ELEVATE Students and Parents,
It is with a bag of mixed feelings that I send this e-mail, and while the news has been shared with students and leaders at ELEVATE last week and with our church family after this past Sunday’s worship service, I don’t want to assume that everyone has heard about my resignation from BEFC as their student ministries pastor.
Here is the letter that was shared with the Elders of BEFC on Monday, August 3:
Twenty-two years ago the Pastoral Team and people of BEFC sensed the LORD leading them to bring our young family of four to Becker for the purpose of developing a ministry that would reach out to students in the Becker area. From what I understand, BEFC was the first church in the area to hire a full-time youth pastor, and that decision sparked a move among local churches to do likewise. With a “long leash” given the LORD gave me a ministry vision and strategy for making disciples of Jesus.
Twenty-two years later and a lot of blessings and bummers within our immediate family of ten and our church family, the LORD seems to have released us from our role(s) at BEFC. Though we do not know the next step, we have complete faith that the LORD can be trusted to work for the good of our immediate family and the church family and for the glory of His name!
Thank you for your partnership in the GOSPEL. Thank you for loving our family so well over these years. Our kids are who they are today in large part because of the investment so many of you made in them, and doing ministry with many of our kids these past few years has been the fulfillment of a dream we never anticipated. Jensyn’s journey was one of the most brutally-beautiful experiences a family could endure, and to a large extent BEFC and the relationships we have here added to the beauty of that time. We truly leave feeling abundantly blessed by our time here!
But things change. And while this is hard, we all can be assured that the Kingdom of God will only advance as it typically does through hardship! So in regard to the reason for thinking now is the time, we have processed the following:
• a team can have the same goal of “winning” lives to Jesus, but having different vision, strategy, and values make the “game” challenging and at times seem conflicting. This makes it hard for anything to grow. The joy of ministry as a team in the early days of alignment has been missing for awhile now, and I (PC) have struggled to embrace the current direction – not because it’s wrong…it’s just different.
• the release of the His Kids ministry because only 10% are from BEFC, it taxes our volunteers, and we can’t financially support staffing it led me to wonder if ELEVATE could be next (only 25% from BEFC, requires a lot of volunteers, and finances are stretched to the point that a major change would be needed soon anyway).
• August BLAST this year was the best prepared BLAST yet. Almost everything about it was ideal. But I was numb and couldn’t put a finger on it, until Monday (8/3). The LORD allowed everyone to enjoy the weekend and focus on the LORD without the distraction of knowing it would be the last BLAST.
We can’t say it better than the inspired word of God, so hear this from Philippians 1:
3 I thank my God every time I remember you. 4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
7 It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. 8 God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
9 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.
Continue to seek the LORD, surrender to His will, and serve like Jesus!
SHARED ON SUNDAY AFTER WORSHIP
In addition to this letter of resignation being shared with the elders, I shared the following with the church family:
This resignation did not happen because of…
MORAL FAILURE – neither I nor any of the elders have done anything in respect to moral failure that prompted or forced me to resign.
ANGER or BITTERNESS – our family has no hard feelings toward anyone
FORCED RESIGNATION – we have not been encouraged or asked to leave (and I wasn’t forced to say that).
KNOWN DATES
Sunday, September 13 – final Sunday at BEFC (Outdoor Worship Service at Office)
Saturday, September 19 (Time and location TBD) – BEFC hosting an Open House
We are truly grateful for our time at BEFC and in the community of Becker! And while a change is coming, our family does not believe we are being called to move out of Becker, so we look forward to “seeing you later.”
Living Intentionally For Eternity ~
Pastor Chris, Kristin, and Family