Oakland!

Here’s an excerpt of what I shared with our prayer team today:

“As you may know we celebrated the arrival of Cruz Isaac just over two weeks ago! He’s awesome and we are having a wonderful time learning about him, and what it means to be a family of 4.

The major transitions keep on coming, and so it with a sense of bitter sweetness that I share that this will be our last month on staff with Sojourn Collegiate Ministry.

Several months ago Amy and I began to talk and pray about our future. Those conversations led to a general feeling that it was time to head back to the West Coast. We had no clear idea what that meant, what we were going to do, or when it would happen. We only knew that it appeared God was starting to lead us back towards home.

Shortly after making that decision opportunities began to pop up, some of which seemed to make a lot of sense for our family.

Right before Thanksgiving we decided to accept an offer from Regeneration Church in Oakland, CA. Starting in January I will be their Associate Pastor (a new position for this church), helping lead the church’s efforts to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly as a community near downtown Oakland.

We are really excited to join this community and to start serving the city of Oakland. We feel like this is a strong fit for me, and for our family. I will get to use my gifts of leadership and teaching and still get to hang out with college students, but see my pastoral influence expand beyond generational ministry. There are also many opportunities for our family to lead a more integrated life, which is very exciting for us as our family grows.

We are so grateful for Sojourn and for the opportunity to serve and grow here.”

Stay tuned to the blog for more updates and stories about our transition. Thanks for reading, and for those of you who have donated money, who have prayed for us, or who have been part of our Sojourn chapter in any way, all we have is immense gratitude for helping us tell what we hope and pray has been a good story.