Starting a new journey in ministry - 1 Year Ago

I started this blog quite a few years ago. I've been great at times, and not so great most times at keeping up with this. My last post was over a year ago. During that time, there was an incredibly difficult thing going on in my heart... I was talking with a new church about an open youth ministry position. It was a long process that started with a Facebook conversation in September, and ended with a move in late December. I was open with my church staff about this and let the students in on it about 6 weeks before we left.

I pretty much stopped blogging at that point. So many things were going on in our lives. I'm going to publish a 2-part post. The first part (this one), covers some things from...well... a year ago. I will soon be posting a follow-up blog called "Starting a New Journey In Ministry - 1 Year Later."

13 months ago, with a really heavy heart, I read this to the church.

Crossroads Family,

Sarah and I strive to be obedient to God and his calling on our lives in every way possible.  Coming to Marshall in 2007 so I could attend ETBU was a life-changing step of frightening obedience. The next unexpected step of obedience was embracing God’s call for us to serve the youth and families here at Crossroads. Each one of these steps was a radical departure from our original plans, but was exactly the steps God had planned for us.

As most of you know by now, Sarah and I have been called to Tabernacle Baptist Church in Ennis TX to serve him as youth minister. We want you to know that we love you. We love Crossroads. We love this community. We really found our identity as a family and as servants of God here. We consider you both our friends and our family.

There is never a good time make a transition in ministry, but we are incredibly confident that this is God’s time for us. We will miss you. We are sad to leave our lives here, but we confident that God has incredible plans for our family, Crossroads, the ReFuel Youth Group, and Tabernacle Baptist Church. Our last Sunday will be December 15th. Our last Wednesday night will be December 18th. We look forward to many laughs, tears, and memories as we finish strong in these next few weeks.

Thank you for being our friends. Thank you for being our family. Thank you for allowing us to serve you and your children. We are so thankful for your love and support throughout the years. It is clear that God has blessed Crossroads and will continue to do so.

We listed our house with a realtor, spent about a month packing, and moved to our new home of Ennis, TX.  Officially, I am the Student Pastor at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Ennis, TX. Unofficially, I am also the Media Pastor, designing most of our graphics for... well... everything and maintaining the church website. I also kind of oversee some of our communication policies. 

I've been here a year now. Its been a long year, but a good year. I'll let you know more about it in my next post.