“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” (Ephesians 4:8)

After completing His great work of salvation by rising from the dead on the first day of the week, our Lord seated at the right hand of the Father in glory, and poured out His Spirit onto His church with manifold spiritual gifts. A prominent such gift is that of deacons, men who are called to serve the church in its material needs, assisting the elders of the church in the care of the flock.

On the Lord’s Day November 13th, our church ordained its first deacon, Evan Ritchie. We are thankful to God for this gift. Below we narrate how Evan came into contact with us, and how his calling to the diaconate was discerned by the session and the congregation.

Narrative of the call

Evan came to the UK from Texas (USA) in November 2019. He had just married Marianne, a member of our congregation, and was received into membership in January 2020.

Evan joined us in a time of great difficulty. Shortly after his arrival, the first cases of COVID-19 were spotted in Wuhan, and a lockdown was put in place in the UK in March 2020.

Evan showed great resilience during that time, being faithful in attending the means of grace in a variety of situations. He attended morning and evening services and midweek meetings, both online and in person, outdoors and indoors.

During the following 2 years. Evan has been a great example of service in God’s church in many practical ways. His knowledge of audio equipment made him the ideal candidate to take control of that, and he also took responsibility for taking care of the serving rota.

All of this showed that he had the qualities and characteristics of a deacon as given in 1 Tim 3:8-13. Since the summer of 2021, the session had considered whether Evan was called to be a deacon, and subsequently he with a few other men took a deacon training course with Falko.

Because of this, and his continued desire to serve Christ in His church, the session was unanimous in putting him forward as a deacon to the congregation.

On Sunday 9th October, the congregation, with 35 out of the possible 37 votes, voted unanimously for Evan to become a deacon.

We are truly thankful to God for this day, and we pray His blessing upon Evan, his family and our church in the days to come.

Amen.