Planting Seven Mile Road and Preaching at St. Marks

For about five months now, the folks at Seven Mile Road stopped meeting in homes and have been meeting in a classroom at St. Marks Church – a church here in Northeast Philadelphia. St. Marks is predominantly an elderly congregation. At the turn of the last century, St. Marks had a large, thriving church with the largest Sunday School in Philadelphia. Today, the church is facing some difficult decisions and is in a major season of transition. Further, their pastor (who has been a friend to 7MR) is retiring at the end of this month adding to the uncertainty regarding the future.

As you can imagine, uncertainty for St. Marks meant some uncertainty for Seven Mile Road – at least in terms of whether we would continue to meet in that space. One of the most encouraging things about this whole deal was the resoluteness of the folks on our team. Nobody panicked. Nobody worried. Nobody got angry. Nobody gave up. Instead, all the time, people talked about not worrying, and trusting God, and believing that God would provide.

And He has.

This last week, St. Marks Church asked if I would fill their pulpit from July till December. I’m sure there’s plenty of details to work out as we go, but here’s the basic deal. Seven Mile Road will continue to plant out of the space at St. Marks for the next six months. In exchange for letting us freely use the property for worship and missional endeavors, we’ll be doing work like painting their classrooms and I’ll be preaching at their service.

What happens after December? I don’t know yet. But we’re trying to walk through doors as the Lord opens them and trust that He’ll keep leading the way.

You can praise God with us. Who knows what the Lord will do over the next six months? I’m excited about planting Seven Mile Road. I’m excited for the missional potential the property at St. Marks affords. Preaching at St. Marks has become an unexpected but welcomed part of that call.

You can also pray for us. Pray that God would empower me for this task and that it would not be done at the expense of my wife, my family, my joy, or the church that God has called me to plant. Pray for our team that we would be unified and that being at St. Marks for six more months would give us a season to grow and mature. And pray for the people of St. Marks. Pray that this coming season would be a blessing for them and that whatever they decide to do afterwards would be for the glory of God and the advancement of His Kingdom.