I want to congratulate two of our pastors, Rev. Mark Banda and Rev. Peter Orozco, on outstanding two-year pastoral reviews at our Hurst Pursuit and Ft. Worth River Oaks churches (respectively). Each of these fine pastors is deeply loved and appreciated by their church boards and congregations!
Also, we are prayerfully supporting two of our pastoral couples who have been granted well-deserved sabbaticals this summer...Chuck and Michelle Gibson (Post) and Steve and Rhonda Swanson (Dumas). I am very grateful for the boards and leadership of these two gracious congregations as they are supporting their pastors during these times of renewal.
One of the great blessings of my ministry is visiting our congregations. I am always open to invitation and try to accommodate each one. This past Sunday, I was at Fort Worth Sobre de la Roca (Church on the Rock) with pastor Luis Maldonado and his wife Alma. Ana Carrier met me there and interpreted my sermon into Spanish. Church on the Rock has a wonderful ministry in their neighborhood, just a few blocks north of Downtown Ft. Worth. They have made great renovations on their building and parking lot. The congregation was dynamic, filled with young families! While there, I was able to present Pastor Maldonado with a special certificate recognizing many years of faithful 100% payments of all denominational, district, and university allocations! Luis works full time for a security company, and yet, amazingly has time and energy to lead his flock in a very outstanding and powerful way. We are proud to be associated with Pastor Luis and Alma and their wonderful people!
PALCON is just around the corner (
June 25-27) at SNU. Registration for WT is looking strong. There are several great speakers lined up but I am especially enthused about the Kevin Harney seminar on organic church strategies for evangelism. Many have traveled far and spent $5-600 for this seminar, yet it is fully covered in the cost of PALCON. I encourage you to plan to participate. Please note that Pastor Harney's seminar
begins at 3:00 on Monday afternoon. You'll need to plan to arrive early. Also, there are still full scholarships available for our bi-vocational pastors. Contact Doris Betts at
405-491-6314
for scholarship information. CLICK HERE for full PALCON information.
I want to celebrate with our wonderful office manager, Ana Carrier, the exciting news that she and her husband, Jon, are expecting their third child, which will be born this autumn. Ana will be stepping down from her work in the district office in early June. I am pleased for Ana and Jon that she will be able to stay home during the last months of her pregnancy and after the baby comes... however, she will be deeply missed at the district office. We all wish her the very best and we thank her for her devoted service to our district!
I am pleased to announce that our former office manager, Vania Alvarez, will be returning as interim office manager
on June 3rd. Vania served in our office until about five years ago, when she married and moved to Mercedes, Texas, as a youth pastor. Now, she and her husband, Josh, are back in the Metro. She knows the district well and will do a great job for us, before having to return to her teaching job in September. Please join me in prayer as we seek our new permanent office manager.
Finally, it was great to be at NTS and participate in their commencement recently. Special congratulations to Pastor Lucy Kimani, our new associate at Ft. Worth CrossPoint who received her Masters Degree that day! I want to congratulate each of these WT district pastors' kids (and a wife!) who graduated this spring. I am very proud of each of you!
Allen Dunlap - SNU
Amanda Anderson - SNU
Cailyn Pepper - Nocona High School
Caleb Hughes - Wichita Falls Rider High School
Chery Thang - Richland High School
Erika Mora - Tarrant County College
Jason Patalano - Dumas High School
Norman Kessell - Homeschool
Steve Pettit - Newman Academy
Susana Thang - Richland High School
Thiery Zachary - Lubbock Cooper High School
David Lee - Martin High School
Rebekah Sommers - Nazarene Christian Academy
For you and with you,
Pastor David Downs
As I write this, members of our District Disaster Response Team under the leadership of Todd and Raqui Forrest are in Puerto Rico. Please remember them in your prayers. Also, members of our District Work and Witness team are serving now in Papua New Guinea. We are so very grateful for these two groups as they serve the Lord and represent the WT district family.
