An Update on Ministry with Vintage Church

It’s been a busy month and a half since I last updated everyone on my ministry at Vintage Church. There are three things in particular I want to share with you. First, on August 20th I had the honor and privilege to by ordained into the Gospel ministry and be enlisted as Vintage Church’s Theology & Training Pastor. Two of my best friends and fellow pastors, Rob Wilton and Matt Brichetto, along with Dr. Archie England, one of my Old Testament professors at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, was a part of my ordination. It was an awesome time. My ordination was a great reminder of the honor and heavy responsibility of pastoring Christ’s church. Dr. England gave Rachel and I a personal charge while Rob gave a charge to the church. There was no doubt I was stressed during my ordination council, but the whole day was more encouraging than anything else. I’m thankful to be surrounded by a great team of pastors, an awesome staff, and such an encouraging church.

I’ve also been sharing with you about our big discipleship push for this fall. Well, on Saturday we began that push with our leaders. This journey will take us through November. It’s going to be an awesome time of discipleship, training, and equipping. I can’t share a whole lot about this since it has yet to be introduced to the rest of the church, but I’m looking forward to our leaders growing in Christ and ultimately our church growing in Christ.

Finally, yesterday marked the launch of our Vintage Metairie campus. In January of this year Highland Baptist Church voted to merge with Vintage Church. Since then we have been renovating the building, sending out community groups throughout Metairie, and praying for the community. It’s been a long, hard journey but yesterday we publicly launched the campus to the surrounding community. Rather than have our normal four gatherings throughout the city, we had one combined gathering at our new Metairie location. There were probably 350+ people in attendance. It was incredible. Five people were baptized. I had the awesome privilege of baptizing my wife, Rachel.

This is a story in and of itself that some of you might not be aware of so I’ll briefly share it. Ever since we have been married Rachel has struggled with assurance of her salvation. Although she was told she was saved at 7 years old she can’t remember making that decision. Every time she has struggled in her salvation I have always encouraged her to search the Scriptures for assurance. I’ve shared “if you are saved God will give you assurance through his Word.” Well, finally one Sunday morning after hours of prayer and Scripture reading she came to me and said “Jesus saved me today.” After talking for several minutes Rachel shared with me that God showed her that she was never really saved. She knew of the Truth but had not fully embraced it. So she wanted to publicly proclaim her faith in Jesus Christ through believer’s baptism. It was an awesome experience getting to baptize my own wife. Here is a video one of our worship leaders made on her phone of Rachel’s baptism.

It was just incredible to see God move in Metairie yesterday. There’s more to experience and I’m looking forward to being a part of God’s work in New Orleans and Metairie. Thank you for your continued prayer and support. I hope through words, pictures, and videos you can see what you are helping accomplish. Through your prayers and financial support God is working in this city. Lives are changing for the glory of God. Remember you and others can continue to support my ministry through Vintage Church with your prayers, financial support, and trips to New Orleans. Thanks again. I can’t wait to share with you what God is going to do next month.