Let's pray and then we'll have Mr. Andrews come and bring the third lecture, Testimonies of God's Work in the Presbytery of the Southeast. Let's pray. Lord our God, We again give thanks for the great work that you've done in building your church. We have seen it in our midst. We have seen it in this region of this nation. We have seen it across this nation, how you have preserved and built your church. And we pray as we hear further the testimonies of your work, we pray that we would be again encouraged that we would be spurred on to great love and our own good works as we seek to encourage the church, as we seek her good, as we seek to even evangelize those that are not in your church. And we pray that we would be encouraged in our faith, but that you would use us then to encourage the growth of your kingdom. We give thanks again for this time. to consider your work, giving thanks in Christ's name, amen. Looks like you're not connected to the internet. I know that. There is. No, no, no. That's for Sunday school tomorrow. That's right. For Sunday school tomorrow. Okay. I want to begin by reading a passage of Scripture from 2 Corinthians chapter 8, verses 1 to 7, where we read, we want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches in Macedonia. brought a severe test of affliction. Their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed and a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints. And this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord, and then by the will of God to us. Accordingly, we urge Titus, as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace. But as you excel in everything, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you, see that you excel in this act of grace also. You may wonder, well, what's the application of that passage? Well, simply this, that the Apostle Paul, whoops, let me do this. The Apostle Paul in this text is given testimony. to the church in Corinth about what's going on in the churches in Macedonia. In particular, in this specific issue of the raising of funds because of the famine that has hit in Jerusalem and in the surrounding regions. And so he gives a wonderful testimony of those churches. I'm sure Philippi and Berea and Thessalonica, the churches there, to the churches, well, the church here in Corinth and Achaia in southern Greece in order to stir them up to good deeds. There are times on the floor of Presbytery where I'm pretty bold by saying to them, I'm gonna tell you about this to provoke you to jealousy. When you see what God is doing in some of our other mission works, to provoke you to jealousy, to, well, if they can do that, then we can too, or we can do this. And so we move from last night looking at the early history of the OPC, how that helped formed what's now the ethos of the OPC, to this morning looking at the history of our own regional church, the Presbytery of the southeast that is coming more narrowly, you know, from the whole church to the regional church. But now I want to move to some of the congregations within our church that have been established. And the big problem here is which ones to exclude. I could have put in here Covenant Newbern, but I figured you would know that history probably even better than I would, though I do know something of the early history being involved fairly early on in the work here when you were at mission status. But I felt like, well, probably not do Newbern. You probably would know more about that than I would. But which ones to select? And I selected one that was early in the life of the PSC, one that came in sort of midway in the life of the PSC. And if we have time, and I got to watch the clock, we'll get to one of our current mission works today in this. Now, what time am I supposed to end? When are you done with that third one? Hm? When are you done with the third one? I get done with the third one. I know, but what time's the clock supposed to say so I know how late I am? Well, we started, I'd say 20 to 12. OK, at about 20 till 12, I'm supposed to stop. If I say the same thing I said last night, y'all can't fire me. Well, you still could keep me from preaching tomorrow. But no, but then Dan would have to really scramble to get ready for tomorrow. So he definitely won't fire me. So if I go a little bit, a little bit long, we'll just see how it goes. Okay, good, good, good. Okay, that's right, yeah. Well, it's the OPC, and especially at the Presbyterian meetings, anytime it's gonna be eaten up, there's no question about it, even if all the business is done more quickly, they will find things to talk about, and I'm OPC, and so I will too. But I do want to focus on three of these and give a pretty detailed account of what God did so that you can rejoice in it. And I want to begin with one of these mission works that we inherited. uh... we inherited from the presbytery of the south when the president of the southeast came into existence and that was in cookville tennessee it's now actually eleven miles east of cookville and silver point tennessee which is a tiny little place uh... there uh... but but faith in cookville was a mission work that was established in the presbytery of the south with the leadership of jim hamstrong Please don't cry. We share warm memories of our brother who's with the Lord. But Jim was one that was laboring in Cook Bowl. And he saw a great deal of potential there. And I was in the Presbytery of Mid-Atlantic, but I was on the Home Missions Committee. We were beginning to think about what's gonna happen when we divide the Presbytery and that kind of thing. And of course, Jim and I were close, and he called me up and he said, I need some OPC ministers to preach and cook and to administer the Lord's Supper. When can you come? He didn't ask me if I would do it. He said, pick a Sunday and tell me when you can come. And I said, well, maybe we can come up with a tentative date, but I have to go to the session and get all of this approved of the churches. I know all of that, but I need you to come. That's just the way he was. And so my wife and I made the trip over to Cookville, which was in a different presbytery. It was in a different time zone. It takes twice as long to get back from Cookville as it does to get to Cookville. Because by the clock, it seems like it's two hours longer coming back. Because you gain an hour getting there and you lose an hour coming back. But so anyway, we drove over there. And what we found was, I would say, a warm congregation, fairly sizable. As I recall, we're talking about 25 years ago or close to it now, maybe 26 years ago. Fairly sizable congregation and really a spacious building at that time. And I preached. I have no idea. It was something from the Bible. That's all that I know. I have no idea what I preached on that particular Sunday. But as my wife and I were driving back, she made the comment, and I had observed it as well, you know, these were really nice people. They've got a good-sized group of people, but they're so They were very soft-spoken. Nobody was rude, but you didn't have that person that just greets you at the door. We're so happy that you're here and introduce you. They were very reserved. We noted that when we were there. Warm, but reserved. And different congregations have different personalities and a different ethos in different congregations as well. And so I sort of kept up with what was going on, mainly through Jim giving me updates, even though it was in the other presbytery. Well, as the Presbytery of the Southeast came into existence, and then two years later, when I became regional missionary, this was the first mission work I visited. And I drove to Cookville, and I went by myself on this occasion, I can recall, And we met in a different building. It was small, claustrophobic, low ceilings. I don't know whether Dan or Jeremy ever went over to Cookville when when they were in the building across the street from Walmart, hidden away in a sort of a strip mall there. The group was a bit smaller rather than larger. They'd gone through some difficulties. They had a minister there who was very gifted, very gifted preacher, very gifted teacher, but not a good match. That happens sometimes. You take a man from New York and you put him in Cookville, Tennessee, he may do well. He may do well if he appreciates the culture and understands it and that kind of thing of the South. But if he doesn't, it may not go well. And they had some rocky times. I wasn't aware of that when I walked in. Sunset, Alaska was great. even though I didn't agree with him. It was on eschatology. I'm an Amillennialist. He was a Historic Premillennialist. You guys probably know who I'm talking about. Great guy. Yeah, that's rare. Historic premillennialist is rare in the OPC, but Dr. Knight was a historic premillennialist as well that we talked about earlier this morning. And he was, I think, actually critiquing a millennialist. If I remember, it was a fair, it was a good treatment. Sermon was excellent. I was pretty pumped. And I went to one of the couple's house for lunch and I said, boy that was a good sermon. And I got kind of a tepid response. Eventually they opened up and said, we've really had some real issues and we lost a family last week after Sunday school lesson. They were very concerned and troubled. And the more they talked, and that's what happens a lot of times, people whisper in my ears, especially if they know me, and I go back later, they'll whisper in my ears. And so I sat down with the minister the next day and I said, brother, we've got a problem. When they start criticizing your strengths, we have a problem here. And we did. And we tried to resolve it. He labored hard to try to resolve it, to be reconciled where offense had been taken. He really did. I mean, he really did work hard. But it became clear over a short period of time that this is just not the best match. and that for the work to continue, that he would need to pursue another call. This wasn't a thing of, no, you're fired, but you may need to prayerfully pursue another call. And he got one shortly, and he labored there for over 20 years very faithfully, and in a much larger congregation, and the funny thing about eschatology is that congregation had two past moderators of the General Assembly that were ruling elders. One of those past moderators was a post-millennial theonomic guy, great guy. The other one was a redemptive historic amillennialist on the same session. I said, what are you going to do on a session when you have this kind of difference on the same session? He said, it's going to be fine. I think they're both wrong. And they worked beautifully together as a session for over 20 years. It's a remarkable thing that took place. He was the right man in the right place that time, but not the right man for Neon. Well, typically when things like that happen, we lost some members that had come in while he was there. And so we were very, very lean, very small, but the people that remained were committed. There needs to, this church needs to be here. And they were, they were energetic and, and, and they were warm people. And, and, and, and I grew to love them deeply. And so as time went on, we were struggling to see any growth. We were just, they had a sweet fellowship within themselves, but they didn't have any real confidence in looking outside of themselves to reach out to others. And it became so desperate, and Dan and Jeremy were both on the Home Missions Committee, so they'll remember these agonizing days. that the Home Missions Committee, and I fought for them for a long time, you can ask those too, I fought for mission work sometimes, but we all came to the conclusion, it's time to end it. And the Presbytery voted, it was the April meeting of the Presbytery, I don't remember which year now, voted, let's end it by the next Presbytery meeting in October. And I was scheduled to go there the next day to tell them. So I showed up in Cookville the next day, and I knew the decision was the right decision, but I was sad. And they were expecting it, they weren't caught off guard, but I had to wait until the visiting family left before I could meet with the members of the congregation to tell them. And it was a Reformed Baptist family that had Baptist convictions, but Calvinistic in their soteriology, that had been driving a long distance to a Reformed Baptist church, and that wasn't doable. They thought they would visit the church. Wonderful family that was there that continued to come for some season until there was another Reformed Baptist church that was a bit closer. And they never joined our church, and they moved there. And they still, I understand, on occasion, when they can't go to their church, they come to faith in Kupferl. Very sweet fellowship. But you realize something. Yeah, it's the right thing. All objective criteria. Even the subjective criteria. It's time to close. It's not going anywhere. But the Lord's stirring the waters. And just weeks later, I can't remember how many, one of the men went up to the church, I think for Wednesday night prayer meeting, and it was flashing on the answering machine. Yeah, there were answering machines on landlines back in those days. And he pushed the button and it was a couple. The man was a deacon in an OPC church in California that wanted to flee the West Coast. He grew up in the middle Tennessee, middle Kentucky area, That's the area they wanted to go to. They thought, where's an OPC church we can help? Where's an OPC church where we can plug in? And they found out there was one in Cookville. They began to research Cookville. They said, we want to move to Cookville to help you with this church. It seems out of the blue. It's God's providence. It's at work. And so they came and they stayed. He's a ruling elder in the church today. So by the time we get to the October meeting of Presbytery, I say to the Home Missions Committee, maybe we need to stay our hand. We need to say, what is it that the Lord's doing here? And so that couple was a tremendous help. Then what happened as months went by, maybe even another year, they were still struggling to make traction in terms of visitors and growth. They were energized by this couple that had come and been part of a church. Plus, we learned of an OPC elder in Chicago that was gonna be retiring early, and their intent was to move to Cookville to be a part of the church. So there's some really, some hope beginning to build, even though it's coming from the outside. And I had a young man to give me a call, a seminary student at Greenville Seminary. And I didn't know him. I knew his father, I didn't know his grandfather, I knew his grandfather by reputation, and I knew two of his uncles, Steve to the OPC. But I knew him by reputation because his church, when he was, I think maybe even before he was a seminary student, maybe he was a seminary student, had led an outreach Bible school in Mount Airy, in our mission work in Mount Airy. And he was one of the leaders in that outreach Bible study. Well, he called me up and he said, somebody gave your name and thought, you know, I might could do an internship this summer under you. And my first thought was the last thing I need is somebody following me around to slow me down. And it probably wouldn't be very helpful to them anyway. No, you need a real internship. But then I remembered the reputation of this young man that I had heard about his work in that Bible school, and I said, I got a wild hair idea. I get those every now and then. I said, this would not be a conventional internship. I live in Virginia. I'm talking about the middle of Tennessee. Talking about two different time zones here. But what about coming and and he was under care of his presbytery, would you be willing to lead an outreach Bible study for us in Cookville? The people need to look outside of themselves and realize they can. And he said, let me pray about it. And he got back and says, yeah, we want to do it. And so he came to do that internship. We learned a lesson. We don't have undercare men preaching regularly after this particular experience. But he did the lion's share of the preaching. I would go over once a month to preach. He and I would meet in Knoxville in between about every two weeks and eat a meal together and talk about things. He was one of the most energetic evangelists. I know. He would knock on doors. You just wouldn't believe how hard this young man worked. The zeal that he had for the gospel and for evangelism. And he took the people with him and they learned we can do this too. They learned it from him. And we had a fairly large Bible school of many of them unchurched children that he'd go and pick up and bring, because he went and he would knock on doors, he would register the children, he would come back and provide transportation and bring them to the church. And I had Nancy Maney, some of you may know Nancy and her husband, Nancy is old time OPC, though she's in the PCA now, But she's done Bible schools before. Can you come just do the Bible study? I got another guy that's organizing it. And she said, I'd be glad to. She was in Chattanooga. Her husband was a professor at Covenant College. And so I went over one day. I think it was the third day. And I drove in and I walked up and she said, I want to talk to you, Lacey Andrews. Because it was just hectic. Different kids, it seemed like, every day. A lot of them didn't know how to behave in church, any of that kind of thing. She wasn't really mad, but it was stressful. She was a bit frustrated. I said, Nancy, I told you this before you came. And she just kind of exasperated, then went off and energetically was leading and helping with the Bible school. And then this young man led the congregation in making contacts in every single home of those children that had come. Knocked on doors, met parents, tried to present the gospel to those parents. I'm telling you, the guy was a workhorse in evangelism. And even some of those people began to come to the church. And what happened was the congregation said, we want this guy to be our pastor. Believe me, I understood it. And I'm not going to go into details about it, but that didn't happen. He had a very tender conscience. He had an exception to the confession. that the presbytery had difficulties with. The presbytery continued his exam to the next presbytery meeting and gave him an assignment to help him be able to come better to the confessional position on the issue, but he dug in his heels. You guys remember. And I was trying to defend him on the floor of Presbytery because people were standing up and saying and giving these wonderful speeches about how important the Doctor of the Trinity is. And I said, he would say yay and amen to everything you just said. Critique his position. But that's not kind of how it happens. And so they did not continue the exam and said until you resolve this issue, you know, don't come back for licensure. And the congregation, it was tough, but they realized this is really God's will. There are reasons why with all of his gifts, he's really not quite prepared to be a minister. By the way, he handled the controversy that he experienced. I understood from somewhere that very recently he was going up for licensure. We're talking years later. In the last few months, I heard that in another presbytery. So maybe those issues are resolved now, because very gifted, very godly man, broke my heart as we went through that. But the congregation learned we can look outside of ourselves and God can use us in sharing the gospel. There's a different spirit in that congregation and a different life in that congregation. Still growing slowly, this ruling elder, his wife, two teenage daughters, twins, preteen, almost teen son, took them about 18 months to two years before when they decided to move to Cookville for him to finish his job, retire, sell their house in the Chicago area. and moved down to Cookville, but when he did, his feet hit the ground running, this ruling elder. I love Chuck Clack. He is a class act as a ruling elder in that church. And we realized, okay, and the Home Mission Committee had this discussion, the provisional session had a discussion. We need to fish or cut bait. Are we gonna look for an organizing pastor? And we said, let's do. So we organized a search committee. We had two men to come and visit. We were very interested in, that took other calls. We had another man to come in that was very interested in us. And if I called his name, I know Dan and Jeremy would know who he is. Good man, PCA guy, really good man. And I was there when he candidated. He was so serious. His preaching was really good. But I mean, just so serious. And there was a Q&A, and we had a little lady in the church, a widow. She had a little bit of a wicked sense of humor about her. And she thought, I wonder if I can get him to smile. So she said, could I have a question? What do you think about puppet ministries in liturgical dance and worship? And she thought he would laugh. Oh, we can't do that. That's against the regulative principle. And it was clear that in terms of great guy, but in terms of personality, is he a match? And when we told him no, it was tough for him. He wanted in the OPC so bad. You guys may even know who I'm talking about. And a really good man. And so, the next time I was there, I got the people together and said, okay, let's start over here. We sat down around the table, and I said, what are we looking for? Let's think about it. What are we looking for? And they went, well, we need a good preacher. We need a man that's pastoral. We need a man that's personable, knows how to meet people. We need a man who's warm. We need a man that's going to love the sheep. And as they're going around the table, I said, well, I know his name, but I can't tell you his name. He's in Raleigh right now and he's supposed to be in Raleigh. They said call him. Call him up. I said no. They said call him up. I didn't tell him his name. His name was Matt Figueroa. These guys know Matt. They're big buddies with Matt. Everything I just described is Matt Figueroa to a T. Took him 10 years to get through seminary. That's another funny story with Matt. But I go way back with Matt. I don't go back as far with Matt, I think, as Dan. Do you go back to California with Matt? All the way to California with Matt. I mean, Dan knows Matt even longer than I have. But Matt came and did an internship at Bristol, which I was the you know, had been the pastor of the church, it was the mother church of the church in Bristol, when it was going through a very difficult and hard time. He did a splendid job. as an intern in state and supply there, and was continuing to try to make progression in his studies at Greenville. And then he had the opportunity to go to Raleigh, at Pilgrim Raleigh. This was before Shiloh came into existence, under Doug Withington, and to do an internship there. And they said, we want to get you through seminary. We want to help you finish your seminary training, because they saw the gifts that Matt had for gospel ministry. And that's what they did for Matt in Raleigh. But the idea was to plant from Pilgrim a daughter congregation using Matt. And he would have been splendid at doing that in a place like Raleigh. And Matt and Jesse had bought into this vision. But then trouble started at Pilgrim. No reason to go into any details about these. But serious issues arose in the life of the church. So much so that Matt felt like, I've got to be here, kind of a steadying influence as we get through this. And in the midst of this, I called him up on the phone. I said, Matt, this is a wild hair idea. I know you're in Raleigh and it's where you need to be, but I told him about Cookville. And he thought, this is a wild hair idea. And he told Jesse. And Jesse said, well, Lacey called us to ask us to pray about it. We probably should pray about it. Two weeks later they talked about it and said, we need to go see what's going on in Cookville. The rest is a story. He was called as the organizing pastor. The church began to grow. We outgrew our building. We had some money that was set aside to purchase a building. We began to look for a building to purchase. We found just what we thought was the right place, slightly above what we wanted to pay. We would have to go into some debt in order to get it, but manageable. It was a house that could be renovated and used quickly. There's an outbuilding that could ultimately become a sanctuary. Great location, great building. We decided on a Wednesday night after prayer meeting, let's put in an offer. Go down to the realtor the next day, somebody had just walked in and put in an offer right before we went in there. Lord, what are you doing? We got to have another space. You've given us the ability to purchase one, that you've shown us the right one, and now you say no? What are you doing? I don't know that we said it quite that tone of voice, but we were frustrated and bewildered. Two weeks later, I get a call from Matt Figueroa. He says, Lacey, I'm looking for the most beautiful piece of property I've ever seen in my life. And I said, well, is it? And there was another place that we were considering. He says, no, no, no, this one's free. I said, what? He said, this one is free. A family had visited their church on Sunday. Matt, the dutiful pastor, was at their house on Monday to visit them. They lived about 11 miles outside and in the conversation he said, pick any lot you want out here, I'll give it to you. Any one you want. And we had to go through all the right process to make sure, you know, is this family even going to really stick in the church? What if they don't? You know, what's going to happen? But in the end, they were insistent and they donated the property free of charge to the church. And we had in reserve sufficient funds other than just a very small amount to build the church building there in Silver Point. And then the family left the church. Still good relationship. They just didn't fit with the church. Came one Sunday, came a few Sundays after that, gave us the property, and now there's a building. And now several years later, you go there and it's hard to find a parking place and you better get there early to find a seat. Their attendance has been up to over 150 on Sunday mornings, 11 miles outside of Cookville. I think they're down just a little bit. That's what Matt said to me recently. He says, oh, we know how to muddy the waters and mess things up a little bit. But it's a wonderful story of God's provision When we were prepared to close the work, I can tell right now I'm only gonna get to the second one. That was an early work and to see how God worked. One of the things I love about my call as regional missionary, I get to see where God's working in multiple places. I also get to see where Satan is working in multiple places. But it's a wonderful thing to see how God is at work. I want to come to one midway, and this is in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Pete Stazin was the pastor in our church in Lynchburg, which was the furthest church to the east in Virginia in the Presbytery of the Southeast at that time. Steve Doe was the pastor of the church in Fredericksburg, Virginia, in the Presbyterian Mid-Atlantic, really just over the line. We had a burden for northeastern Virginia, and for the Tidewater region in particular. And we met two or three times, maybe a year apart, The first time I know we met in Lexington, maybe even the second time in Lexington, I think one time we met in Lynchburg. Just the three of us would meet, have a meal together and pray. And pray for God to work and plant churches to the east of Lynchburg, to the north of Lynchburg in Virginia. Two representatives of two presbyteries coming together to pray for this one region. Well, Steve ultimately became the regional home missionary in the Presbyterian of the Mid-Atlantic. And Steve didn't have anything on his plate. It's sort of arid there in planting O.P.Z. churches. It's tough. Charles Biggs is struggling, done a fantastic job. And he called me one time and he said, Lacey, it seems like the Lord's blessed. I said, you don't understand. I'd struggle even more than you are in Mid-Atlantic Presbytery. I said, who knows how many churches will be planted if you are the regional missionary in the Presbytery of the Southeast with your gifts? We're a more fertile soil for planting OPC churches here. This is the case in different parts of the country. But Steve just loved the Lord and loved the kingdom. And he had a couple of contacts from the Tidewater region. And I had accrued a couple of contacts I tried to put together through the years leading up to it. And so we pooled our contacts. And we invited some of the contacts we had to invite others to an informational meeting just to talk about the OPC and church planting. We didn't have anybody. It was just rare. We needed to plant an OPC church. We initiated this. One thing I had to teach Steve is don't do everything for them. He wanted to buy all the meat and bring it. I said, no, you've got to let them do something to see if they're willing to do something. It took me a while to teach Steve that. It's hard for me to say teach Steve. He's one of the most godly, mature men that I know in the Orthodox Christian Church. But he hadn't been RHM for very long. And we had that informational meeting. Some of the people knew each other. Some of them knew of each other or were acquaintances. Sort of a hodgepodge of people from different areas of Tidewater that came to that initial meeting. We met in the home of one of the contacts that Steve had. But what came out of it was the desire to start a church planting our outreach evangelistic Bible study. And one of the couples there, an older couple, said, you can use our house in Virginia Beach. Bonnie and Marty Betts. And then Marty was a character, I'm telling you. And so we said, OK. So we started a Bible study, and Steve and I tag-teamed it every Sunday night, every other Sunday night. I would teach it one week, he would teach it the next week. And it began to grow. The Bible study began to grow. More people began to come, began to take the shape of, are we ready to start worship services? Ultimately came to the time we said, yeah, we're ready to do that. So we started evening worship services. Instead of the Bible study, we went to evening worship services for a season. Then after that, we had an opportunity to go to morning and evening in two different locations. You guys met in a lot of different locations here. Did y'all ever meet in two different ones at the same time? Well, we're doing that in Short Pump right now. But we met in two different locations, one in the morning and the other in the evening. And the whole time, from the time we were doing mission work, because of the demographic, we said, we need to put more money in this. We need to get an experienced man. And so I called up, Steve called up, men that we knew that are experienced in church planting. We'll pray about it, we'll pray about it. All of them said, we've prayed about it, we think we're supposed to stay where we are. And so it drug on longer. We had a young man that was in seminary, but not so young. You guys probably know him, he's maybe even been here. Has Lowell been here before? Lowell Ivey been here? Y'all need to have him come and present the prison ministry, maybe sometime here. A man that was converted in prison. in solitary confinement for, what, 15, 16 years. And he was converted and was in solitary confinement for years after he was converted. It's an incredible story. You can see it on the Ligonier website, videos of Lowell's testimony. And I knew Lowell because I taught his wife when she was 17 years old at Grand Bible College. And when I found out she was getting married to an ex-con, I said, May? I couldn't believe May was getting married to an ex-con. And then I met Lowell, and I knew there was something special about this man when he began his studies at Greenville Seminary. Well, I had my eye on Lowell. Steve did too. But what we did was we I encouraged Lowell, he had an opportunity to do an internship under Peter Vandudeward. I said, this will be invaluable to you at Taylor's. So I encouraged him to take it with the expectation that if we really wanted to call him, that they would shorten the internship and let us do it. But as soon as he took it and got there, and that session, it kind of had its own mind back then about things. And they said, no, you're an intern here. You need to finish your internship before you can candidate in one of our mission works. We were disappointed. Then we had another man that on paper was the guy. No question about it. And they knew him. And he had preached there. He was a great guy. He came and candidated and it just fell flat. We didn't have any real explanation. It was hard to tell him. that we weren't going to call him. Very difficult. But we wouldn't have the work in Clarkston, Georgia, if the Lord had called him to Virginia Beach. I mean to, yeah, to Virginia Beach. I'm trying to confuse myself a bit here. This remarkable thing that happened. And then about that time, Peter was able to get the session to say Lowell can candidate. One thing I remember about when Lowell came to Canada, I got so mad at him. We were going to be meeting, I was there for much of the time that he was there, we were going to be meeting on I think a Wednesday night for a Bible study, a meal first with some of the families and then a Bible study with everybody and a Q&A. And I said, you need to get there early. Because you need to really meet the host family and get to know them. And he was late. And I was waiting. I was kind of pacing around a little bit. And he and May were late getting there. And when I saw him coming up, I opened the door, the front door, and he looked at me and he said, I've got a good explanation. And what happened was he took me aside. Before they were going to leave and come and get there in plenty of time, his wife had taken the kids down to a little park at the end of the street so the kids could play on this, you know, the equipment that was there. And there was a woman there sitting by herself. And May engaged in conversation with this woman. The woman's heart was broken. She professed to be a Christian. She was struggling. She opened up to May. And Lowell's gonna come pick him up, and they were gonna go. Lowell drives up. He can tell by May's posture something serious is going on. So he just sat there in the car. And then May texts him, I need you. He got out of the car and he goes over there and gently with his wife, ministers the gospel to this woman and invites her. and her daughter, who was getting music lessons across the street, that's why she was in the park, to come to the meal and come to the Bible study. And they did. I said, this is the guy we need right here, right now. This is the most important An important night for him in terms of his call, what's more important is that soul. That broken soul in that place. And so Lowell became the pastor and the church rapidly grew. under Lowell's ministry. And with that, we were talking about this a bit last night, Jeremy, a lot of pastoral issues, a lot of people came from different traditions, different broad evangelical backgrounds, a lot of marital issues, family issues, struggles with kids, that some of our folks don't have some of those issues as much because the way they disciple their families within the life of the churches. But the church grew rapidly. And one of the things that we said to Lowell early on, Steve and I, this needs to be a church planning church. There's a one and a half million people in this Tidewater region. This is one church. There needs to be 10 churches here eventually. Yes, there's PCAs there. There are other faithful churches that are in the Tidewater region, but not nearly enough to reach the people that are there, where over 60% of them are unchurched. And Lowell never forgot it. So an opportunity came up to pursue a plant in Yorktown. And at that time, Reformation was still a church, was still a mission work. It wasn't an organized congregation. It's planning a daughter church before it's even an organized congregation in Yorktown, Virginia. And that work is beginning to thrive now under Matt Walker's labors there, who's been called his organizing pastor. And then they realized a good number of the people that had come into the church lived in the Sulfic area, were driving 30, 45 minutes, some an hour to come to Virginia Beach to the church. And so what did they do? They said, well, maybe we should plant in the Sulfic area. And they were shocked at how many came to the first informational meeting. There were over 50. And so we started a Bible study on Sunday afternoons. And I would go preach in Yorktown on Sunday morning. They would give me something to take with me. I would eat my lunch and drive from there over to Suffolk to do a Sunday afternoon Bible study there. And I would be there and there'd be 50 people in the room. About two-thirds of them kids. Sitting on the floor all at my feet. It was just an extraordinary thing to see. I took Charles Biggs when he first became RHM at Mid-Atlantic. He said, I want to follow you around one weekend. I said, you can follow me around on a weekend when I'm up in the Tidewater area. And so he came with me and we went to Yorktown and then he came with me to the Bible study. Then we went and spent the night at Pete Hurst's home in Yorktown and Pete was great with Charles. Then we went over to Short Pump and had an informational meeting there that began the work that's now in Short Pump in West Richmond. Charles and I together with the group of people that were there on Monday. But I remember at that Bible study, I've got seven minutes to tell you about an hour's worth of story, but I can do it. I remember at a Bible study, at that Bible study when Charles was there. Charles was sitting on the other side. I was sitting here. There was about 15 kids on the floor in front of us. And I said, I did the Bible study. And I said, let's end with prayer and pray for God to plant a church here. And I said, I'll start. Charles, will you end? And he said, yes. And so I prayed, and then a couple of the adults sort of tentatively prayed, and then one of the kids started praying, and another, and another, and another, and another, pleading with God to plant a church. Children on their knees, praying for God to plant a church. I looked up and Charles had, when he finished praying, he had tears running down his face. You see, God was at work. And now we have a work there. John Nyman is the church planter there. And let me say this too. Satan is coming against these works in ways like I've never seen. Because Satan tries to destroy what Christ builds. But he can't. He's already defeated. The cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The head of the serpent is bruised and we need to recognize that in our ministry. And we're seeing that in the Tidewater region in these three churches. Now, how the Lord made provision there. It took a while, I remember, before you guys got this place. Y'all were in the Seventh-day Adventist building. I visited there. Y'all were in a storefront. Two or three different things that went on different times. It seemed like even with the larger congregation as it was growing in Virginia Beach, they never had a home. And they would go from this to this to this. They went to a Seventh-day Adventist building and lost some families over going to a Seventh-day Adventist building. You kind of know how those discussions go as well. I didn't agree with that, but they lost them. I agreed with them meeting there. I didn't agree with the families that left. But some of the issues arose over some of those kinds of things. You know, where are they going to meet? Is the Lord going to give them a permanent home and place to facilitate the ministry of the church? And I remember at one point we were past the point of return, being able to return in the sulphur work. They had an opportunity to buy a building, but a good building. But could they buy the building and lose those families for the sulphate work and still pay for the building? You know what they decided to do? We're not gonna buy the building. The church plant is more important. We're not going to buy the building. So what did God do? He gave them. The CRC Church on Ocean View, a block from the beach. Beautiful facility. It's an older facility. Very suitable facility. CRC Church had been there for years, was struggling, was dying. And Lowell had established a relationship with the pastor there and some of the members that were there. a warm relationship. Shortly before Lowell left for Metanoia Ministries to be the executive director of the prison ministry, he got a call, said, we're going to close the church and we want to give you the building. We want the ministry of the gospel to continue here. We couldn't believe it. In Norfolk, just across the line from Virginia Beach, And then Lowell was gone. We didn't have a pastor. We had one ruling elder, feet on the ground, Nate Baker. And we took time. to assimilate the CRC congregation, to give them time to really thoughtfully vote what they were gonna do with their building. We worshiped there from February until June, together as two congregations. And they had maybe 15 people that were left in the CRC. And at the end of that time, they voted to donate The building, Luckstock and Beryl, and 12 of them petitioned to become members of the Reformation Presbyterian Church, now in Ocean View. The Lord does extraordinary things. The enemy fights hard. We know that, don't we? but he cannot win because Christ has conquered. And that's the power of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I had three to tell you. I told you two. I'll save the other one and give an abbreviated version of that when I do the current report, because it's a current work in Sunday school tomorrow. But I wanted to provoke you to rejoice. It's seeing what God has done in sister congregations to you in the regional church. And I could go down the list and have 15 other stories to tell of what God's done. Ready to pray? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your work. Lord Jesus, you said you would build your church upon the foundation of the apostolic confession and witness. and the office of apostle and prophet and you have laid that foundation and you're building your church and Lord we trust you to build the church with the means that you have provided. Father we thank you that at least to this date you've kept our church from forgetting the power of the means that you have given to your church to advance the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Lord, we pray that you would continue to advance your manifest reign and the expansion of your church until the coming of the Lord Jesus. And we cry out, come quickly, Lord Jesus. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.