Home but not Alone

This post is part of Rebecca’s Prayer Petition theme for the month of April.

As Kim said earlier in the month, sometimes prayer requests can be quite personal and therefore not always appropriate for blog material, however I have come across some dear saints in the blogging world and would surely covet your prayers at a transitional period of our lives here in Northern Ireland.

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So for those of you who don’t know me personally, things are changing quite a bit for us these days.

The short version of events goes like this…

Having spent the first year of our married life in JP’s “home” church we realised that this church wasn’t our “home”.  The Lord led us to a church where the things most surely believed among us were the things we found in God’s Word. 

We moved to our current church in 1997 and became members in 1998, giving thanks to God for leading us to a people who showed forth the fruit of the spirit and worshipped God in his appointed way.

Only those who have been starved of Biblical teaching can appreciate what it meant to be hearing reformed doctrine.  It was a relief to be feeding on the meat of the word.

We continued on serving in any way we felt able and growing under the ministry of the Pastor, who lead us at that time.

In 2003 the church (believing in a plurality of elders) commenced a process of examination of men from within the congregation to come along-side our Pastor as fellow elder.  As a result of this process my husband was called to the eldership in a non-vocational capacity and has served in this way ever since.

Later that year our full-time Pastor accepted God’s call to a church in the States where he continues to labour to-day.  

For the past 5 years JP has been labouring under the ministry while holding down a full-time job to support our family.  

A few months ago our  church voted to call him to the full-time ministry and we find ourselves entering a whole new area of service.

As a young couple coming to a new church, so thankful for the teaching and pastoring therein we never believed the plans God had for us in this place.  

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Friends I/we would value your prayers as JP starts this new role (next week) in a full-time capacity.

Please pray that God would use him in mighty ways for His Glory.

Please pray that I would be a help meet that would benefit his ministry.

Please pray for our church members during this period of adjustment.

Please pray specifically for us as a family as we re-adjust our lives to this new area of full time service.

“Strength for to-day and bright hope for tomorrow”,

Elaine