Sivulka Family
For the last six weeks, we’ve been privileged to have Greg Sivulka leading our worship on Sunday mornings. Many of you have had the chance to speak with him, or his wife, Jelena, or one of their kids: Benjamin, Sara, or Hana. If not, I hope at least that you’ve been able to see through our worship services that Greg is a man who deeply loves the Lord and is committed to intentionally follow him as a disciple. Besides that, God has given Greg some great gifts as a musician and as a worship leader. Mostly, I hope you notice that it’s no accident that God brought Greg here to our church just as we were saying our farewells to Nate Carter, who was a wonderful Worship Pastor for us for over five years. Even before Nate resigned, God was already moving to bring this new gift to our church.
Through the last few months, we’ve been exploring the possibility of bringing Greg on our staff as our Worship Pastor. You may not know that Greg has years of church experience in Serbia, not only in leading worship and directing worship teams, but also in all the other things pastors do: preaching, pastoring, counseling, evangelism, etc. Now our church has had the opportunity to get to know them and they’ve had the opportunity to get to know us as a church. It seems like a great fit. And, after an official invitation, Greg has agreed to serve as our Worship Pastor.
Most of you know that 18 months ago, in order to adjust to a sudden and significant drop in contributions, we had to cut our budget in half, letting half our staff go and pulling back on many of our other expenses. Those initial measures allowed us to stop the severe bleeding, but that wasn’t enough to completely solve the problem. We’ve anticipated that further cuts would be necessary. Now, as we approach (what we hope will be) a settlement with the Receiver, we’ll probably need to lower our budget even further.
Once again, God knew in advance exactly when and how all this would take place. As God led Nate to relocate closer to family, it opened up the opportunity to make budget changes without hurting Nate. As God led Greg to relocate to Dallas, that provided us with a Worship Pastor willing to work with us through our current financial realities. Here’s one great example of that: Greg and Jelena don’t know how long they will be living in Dallas. It may be a year. It may be longer. But they didn’t come here to take a job at FBCA. This is a temporary “duty station” for them, not a career move. So they are willing to flex with all our unknowns about the future.
Think about it. If we had initiated a world-wide search to try to find a capable Worship Pastor who truly loved God, AND was committed to intentional discipleship, AND fit the culture of our church, AND was willing to come with our current budget issues, AND was flexible about his future with us, AND was an experienced pastor, AND (optional) had a passion for Serbia, our church’s target mission field, spoke Serbian and had lived in Serbia for years —I wonder how long it would have taken us to find one, if we ever did. And yet, even before Nate resigned, God took me on a trip to Serbia (last May) to introduce me to just the right person at just the right time. That’s our God. That’s what he does.
If you haven’t had a chance yet to meet Greg or Jelena, don’t cheat yourself out of a great thing. While you’re introducing yourself, welcome them to our church family, would you? We are going to be enriched (and have already been!) by their presence.
To contact Greg or any of our pastors or elders, click here.
