Chevis Oaks Baptist Church has called me to be their pastor. Praise the Lord for His great grace!As I mentioned yesterday, Chevis Oaks voted tonight on whether or not they wanted to call me as pastor. Prior to the vote, I led a prayer meeting and then departed stage left. Even though I know God is sovereign, I have to admit that I was a bit nervous as I waited for a phone call with the results.
On my way home I stopped in at Food Lion to buy ice cream. I figured that depending on the results, we could either celebrate or drown our sorrows in ice cream. I am thrilled to be able to celebrate tonight.
I praise the Lord for bringing us to this point. Just a few months ago we resigned from the IMB and had no idea what we were going to do next. At that point, I had not even heard of Chevis Oaks Baptist Church. God, in His sovereignty, worked it all out. Since that time I have preached 24 sermons at that church alone.
I can't wait to get started with all my duties as pastor. Only one more day of tire retreading to go!
It looks like now I'll have to happily change my Blogger profile. I think I'll do it tomorrow; I'm too tired right now.
13 comments:
Yipee! We are exicted for you--and another excuse for a bowl of ice cream! The Minicks
Eric,
Congratulations! Your post peaked my curiosity. You said you resigned from IMB. May I ask why?
Les
While i'm more than happy to rejoice with you and the folks at Chevis Oaks, because every church needs sound leadership, I am forced to question whether any of this single pastor / calling a pastor / importing a leader from outside who is still a relative stranger etc is in any way at all even vaguely scriptural in example, precedent or principle?
Nevertheless, I rejoice with you, because now you have the opportunity to train up everyone to share 'the ministry' with you, to encourage everyone to minister to one another rather than be dependent on your ministry, and to make sure that there are yound men trained and nurtured so that this church never ever has to 'call a pstor' from outside again. I wish you every blessing in seeking to accomplish that.
Congratulations! God bless in the new ministry!
That's awesome!
Eric,
What a great God we worship! May you keep your eye on the ball!
And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, FOR THE EQUIPPING OF THE SAINTS FOR THE WORK OF SERVICE, TO THE BUILDING UP OF THE BODY OF CHRIST; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ
Congratulations, Eric. I know that Chevis Oaks Baptist will be blessed to have you as their full time pastor.
In Christ,
Dax
awesome privilege!
Congratulations, It is awesome to see how God is continually working in your lives. Looking forward to hear about the next step.
Congratulations- I am so glad that you and your family have found a church to whom you can minister. Remember to preach boldly the whole counsel of God, and He will bless your ministry there..We love ya'll and look forward to more time together as families. Randy,Lori, and the girls.
To everyone,
Thank you so much for your encouragement and kind words. We are thrilled that the Lord has led us down this path.
Les,
We were in South Asia from October 2006 until March 2007. At that time my eight year old son (Bobby) was diagnosed with Lymphoma. We quickly flew back to the states for chemotherapy. We praise the Lord that Bobby is doing well. He is in complete remission.
The IMB was very supportive of us throughout all of this. They supported us financially for a full year while on medical leave. They also helped us through the very difficult decision to resign. They basically left the decision up to us, but said they would support us either way.
We resigned under very good terms. I look forward to supporting the IMB as pastor.
Goblin,
You've said it well. I agree with you completely. Thanks for the encouragement.
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