Testimony

It's an honor to be here. Thank you for having me for this time. Thank you for giving up a Sunday evening that you're not usually here to be here. Thank you for your hospitality. My wife and I both have been Encouraged by the warmth of the church just the people that we've met and and the conversations that we've had so far So it's it's great to to finally be here and it's great to be in a church that that is is Familiar to us in a lot of ways not necessarily because of the amount of time we've spent here but because of the same gospel the same carefulness to sing and pray and read and preach the word so being here feels very much like a our church in Louisville. So it's encouraging. It's been an encouraging day to worship with you and fellowship with you. So we're grateful to be here. What Keith says is exactly right. It's a testimony not to my greatness, but to God's faithfulness, to His grace in my life, and the ways that it's been manifest in particular ways. And so it was a really fruitful time for me, especially this afternoon, just to sit back and reflect on how the Lord has worked in my life. So if I get emotional here, I apologize. But it's just overwhelming to see God's goodness to me in a lot of ways. That began in my life. Growing up, I grew up in a home where church was one of the central elements of our lives. I always tell people that I started going to church nine months before I was born. My parents were devoted to the church, and so we were there growing up. And I see that just as God's care, His protection for me. God certainly saves people from completely unchurched backgrounds, but I see the Lord's grace, His hand in my life, the church being foundational to my background. So I grew up in church. I don't remember a time when I didn't know the gospel, the church that I went to preach the gospel faithfully, consistently. And so I remember, you know, at a very young age. being able to say with the pastor, you know, as he was preaching the gospel, as he was praying the prayer of the invitation, knowing the words, knowing the content. And so it was at age nine at a Christmas Eve service that I walked the aisle, made a profession of faith, spoke with the pastor and then went in with one of the deacons who had been instrumental in my life, who had taught Sunday school and that sort of thing. And we walked through a presentation of the gospel with an image that I think it was appropriate at the time, Sort of the two cliffs, some of you may have seen it, two cliffs with man on one side and God on the other side and the flames of hell in between. And the only hope, the only way to get from man to God was through the cross of Jesus being the bridge to that gap. And I distinctly remember going over that, understanding the content of the gospel, believing that Jesus was the only hope of salvation. And I would love to say that my life since then has just been sanctification and just a straight line up to heaven. It certainly hasn't been that. There's been fits and starts. There's been progress. There's been regress. And again, I just see the Lord's faithfulness that no matter what was going on at the time, I always kind of went back to the gospel. So through, especially like middle school, middle school is a hard time. And just I remember in middle school, you know, drifting away and then really being convicted and going back to the gospel. And so just seeing kind of God's care for me in that growing up. I grew up in a church where the gospel was preached consistently, but it wasn't a very doctrinally strong, it wasn't a very healthy church in a lot of ways. So I grew up going to youth group, participating, you know, at full level in the youth group and kind of came away, our youth group, you kind of come in with three things. You know, You need to repent and believe in the gospel, so you need to get saved. And then you need to participate in true love waits, so you don't abstain until marriage. So that was kind of, those were the two elements of discipleship that we grew up with is, you know, get saved and wait till you get married. And so that was kind of it. And then the other thing, just the culture of the church, fortunately, this is a great thing, is that we believed in the authority of Scripture. The pastor would preach, you know, very strongly that the Bible is God's Word. And so again, I had that foundation going into my life. A lot of people didn't have that. You know, studied it on their own. The Holy Spirit is a work in their lives. They came to the conviction a different way. But I just, I grew up kind of assuming that. And so that was, that was God's care for us, for me. So that was, that was my life up to age 18. I started to consider college and what I was going to do with my life. I went to a youth camp the summer before my senior year of college, I believe it was. I felt strongly a call to go into ministry. The speaker at the youth conference gave a sermon about ministry and about calling into ministry, and I don't remember the details of the message, but I remember there just distinctly considering, is this something God wants me to do, and feeling internally that that was something God wanted me to do. But at the same time, terrified of this right here, of me being in the front of a room speaking to people in any capacity. I mean, I was terrified of that. So, I don't know what, you know, how in my own mind I was going to work that out at the time. But I talked to my pastor and he suggested in his wisdom that I should get a business degree and try to become an administrator, a church administrator on staff at a megachurch because I could make a lot of money. And so, you know, that sounded good to me. I can do ministry and I can make a lot of money. I pursued that path. I went to Florida State University. Right, this is cavalier country. It's okay, I'm not a big Florida State fan. But I went to Florida State because it was in-state. I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. I don't think I said that. But I grew up, it was in-state. I know Jim is gonna be, yeah. I grew up in Florida, so I had an opportunity to go to Florida State at a much reduced rate, so I took advantage of that. And yeah, so I enjoyed college. For the first time in my life, I was away from home. And away, we had been in church, and not a lot of people can say this, we had been in church from age zero to age 18, the same group of people. There was a church split at one point, but we had been in, I had the same people in my life, the same people that watched me graduate from high school, watched me be born, change my diaper in the nursery, all that kind of stuff. It's a really amazing testimony that a lot of people don't have. So for the first time I'm around new ideas, new people, and so I really got to kind of see how much of this is going to stick. And what I saw is a lot of it stuck. I really, for the first time in my life, was exposed to new ideas, new opportunities, and I saw the Lord's faithfulness again, and not straying too widely, like some people do in college, that have grown up in kind of the security of a Christian home, and then kind of go nuts in college. That wasn't me. able to kind of continue to be involved with Christians and in the context of various campus ministries and churches and that sort of thing. But one thing I realized is as I started to kind of grow, as I started to learn new things, be exposed to new ideas as a Christian, the church foundation I had, I knew church was kind of important, but I didn't really commit to a particular church. All through my time in college, I went to various churches pretty consistently, but I wasn't committed to a church through my time in college. But what I did learn is how important theology in the context of relationships is. So theology isn't something that we go and do kind of by ourselves in our own studies and kind of make up our minds about things. It's something that's given to the church and it's something that we do in the context of the local church. So that played out in my life with a few key individuals who really sharpened me, who exposed me to some some new ideas to some things that I had never heard about before. And again, with this foundation of the authority of Scripture, as I'm being exposed to new ideas, I'm trying to read my Bible and make sense of how all this fits together with the theological system I've grown up kind of assuming and new things that I'm hearing in college. So, it was a very fruitful time in my life. And I see the Lord's kindness with certain men that He put in my life. Also during this time, my roommate in college, his family owned a ranch in North Florida. So I spent a lot of time working at the ranch with him, with his family. That was a fun time for me. That was one of the reasons that we weren't super involved in church because a lot of weekends we were away at the ranch working on the weekends. But it also, you know, that kind of work where you're out, where you're digging fence post holes and stringing up fence. Those kind of things like it gave me a lot of time to just sort of to kind of crockpot The things the ideas that were going on my mind to let that simmer Let it let it work and massage and kind of break down and really really meditate on a lot of this stuff that I had been thinking about. So that was a very fruitful time in my life. And then one other thing that stands out to me about my time in college is I was, through a mutual friend, introduced to a pastor at home in Jacksonville. So over the summers, my last two years of college, I spent a lot of time with this pastor who was planning a church. And for the first time in my life, I really was exposed to somebody who was Very intentionally thinking about a church. What does it mean to have a healthy church? What does it mean to preach faithfully to do life together faithfully and all those kind of things? So so he was able to take me on and do some some mentoring and some discipleship And he he just he's been really invested in me deeply and I appreciate that relationship very much so during this time I went from I a clear desire not to do anything but preach and teach in front of people, to a passion for God's Word, and not only the authority of Scripture, but the sufficiency of Scripture. Just began to understand that if God's Word is really God's Word, then we should use it. We shouldn't just have it and affirm that it's God's Word, but we should actually put it into practice. So that was a conviction that I really embraced at that time. And so then I really felt a desire to spread that message to other people, to use that. And so I wrestled with, am I preaching something that I am called to do? And so that was That was what was going on at that time. Because of this pastor friend, I decided to go to Southern Seminary instead of Southwestern Seminary, where I had been recommended by my pastor growing up. So I went to Southern, moved to Louisville. Southern was a good time for me and for us. But a lot again the theology that I'm learning is taking it's taking root And it's bearing fruit in the context of the local church, so I'm going to share you know kind of what where I'm growing and changing in the context of the church in a moment, but so Southern brings me to the time in my life when I got married, so let me let me share a little bit about just us about our story Lindsay is an incredible blessing to me and You know, when you get married, you don't know what you're getting. And even if you think you do, or even if you do, you both change, right? You both go through things in life and there's no guarantees in any of it. And I see God's, just His grace in our marriage. Lindsay is strong. She's one of the strongest people that I know. the things that she's endured physically and spiritually. She's courageous. Lindsay can say things to people that it takes me weeks of working up to say to people. She's just very, very forthright and able to say that. And she is very, very encouraging, laboring with people. discipling women in our church, and just such a blessing to me in terms of encouraging me, my gifting, enabling me to be the kind of husband I need to be, the kind of elder in the church that I need to be. So much of that has been just in response and in the context of a marriage that has been very strong for the eight years that we've been married. So I'm very grateful for her. But we started dating in high school, so again, To rewind back to that point, it wasn't a super healthy relationship. The discipleship requirements, again, were know the gospel, repent and believe the gospel, get saved, and true love waits. So that left a lot open, and we weren't super mature at the time. So we didn't have a great relationship. We dated for a couple of years, broke up for a little while, got back together. And at the time we got back together, we had both gone through a lot spiritually and were a lot more mature, a lot more thoughtful about our relationship, kind of where it would be going at the time. So we actually moved to Louisville, and we're both students on campus in Louisville for a semester separately. So Lindsey was in the girls dorm, I was in the guys dorm, and so we were there together for a semester, and people from Third Avenue, who didn't know us very well, kind of started saying, so you're dating, you know you want to get married, why aren't you getting married? And we were kind of like, I don't know, why aren't we getting married? And it was the first time we had been around people kind of in our same life situation who were married. And so we started to kind of look around and see, OK, yeah, this makes sense. People, this can work, and that sort of thing. So after the first semester, we got married. And marriage has been truly a blessing for us. Again, it hasn't been perfect. It hasn't been just roses, but it's been sanctifying. And again, we have grown so much. I've grown to know so much more about love eight years into it. So we were married January the 8th 2005 And in the church again, I'll say more about the church in a minute But the church has been such an instrumental part of our marriage with meeting with with other men who asked me, you know How is marriage going? How how is your wife? How are you caring for your wife those kind of questions women intentionally investing in Lindsay asking her similar questions Has been has been a real blessing to us You know being a husband you learn a lot from being a husband. I remember going into marriage thinking that my care for my wife, spiritually caring for my wife, meant preaching to her regularly in the evenings. And that was not how she felt cared for spiritually. And so we kind of worked through that. I've learned that a lot of it's individual, knowing your spouse and how to particularly care for that person. So knowing, you know, for us that looks like a lot of times just me asking her questions, us reflecting upon the sermon, about what we're reading, how we're personally growing in our discipleship of Christ, you know, going for a walk and just talking about things we're learning and struggling with, and me just intentionally saying, you know, how can I be praying for you, letting her know I am praying for her, and those kind of things. So that's... spiritual care, I feel like we've grown a lot in that area and just, you know, in reading the Bible together. Not preaching the Bible to her, but just reading the Bible together, let God speak to us, and then reflecting on it, praying together, those kind of things. And then in working as well, just being responsible as a husband to care for the needs of my family. So, you know, as a As a young married couple, we were both working. I was taking a full load of classes and working part-time, and at times up to three jobs, Lindsay was working full-time. And I can remember one specific evening where she had had a very hard day at work, and it was just clear that the situation we were in was not working. And I remember just saying, like, realizing that and being convicted and saying, all right, you know, we can start from square one if we need to. We can just stop seminary. I can get a real job, and we'll kind of build that back up from there." And that's not what happened, but it was that moment, that instant that I was convicted and realized I was not caring for my wife spiritually. She was feeling a wrong obligation to lead the family, to provide for us, and those kind of things. And that was something that was my responsibility before God. So us having that conversation, me reassuring her that I was willing to assume that role, that was my goal, that was my desire, and we were able to kind of make the rest of seminary work. But that was a real defining moment for us, for her to know that I understand my role as being responsible for our family before God. So, that's just some of the ways I've grown in the context of marriage. A little bit more about us personally. A lot of you know that we're pregnant. A lot of you don't know how big of a deal it is that we're pregnant. We, I guess about a year or two, how long was it into marriage? Maybe two years into marriage? We kind of, like a lot of people, just kind of stopped preventing trying to get pregnant, and then went to more actively trying to get pregnant, and then went for about a year wondering why we weren't getting pregnant. And so at that point we started meeting with some doctors and could never really get a definitive answer as to why we weren't getting pregnant. And so we came to the point where we just thought, we've sought medical attention, And the options that they were giving us weren't options we were willing to consider. And we were really at a point where it was, we can either kind of trust God or we can really move in a very different direction. Not that the options we had were necessarily unbiblical. We just were very, we felt for us, given the options we had, it was very much either trust God or not trust God and do our own thing. And so we decided to trust God and look into what other options he might have for us in terms of growing our family. So we... We were young, we were not a couple of means, so our options were limited in terms of what we could do. But we met some people, were introduced to some friends who had adopted through the state of Kentucky, through the foster care system. And so we prayed about it, went through the classes, and just decided that this may be the way that the Lord was going to expand our family. And so we opened our home, and in April the 6th of 2009, We got a call that there was a little girl in the NICU, that she was six weeks old at the time, and that she needed a foster family. So we prayed about it and had a night to think it over and then decided to accept that placement. And so for the next three weeks, Lindsey was eight to five-ish at the hospital. I would come after work. We would stay there and sit with a little girl named Savannah, who was a beautiful baby. And we stayed with her. There she came to our home and then for the next 18 months or so, we went through one of the hardest trials that either of us have ever been through. Because she was in foster care, we were working with the state and she had parents who had been abusing drugs and who were in and out of favor with the state of what their compliance expectations were. And so for about four or five times, we were told by her social worker that she would only be with us for maybe a few more days or weeks at the most, and she was going to be back home. And during that time, we learned a lesson that's really important, and that is that even the most fundamental things, the most important things in life You don't get to hold on to those tightly. You have to kind of hold them with an open hand and say, everything in my life is free game. If I'm going to follow Jesus, that means everything else is game. Children, spouse, any of that is subordinate to my discipleship of Christ. And so that's a lesson that we really learned during that time. Now, by God's grace, some things happened, and it was clear that he wasn't going to put her in her biological home, that he was going to allow us to adopt her. on February the 10th, 2011, nine days before her second birthday, we were able to adopt Rebecca, and that was a real blessing to us. And so again, we're in this position where we're not sure medically, physiologically, what's going on with our bodies, why we're not conceiving, and so we kind of began to look into other options. We started the process with a private agency because we thought one tumultuous foster care adoption through the state was more than enough for us. And so, but we also at the time kind of got, had a relationship with a doctor and found out about some other information we hadn't come across before. And so we were kind of doing these dual tracks of we're going to pursue adoption and we're going to pursue biological children and see what happens. And through a private agency, we got a placement in September of 2011. And two days before we were going to pick up the baby, we got a call that her mom had changed her mind, decided that she was going to parent. And so we had done all the prep work to receive another child into our home and found out that that was not going to happen. So that was pretty devastating, pretty hard. I'm not sure if that's happened in the context of this church, but it's like losing a child. And I can say that because in the end of 2011, we got pregnant. Lindsey, it was a wild evening when we had family with us, and Lindsey came and said, you know, I wanted a better way to tell you this, but I'm pregnant. And I really just could not believe it. I really thought I would never hear those words from my wife. And it was amazing. And it was an amazing experience of God's kindness and His faithfulness to us that something that we thought was impossible, He had made happen. And then about six weeks later, he chose to take that child from us. And that, you know, the 18 months of going through the foster care drama with Rebecca was excruciating. That pain was, the pain of a miscarriage was very real, very deep. And during that time, I think we learned so much about God's character, about his nearness, about his own willingness to give up his own son for us, about the victory that Christ has won, the victory over sin and death was never more real to me than it was then. My hope in heaven has never been stronger because of that miscarriage. The Lord really used that in our lives. And again, we were kind of left wondering, you know, what's next? And then in May, we found out we were pregnant again. Lindsay, by God's grace, now is 12 weeks pregnant. Things are looking good. We had an ultrasound this week before we came up here and everything looked great and healthy. So we're rejoicing about that and we're expecting, we're hopeful, we're confident that God is good and that he is is working good in and through us, so we are excited. We expect to welcome our second child into our home in February. So we're grateful for that. And again, just have experienced a lot of my experience of God's character. His goodness has come in the context of our family. And then the last kind of area to talk about is our church. And there's the church kind of overlaps and is through everything that I've shared. We've been at Third Avenue now for almost eight years, and it's really hard to quantify To even wrap my mind around how much God has worked in us as I think back at where we were spiritually when we came to Third Avenue and just how much life experience, how much we've gone through since we've been there, how much we've learned about the gospel and about the church. It's really staggering. So just sitting under biblical preaching for eight years has a profound effect. on us, on the maturing of a believer, just sitting under faithful preaching, hearing the Bible taught consistently week in and week out, living in the context of a church that's united in the gospel, that foundation is our relationship is built in a mutual love for Christ and devotion to Him. It takes such It takes such effect in the lives of the church when there's that mentality to see gospel community, to see intentionality in the way that the church is ordered, the way that the worship services are ordered, the way that church life is run, to see people intentionally invest in each other's lives. I'm going to be saying things that a lot of you are familiar with as well because it's the culture of this church, just from what I've understood from Keith. and what I've observed in my time here, the way that you all care for each other. So yeah, particularly people investing in my life, Keith being one of them, Aaron Minicoff being another one who just faithfully over the course of years cared for me, talked to me, helped me to think through life issues and theology and just different things like that. And you know, it takes place, discipleship is something that takes place at times, you know, across a coffee table in the morning, something that takes place, you know, in a fire pit in somebody's backyard. I mean, it's just a very, very gospel-centered culture of Third Avenue where, you know, it wasn't we put on our church hats and we do our church thing on Sundays and we live our separate lives. It was very much, the gospel was very much what guided all of our relationships. So that's been a huge blessing to us. During my time at Third Avenue, I've had various opportunities to serve the church. Starting out just preaching and teaching, like Sunday nights, we have opportunities for young men to preach and receive feedback. And I don't know, but I really hope my first devotional was not preserved there because it's not worth listening to, I'm sure. But being able to live in the context of that and have helpful feedback on teaching and to be able to kind of sharpen and hone those gifts in a healthy church. At some point, not real long into my seminary career, I realized I was getting a lot of seminary time, like a lot of time with with fixed theology apart from the context of the church, a lot of conversations about really obscure things. And so I decided that I was going to make Sundays a time when I invested in practical theology, in real relationships. And so I moved from a Sunday school class where we were learning systematic theology to the senior men's Sunday school class. where we just worked through books of the Bible, we talked about it, we worked with guys who had had a lot more experience in life than we had. And that's some of my sweetest times at 3rd Avenue, sitting in that class and having conversations about life and about the Bible and how those two things come together with some of those saints, many of whom are now departed. But those were sweet times for me at 3rd Avenue. I was able to serve as a deacon in the deacon with what I understand kind of what this church is moving toward in terms of its its structure where I was in charge of the building and ground so locking up and making sure things were clean and making sure the chairs were where they were supposed to be on Sundays so just a very kind of Behind-the-scenes type of thing, you know, I understand that that you don't just show up to church and things happen Somebody has made a lot of those things happen on a Sunday or on a Wednesday I was able to serve as the church's pastoral assistant. So something kind of like what Asher did here where I was in the office again kind of learning how what what does the pastor do in a week and what what kind of things are going on that makes church happen. Getting some experience doing that type of things, getting to sit in on elders meetings, to listen to how the elders think through caring for the life of the church and just observing there. We've been able to participate in home groups in various forms, leading home groups and participating in them, but just getting to have people over into our house on a regular basis, talking about the sermon, studying the Bible together, praying for each other, fellowshipping around the table, those kind of things. Let's see. And then so that was kind of my life while I was at Third Avenue during seminary. And then my last semester of seminary is coming up, and we're starting to have this conversation of, you know, what are we going to do here? We've been here for three and a half years. We've started to really have depth of relationships, of discipling people, of being discipled by people, just a very healthy church context. And so we're just trying to figure out, you know, we're in this good place spiritually. Do we leave a good place spiritually for an unknown spiritual? So I just kind of put out my resume and see what would come of it, hope for the best, and kind of get on this ministry career track. and kind of just leave it entrusted to God, or do I continue to do what I'm doing and make it so that if God wants me to be in the ministry, He will make that clear to me, but in the meantime, I'm just going to pursue faithfulness in the meantime. And that's not to say one was the right way and one was the wrong way, but as we thought through that, we really felt like We wanted to continue where we were. We were in a healthy, good place spiritually. I had heard horror stories. Being in seminary, you hear a lot about where different people go and what kind of situations they get themselves into. And I just was really convinced that I didn't want to drag my family somewhere across the country. to what would turn out to be a bad situation and then sort of end up at square one. Now, what do we do? We've moved. We're in a new place. We don't have deep relationships and kind of start over. I really wanted to stay where we were and trust that if the Lord was going to have us serve in ministry of some capacity, he would. And the Lord actually answered that prayer. I got a job in Louisville, a real job, so this business degree that I haven't used for years actually came back and in God's providence I was able to use it to get a job doing healthcare auditing, which is what I do now. And then in January of 2010, my church called me out to be an elder of the church. So since then, I've served in a pastoral capacity at our church. So in addition to just a lot of the personal life-on-life ministry that we had been doing that I've talked about already, I got to participate in the elder board where we're responsible for overseeing the various ministries of the church, the discipleship, the teaching, So those kind of things, and I've been able to sit with godly men, think through, hammer out issues related to church life, and have definitely benefited from minds like Greg Gilbert and Josh Murrell and Bruce Kiesling, Riley Byers, Ben Burkholz. Dan Diffie, Josh Manley, the guys that I've served with as elders, godly men, brothers who have sharpened me, who have helped me to continue to grow. And yeah, I'm grateful for that time. Also been able to serve kind of administrating our children's Sunday school. So we just realized that was a place where there seemed to be just kind of a lot of water going through the dam, sort of that was a problem issue. So I've been able to kind of come in there and provide pastoral oversight to that particular area. of our church and have been encouraged and blessed by the people who serve faithfully in our children's ministry, and I am grateful for that. I think to me the thing that stands out most about our time at Third Avenue, just in terms of our involvement, has been the way that the Lord, in His wisdom, has seen fit to make our trials and suffering very public. So walking through the adoption and foster care situation, walking through miscarriages, You can imagine the emotional rollercoaster of announcing to the church that we're pregnant. We never thought we would be pregnant. Only a couple of weeks later to announce that we had miscarried. It was a very trying time, but to see to see the Lord use His church to come around us, to care for us during that time, and to see our trials and suffering be used to help other people who have struggled with infertility, who have struggled with various things, even people who haven't necessarily struggled with that particular trial, just be encouraged by seeing God's faithfulness to His people in various circumstances. Seeing us used in that way has been one of the most encouraging things to us. Yeah, again, we just look back at our time and see the Lord's faithfulness to us. God has been good and faithful to us. So that kind of brings us to where we are now. happy, we're serving at Third Avenue, we are in a good place. I never sent out a resume saying, hey, does anybody have a pastoral job for me? I'm really looking to get out of here. When Keith contacted me about this position, we prayed about it and thought there's enough good reasons at this point going on. Third Avenue is in a good and healthy place. Jefferson Park is a good and healthy and like-minded church. And working with Keith is something that I've done in the past, so I'm not going into a lot of unknowns. So when he talked to me about the possibility of coming here, and I really prayed and thought about it, I thought this is the kind of situation that I would consider uprooting my family, relocating to another church that's like-minded, to a pastor that's like-minded, and somebody who I feel confident that I can work with. So again, I'm grateful to be here. I hope that our time tonight is helpful. And I'm excited about what the Lord's doing here and in Louisville. And whatever my role is in that, I'm confident that God will, again, prove himself faithful and deploy us for the most good for both bodies. So thank you for having me here. And I'm looking forward to our Q&A time. So let's pray, and then we'll head over that way. Our Father in heaven, what a privilege it is to once again be gathered in the name of the gospel of Christ, the one who died and was raised for us. Father, as we say, we survey the wondrous cross and we marvel at your love for us, but we don't understand it. We don't deserve it. And we claim it, though. We thank you. Christ has died for us, Lord, we're confident that because of that display of your love that you do love us and that we can rest in the assurance of your love. We thank you that Christ died for his church and that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. We thank you that we have that confidence and that identifying ourselves, that investing our lives into the church will never be an investment that doesn't prove to be fruitful. So we thank you for that. I thank you for this church and for its faithfulness, for its gospel witness, for the work that you're doing here, Lord. It's encouraging and exciting to see. Lord, I continue to pray that you would give this church wisdom as they consider me as a pastor. We pray that you would give us wisdom as we consider this church, Lord, and that your spirit would make it clear whether or not that is the direction you're leading us. And Lord, we pray We pray and are confident that you are working this and every church's situation for your glory, Lord, because you have promised to do so, Lord. So we're confident and we're hopeful and encouraged that Christ is at work in his church and will do what he wants to do to preserve it. So we're grateful and we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.