The Lord Has Done This: A Five-Year Reflection

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Below is a slightly edited version of the transcript for clarity and grammar.

I’ve been asked to give a brief testimony of God’s faithfulness over these five years together as a church. At the end of this, Phil is going to lead us in the first verse of “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” We’ll celebrate together, so if you don’t know it, you can look it up on your phone—but once we start singing, you’ll remember it.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been five years. I want to make it clear that as we celebrate this, I am not the main character of the story. Everyone here—and some who aren’t, like Bob Stone—played tremendous roles in building this church from the ground up.

And yet, the main character remains God through Christ. That’s why we named the church as we did. So I would like to express my deepest thanks and gratitude to all of you. Jim went over the finances of this church, and finances have literally never been a worry for this congregation, which is mind-boggling to say the least.

In your steadfast faithfulness, I see the Lord’s work. None of this is lost on me. None of this is lost on my family. None of this is lost on the elders of this church. We are deeply humbled by it, and we would like to express our thanks to God.

Back in the early days of May or June 2020—remember that year—I was on a Zoom call with Ardel because Zoom was a whole thing back then. We all loved it. We were talking about how the church could respond to the craziness of COVID and the Black Lives Matter riots down in Minneapolis. We’re reminded five years later that the more things change, the more they remain the same. The church was fractured, largely spineless, and in many cases ill-equipped or unwilling to respond.

In my frustration, I asked Ardel, What can we do? What should we be doing?

After that meeting, Ardel asked me to meet with him on campus at Northwestern. I agreed, and I was fairly certain what he was going to propose—and I was right. We got together, and he told me he was planning to retire, and in his retirement he wanted to plant a church. He asked me to consider being the pastor of that church.

I was flattered by that request, but at that point it was only an idea. Still, we began to see the Lord’s hand moving Ardel’s life into retirement earlier than he had planned, giving him a vision and prompting him to ask me. But there were still many hurdles to overcome.

At that time, I was serving at Riverview Baptist Church as the associate pastor. Over the previous several years, a couple of churches each year had reached out to me about applying for their head pastor role. I loved my time at Riverview, so I could be very picky about where I would go next.

There was a church in Mankato where I was interviewing for a head pastor position, and I was actually excited about it. Earlier that May, the Lord had also connected me with Pastor Jason Wredberg of Redeemer Bible Church in Minnetonka. He had seen something I posted online and reached out to me. We had lunch together and found that we shared many of the same concerns, visions, and ideas. Jason was—and still is—connected with the Pillar Church Planting Network that works in the Twin Cities, of which we are now a part. Again, God’s hand was preparing a path before I even knew anything about it.

After Ardel pitched the idea, I scheduled a meeting with Ardel and Jason to talk about whether we could plant a church and whether we could do so with the Pillar Church Planting Network. Around that time, Ardel and I also discussed possible men who could form potential elders. The men we launched with began meeting in August 2020: Tim Lovestrand, Jim Ballentine, Phil Norris, Jim Ornell, Ardel, and myself. The Lord provided these men. Some of them I had never met before that night in August.

Decisions were coming quickly. During that time, I was invited to preach at the church in Mankato as a candidate. I had two paths set before me. One was a stable church that would offer a significant pay raise and a life of stability. The other path was just an idea.

I spoke with many older men at that time, including Jeff Evans of the Minnesota Family Council, because I couldn’t decide. Financially, Mankato made sense. It would have been the safer choice for our family. Emily was pregnant with Tess at that point. But my wife, to her credit, had already made up her mind. She wanted to jump in and plant the church right here.

I thank God for my wife’s wisdom, her unquenchable trust in God, her desire to serve him, and her willingness to take risks for him. So I yielded. I withdrew from the church in Mankato and threw myself fully into planting this church.

We began drafting documents, completing legal paperwork, and recruiting people to attend. We held several meetings under the blessing of Bethlehem North to recruit individuals. Though we would not be an official plant of Bethlehem North, they blessed us in planting the church. We applied to Pillar and were accepted. I informed Riverview, and they decided to be one of our sending churches.

I want to make this crystal clear: this church would not exist without Riverview’s support and what they did—and are still doing—to help make this happen. Riverview set up a special giving line on their online platform so people could give to the church plant, and they gave thousands upon thousands of dollars so we could start this church. The Lord provided again and again. As we were reminded, he owns the cattle on a thousand hills.

We had two major obstacles left: who would join us to start in the middle of COVID, and where would we meet? Finding a place to host a group during COVID was difficult.

One day, I was sitting in my office and had the idea to google Christian schools in the area. At the top of the list was Hand in Hand Christian Montessori in Roseville. I had never heard of them. When I was in seminary in Louisville, there were lots of Montessori schools, but I didn’t know of any up here.

I called and left a message, and within hours I got a call back from Christine Berg. She said two things to me. First, “We’ve been praying for God to bring a church to us so we could share space with them.” They had just moved into this building. Second, she asked, “Where do you stand on sexual ethics?” I was glad she asked, and we stood on the same ground. They wanted the right kind of church renting space from them.

On a Saturday evening in February 2021, with no idea how many people would show up, we held our first service right here in this room. We didn’t even have a sound system yet. Over a hundred people showed up—some to support us from other churches, some who found out by word of mouth, like the Kron family and friends of friends. They showed up, and they never left.

Just like that, we became a church.

I continued working at Riverview through the end of May 2021. We held Saturday night services here, and I would preach Sunday mornings at Riverview. In June, I moved here full-time. We shifted to Sunday morning services in the cafeteria. We settled at about 70 people at launch, but each year the Lord continued to draw more people. Now we have about 140 regular attenders and members.

So much more could be said—about the Lord providing finances to finish the auditorium, which was a huge upgrade; about hiring Tuezong shortly after that. One of you recently said to me, “Tuezong was a home run hire.” Don’t tell him—but it’s true. I can’t claim credit. God made it clear whom we should hire. He even prevented Tuezong from being hired elsewhere so that we could bring him on. He and Pa Kou and their family are a tremendous gift to this church.

We’ve hosted conferences. We’ve had a book come out. We support ministries that impact the world: Christ Over All, True North Legal, Minnesota Family Council, and many more.

I’ve said this again and again: our church punches above its weight class. That’s not to boast, but to show what God can and does do through those who faithfully follow him. His arm is not short.

A week or so ago, I was on vacation with a ministry that provides trips for pastors. In the evenings, we gathered to talk and encourage one another. I came home and told Emily I felt a little guilty after hearing what some of these pastors are going through. One planted a church not long after we did and is shuttering it this year. Another pastors a small church that can no longer afford him. The challenges they face are many.

I realized how much the Lord has blessed us.

So as your pastor, I want to thank you for these five years—for how you’ve served and loved one another, how you’ve loved the Lord, how you’ve sacrificed for Christ’s kingdom, and how you’ve blessed my family again and again. I don’t say this with false humility, but I am not worthy of any of this. It is one of the great honors of my life to be your pastor and to see the hand of God at work.

There is more to come. There will be more opportunities to bring all of Christ into all of life. My simple instruction to you is this: continue to follow Christ. Trust God. Obey him. Love one another. Do the hard things. Do them in faith, and step back and watch God work.

As we saw in Joshua 6, when we walk in faithful obedience, the Lord works in ways better than ours. He is abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. So give him glory, honor, and praise, for this is his church. We are far from perfect as a congregation. We are far from perfect as elders. But we are striving to walk in faithfulness in response to what God has done in his great faithfulness.

Lord God, I thank you for your goodness, your steadfast love, and your great faithfulness toward us. I ask that these five years would be only a small beginning of your work through us as a congregation—not to build the name of Christ Bible Church, but to build the name of Christ and advance his kingdom.

Use us as a light in a city full of darkness. Help us raise up more ministers and plant more churches so that this city and this region might see revival. The world says it isn’t possible, but we know differently. May your gospel go forward with power and conviction from this church and from all like-minded churches in this area.

We ask and plead for a movement of your Spirit among the people of the Twin Cities. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.