This is the fifty-third update for the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief fund for the Lake Pontchartrain North Shore. This includes the Covington, Abita Springs, Mandeville, Slidell, and New Orleans, Louisiana.

Pastor Sprague has sent the following message concerning the ministry of Trinity Evangelical Free Church of Covington, LA and hurricane relief.

Urgent Request for Prayer and Help for Trinity Church

I am convinced that Trinity Church is where it is today after Katrina because of the prayers of the people of God, like you! We may be weak, limping and weary, but we are advancing in the cause of Christ and experiencing the sufficiency of His grace for teams, provisions, encouragement, and fruitfulness.

I now need for you to pray for a very urgent need for four staff positions to be filled. During the aftermath of Katrina, I rejoiced that God used the Trinity staff in an extraordinary way. The dedication, camaraderie, zeal, heart, and dependence on Jesus were the best I have ever seen. I tremendously enjoyed my friends on my staff. Many of you have been part of Trinity or Compassion teams and know the wonderful staff members I am talking about.

God, in His wisdom however, has taken several staff members to new mission fields:

• Steve Olsen, our Associate Pastor of Adult Ministries, has just accepted a Senior Pastor position in a church just outside of Houston.
• Joycelyn Romero, our Operations Director, secretary, and “everything else” leader has relocated to Austin, Texas with her family.
• Barbara Oden, our Bookkeeper, has relocated to Memphis, because of some incredible opportunities in her adventure of faith.
• Suzanne Cole, our part-time Children’s Director, has graciously stepped out of her position to allow a full-time pastor or director to lead our thriving children’s ministry. Suzanne felt led by Jesus to do this and is still very active helping us get into our new children’s building.

I love each of these people and miss each one. They are choice servants in God’s Kingdom (I guess Texas must be a bigger mission field than Louisiana, for God to move so many over there!!!).

Would you pray for the following four positions to be filled and pass the word to potential applicants to send us a resume? You may know of some seminary students graduating, pastors who are looking for a change or a talented lay person who would be perfect for the job.

1. Associate Pastor of Adult Ministries

Trinity Church is a growing, vibrant, grace-centered, Evangelical Free Church of about 700 Christ-followers. The candidate must love Jesus and be a strong leader who is able to lead, train, and motivate volunteers and oversee a wide array of adult ministries spanning small groups, men’s, women’s, discipleship and care. This family oriented community is located on the Northshore of Lake Ponchartrain, where you will find some of the best schools in the state. Better yet, we are experiencing revival, renewal, and an Acts 2 kind of experience in the aftermath of Katrina. A 15,000 square foot educational building will open in April. If you have been hearing the “still small voice” say “I’ve got a new adventure for you” please apply.

2. Pastor of Children’s Ministry

Trinity Church in Covington, LA, is a contemporary EFCA church with an average attendance of 700. Of this 700, 140 are children from birth through sixth grade. We are looking for a dynamic, creative, fun loving person who is passionate about Jesus and able to create environments that are irresistible to children and their parents. The ideal candidate must be able to cast vision, recruit, train and mobilize volunteer staff. A new $1.5 million dollar state of the art children’s building will open in April 2006.

3. Follow-up

This is a position of assimilation and care that will last over the next year or year and a half to follow-up spiritually on the hundreds of contacts Trinity Church and Compassion teams have had in the community in the aftermath of Katrina. This person will need to equip, envision, and raise-up teams to assist in the process of outreach, follow-up, care, and enfolding new people into the local church.

4. Operations/Bookkeeping

This person will handle bookkeeping, oversee building and grounds as well as interface with Compassion. We are praying whether this will be a full-time position or two part-time positions.

I preached yesterday on Joshua 14. Caleb at 85 years old said “I want to take on the giants in the hill country.” This faithful servant saw an opportunity not an obstacle, God, not the giants, and chose to walk by faith not fear. The result was Caleb entered into the Promised Land for the glory of God. At Trinity, we have giants to tackle, mountains to climb, and obstacles to overcome. We have had no other choice than to bet the farm on God. This is one more opportunity to see His provisions and boast in God’s faithfulness. Please pray and, send us qualified applicants, and I will keep you informed.

Betting the Farm on God,

Pastor Michael Sprague (2/20/06 8:22 PM CST”

As often follows in the aftermath of a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina, lives have been uprooted, and a way of life has passed forever. Trinity Church’s ministry has been like everything else in that area, it has been changed forever.

Pastor Sprague and Trinity Church are looking for staff people who have unique spiritual gifts which will help him lead the new phase of ministry for thier church. If you are such a person, and God is speaking to you about this ministry, you can reach the church by clicking here

In order to help those who need it so desperately, please consider a contribution to the combined efforts of this blog and Grace Community Chapel of St. Peters, MO, in raising money and volunteers for ministry teams to be sent to Trinity Evangelical Free Church in Covington, LA, to be distributed locally to the Lake Pontchartrain North Shore and New Orleans area. You will find detailed donation information by clicking here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 21st, 2006 at 10:42 am and is filed under Katrina North Shore Relief. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Tags: Hurricane Katrina, Katrina, New Orleans, North Shore, St. Tammany Parrish