Ministers

Chad and Kathy first came to the NL for our Easter Service. They came with Kathy’s niece, a former student of our youth ministry program. Chad pulled me aside that Easter morning to ask if I would marry them on July 4th. For me, this was a concern, as I did not know them first of all and I knew that I did not want to do a wedding on the fourth of July.

The next week a woman who I knew well was telling me how shocked she was to see two of her former drug dealers in worship and alluded to the fact that it had to be a joke. However, Chad and Kathy began to meet with Terry and Laura Perkins (one of our Elders and Deacons who oversees our premarital counseling) and somewhere in that process their lives began to change in very obvious ways.

Chad and Kathy now are married and regularly attend the NL and have learned to become givers. They are also servants. Often on Sundays they help set up tables between services for the Story of God. Even more often they are the ones wiping down the tables or helping to clean up the kitchen at the end of the services. Currently, Chad can be found running the soundboard and is also a co-teacher with one of our classes offered on Sunday mornings.

A few months ago Kathy came with a need for a friend who was in fear that she might have cancer. Her friend’s mother had died of the same kind of cancer they were afraid she might have. To make things worse, her friend did not have the money tot pay for the biopsy. Kathy shared her concern with us, and, with the help of another person in our community, the biopsy was paid for.

Why does this story excite me so much? Because both Chad and Kathy, who once were drug dealers, are now learning to become dealers of God’s grace to others. They are both learning to be ministers to the people that God has placed in their lives, including their children.

“Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.  1 Corinthians 1:26-28”