Considering Future Ministry

Dear Friends,

                Your elders have asked me to use the vehicle of this month’s Minister’s Letter to express to you in written form further explanation of a matter that was reported to you at our recent Annual Congregational Meeting.  The thinking behind this further written communication is that the matter may be aired in a more permanent form throughout the whole congregation, including those who were not in attendance at the congregational meeting.  It is also hoped that those who receive our Record throughout the world, and learn of what we are contemplating, would also prayerfully ask the Lord to guide us in the matter at hand.  Therefore, I take this occasion to write to you concerning the current and future prospects of Ryan Speck, a man who is serving an internship with us.

                Ryan came to us at the request of a friend of mine who is a professor at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.  Ryan is a graduate from Greenville who needed to complete his internship as a requirement for ordination.  Our Session prayerfully considered the request and concluded, at the time we received it, that we could offer financial support for this venture for only six months, instead of for the year that was requested.  Ryan accepted the six month offer and moved to Norfolk with his family in October 2005 to begin his work with us.  Since that time, he has served with considerable acceptance and fruitfulness amongst us.  Also, as was reported at our congregational meeting, finances have improved for us as a church so that we have been able to extend Ryan’s internship until October 2006, the year’s duration that was originally requested.

                As our brother has labored amongst us, a number of us have wondered whether it might be the Lord’s will that we, as a congregation, should extend a call to him to be an associate pastor of Immanuel.  Thus at our January meeting, the Session reported this as a possible future recommendation to come to the congregation, asking for the feedback and prayers of the members of Immanuel so that we all together might come to discern the Lord’s will in this matter.

                There are several factors that have led your elders and other Immanuel members to begin thinking in terms of this possibility.  Primarily, we have found Ryan to be a faithful man of God and expounder of the Lord’s Word, who shares our vision of ministry and who, with his delightful family, has become dear to us.  Yet, this affinity, while vital to a pastoral relation, is not and cannot be the only factor we must consider.

                Should we keep this man to serve as an associate pastor of Immanuel?  We have been greatly blessed by the ministry of the Word through the one pastor we have, why should we deprive other churches of a young, faithful man so that we might indulge ourselves with two pastors?  In response to such concerns, we are counseling Ryan diligently to seek a calling elsewhere.  Should congregations elsewhere be praying for, needing, and desiring a man like him, we certainly would not seek to keep him from them.  In fact, we would rejoice to have a hand in his training and to see him serve successfully elsewhere, as we have had occasion to do with other interns we have had.

                Would Ryan, if he were not called elsewhere, fulfill a necessary role with us?  In answer to this question, the elders and I have thought in terms of teaming and training.  Ryan’s gifts and graces make him already suitable to team with me.  If he were to be here as a pastor, preaching and doing such things as developing our evangelistic outreach and helping with pastoral visitations, I could be relieved to pursue such ministries as further writing, conference speaking, and visitation of our missionaries—none of which I can do except very minimally with the current pastoral load at Immanuel resting entirely upon me.  As for training, with a man less than half my age serving closely with me for years to come, he could absorb more thoroughly my pastoral example while developing his own unique gifts and graces.  Consequently, when I become incapacitated or am promoted to glory, Immanuel could benefit from a somewhat home-grown and refined pastor who could carry on the sort of ministry that is somewhat rare in our day, and one that has proven to be productive of balanced and strong Christian character.

                I have from my earliest days in the ministry, prayed for the pastor who would follow me in Immanuel.  I have envisioned a younger associate coming to us when I was, say, in my early to mid-sixties.  Ryan is here a bit early according to that plan, but then, while I am not near decrepitude, neither am I a spring chicken.  It may be that Ryan will ripen more slowly than I had anticipated my successor doing, or I may be nearer my end than I know.

                A final factor we must consider is finances.  We can currently pay an intern struggling to live just above the poverty level.  Can we pay an associate pastor, whom the Word tells us we must consider worthy of his hire?  That is a question that is impossible for us to answer now.  Yet it should be the last question we consider, as we believe that if the Lord indicates that He is calling Ryan to be an associate pastor in Immanuel, then He will provide for the maintenance of this expansion of the ministry.

                It is good, right, and necessary that we give prayerful attention to the continued growth and future care of the ministry of the Word in Immanuel.  Intriguing possibilities for our current and future welfare have arisen in connection with the intern we currently have serving with us.  What we need to do and call upon our members and friends to do is to join us in praying that the Lord would make His will, in a matter so vital to His flock here, clearly known to us.  We are confident that our Father will hear our prayers and indicate His way to us, especially if we are willing to go in His way and are diligent in our application of the means of His grace in our perceiving and pursuing His way.

 Yours in hope,

William Harrell