My Commitment To Pastoring Elevate Church…

Dearest Brothers And Sisters of Elevate Church~

In light of your warm embrace of me and my family as well as the Holy Spirit’s clear and faithful guidance of the Board and Search Team over many months, it is with excitement, joy, and humility that I accept your call to become the pastor of Elevate Church and part of this local church family. 

Please allow me to remind you that my role as your pastor does not afford me the right to be esteemed and elevated by you; rather, my role as your pastor blesses me with the privilege and responsibility to serve and to shepherd you, to lay myself down for your benefit and pour myself out as a drink offering on your behalf that you might continue to

-know the LORD Almighty more deeply,
-love Him more purely,
-serve Him more faithfully,
-worship Him more genuinely,
-enjoy Him more thoroughly,
-and love all people more sacrificially.

Thus, in view of the above goal of guiding us to a richer intimacy with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I make the following commitments to each of you individually and to Elevate Church corporately:

• I commit to consistently guiding us to an active faith in Jesus Christ alone through my prayers, preaching, and presence in your daily lives (1 Corinthians 3:10-15);
• I commit to practicing what I preach, to asking no more and no less of you each week than I ask of myself each day (James 1:22);
• I commit to sacrificially honoring my wife and children each day, for I cannot possibly manage God’s house if I cannot manage my own (1 Timothy 3:1-5);
• I commit to learning from each of you, from practical matters like fishing and farming to spiritual practices like prayer and worship (Proverbs 4:1-9);
• I commit to walking with you through your victories and defeats, through your joy and your pain, through your sunshine and your storms (Galatians 6:2);
• I commit to apologizing genuinely/repentantly to you if I hurt, offend, or mistreat you in any way (Matthew 5:22-24);
• I commit to sharing with you God’s Word clearly and accurately, serving up all that God has said and not simply the portions we want to hear (2 Timothy 4:1-5);
• I commit to striving for the fruitfulness not only of Elevate Church but also of Mankato/North Mankato and Blue Earth & Nicollet counties (Jeremiah 29:7).

Thank you again for your trust, love, support, prayers, and friendship. I am more than excited and honored to be part of what God is doing in and through His Elevate Church family and in Mankato for His glory!

“They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of His splendor” (Isaiah 61:3b NIV1984).

Your Brother, Friend, Servant, And Pastor~