EQUIP Continued-Our Advisory Board

I forgot to mention that when we told our daughter about the calling, she had a vision as well. It was of a multi-ethnic church and it was white on the inside too.

We received many confirmations as the months went on. On our prayer walks often two of us would hear the same thing from God. God sometimes would make a promise then it would be confirmed within a few days by another person. It just blew us away.

I would love to share the transformations that have happened from our prayer meetings, but for the sake of privacy, I can't. Suffice to say it's amazing to see people's countenance change, their faces brighten, as they turn from darkness into the light.

As we continued on our journey to figure out how all this would work, our board recommended we put together an advisory board for the new church. We started right away. We prayed about it and God gave us 3 names. They are all at or near the top of their missions agencies.

One of our board members is Bruce Beckhart. He is with Frontiers and he is responsible for Pastoral care. Frontiers is a missions agency with missionaries in every Muslim country. Whenever a pastor in one of these countries needs care of any kind, this man makes a phone call and sends someone right to them.

Another board member is Roger Thompkins. He is the founder and leader of an agency called MCN (Missionaries to Christian Nationals). They are dedicated to establishing indigenous churches among unreached people groups.

John Dupree is on our board as well. He is with The Harvest Group. John works with local churches to help them develop missions. He also coordinates conferences and help to bring Perspectives classes to local churches. If you want a good view of God's heart for the world, take a Perspectives class. It will change the way you think about missions.

The neat thing is that as we asked each one of these men to pray about whether or not they would accept the position of a temporary advisory board member, they all said yes! We had our first meeting in July and our next one will be in October. John lives in Escalon, Roger in Mariposa, and Bruce is Mesa, Arizona. Bruce will be teleconferenced in on the computer for our meetings. Our house is right in between John and Roger. What a blessing these men are to us. John and Roger both have church planing backgrounds, which is also our heart.

Thank you for continuing to read about the journey of our new church. It's wonderful to share good news. Blessings on this sunny Friday.