Matt & Melissa Menzel
Just over two years ago God began to stir unrelentingly in the hearts of Melissa and I. We were very comfortable in the life we were living and enjoying many good things as well as being involved in our local congregation. I had my ticket in carpentry but was, at that time, managing a mobile storage company in the Okanagan. Things were going well except for the nagging suspicion that God wants to do something and we’re not sure how to get on board. So we began to pray. We prayed that God would change anything he desired in our lives in order that we could be used more effectively by him as we seek to Glorify his name. God answers some prayers swiftly!
About two weeks later I was in the hospital and I had to leave my job indefinitely, we had to leave our home, and everything changed. We began walking a road that neither Melissa or I had ever imagined for ourselves, but God was not silent. He began to call us louder. He began to stir up in my mind a picture of His bride, the church. Before long I could imagine doing nothing other than giving my life to reach a lost world for Jesus and invite those who claim His beautiful name to join me in becoming His disciples. We began to feel the call to plant a church, but we didn’t know what that meant. So we went to an ACTS 29 Bootcamp where there was a lot of light shed on our specific calling. Fortunately we had many men around us at home who also recognized our calling and were able to plug us in to various opportunities to explore where God was leading us.
This led us to Church Planting BC where there was an instant connection felt in the hearts of my wife and I. Having been interviewed and through assessment we are now bearing down on the work laid before us. There is much more preparation that needs to happen but we see clearly that this is not the work of one organization or another, this is, in fact God’s children supporting each other and working together to fulfill the task at hand:
“Go therefore and make disciples of al nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
This is our life’s calling. Unfortunately this is not a task which is within our power to accomplish. The authority belongs to Jesus alone who calls men and builds his church. So pray for us as we try to prepare for this task, pray that we will bend and stretch and crush well as Jesus moves in and through us to make his bride glorious!
Matt & Melissa
