Letter from VLBF Leadership Team 7/12

Dear Friends,

As a church, we have experienced a major conflict with our former pastor, Steve Andrews. Using the principles of reconciliation as outlined in Scripture, the Leadership Team had the opportunity to work with three volunteer conciliators who have been trained through Peacemaker Ministries and to take the steps to reconcile with both Steve and Julie Andrews. We have learned much about living out Matthew 18:15-17 as well as better communication and Biblical peacemaking principles. We, the Leadership Team, Steve, and Julie collectively, have also learned how to grow to be more like Christ through confession, repentance, and forgiveness.

Steve and Julie Andrews have voluntarily worked very hard with two of the conciliators for the past six months. They have recognized areas of sin in which they have wounded individuals and the congregation as a whole. They have met with the Leadership Team members both individually and as a whole to confess and be reconciled. The Leadership Team, individually and collectively, has forgiven Steve and Julie of those sins and has reconciled their relationships with Steve and Julie. At this time, Steve and Julie, with the Leadership Team’s full support, would like to speak to the congregation at Vesper Lake Bible Fellowship to humbly confess their sin so that there may be healing through confession, repentance, and forgiveness.

The Leadership Team, likewise, has worked diligently over the past six months with the conciliators in Biblical peacemaking principles. We have recognized areas of sin in which we have also wounded individuals and the congregation as a whole. We have met with Steve and Julie both individually and as a whole to confess and be reconciled. The Leadership Team will also take this opportunity to confess sin that the Lord has revealed to them.

We praise God for what has taken place in each of our lives as well as Steve and Julie’s lives. We encourage you to join us on Sunday, July 19, 2009, during our morning worship service to see God glorified through this time of confession, repentance, and forgiveness as an act of worship.

VLBF Leadership Team,

• Jim Burkett
• Zoltan Csepe
• Joe DiRocco
  
• Brad Horner
• Jacob Kroslak
• Mike Maletich
  
• Michael Mrdjanov