May / June 2024

Do you remember the day you realized you were old? It’s an extraordinary epiphany when it finally hits you that you are that old guy staring back in the reflection of the store window. I guess for me, I started to realize a number of years ago that I wasn’t going to live forever when I started having pain in my hip. Everyone told me, you’re way too young to have arthritis and the mobility of Uncle Rico, but sure enough as the doctors began to look at my condition they confirmed that yes, I had a problem.

They told me that there was really nothing they could do until the pain progressed to the point where I felt like I needed a surgeon to intervene. The past few years I have been doing my best to fight a losing battle, but as my hip slowly deteriorated, I finally came to the realization that I was helpless to help myself. 

In many ways I believe our physical condition mirrors the reality of our spiritual condition. We try really hard to stop the inevitability of what is coming, but the slow march toward death is a consequence of our human condition. It’s why I am so thankful for passages like Ephesians 2, that I recently had the opportunity to preach.

Here we find the reality of our situation.

2 And you
were
 dead in the trespasses and sins.

It’s a bleak reality and it only gets worse as you read the next two verses, but then something amazing happens. God places Himself in the middle of our delimma and meets us in our greatest need. Paul intervenes with two beautiful words and then explains the reality of those in Christ:

4 But God,
being
 rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we
were
 dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

What we find is that it is only the Great Physician that is capable of bringing life to dry bones. Much like my only hope for seeing healing for my physical body was to submit myself to the work of a master surgeon, our only hope in life and death, is to submit ourselves to the hands of the Master Surgeon who makes dead things come to life!

He is ready and willing to make all who call on His name a new creation, a choice vessel of His workmanship. May we never lose sight of the immeasurable riches of His grace toward us and may His great love be our motivation for reaching a world in need.

10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Ministry Update

Unfortunately, I’ve had to slow down a little bit over the past month, but the work has continued with many opportunities to serve our community and the city. In May, our church hosted a marriage seminar as well as a camp for kids, women’s retreat, and youth retreat. Needless to say it was a very busy month, but a valuable month in encouraging many men, women, youth and children from in and outside of church community.

One of my fellow pastors and I also attended a conference in May in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was so great connecting with one of my former players, hearing about his church plant in Nova Scotia, and talking about how we could partner together in the future. It was a great encouragement to be with other like-minded pastors from across Europe, to recognize that we are not alone in our desire of seeing a new reformation sweep across this continent, and to understand how we can work together for this purpose. 

Our men gathered for our annual men’s retreat last week as well. It was so encouraging to see so many men participating. Our event culminated in serving our founding pastors family by helping them pack their container in preparation for their move back to the States. We are blessed to have so many men with hearts and hands for service. Many of these men participate in our Men’s Cohort and we believe are the future leaders of our churches. It is one of the great opportunities God has placed in front of us in this next season and we hope to steward well our relationships with both the men and women God has committed to our care.

We are thankful for the opportunity in this season to celebrate many from both our church communities in Berlin and Potsdam. Between celebrating weddings, babies, and special occasions we have been encouraged to see such healthy fellowship in our churches taking place.

These celebrations will culminate on June 30th as we say farewell to the founding family of our church as they return to the States after twenty-three years of service in Berlin. Please pray for our community as this will be a day of much joy, but also much sadness to see them go.

In many ways, this farewell marks a new season of ministry for our family, as I have accepted the role as one of our lead pastors at CrossWay Church. This new role is not as much of a change in our mission to reach the city of Berlin, but a broadening of our ability to influence for this purpose. Overseeing the life of our community, discipleship and outreach while focusing on developing leaders creates a tremendous opportunity for us to live out our calling in this next season. If you would like to know more about this broadening of our ministry and what this new role means for our family, please see our annual ministry report below.

Please also continue to pray for our ongoing outreach efforts in the city with children and refugees. We look forward to continuing our work in Reinickendorf with at risk kids and leading a team to engage refugees in a Christian language café on Mondays. We have found this to be a good ground for building relationships with those attending as we seek to speak with them of our hope in Christ.

Last but not least, we enjoyed having John and Suzie Lehman with us for a couple days this month. For those of you who know them, you know that they are professional encouragers and we are thankful for the time they spent shepherding our church by John preaching to our congregation on June 9th and how they encouraged our family. John was also a great inspiration and physical therapist for me coming out of my surgery;)

Family Update

The girls are making their ways to the end of the school year, which will culminate on July 3rd. We are so proud of both of them for how hard they have worked this year, while balancing being a part of ministry to our children Sunday mornings at our church plant in Potsdam and regularly attending Bible studies and youth events. Gracie will be moving from the lower school to the upper school this year and her graduation ceremony marks a closing chapter in the life of our family as both girls will be teens!

We celebrated Cherry’s birthday this past Friday with our team that we have worked with over the past seven years. It was a special time remembering God’s faithfulness to us in bringing us together to work for His kingdom in this place. We have learned so much from the Dye Family over the past seven years and their influence has been formative in our growth and resolve to stay and have an impact in this city. We will miss them dearly, but look forward to see how God uses them in their next assignment.

Thank you for those of you who prayed for my hip replacement surgery. I am thankful for God’s grace in bringing me through the procedure and for the progress I am making. I have already gained back a lot of the mobility that I had lost over the past couple of years.

Many of you have asked about the cost for the procedure. Unfortunately, our insurance denied the claim for coverage on grounds that the issues with my hip were a pre-existing condition. Thankfully the procedure was much cheaper being here in Germany, but the total costs are estimated to be around 7000 EUR. We are thankful for some gifts that have already been given to help cover this cost, but if you would like to give a gift to help with these extra expenses we would be honored if you would be willing to donate at the button below.

Prayer Update

• Please pray for our church as we see the greatest shift in leadership in the history of our church with the return of the Dye Family to the States.

• Please pray for us as we seek to equip a new generation of leaders at our churches, through our leadership cohorts and roundtables.

• Please pray for our church plant. We have a solid group of believers meeting regularly in Potsdam and we are starting to run out of space. We need discernment for finding a larger space.

• Please pray for my recovery from hip surgery.