A Letter I Received Today

This came at a good time for me. Today I needed to hear something like this.

Mark-

I hope this note finds you well. First off, I want to thank you again for your wisdom and graciousness during our time together. Just to refresh your memory a bit, you worked with my wife Kris and I during Youth Specialties conference in St. Louis. We had come to try to discern some direction for our church and ourselves, and at that time I was serving a Youth Director. After much patient listening, we were stunned as G_d used you to affirm so much of what we had been hearing from others, not just run-of-the-mill stuff, but specific sensing, direction and thought.

Your thoughts on our call to plant a church were stunning, but again, not the first we had heard. Still, it was a profound and moving experience to hear such affirmation from a "stranger." G_d worked through you....

At the end of our time, I had mentioned a local church plant that had asked me to come and do some pulpit supply with the possibility of interim service. To the best of my recollection, your advice was "Well, what are you thinking?!??! Do that!!" As it turns out, that's exactly what we did. You asked me to keep you posted, so here it is:

After serving "pulpit supply" for five weeks, they asked that I come on as Interim Teaching Pastor until they could get their bearings in a search process. As we began to travel on together, it became obvious to us that G_d had been leading us all to this place together. With much prayer and intentionality, we began to consider how we might move forward together on a more permanent basis. The process was slow and steady, with much prayer, love, and work by all involved, but the end result was that they asked me to serve as Teaching Pastor, brought me on full-time (a first for me!), and I have just begun serving in that role. My first day was yesterday, G_d be praised.

I wanted to write you a note, to give you the update you had requested. I've had your business card laying beside my computer monitor for the last four months, waiting for the day that update might come. Here it is.

I also wanted to write for another reason...to thank you for your willingness to be there as a servant of the living G_d, speaking into the lives of other servants who are seeking him. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

May Jesus' praise be always found on our lips-

Bill
Teaching Pastor
Family.Bible.Church.