Elder Response to Pastor John's Upcoming Leave

Bethlehem family,

On behalf of the Council of Elders, we want you to know that we deeply support Pastor John and his wife, Noël, both now and in this season ahead. They have been a remarkable gift to us as a church for almost 30 years now. We are unspeakably thankful to God for their seemingly untiring ministry among us.

As John recently laid bare his heart to us, as he has done so for you today, we resonated with his transparency and humility, as well as his longings for the upcoming season. We are grateful for his broken-heartedness and his boldness. It’s not easy to have your preaching pastor away for 8 months—know that we have wrestled much with this decision. But along with John and Noël, we are hopefully expectant for the months before us.

As a Council, we’re also searching our own hearts for ways in which we may be at fault. In all our hopefulness about the rest of this year and beyond, many of us feel the weight of John’s leave, the circumstances leading up to it, and our possible part in it.  Please pray for us as we search our hearts, just as we all pray for John and Noël during their time away.

Along with the Pipers, we too are thinking of the days ahead as a kind of relaunch for their final season of ministry among us. We are trusting that God will use the season ahead when they are out of public ministry for their good and for the good of our church body.

We are already at work on a preaching plan for May through December. We’ll be eager to say more about that in the coming weeks.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.—Ephesians 3:20–21