Four years ago today, I was installed as the Senior Pastor of Evergreen. If you were here at Evergreen in 2020, I don’t have to tell you how much has changed since I first came. However, from where I stand staring out each Sunday morning, I can tell you that many of the faces at Evergreen today were not here when I first arrived. So this blog post is a bit of a jog down memory lane for me, and it may be a bit of background for some of you.

When I first visited Evergreen in the summer of 2020, the entire country was on lockdown. I remember boarding the plane to come to Portland. Those were the days of mandatory masking and social distancing. I preached for multiple services, one of them full of bright smiling faces, and one service full of reluctantly masked faces. I remember preaching to these masked faces and wondering, “What are they thinking?” “Are they even responding to this?” “I think this sermon is flopping hard.” It turns out, it’s just really hard to read emotions when all you can see are eyes!

Early months at Evergreen were an incredible blessing. When we got here, we managed to lure some people back by having worship outdoors. People were so starved for friendship that there was an almost rabid need to be together and to rejoice. Never was a friendlier church ever found on planet earth – I was convinced – than Evergreen. Even today, people remark at what an open, inviting, and kindhearted church Evergreen is for visitors. While I think this was always a part of Evergreen’s DNA, something about coming out of the pandemic just made ours an even happier, friendlier, and more grateful congregation.

Attendance was challenging in 2020. Numbers hovered around 80 at times, and much of the next year was spent coaxing people into returning to in-person worship once again. Many were forced out of their comfort zones, and often they thanked the session (at least eventually) for encouraging them to return. Attendance has continued to climb steadily for the past four years, and we can be grateful that not only have our members shared the gospel with friends and neighbors, but that others in the community looking for a place to worship have, on the Lord’s initiative, made Evergreen their church home.

This increase in attendance often led to Sundays where the sanctuary was overwhelmingly full. After worship, there were times when just trying to get a cup of coffee nearly required riot gear. We had Sundays where attendance could be as high as 173 one Easter Sunday. This led the session to make the decision in January of 2024 to move to two services. The purpose of this move was to ensure there would be room for visitors when they visited the church. While the move to two services has had aspects of convenience, there is no doubt that nearly all of us have missed having the full room with all of our friends worshiping alongside of us. Even as the two service format is painful and challenging for us, it will help to remember that they exist for evangelistic reasons: we should all be inviting people to worship as we share the gospel with them, and the new format helps ensure that there is room for those who come. The change to two services is not for our sake, but for the sake of the growth of the gospel in the Beaverton area, and for our own personal growth in evangelistic practices. The best way to make sure that sacrifice is not squandered is for us to actively be sharing Jesus with others and reminding them that Evergreen is ready to be their church home.

Not only have attendance and service format changed since 2020, but we also have had changes in staff. Matthew Poole has been our Christian Education Director for nearly three years, and his family have been an integral part of the Evergreen community. We have a search committee that should be making a recommendation in the next month about possibly recommending Matthew to be our new Associate Pastor. Not only that, but beginning in only a few days, Erik Haralson will begin work as our Youth Director, and as our Property Caretaker. One thing that has not changed is Teri Beskow’s tireless and skillful work as the church secretary. When I first arrived, our bulletins were printed on a tri-fold piece of paper that kept blowing away during our outdoor worship services. She is practically a book publisher now, designing, printing, folding, and stapling our worship orders every week. I am incredibly grateful for her, and the mere thought of her ever retiring makes me wake up in a cold sweat at night.

Not all growth is numerical, of course. In fact, the most important growth in God’s people really cannot be measured in numbers. The ministry of God’s church isn’t like a factory that churns out widgets which you can count. Instead, the work of the church is about personal growth in Christ and discipleship – something that is really only seen in peoples’ lives. The Lord has also been raising up new deacons, he brought us a new elder, and I believe that even now, he is preparing the hearts and lives of future church officers in his own time. The Lord is trustworthy and works in his own time, for which we are grateful.

One of the greatest things about being a Pastor is that people give you this incredible privilege of entering into their most intimate moments, and sharing their lives with you. This means seeing heartaches up close (and there have been plenty of those, of course). But it also means I have had a front row seat to so many families and individuals who have experienced real spiritual growth at Evergreen, and especially for the way God has used this church to grow their own knowledge of God’s word and appreciation of the Savior, Jesus Christ. Family worship is being practiced where it wasn’t before. Church members have told me about evangelism opportunities they have taken, and we have even seen people darken the door of this church who otherwise would not have. Think about the spiritual growth and change that it takes to move people like that! Seeing these sorts of fruits brings gratification to my own work, and it reminds me that the Lord is at work.

In our preaching ministry we have spent a sustained amount of time in the gospel of Matthew. Believe it or not, I have been preaching through Matthew since April of 2021, which means that for over three years we have been with Jesus Sunday after Sunday reading about his teaching, his life, his substitutionary death and his resurrection. We should complete this series on Matthew in October of this year. At that point, I am eager for us to dive into the book of Daniel as we learn about what we should expect life to be like for us as God’s people who are not living in a place that is their permanent home.

Eventually after finishing Daniel (probably in February of 2025), I am excited for us to take a deep dive into the book of Romans, which was known as the fount of the Reformation and the impetus for Luther’s own rediscovery of the gospel of Christ. I have spent much of my life reflecting on Romans. It was the book that God used to convert me as a teenager. All of my Christian life I have lived with a steadily growing eagerness to preach this book. That is to say, there is so much in terms of preaching for us to be eager to embrace as 2025 approaches.

The most exciting thing to me is that while all the members of Christ’s church are used to accomplish these things, at the end of the day, it is God who is at work among us. What a comfort to know that we are all (as John Owen put it) poor under-rowers in the ship that is Christ’s church. The fact that God is willing to use any of us to accomplish his purposes is such an incredible gift. I’ve had four years of serving you now, and it feels like they’ve flown by so quickly. My family and I are praying for many many more.