bring to the church, as well as we are excited to get to know him and his wife and two young children.

Bethel has some very unique ministry opportunities especially focused on the children and teenage groups.  The Church is located right across from the public high school and elementary school, and very close to the middle school!  They have had some wonderful ministries through the years that have allowed kids to come to after school programs at Bethel.  In recent years they have had to cut back on those programs because of under staffing, but we are praying that we can get the staffing to save those wonderful ministries!

I ask that you would join us in praying for the health and focusedness of Bethel.  The church has been through a lot of change since I left for college 8 years ago, but it has a great people with a passion for God, so we ask that God would make his plan for bethel clear and that he would give us the courage to be strong and courageous as we enter this body and join in the fight for the Gospel with them!

Thanks for reading, you are all very encouraging to us and we cannot tell you how much we enjoy when you leave us comments!  Thanks for your prayers and we love you!

5 comments:

  1. That's some of the most exciting news I've heard in a long time. I'd been hoping (and praying a little) that you and your family would find your way to us. You guys have so much to offer that will make us so much stronger in so many ways. I can see that there just may be a new day dawning for Bethel.

    ReplyDelete