If you’re on our newsletter list, you probably know that our pastor stepped down at the beginning of August. (If you would like to read a newsletter update about that, please click here.) The team has been doing amazingly, though. I’m so proud of them! I’ll have another update about that soon.

I was thinking a few days ago as I was talking with Slavik, another one of the leaders at the church here, about how this situation is demanding maturity from all of us. It’s really an example of how hard things force us to grow and even can be good in the end. I used an example of a kid without training wheels, or about the first time that you drive a car on the highway by yourself after getting your license – there’s no one there to tell you where to turn, when to stop, or what other cars to look out for; you’re on your own.

That’s a bit how we feel as a team in a way. Pastor Ruslan was always the center of every decision, the go-to in almost every ministry. When he left our team, we all flew into high-rev fifth gear ministry-wise, because we all knew that, if the church was to survive, we all need to make sacrifices. There have been several situations where we missed that almost GPS-like guidance from him, where we didn’t really know what to do or how to make our own way, but God has been faithful – He’s led us through them, and He’ll continue to lead us into the future.

Please pray for us and our team. One thing you can pray for in particular is the next sermon series that I’m working on. It’s hard not having someone over me to bounce ideas off of, to say that I’m going the right direction or not. Also, even though I’m over the preaching team, I’m not the pastor. In a way, I need to convince the rest of the team that the direction I’m going to take our pulpit is the right one, without the full authority or credibility to do so. We should be having a meeting about the new direction tomorrow, so please pray.

As with any new situation, there’s a lot of unknown territory here, a lot of “what if’s” and “what now’s”, but God is faithful. He’ll lead.