It's Unanimous!

Well, sorry to keep all three of you hangin' in suspense but I just thought it would be more fun that way.

Last Wednesday we had a special meeting to decide as a church to formally invite David Fraser to be the next pastor of Alva Baptist Church. David came out and answered many questions and I must say, he did so flawlessly.

So, we are extremely excited to announce that by a 100% unanimous vote, David Fraser will be the next pastor of Alva Baptist Church effective July 15th 2007.

I could not be happier about this because in my eyes, he is the perfect person for the position. This was totally a God thing as they say here in Scotland.

As many of you know I was taken on staff at Alva back in late November and it was agreed that we would all re-evaluate in six months to determine whether or not the church and I think we should continue. Well, that six months was up at the end of April and after much thought and prayer, Julie and I decided it was time for us to return to the States. When we informed the church, they were much sadder than we thought they would be. Don't get me wrong, we thought they liked us but we just didn't know they liked us that much. Some of them had the look of throwing in the towel. And though we were a bit concerned for the church ourselves, we encouraged them to keep pressing on and that God had a plan in all of this.

Well, a couple of days after that I received an e-mail from my good friend Chris Lawson who had just returned to California from Edinburgh. He told me about a friend of his that had just moved here to Scotland and had an interview with Stirling Baptist Church for the youth pastor position that had opened up recently. Since we had attended SBC, Chris thought it would be good for us to fill David in on the church a bit. I had a feeling at that point that this might be the guy for Alva so I e-mailed David and told him I'd prefer to speak with him on the phone.

A couple of days after that we spoke on the phone where he informed me that he hadn't gotten the position at SBC. David and I spoke for a good long time and we seemed to hit it off immediately. He had been an associate Pastor for the past 8 years at a Calvary Chapel in the LA area. I happen to have a tremendous respect for the Calvary Chapel ministry philosophy which is built around expositional preaching through the whole of scripture, an emphasis on worship and being equipped and empowered by the Holy Spirit. These were things that we implemented at Alva not knowing we'd be laying down a foundation that would be a perfect fit for the next pastor.

At the end of the conversation I told him about Alva and the need for a pastor there and would that be something he might be interested in? He said he had some other options but that he was open to that as well.

As the days and weeks went by, the Holy Spirit was giving David more and more of a heart for Alva. As a matter of fact they turned down all other options, rented a house in Alva on faith, and waited to see what the outcome would be. I think we all knew though what God had in mind, it was just too obvious.

So, Praise God for putting this whole thing together. This is one of the coolest God things I have ever seen and God alone deserves the praise and honor.

One of the things we've tried to bring to focus in the church is that a successful church is a sending church. So, Alva Baptist Church will be sending us with their blessing and prayers to the USA as missionaries. Pretty cool eh.

By the way, looks like our container will be here to pick up our stuff on July 19th to take to America. Pray that we will have the strength for this whole endeavor. We've got to pack it ourselves which is no small feat.

God bless,

Marc