Dear Friends,

Soften… Center… Listen… Respond…

Over the years God has used these four key words to significantly speak into our lives. Soft hearts that are centered on His word, coupled with listening and responsive hearts, have led us to believe that God has a new adventure in store for us.

For the past decade I have had the privilege of ministering as the worship pastor at Hopevale Church. Amy first began attending Hopevale as a teenager. We were married there, later raising and baptizing each of our four children within our church community. Two of our adult children celebrated their weddings at Hopevale, and it is where I helped officiate at my father’s funeral. The list could go on and on, emphasizing how much this church has meant to us. But with strong conviction, the result of much prayer, we believe that God is now asking us to leave Hopevale and take on a new assignment with The Navigators as the 20s Mission Leaders in Seattle, Washington.

Joe Maschhoff, the Navigators National Director, sent us this invitation:

I would like to formally invite you to be our 20s Mission Leader for Seattle. I mentioned that I am speaking on behalf of the U.S. Navigators. On a more personal level, I make this offer on behalf of the 20s Mission and on behalf of Bob and Ronda Adgate (Metro Mission National Director and good friends), Al Engler (Seattle Metro Leader), and Philip Gough (Collegiate Pac NW Regional Leader). All of us are in sync that this is our top priority to put in front of you. We also, very respectfully, have a sense that this offer needs to be put in front of you one more time. You have indicated an initial “no” to this offer and that the timing may not have been right when I first brought this up verbally in February. We would like to humbly ask you to reconsider.

We have reconsidered… and we trust, with all of our hearts, that we are responding to God’s whisper, an invitation to invest our remaining years in a disciple-making ministry.

Our focus will be on mentoring, training and discipling the next generation of leaders in one of the most unchurched and secular cities of our nation.  We count it as a privilege to be considered for this position. With our remaining years on this planet we want to give our lives away to Psalm 71.

Since my youth, O God, You have taught me,

and to this day I declare Your marvelous deeds.

Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, O God,

till I declare Your power to the next generation,

Your might to all who are to come.

We have been praying over this passage for years. We believe that at this strategic phase of life we can best invest ourselves in a disciple-making ministry for future next-generation leaders. We feel, along with the Navigators, that Seattle is a key sending city for the nations. And so we move forward, humbly on our knees, asking Him to use us for the nations.

Kirk and Amy