Our Trip to Clovis

Here’s a quick overview of our visit to First Baptist Church or Clovis (FBCC) this past weekend. We had a really good visit. The church treated us like royalty not only flying us down but renting us a car, putting us up in a nice hotel, feeding us tons of wonderful food and on and on.

Matthew flew down Thursday afternoon and spent the evening hanging out with his friend Nick (the youth pastor at FBCC) and a bunch of high school students who come over for Bible Study every Thursday night. Friday morning he got a chance to tour the church and get to know most of the staff in an informal setting and over lunch. Friday afternoon Emily flew down and that night the Sr. Pastor and his wife took us both out to dinner where we had a chance to get to know each other a bit.

The folks at FBCC were thoughtful enough to keep most of our Saturday free so we could have some time for ourselves. We took advantage of the opportunity to meet Emily's immediate family in Turlock (halfway between Roseville and Clovis) for lunch and a short visit. Then Saturday night we had pizza with the staff and some of the church board members and had a chance to answer questions on a whole range of topics.

Sunday we got to church early enough for Emily to get a quick tour and then attended the first service. Between services we met briefly with a couple board members who couldn't make it Saturday so we could answer their questions and then we got to hear our friend Nick speak at the youth service which runs concurrently with the second main Sunday service. After all of that the Sr. Pastor took us out for one last fabulous meal and we all had a chance to ask a few more questions and offer some impressions in a kind of debriefing session.

We don't expect to hear anything for at least a couple of weeks which gives us plenty of time to continue to process our experience and get whatever insight we can about this decision from people that we know and trust. Of course we don't even know if we will have a decision to make, there is no guarantee they will make us an offer but so far we're feeling pretty positive about the possibility of joining this church if they do. It is a healthy and growing church and seems to have some needs that fit Matthew's skills and interests. We continue to appreciate your prayers for wisdom for both us and the leaders of FBCC in considering this possibility.