Call to Ministry

For the past year, the Lord has been calling me to plant a church in my hometown of Millsboro, DE.

We felt settled at our church in a town about 40 minutes away, the kids were flourishing, all seemed well.

But there was this growing seed in me that kept getting bigger and bigger.

I sat down with Jennifer and shared it with her and she was immediately receptive.

Her counsel was, let’s not rush into anything until you know for sure that you are understanding the call.

So over the course of the next few months, it continued to grow.

And then, one morning as I was reading Luke, God showed up in a big way.

In ch.14 Jesus tells of a man who was giving a banquet. And on the day of the feast all his important guests gave excuses and did not come.

So the man sent his servants to collect the poor, crippled, blind and lame.

The servant comes back and says, “we have done as you commanded and there is still room”

Then, in v.23 “the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled.’”

At that moment I stopped reading and started crying. I knew at that moment that this call was the real deal.

God was telling me to go into Millsboro, and compel them to come, so that His house may be filled.

My burden for the lost grew to a point of being0 palpable, and remains that way today.

That was about 4 months ago. Since then I have had 3 confirmations from others.

The first came from my daughter, who we had not yet told of our desire to do so.

I have been discipling her husband for awhile.

He told her that when I opened Scripture and taught him that it was more clear than any pastor he had heard.

She approached me and brought to remembrance how, when she was younger and heard me preaching in church, it was such a big help for her.

Then she said, “I’m praying that you would start a church.”

The second occasion involved a couple that we churched with years ago.

We see them from time to time and during one of those visits they lamented of their struggles to find a church home where the gospel was preached and people were taught what the Bible said.

We talked about the need for such a church in Millsboro and they said, “we need that church and you should start it.”

The third occurrence was most recent. The pastor of the church where my family now attends asked if I would meet with him for coffee.

I certainly agreed and at that meeting he told me that he was thinking about planting a church in Millsboro and wondered if I would be interested in being the planter/pastor.

All three of these incidences were extremely humbling, but also confirming of the call that God had placed on me.

It was at this point that my wife and I became fully committed to the act of planting a church.

So I began looking for the right organization to partner with and thankfully found Converge.