As youth pastors, Mark and I had a wealth of connections in our world of youth ministry.  Those all proved useless in the quest for a children’s pastor.  We didn’t know where to start, who to talk to, and why would anybody come and work for us when they didn’t even know our names?  To top it off, we wanted quality leadership for our children, not just a warm body.  It was overwhelming!

So, we started knocking on every door possible to get a grasp of who was out there and who would fit into our ever expanding picture of a church.  Finally it seemed as if we had our solution.  A young woman at Northwest University was graduating in December 2006 and felt like she could commute for those first few months of the launch. 

Over the next few months we talked on the phone, kept her in the loop of our emails, and finally put on the calendar a day in July for her to come down and meet our entire team.  We were excited!  This was the woman that would invest into the masses of children that we had as a part of our launch team.  She was our hope for an amazing children’s ministry. 

So, being the type of church we are, we went all out!  We hired a giant bouncy house, got gifts that represented all of her favorite things, developed games for our kids centered around her name, and made banners to display for when she arrived.  We were ready for the carnival!!!

Our kids spent the morning playing with their new pastor, getting to know who she was, and intergrating her into our team.  We laughed together, told stories of our journey, and began the process of developing a lifelong relationship.

And the next day she quit.

So, as we sat there in July, ready to launch a church devoted to young families with kids in September, we had no children’s pastor.  And we laughed.  We laughed because the one thing we know is that God moves the chess pieces where he wants them for a reason.  We had a strong faith that God was doing His work.  And He was…

When Mark and I were first married, we were junior high youth pastors at New Life Church in Renton, WA.  As with all youth pastors, there are always certain kids who take a special place in your life.  One of those young men was Jeremy Macias.  As a seventh grader, he was awkward and insecure (like all seventh grade boys!), but also kind, eager to learn, and very much dedicated to Jesus.  He struck a cord in us of someone who would use the investment of our time in his life wisely.  And so we poured in all we could. 

We were only his youth pastors for a couple of years, but we continued to stay in touch with him throughout his high school and college years.  Jeremy had some incredible youth pastors mold and shape his life along the way, so it was no shock to us that Jeremy ended up an amazing young man with a heart for ministry.

We asked Jeremy to lead worship for our students over the course of several years at Winter Camp.  So in January 2006, as he was finishing up the music for the evening, Mark asked if he would join the journey we were about to go on.

Jeremy brought something to the table that we needed and appreciated.  He is the type of person who doesn’t talk until he has something valuable to say.  In the midst of the flood of Type A leaders around us, Jeremy brought a calm to the storm.

He lead worship for the first essential year at North Creek, before he left to finish up his degree at Northwest University.  We continue to love and adore the man who became like a son to myself and Mark. 

Sometimes you give everything you are to someone and not expect to get anything back in return.  We went into our relationship with Jeremy with that intention.  However, in the end he gave us back more than we could have ever given him.

We were given a lot of advice about church planting and we are grateful for all of it!  However, one of those tidbits was the knowledge that we didn’t really need to pursue a youth pastor because many church plants don’t attract teenagers…

But then there’s the God factor.

As Mark and I started to pray about the staff situation, a couple came to my mind repeatedly.  I did not even know their names…they were just faces that would later on become priceless to this journey. 

I went to Mark one day and said, “There was a couple at camp last year.  You spoke with the guy’s wife.  I think his name is Matt?  He was on the drama team at Northwest…you know?  I can’t remember his wife’s name either…is it Angel?  I think we’re supposed to call them to join our church planting team.” 

First of all, that’s not the brillant networking skills that I would like to take pride in.  But when you just know something is from God, you don’t question it, you just do it.  So, Mark went on a manhunt for Matt and Angel’s phone number, figured out their names were Jeff and Angela, and called them on Dec. 26, 2005.  We wanted to wait until after Christmas to mess up their lives.

We met with the Welks in January of 2006 and by May they had gotten new jobs, moved here, and decided to fulfill the role of youth pastor (among a million other things!).

I’ve already mentioned Angela in The Velvet Hammer post, so I’ll tell you about Jeff.  He is eloquent, charismatic, funny, and talented in too many areas to list.  He’s from a family with a heritage of incredible men.  His family is the type of people who puts together puzzles without looking at the box, and that is exactly how Jeff navigates ministry.  He’s already got the big picture in his mind and he is a master at manipulating the pieces to achieve what the picture needs to look like.

He is very different than my husband in the way they think, which provides a teamwork that is near perfection.  They often remind me of the verse about iron sharpening iron.  They are both strong leaders, but there strengths and weaknesses are polar opposites.  Together they cover the other’s blind spots.

Jeff chose youth ministry, but I struggle putting him in a box.  He is much more than just any one position could define.  He is a partner in ministry, a selfless martyr of comfort for the cause, a shining example of a Godly man, and a man whose instincts for leadership are keen.

My gut tells me that God has an agenda for Jeff’s life that is vital to the church…not just our church, but the bigger picture of the kingdom of God.  So, remember the name Matt..I mean, Jeff Welk.  He’s going to be one of those guys in Heaven with a lot of crowns to cast at the feet of Jesus.

Perhaps the most difficult and daunting process in the beginning was assembling a staff around us.  Imagine the task of defining what “positions” you wanted to fill, finding a qualified, talented, amazing person who would work for free, and differentiating between the church planting leadership team and who would become “staff”.

At our previous church, our Junior High pastor, Kris Gray, had become invaluable to our hearts.  God was stirring in her a change in the future and together we walked down the path of what this change would be. We mourned the loss of our youth ministry days and lost sleep over the possibilities that lie ahead of us. 

It was unclear what Kris’ role would become at the beginning.  The only thing that we knew is that if Kris weren’t there, we were pretty sure we didn’t want to be, either.  It was her anchor in our lives that guided us to stay in Vancouver. 

Kris is currently our Small Groups Pastor, our sermon augmentor, and a general sounding board for the latest crazy ideas that we throw on the table.  She is the imagination behind most of our sermon stage sets and a look out for anyone who would dare cut a corner on creativity.  She is a counselor for the frustrated and will laugh at any joke you’d like to throw at her.

As a pastor’s wife, she fills a role in my life that is almost undefinable.  She knows me inside and out and thinks about ministry so similarily that communication is easy.  It is hard to escape the leadership mantel as a lead pastor’s family, and Kris gives me the opportunity to do just that.   She says it like it is, but somehow you don’t realize it because she is so invested into your wellbeing that you tend to forget that she is correcting you.  She has made a full time job of getting into people’s business to make sure that they are living according to God’s plan.

Kris is an example to our young mom’s about how to raise your kids with unbending consistency, which is her “secret” ministry.  You aren’t even sure you have been impacted by her mothering until your kids are misbehaving and you find yourself thinking, “What would Kris do?”  And that’s when you know that she’s wormed her way into your very DNA.  And that’s why we all love her.