Wednesday, June 3, 2009

A long-awaited update...

Well, maybe it's not "long-awaited." Maybe it's just "swallowed by overwhelming apathy." Either way, just wanted to drop in to say "Hi!" (Wow. I have used quotation marks three times since the beginning of this post. "Awesome!")

Anyway, some of you might remember that I was asked to preach for a few Sundays at a local church that was looking for a pastor. They asked me to preach for 4 Sundays, then for a couple more Sundays after that. It must have gone well, because the church voted to ask me to be their pastor!

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know my misgivings about traditional church. But after a lot of prayer and talking, the Mighty Mrs. J and I felt like it was something God had opened up for us. As of about a week ago, I became pastor of the First Baptist Church of Bell Gardens.

It's been busy. I still have my business to run, and I'm learning to juggle work and ministry. But I think it's going to be fun. They are a great little group of people, and they've expressed a real desire to minister to hurting people. There is a lot of work to be done, with the facilities and the people. We are looking forward to the challenge.

I think for me the hardest part will be to keep teaching and living grace as a lifestyle, and not to allow anything that cheapens the gospel to creep in. It will be interesting. Pray for us!

2 comments:

Michelle said...

I will definitely keep you and the mighty mrs. j in my prayers! :)

Joel Brueseke said...

I saw this last week but I just haven't had a whole lot of time for commenting and stuff. Congrats on this new stage in life, and my prayers are with you! I can only imagine the kind of "busy" that you've got going on! But it's all good.