Pastor Kevin's Blog

Last weekend, we celebrated our first year in Pastoral Ministry at Grace Wesleyan Church. We had a great service with lots of close friends and some ministry colleagues. We had a fellowship lunch afterwards and just simply enjoyed good food, great conversation and awesome weather.

What a year this has been - it has certainly had its ups and downs and a healthy dose of personal and ministerial challenges but more about that in a just a little while.

The week prior was out annual District Conference and we were honored with a "Keeper of the Light" award (given to churches who have more than a 10% growth in primary worship attendance, who meet all of their "tithe" to District and who have new first-time salvation committments, all of which God granted us this year) as well as a "Ministerial Excellence" recognition from our General Superintendents.

I'm writing this from a departure lounge in Kansas City Airport, waiting for a delayed flight through Atlanta back to Baltimore then about an hour and a half drive home, hopefully getting back to my sweet wife and to our parsonage by about 2:00am tomorrow. Allow me to explain - my pastoral appointment is considered "bi-vocational" which means I support myself outside of the church and do this by managing exterior rennovation and construction projects for a major hotel chain. This necessarily involves travel and lots of it which gets old very quickly and in here lies the current connundrum! God has not only blessed us beyond measure in our first year of pastoral ministry, but He has blessed me personally with an ability to support my family in a manner that allows me to work from my parsonage, set my own schedule, have my expenses paid and make a very good income. It is however, on days like today when I am several hundred miles away from home and missing my beautiful wife and looking at several more hours before I will be home after a long day that I find myself crying the blues. As soon as that thought comes to the fore, I then realize just how arrogant and self-centered that sort of thinking is and how destructive it can be but through this cycle, after a healthy dose of repentance and confession for my own lack of trust in God's ultimate plan, I find myself once again praising God and rejoicing in His providence!

I mentioned the ups and downs of this past year - my Dad died after a long illness (on one hand, I know he is now home and is experiencing the New Jerusalem, a place we are told is without tears and pain, but on the other hand, I miss him terribly). We had to make some changes in the lay leadership under circumstances that were painful to put it mildly. On the positive, we welcomed some new members and had some people come to salvation which was incredible. God saw fit to speak to several people who gave substantially to the church which has allowed for some much needed maintenance and upgrading.

Next week is vacation week - we are off to a little place in the South-Eastern tip of North Carolina with our three girls and our little dog and will be spending a week of gold old "R&R" on the NC ocean beaches which we are both really looking forward to.

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to propser you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" - Jeremiah 29:11