Assessment Update

January 21, 2024May 16, 2024 by Jonathan In Nairobi Church Plant 2 Comments

Many of you were praying for us this weekend as we attended the Sovereign Grace National Church Planters Assessment in California. We are so grateful and definitely feel that the Lord answered those prayers. In fact, we feel that he met us way beyond our expectations. How like God!

It was a short, but completely packed time with seven other wonderful couples that also feel called to plant Sovereign Grace churches. We were just a bit different in that we were the only ones intending to plant outside the United States – it was a National assessment after all.

We spent time sharing our life stories with each other, with our lowest lows and highest highs. As couples we each had the opportunity to envision our potential church plant for the rest of the group, ask questions and pray for each couple. Each of the men preached a 10 minute mini-sermon, then we encouraged them and offered suggestions for improvement. We discussed our marriages and went over the results of a marriage inventory we took before we came. Our last assignment was for each of us to share the gospel one on one using the 3 Circles model for evangelism.

Finally, each couple met with a team of assessors, who had been getting to know us as much as possible over the last two days, observed our preaching, how we worked together as husbands and wives, our interactions with others, and gave us their feedback and recommendations. As you can imagine, it could seem to be a somewhat intimidating experience.

However, the whole of our time ended up being such a profound blessing to us. We couldn’t have been more encouraged and affirmed than we were in our meeting with the assessment team. They very graciously gave us a recommendation to continue to move forward with plans to plant in Nairobi! As they prayed for us, I (Jonathan) couldn’t help but be moved to tears. I kept thinking back to the times in the last couple years, desperate, on our knees, pleading with God to show us the way. We just stand in awe how he has continued to open the path before us, little by little, and lead us forward.

Here are some other observations/blessings from our weekend:

• Met many lovely, gracious couples from around the country, some of whom we hope will be lifelong friends
• Made even more aware of how blessed we are to be part of a family of churches that care deeply for people, for the local church, for the gospel to be treasured, proclaimed and lived out, that stands on Biblical truth, bears the fruit of a set of shaping virtues like humility, joy, servanthood and generosity, and does it all for the glory of God
• Encouraged by the preaching of God’s Word by several other aspiring church planters
• Inspired by the lives of these men and women who are choosing to do a hard thing by moving their families to new places to start a church from scratch for the cause of the gospel.
• Hearing the stories that God has written for others (Psalm 139:16) – it not only brought us closer to each other, but made us grateful for his sustaining grace through difficulty. We saw a pattern of the beautiful work that God was doing through our most painful seasons.
• Humbled at the assessor team couples that came to serve us through their observations and recommendations, but also pouring into us their wisdom and encouragement. What a blessing!
• Having never considered church planting before last year, there have been seeds of doubt about whether we were actually cut out for it or not. While there can be no earthly guarantee we will be successful church planters, this weekend was a tremendous encouragement to us of having others affirm enough competency and character for us to move forward in faith.
• We missed having Brian and Julia Kiama there!

Cross of Grace

On Sunday morning we drove the few miles to Santa Ana and had the amazing privilege of worshipping with Cross of Grace Church. We were so warmly welcomed and made to feel right at home. A highlight was being there for the ordination of a new friend, whom Jonathan had just met over the phone a week earlier. When we found out he was being ordained, we just had to be there. It was a special service – especially considering Jonathan is beginning his journey toward ordination!

We’ll be heading to Phoenix on Tuesday to visit Jonathan’s sister as well as some dear friends there. Thanks so much for praying and for partnering with us!