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God is faithful to continue to provide for His church. I have been reminded of this recently as I participated in one of our student’s installation to the pastorate. Friend and long time student Ricardo Dean has been elected to take upon the mantel of local minister in his congregation.
It his often been the challenge in the Bible College classes to find senior leaders who are willing to undertake the difficult and nobel task of receiving training. Ricardo has been in class with me years ago at the Bible Training Center and now again in our graduate classes.
Despite the absence of so many senior leaders, we see God positioning those who are faithful and teachable to positions of leadership. It is my prayer and hope that God will continue to use these men and women as servant leaders to shape a new paradigm of church, founded on the principles of Christ and His apostles.
The service was monumentus. The St. Stephen’s praise team did a beautiful job leading in worship and the participation from the congregation was great. Gathered in the service were leaders from dozens of congregations up and down the island. It was truly an expression of the “church” on Eleuthera.
The speaker was Rev. Timothy Stewart from Nassau. He gave what should have been received as a very sobering message, citing that the church today is more interested in money, and ministers are more interested in “working the church” for their own benefit. He sought to exhort principles from Ephesians 4 on the gifting of leaders in the church. Yet with an emotional message and exhurbant preaching, it seems the people responded mostly to his fervor and missed the warning from the present-day state of churches and church leadership.
It was a message needed in the midst of new minister installation. The church more than ever needs to seek a calling closer to its roots of making disciples as empowered through the love of Christ, and to do so from a top-down model. More pastors need to be seen a mentors and there ought to be a visible and early-evident “pouring out” of our Christian leaders to see and show ministry in humility.
Ricardo’s wife wrote him a public letter of congratulations. As one of our students she included in that letter the importance of ministers establishing and serving the local church. We are blessed to have Ricardo and his wife in our classes, and the church at St. Stephens is now blessed to have him as their minister. Please continue to keep Ricardo in your thoughts and prayers as he expands his leadership and therefore service.