Another chapter in life begins

Earlier this morning, the church that I was serving at decided to close the doors and disband. It’s been an up and down 3 years as a part time youth pastor at this church.

For the first year or so, we were struggling to keep everything afloat and continue to have worship. After the first year, we started to grow just a little each semester in the whole congregation and the youth group. Our youth group(including 1st to 12th grade) grew from 5 or so all the way to a high of around 26 in the three years serving there. Of course this isn’t about the numbers but to keep it in perspective. Then Covid hit and it was something no one saw coming and unfortunately we couldn’t recover. We closed the church but had online service for a couple month or so and then started coming back to in person services including online.

A significant portion of the people that were with us before decided not to come back because of either health reasons or whatever else the reason was. I’m not directly blaming them for our closing but it is just what happened. I am also not asking for boohoo poor me sentiment. I am asking for your prayers for our congregation that has decided to start looking for other churches to attend and hopefully serve there for Gods kingdom.

Pray that they find a great God-fearing and Biblical church, pray that they find where they belong and are able to serve in a capacity that emphasizes their spiritual gifts.

I also wouldn’t be genuine and honest with you if I didn’t at least ask for prayer for my wife and I as we find a new church. Pray that God gives me the wisdom to continue leading my family now and into the future.

Pray that God gives me the direction for my life and what he wants me to do. If that be to be a layperson and maybe teach a Sunday school class here and there, or a ministry position comes open for me, or for me to just serve a different capacity. Honestly, there are a lot of questions that we will be answering for ourselves in the coming months. So pray as we go through this.

Though this really sucks and it really does, I keep my perspective by remembering those that came before us in the faith. Every apostle died a martyrs death except John who was exiled to the island of Patmos before writing the book of Revelation. I can rest assured that their faith and calling was surely tested at one point or another and this is just another trial God is giving me to direct my path. I am pretty sure they had multiple times in their lives and ministries where they felt beat down but God was with them and for me just as he is for me and all of you if you can truly call yourself his child.

So I say thank you for praying for me if you read and I hope you have a great day and continue serving God wherever you find yourself.