A new season

God is so good. I'm still amazed that He has provided such a unique and significant opportunity for our family to serve Him in New Orleans long-term. We are humbled at how He created this path for us yet excited and dependent on Him for our future. In many ways, it's more than we could have imagined. Below is the letter that Doug read to our church body this past Sunday morning.

January 25, 2009

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I am a New Orleanian. I was born here and this is where I expect to die one day. I’ve lived here my whole life apart from my time away for school, and even then, I ached to return. The Holy Spirit wooed me home seven years ago and I’ve never looked back. This city courses through my veins. It has become part of me.

I am also a Bereanite. I limped through the doors almost twenty years ago as a wounded little kid bleeding with the fresh wounds of a broken family. You took me in and literally changed the course of my life. I learned to fall in love with Jesus from you. I watched in awe as men and women opened the Scriptures and unleashed the very words of the Almighty. I’ve taken life-changing trips around the world with you by my side. I wept with you as we tried to grasp hold of the reality of broken levees.

So as a New Orleanian and a Bereanite, I come to you with exciting news. In the midst of our prayers asking God what is next for Berean and for New Orleans, God has opened a door.
In order to help us all understand the significance of what God is doing, let’s reflect on of a couple of facts.

First of all, we have always believed that the needs here in New Orleans are way beyond the capacity of one local body. For that reason, Berean has embraced a vision that dreams beyond filling our own pews. In words taken from our mission statement, we have always desired to be disciples who are “reproducing themselves in individuals and new churches in South Louisiana and in all the world.”

Secondly, God has somehow worked things out so that a small church on the Westbank has been able to multiply its efforts and impact the lives of hundreds of Eastbankers. When the opportunity came to host short-term mission teams in response to Katrina, we unhesitatingly walked through that door. We didn’t know what the long-term consequences of such a decision would be. Frankly, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that fellow New Orleanians had their lives wrecked and we could do something. So we did. But now we bear the responsibility of turning this short-term plowing and planting ministry into a long-term reaping one.

Finally, we have survived the firefight of Katrina, and now is when we sit back to survey the battlefield. We are searching for our identity and trying to determine what role we play in God’s future plans for New Orleans. What is God calling us to become as we stand almost four years removed from the worst natural disaster in our nation’s history?

Thus, I stand here to announce to you that God has opened the door for us to multiply our efforts again. We have been approached by an organization called Fellowship Associates. Fellowship Associates is a church planting organization started in 1999 by Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock, AR, a church known for their team leadership and community involvement.

Crystal and I have been asked to enter Fellowship Associates 10-month residency program so that we can be trained to help plant and lead a new church on the Eastbank of New Orleans. In many ways, this new church will be an extension of the ministry that Berean has carried since Katrina as we have sought to love and serve those affected by the storm. It will be a Bible church that in some ways looks very similar to Berean, yet is focused on a specific community with very unique needs. We believe that Fellowship Bible Church Little Rock’s model of community involvement and team leadership is exactly what is needed to reach the lost on the Eastbank who need the holistic gospel message of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my time as an Associate Pastor of Youth and Community here at Berean will end in August of this year. At that time we will be temporarily relocating to Little Rock for the residency program after which our family will move to the Eastbank. We are very excited to be part of the physical, emotional and spiritual renewal of New Orleans.

We want to express our gratitude to you for the time you have allowed us to serve and lead here at Berean. We covet your prayers and support as we embrace this new chapter in our life. Over the next six months, we will do everything we can to assist you as my duties here at Berean are transitioned to others. And thinking beyond August, we are excited that our relationship with you, while transitioning, will continue to be strong.

We also want to thank the elders of Berean as they have spent the past couple of months thinking, praying and dreaming with us as God has unveiled His Will. We believe that this is not only a new chapter in our personal lives but also in the life of Berean. My story is your story. My dream is your dream. This is all part of God’s plan as He uses us all to reach and renew the city of New Orleans.

To God be the glory.
Doug Daspit