Living the Call-Apart

Dear Worshippers,

Here is the text on my resignation as read on Sunday morning, December 7. 2008.

God’s Revealing

Our Worship Ministries exist
to nurture worship as a lifestyle
characterized by sincere responses to God’s self-revelations.

That is the vision the Lord gave for this ministry upon my arrival early in 2003. I have endeavored to live that before you and with you over the last nearly six years. The Lord has shown Himself on numerous occasions and we have responded together. What a privilege it has been to lead you in each of those moments.

These last few months the Lord has shown me something about Himself and His purposes for me. Those of you who have been reading my Tuesday Tunings know that I have been thinking about talents and investments. I said that if we make investments into our talents they become strengths. I challenged the readers to discover their talents and invest in them.

As I was talking and teaching about this, I was experiencing it as well. The Lord was leading me into some new and different challenge for me to serve with the talents He has given me and to grow further in the journey He has laid out for me. He began stirring within me a desire for some change, either internally or externally.

The Lord was cultivating in me a desire to be exceptional in the exercising of my talents for His glory. He began this work in me through a number of different circumstances, as He often does, but it took me a while to perceive what He was doing. I even denied it for a time, trying to ignore it or at least its implications, but once I was willing to open my eyes to see the hand of the Lord, I had to respond in obedience.

My Response

I have accepted the call to serve as the Pastor of Worship of North Mar Church of the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Warren, Ohio. This letter serves as my resignation of my duties here effective January 15, 2009. Though sad about leaving Morgantown, I am excited about the prospects for ministry in a place I believe the Lord has prepared me for and prepared for me. I believe the next set of good works prepared in advance for me to do [Ephesians 2:10] are in another place.

As the Lord wills, I plan to begin in Ohio the beginning of February. I appreciate your prayers through this time of transition as I anticipate that it will not be easy to leave a place and a people that are so dear to me. Though not always easy, when the Lord shows Himself, His purposes and His ways we must then choose to respond. A life of worship is made up of many choices to respond in ways that allow the Lord to reveal Himself. I pray He has and will continue to enable me to make such choices to characterize my life.

In closing, I want to thank you for the opportunity to serve you and this body for the glory of Christ. I pray God’s clear leading as you move forward through this transition. I trust Him for kingdom advance through the church that sent me once, and now must release me again.

Thank you and may the Lord Jesus Christ continue to reveal Himself to you, and give you the grace, wisdom and courage to respond…in worship.

In Christ,

Pastor Scott