The judges have voted and.....

Well Bill, the pastor of Second Congregational Church in Douglas MA, officially pitched the idea of hiring me to his elders and deacons and.....


(overly long and dramatic reality show like pause.....)


They responded very positively! He said the meeting went very well and that everybody was open to and interested hiring me, which would require a significant budget increase on their end. So that is a great first step!

The next step comes on November 10th. That evening I'll have a phone interview with Bill along with the joint meeting of all of the elders and deacons. I'll have some prepared questions to answer and then it will be open to the elders and deacons to ask me anything they want. They currently have my resume, testimony and some other info to review so they can have some idea who I am and what questions to ask.

Please pray that the interview will go well! Please also pray that as they review my resume they won't be turned off by little things like me being Presbyterian.

Now, if the interview goes really well and the elders and deacons want to hire me, that's still only step 2. After that will come the really crucial part of the process. Since this is a congregational church the congregation will have to vote to hire me. This could happen in one or two steps:

If the congregation is in favor of it Bill could make a motion to call me as the Assistant Pastor and they could hire me on the spot. However, if the congregation is skeptical (like I said, it's a big budget increase for them) he might have to present the proposal to hire me and then wait another month for a vote so they have time to build support. The problem is that the congregational meeting normally doesn't happen until February. This could mean that even if things go well it might not work out until around our due date, which would mean we'd likely wait until May to move. This is a lot more delay than we want so we're really hoping that doesn't happen.

On the other hand, if the interview goes really well and the elders and deacons are excited about it Bill would like to call an early meeting in January and if the congregation voted to hire me then we could move by the end of January. This is the best case scenario, but it's really what I'm hoping for and what I'd ask you to pray for. We've been preparing for a long time for this and we're ready to get going!

Pray this week!

It has been a long time since our last post - so here's a quick summary of what has been happening the past couple months:

1) We've been waiting/searching for on an opportunity in New England.

2) Kerstin's belly keeps growing - 17 weeks along next week!

3) TJ went to Newark for a week for an evangelism and prayer seminar.

Now you're all caught up.

Tj has a very strong lead on an Assistant Pastor job up in Douglas, MA. (Douglas is on the Rhode Island border, half hour or so from Providence) The Senior pastor at this church really wants us to come up there - he just needs to meet with the elders and deacons to see how they'd like to proceed. This meeting is happening this week sometime. TJ met this guy when we were in NE in August - and they have some pretty good mutual connections. It's ALL in who you know, right?

Please join us in praying that God will make it clear if this is where he's leading us. We're really excited to think about moving to the northeast. It will be hard to be so far away from family and friends, but thanks to technology staying in touch will be so much easier. There will certainly be an adjustment as far as the weather goes, but Kerstin is hoping to invest in some skis and pick up her favorite hobby again. Tripod will probably need a coat - and we swore we'd never be those people who put clothes on their pets. But she's so little and starting her golden years....we may as well. Also, if this does work out we'll need to raise a chunk of the money, so please pray that if this is the direction God wants us to go he'll provide.