About a year ago a couple of friends asked me to take them to church. As my church was on the far South side of the city I decided to take them to one of our churches nearer where we live. It's always kind of embarrassing to bring guests to church when it's attendance that day is around 20 people. The name of the church is Jipi Japa which means straw hat in Quichua.

After the service a long time friend of mine named Pablo Velazquez approached me to explain why so many seats were empty. Only a week earlier their pastor had been fired and when he left close to forty families followed him leaving the church nearly empty. I've heard many versions of the story so I won't speculate on the reason any of it happened but I will say that I felt an incredible burden for that congregation on that day.

The church that I had been attending is the church that my parents were a part of while they were missionaries here. It is our largest church in the country and it has a weekly attendance of thousands. I naturally felt drawn to it because of our history but I always felt somewhat disconnected and lost in the crowd. My desire to serve and be involved never seemed to be realized during my time there so when I heard of the mass exodus at Jipi Japa I thought perhaps I could be of more use there.

My attendance there began shortly before my knee surgery which was followed by mono which was followed by various other things that kept me from being able to immediately get involved but I continued to attend regularly and started to get to know more and more of the people that were attending. During that year, the denomination leadership had determined the need to supply the church with an interim pastor of sorts, someone who could provide, "pastoral covering" as they like to call it here. Throughout the course of 2011 I would meet periodically with my friend Pablo and inevitably we would discuss the church and it's needs and the insufficiency of this "pastoral covering". During one of our meetings I remember Pablo asking me if I would ever be willing to become involved with the church at the pastoral level. My immediate though was, "NEVER in a Million Years". While I am seminary trained and could seek pastoral work and ordination, I've never really felt called to be the pastor of a church and yet for some reason the burden I've felt for this congregation has been burning inside of me since I visited that first day.

Time and time again Pablo would bring up the church's need for a pastor and would continue to ask me if I would be willing to get involved at that level. The more I thought about it and the more I prayed for the church and it's direction and leadership the more I felt pulled to say, "YES", I will get involved if that is where the Lord wants me. It was with this thought in mind that I finally gave into the pleading of some influential people in my life and I applied for pastoral licensing with the Evangelical Covenant Church.

Two weeks ago, the denominational intervention / pastoral covering was lifted and the leadership team met to discuss the next step in the direction of the church. It was during this meeting that they decided to put together a pastoral team. Several names were discussed in this process and mine was among them. I happened to be preaching that week and after the service I was asked to join the team at the leadership meeting. During that time I was asked if I was willing to put my hat in the ring to be considered for a part in the pastoral team. While I would normally have said no way, the burden I've been feeling for the church compelled me to accept. There were five candidates being voted upon to fill a three slot pastoral team.

Long story short and coming to the conclusion you've probably assumed since the second paragraph, I was asked to be a part of the pastoral team that leads the church for the next year. This sunday, Pablo Velazquez, Mauricio Agila and I were all installed by a representative of the Denomination and we accepted the charge of serving the church as pastors.

We've had several meeting and are ironing out our roles. Nothing concrete has been decided but it looks like I'll be taking on much of the spiritual direction, theological education and preaching.

Please, and I can't stress this enough, pray for us as we venture into this role and responsibility. This is a broken and hurt church with a very difficult history and we are well aware that we cannot lead it by our own strength and wisdom but that we require the Lord's guidance and hand in all of this.

Thank you for your faithfulness in prayer and support.

Blessings from Ecuador

Joshua