Anchored in Christ

I still remember my first phone call in 2013 with Cory, my now boss at WordPartners (formerly Leadership Resources). I sat in the offices at Unlocking the Bible in Barrington, Illinois, where I had done my seminary internship and gotten to know Cory and the WordPartners organization.

Moving to WordPartners from Unlocking the Bible sekemed like a natural fit. I would be able to do online communications, teach and preach the Bible, and even travel to Ecuador, the country I studied abroad in while in college! In the past several years, God has grown the ministry of WordPartners in unbelievable ways and grown me as a believer, a teacher, preacher, writer, and Spanish-speaker.

Fast forward to February 2021. My former boss/mentor at Unlocking the Bible (UTB) reached out to grab coffee together. I told my wife, “Tim is going to offer me a job and I’m going to politely tell him I’m not interested.” I was right about my first prediction and wrong about the second. My initial response to hearing about the position was, I wish I had 48 hours in a day to serve at WordPartners and UTB!

But then the reality began to sink in: I had to choose one of the two great opportunities. Over the next several weeks, Jazlynn and I prayed about the opportunity, and we realized God was leading me to accept the position at Unlocking the Bible.

What I’ll Be Doing

Unlocking the Bible has a training program called Equip for gospel ministers (often seminary students) that serves like a bridge from seminary to the church. It is called Equip and has two arms, Momentum (for those aspiring to vocational ministry), and Leverage (for lay leaders). Equip focuses on equipping students in the Life, Skills, and Doctrine needed for gospel ministry.

When COVID hit, Colin Smith and the UTB team decided to offer the training via Zoom to whoever was interested – and they were overwhelmed with the response from all over the world. The UTB team wondered, What might it look like if we create an online training platform to reach people all over the world with this training? The question then became, Who would manage this project? God’s answer became clear: I was the guy.

My job will be to take Equip online: marketing, writing, teaching, facilitating, training, and a host of other responsibilities. We hope to get this training into other language groups as well, and much of what I’ve learned and connections I’ve made in my time at WordPartners will be useful. (I’m eager to get Equip going in Spanish as well!)

What I’ll Be Leaving

By God’s grace, the WordPartners Communications team just finished launching the new WordPartners name and website – WordPartners.org – on March 1. This means we just hit a big goal and were just starting to regroup for the year ahead. It wouldn’t make sense to plan a lot if I’m not going to be in the picture. Pray for my colleagues who have a lot more work on their plates!

I will also be leaving WordPartners’ work in Latin America. The good news that lessens the sting of my departure is that we have raised up graduates of our training who are capable of passing the training on to others (including almost a dozen men in Ecuador, six as “official” training partners). I was really excited about the future of training in Mexico City and a potential opportunity in the Dominican Republic, but am satisfied knowing I could help set up those training groups and that our team will have a great impact there.

Partnership

First of all, I want to thank all of you who partnered with me financially or in prayer over these seven years! God truly has done amazing things, and He will continue to do great things through the people we have raised up who are leading training.

One helpful feature of the new job at Unlocking the Bible is that I will no longer have to raise support. But in case you did want to continue partnering with an impactful gospel ministry, here are two options:

• Let me encourage you to keep partnering with WordPartners. Christ is building His church in amazing ways as pastors are equipped to preach the Word.
• You can also partner with my wife Jazlynn and me in the ministry she started called Maker Girls By Design. You can learn more about this evangelistic girls club that we started in the Palatine, Illinois, area: http://www.makergirlsbydesign.com/story.

I’m thankful for the Lord’s grace and guidance in this process!

Prayer Requests

• Pray that this transition goes smoothly for us and that I can hit the ground running at Unlocking the Bible. Pray as well that God would use the Equip program to bless many.
• Pray for the WordPartners team as they regroup and plan ministry without me. And continue to pray for training partners in Latin America to equip many!