The church voted on April 21 to call Laurel Bisset as Interim Minister for Children for one year beginning July 1. On April 24 the church voted to call Dan Lehn as Business Administrator beginning May 16. We have now received letters of acceptance from both Laurel and Dan.

Laurel writes,

After much prayer and counsel, I accept the call to serve as interim Minister for Children at Bethlehem Baptist Church. . . It has been exciting to see God’s hand throughout the selection process and now to sense Him confirming this decision. I am very excited about the privilege to serve, the opportunity to learn and grow, and the challenge to equip our children and families with a vision of the God they serve.

I would appreciate your prayers as I begin making the transition from Chapel Hill to Bethlehem …

Dan writes,

Colleen and I are very excited and humbled to have the opportunity to work on the Bethlehem staff, and I accept this call. We are very sobered by the shortness of life, and the imminence of death’s door ready at any time to open; and we want so much to be wise, strategic and simple in the decisions we make on how to spend our vapor [James 4:14]. We believe this is a good choice and one that will profit us for God. I look forward to growing in my character, as I will be challenged in many new ways. I am eager to work very hard to do the best job I can, and hopefully be of benefit to the kingdom work at Bethlehem.

I regard the church’s vote and these letters of acceptance as wonderful answers to prayer. Both of these people are coming on board at compensation significantly under the people they are replacing. Both are leaving very responsible and successful positions. Both are utterly devoted to the radical kind of Christianity that we strive for so earnestly on the staff. Both have a manifest servant heart and a zeal to work with all their might. Laurel signed her letter simply, “Your servant.” Both see their roles in the larger strategic dimension of Christ’s global purposes. Dan signed his letter, “Working toward closure.” Which means, toward the closure of the final era of frontier missions and the reaching of all the remaining unreached peoples.

I am overwhelmed with the goodness of God to me and to this church year after year in bringing us the kind of people who will not let the vision of radical, God-centered, Bible-saturated, mission-oriented, prayer-supported wartime Christianity die. This is what makes the staff vital and unified. I praise God that it is being preserved.

“Your servant,” “working for closure,”

Pastor John