“Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.” -- Acts 13:1-3
The Columbia Church of Christ has been blessed by God through the years to be led by many strong and faithful leaders. Three years ago, JP and Pat Tynes were called away to lead the Orlando Church of Christ and we sent them off with tears but with our blessing. Since that time, we have prayerfully and carefully sought God’s will as to who should serve as the next lead evangelist of the church. Through many prayers, conversations and much advice from leaders throughout our fellowship, we became convinced it was God’s will to call Scott and Thereasa Kirkpatrick to assume the role of lead evangelist and women’s ministry leader for the Columbia Church of Christ. Scott and Thereasa come to us most recently from leading our sister church in Greenville, SC, where God used them powerfully in seeing that church grow from less than 40 members to over 90 in the last two and a half years. Prior to their time in Greenville, Scott and Thereasa were both converted and went into the ministry in Atlanta and served in various ministries there over the last 12 years. Scott is widely known and respected as a champion of both unity and diversity. He has been instrumental in building up our partnership of churches in the Southeast US and currently serves as the chair of the Southeast Partnership Team.We are thankful to God for blessing the Columbia church with a diverse leadership team, a strong eldership and ministry staff and now with a new and experienced lead evangelist to lead the charge. We recently celebrated as Zack Wise was appointed as our newest elder, giving us four men now serving in that capacity. The ministry in Columbia has been blessed over the last several years even as we searched for a new lead evangelist. After eight years of modest but consistent growth, the Columbia church today is just a few baptisms away from the largest membership in our history and our weekly offerings are already the largest they have ever been. Also in July, Lord willing, David and Lisa Laing will move to Myrtle Beach to lead the church planting to that city, the seventh time God has used men and women from the Columbia church to plant a church in a new city. Please pray for us as we are also currently searching for other new couples to join our SC leadership team to help us fulfill our 2020 plan of growing to 10 churches in the state by 2020 – our ‘10 By 20’ Vision!
The Kirkpatricks have three beautiful young girls, London, Sydney and Asia. We welcome the whole family to Columbia and look forward to seeing God use them to continue to preach the Word and build up His kingdom. And to God be the Glory!
Shared from the Columbia Church of Christ.