Welcome to another edition of Confessing Our Hope, the podcast of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Today is October 25th, 2016, and I am your host, William Hill. Today we have the pleasure of sitting down and talking with a graduate of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. This is our first edition of really a special series of interviews and discussions with men who have graduated from Greenville Seminary and what they're doing currently, where the Lord has placed them, whether it's here in the United States pastoring or overseas in mission work or wherever it might be. And so today is really the first edition of that. We've been trying to get this scheduled for weeks, but in the Lord's providence, we're doing it today. And so we're going to be talking with Lowell Ivey. He is a recent graduate of Greenville Seminary. and currently ministering at Reformation Presbyterian Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia. For many of you, you know that I spent about 13 years in that area, so it's almost as though I'm there, as it were, and very familiar with the area and what's going on there. But more about that in just a minute. Let me tell everybody what's going on with the podcast. As usual, it's a weekly production of Greenville Seminary, and we have many great guests coming up on the program. And in fact, we're beginning to rev up, we're beginning to get prepared to do a number of interviews on the Spring Theology Conference that'll be held in March of next year in Greenville, South Carolina. So as we've always done for the last four years, we try to get conference speakers on the program to do a synopsis, a little snapshot of what they're going to be lecturing on at the conference. to whet the appetite of the listeners and to encourage people to come to the conference and get the full-blown edition as well as the fellowship and of course the book tables or book room as it turns out and spend money. It's always a great time to get together with other brothers and sisters in Christ. So that's a little what's going on in the podcast. If you want to know more you can go to our website ConfessingOurHope.com Of course, if you want to know more information about Greenville Seminary, you can go to the website gpts.edu. So, as I said, we're going to be talking with Lowell Ivey. He's a recent graduate of Greenville Seminary, and he's the organizing pastor of Reformation Presbyterian Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia. So, Lowell, it's good to have you on, and we finally got through our technical problems, and now we're able to do this thing, I think. It's good to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you have a very, um, I don't want to say strange. I mean, that's not the right word. Interesting, um, testimony, if that's the right word, but background as, as to how the Lord worked in your life and brought you to this place where now, now you're pastoring a church in, in, in an area I grew, uh, spent a lot of time, but why don't you tell the listeners about your background? And it's a great story. And I always enjoy hearing it. So why don't you tell the listeners about your background how the Lord brought you from where you were? To where you are now and then we'll go from there Sure. Well, I always tell people that It's not my testimony. It's the Lord's testimony He is the one who has set me free in Christ But he did that in a prison cell I was in prison for 15 and a half years from the age of 19 and for armed robbery in Texas, and the Lord in his sovereign mercy and grace reached down into a solitary confinement cell where I had been placed for my membership in a prison gang, a white supremacist gang. The Lord opened my eyes to his love for me in Christ and my need for a savior, the depth of my sin, And I fell on my knees by my prison bunk and just wept and asked him to make me a new person. And that's what he did. And so, yeah, so that was the beginning of my, I guess you could say the beginning of my journey to ministry. Of course, it was many years later that I even began to think about ministry, but it was in prison. that the Lord set me free. Yeah, you remind me of another man that everybody's familiar with. I know you're not going to like this, and I know you well enough to know that you're not going to like this, but it reminds me of the Apostle Paul, who was, as he, in his own words, he was an insolent opponent of the gospel. He was a blasphemer, a persecutor of Christians, and yet Christ, in his mercy, met him and saved him and I guess we all have similar stories maybe to one degree or another like that. But it has always amazed me to think about that part of your life and knowing you as well as I did. For those who don't know, Lowell and I were pretty much classmates. I think you graduated one year before I did, if I remember correctly. And so we had a chance to interact quite often at the seminary. And so I can tell you, this man really loves the Lord and is a very humble follower and servant of Christ. And I know Lowell's embarrassed for me to say that because that's the kind of man he is. But I'm so thankful for the Lord's work in your life. And it was very evident as we even labored together side by side in class and at seminary. Well, I couldn't have learned Greek and Hebrew without you. I don't know about that. I don't know about that. I think you're being overly kind. I'm still learning Greek and Hebrew anyway. Me too. Yeah, every day. I'm so thankful for it though. So you left prison. Now were you paroled or did you just serve your entire sentence? I did parole. I had a 17 year sentence. And so I can remember the day that that sentence was handed down. By that time I was 20 and just sitting there in the courtroom and the jury, I'd already been found guilty, but the jury handing down a sentence, actually the judge gave me the sentence, but it was on the jury's recommendation of 17 years in the penitentiary. And I can just remember thinking that my life was over, that I had nothing now to live for. And I thought of all the possibilities of what could happen in prison and whether I would even survive. And so it was a sobering day, to say the least. But it wasn't until many years later that the Lord His mercy and grace, as I said, changed my heart and set me on a road full of hope. I could see some light at the end of the tunnel, even if I had to serve my whole sentence. I was ready to do that because I knew that I was able to serve Him right where I was. It's a great story, and as you said, it's really a story of the Lord's kindness and faithfulness to unworthy sinners. Now, after you got out of prison, I don't remember exactly the timeline, but somewhere in that area, you started to attend another school. Yes, that's right. I started to attend Redeemer seminary, which was in Dallas. So in 2010, I started there, and what had happened was I had gotten out of prison in 2009 on parole, and was wanting to, by that time, wanting to go to seminary, thinking mainly that I would try to be engaged in full-time prison ministry, because I had a heart for Reformed prison ministry. I'd seen a lot of prison ministry, and almost none of it was reformed. There was almost no reformed ministry whatsoever to speak of, and I really had a burden for that. And so I started attending Redeemer in Dallas after joining an OP congregation in Longview, Texas. My pastor was Phil Hodson, and he, in the session there, encouraged me to think about Redeemer as a possibility. And so I started there. And then my wife and I, my wife, May and I met in 2010. We got married in 2011. And by that time I was off parole. And so I could start thinking about leaving the state. And I had been hearing about this place called Greenville Seminary. And the more that I heard about it, the more I was interested in, and I actually went to one of the conferences. 2011 Spring Conference, right before May and I got married. It was a conference on the Holy Spirit. And I can remember Ryan McGraw speaking, and it was just an amazing conference. The work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer, in the life of the Church. And I had come to Greenville Seminary not knowing if that was going to be the seminary that I would go to, and I left thinking, how could I go anywhere else? Right. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Amazing. Now, have you heard about Redeemer in recent news? I have. I actually just read an article about it just the other day, and I wasn't aware. I was aware of some things that were going on, but I wasn't aware That the seminary was looking at shutting its doors. Yeah apparently RTS is gonna put a campus there, so I'm gonna fill the fill the void if I have my if I yeah if I have my facts straight anyway, I might not but I think that's right. Well some article, you know, I was I was saddened to to hear that I made a lot of good friends there at Redeemer and And even some of the professors there were very close friends. There was one professor in particular who treated me like a brother in Christ and knew that I was right out of prison, I had a lot of needs. And he did things like, he knew that I didn't have a printer, and so he bought me a printer. That kind of thing. So I'm very thankful for the men there. I had some differences of opinion with some of my professors, and I think that was part of what led me to think about going to another seminary, but I'm also very thankful for my time there. Sure. Now, what was it, and there was probably many, and you could probably spend all day talking about this, but what was it about Greenville Seminary that most attracted you at that particular point in your life? Well, at that point, when I went to the conference, I was looking for a seminary that would be both academically rigorous, and that would also train me not just in preaching and teaching, but would train me in godliness. Because I believed, just like Robert Murray McShane has said, that the greatest need of congregation is their pastor's holiness. And so I didn't know what to expect from Greenville Seminary. I heard about it actually from my wife's father, and so it was at that conference that I really began to think, okay, this is a seminary where all of those things that I'm looking for in a seminary are there, a place where pastors are trained by other pastors. not just academics, but pastor-scholars. And I was very thankful for that model. And that was just one of the things. It would be hard for me to really enumerate all the different reasons that led me to finally decide on Greenville Seminary. Now, looking back on my time at the seminary, a big part of what I will tell people, especially those who are thinking about Presbyterian ministry in one of the conservative Presbyterian denominations, is that I can think of no seminary that prepares you specifically for that task better than Greenville Seminary. Yeah, I would agree. Yeah, I mean I echo that. I think the value of pastor professors, if you want to use that phrase, can't be overstated because how many times in classes did we hear the professors relate some theological issue or what to a practical issue in the church where they personally had experience dealing with that and and you guys are going to have this situation it's going to come up and and you know so there was a lot of practical things working with the theological training that we got they were going it was they were going side by side all the way down the track and I always found that to be very helpful going through the four-year program Of course, the preaching curriculum at the seminary, I think, is really second to none. I'm so thankful for the arduous and difficult critiques we all received from each other and from our professor. And you and I, I think, if I remember correctly, we had Dr. Piper from day one. So we had Dr. Piper from intro all the way through to the end. That's right. time to be at the seminary, it really was. It was, it was. Well, you graduated in, let's see, this is 2015. So you graduated in 2014. 2015. Yeah, I graduated 2015. Because this is 2016. I'm a year behind. Yeah. So I served a year long internship at Covenant Community Church there in Taylors. Right. Now that was an OPC congregation as well. That's right. And who's the pastor there? Pastor Van Doodewaard. Peter Van Doodewaard is still the pastor there, and I served there at, again, a unique time when we had another pastor there, a minister from Eritrea, who is also a Greenville graduate, who has a unique story of his own. Served time in prison as well, but not for committing any crime, for the sake of the gospel, and so I was able to be discipled by two men who are not only excellent preachers, but just men of God. And so you did this year-long intern, you stayed after you graduated, you stayed in Taylors and did this, and then how did the opportunity for planning a church, being the organizing pastor in Virginia Beach, how did that come together? It wasn't something that I ever really expected. We had been hearing about and praying about the mission work in Virginia Beach for some time, and so I'd been thinking about it in those terms. At Covenant Community Church, we had a midweek prayer meeting every Wednesday night, and we would often pray for certainly all the mission works in our presbytery and throughout the denomination But we heard about Reformation Virginia Beach repeatedly, and we prayed often for them. But the first time that I really began to consider it seriously was right before I started my internship. I got a call from our regional home missionary Lacey Andrews, regional home missionary of the Presbyterian of the Southeast. And he was asking me, had I thought about Virginia Beach? I was getting ready to graduate from the seminary. What was I going to do next? Had I thought about it? And I told him that I was really already committed at that point to an internship. And so at that point, it really didn't look like anything was going to happen. I assumed that they would have the time that I got done with my internship that they would have found their pastor. They were actively looking for a pastor, but that didn't happen. By the end of my internship, they had not yet found a pastor, and so the opportunity was still there. I talked again to Lacey Andrews, and I said, you know, I'm getting close to the end of the internship and need to think about what's next. Can I put my MIF before you again. That's the ministerial information form that certainly men, getting to the end of their time in seminary, know a lot about. It's an application form you fill out. You answer lots of questions about how you understand certain parts of the Word of God, and what's your philosophy of ministry, and those kinds of things. And so I put that in front of the church, and I waited. And of course, I think you, as my other friends here at Greenville know, that can be a long wait sometimes. But I waited. I waited on the Lord. My wife and I prayed about it. I had another interview in the time being with another church. But then in January, I had an interview with Reformation Virginia Beach. It was the session together with a couple members of the congregation for the Pastoral Search Committee. And we had a good talk and they invited me eventually to come out in February of 2016 and spend about 10 days preaching, teaching, visiting in member families' homes, and getting to know everybody. And it was after that A week later, by the grace of God, the congregation called me and asked me to come. Even then, I still had exams and that sort of thing, so I still wasn't settled yet. I had my exams in April, and the exams were sustained by the Presbyterian of the Southeast, and then we moved here in May. You received your call to Virginia Beach about the same time I received my call to Landis. I think I remember that, actually. It was very close, February time frame or so. So that was neat. When I heard you got called to Virginia Beach, it reminded me of a story. When I moved from western New York, I was in the OPC. For those who don't know, the OPC is the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. I was in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Western New York. I moved my family to Virginia for a job. I was so green when it came to Presbyterianism and the Reformed faith, I didn't realize there was 8,000 Presbyterian denominations on the planet. I thought there were two. There was the Presbyterian Church United States, which was liberal, and then the OPC, which was conservative. That was my field of vision when I moved to Virginia Beach. And so I got the Yellow Pages out, you know, those Yellow Pages, if you're old enough to remember the Yellow Pages. I opened up the Yellow Pages, looked, Orthodox Presbyterian Church, there wasn't a single one. So I was like, what am I supposed to do now? I don't know what to do. Where am I going to go to church? And so I called a friend of mine who was in the OPC and I said, I don't know what to do. There's no OPC church in Virginia Beach. And he said, well, is there a PCA church? I'm like, PCA, what's that? I didn't know any different. I was so green. And as you well know, there's, I don't know how many PCA churches in the area. But there was no OPC church. The closest OPC church back in 1998 was three hours away. And I was like, well, I'm not driving three hours to church every Sunday. That's insanity. Well, that's still about the closest other OP congregations. So in terms of proximity, we've got, as you said, there are a number of good sound PCA congregations in the area. even the congregation that you ended up attending. I know which one you're going to say, Emmanuel. My wife and I have worshipped there, and very thankful for the ministry of that church. So, okay, so you've been in Virginia Beach for, let's see, how long now? We have been here since May. And I was ordained May 27th, and I began officially in June, June 1st. You got ordained one day before I did. My ordination was also on my birthday. Oh, really? Well, I guess you'll never forget. You can't forget it now, then. Samuel Miller says that, you know, he says someplace that the two days that he remembers are his birthday, and his ordination date, and I get to have both of them on the same day. Yeah, I remember Dr. Piper, he did something with your ordination. Did he preach the sermon or do the charge? He gave the charge, yeah. And then he had to drive from Virginia Beach down to Marion, North Carolina the next day to preach my ordination service. So he was pretty, by the time he got here, he was pretty tired. In fact, it's the first time, I'm not trying to embarrass Dr. Piper, but it's the first time I can remember him coming in, his bow tie wasn't even tied yet. He was still working on it as he got into the building. So, I mean, I just appreciate it. Well, it's just the, you know, he's, he's always been very good to the students that have graduated and he's been very faithful. man to help them, encourage them in that next big step. It is a big step. I couldn't think of anybody else that would preach my ordination service at all, frankly. I was just very thankful that he made the drive down and spent the night locally in a hotel and then came that afternoon. So, how's the work going? Where are you right now? Many people probably don't know the process, but you start as a mission work, and then you end up working towards particularization. We did a podcast many months ago on the process, so I'm not going to rehash that, but where are you right now in your process? Well, in one sense we're early on, but in another sense we're not, because the Church is made up of a solid, mature, a core group of people who understand the Reformed faith and are very committed to the scriptures, the Westminster Confession of Faith and catechisms, to the regulative principle of worship, all of these things, very committed to that. And so there's a lot of groundwork that in one sense I don't even have to do. And there are also a number of men who are really, as far as I'm concerned, very, very close to being ready to be elders and deacons in the church. So we have men who really don't need that much training. In fact, some of them, and I'm thinking of one in particular, could train me on how to be an elder in the church. He's been an elder for quite some time. So I know who you're talking about. Yeah, also happens to be a board member at Greenville Seminary. Yes, yes, he is. But but so I have I have a lot of help, if I can put it that way. And so so I'm very thankful for that. But as you're mentioning the process, what we really need to have is we need to have a church that is able to stand on its own two feet. And that means that we need to have men who are able to lead in the church, elders and deacons. We need to have the financial stability that a church needs to have. So those are the kinds of things that we're working towards. And I think that we're moving at a good pace towards those goals. The other thing for us is we don't have our own building, and we're meeting in two separate locations. So we have a morning service and an evening service in two different locations. And that, in some sense, is kind of a hindrance to things like having classes and that sort of thing. So one of the goals is, in fact, one of the first things we did, the first thing that we did was we established a prayer meeting. And that prayer meeting happens every Wednesday in my home. And the reason that I wanted to start there was because I believe that the ministries of the church would only be blessed if God's people were praying together corporately for the ministries of the church, for the pastor, and for the work of the church, and for one another. bearing one another's burdens in that way. And so I believe strongly in the need for corporate prayer. And so that's why I started first with a prayer meeting. But now the next thing that we've been focusing on is the building search. And so we've established, the session has established a building search committee made up of members of the congregation, And we're working through that process right now. It's taking a while. Real estate in Virginia Beach, as you know, is not cheap. Nope. Land is scarce. And good land is even scarcer, because we've just had a storm. And that storm was a reminder of how easily it floods here. Oh, yeah. So we're in an area that getting good land is difficult. And then the other thing is that church buildings, because of the scarcity of land, church buildings tend to get zoned out of existence and get replaced by things that can produce tax revenues. So these are the kinds of things that we're up against, but we also believe that God is sovereign and he's gonna direct our steps to the place that he has for us. Where are you looking to put, I mean, if you could drop a church on a piece of land tomorrow, where would you drop it? Well, there's an area which I'm sure you're aware of, it's called Kempsville, and it's sort of the heart of Virginia Beach between three cities, Virginia Beach, Norfolk, and Chesapeake. And we have members in all three of those cities. And so it would be very advantageous to us if we could find something in Kempsville, which is actually where I live, too. And I was going to say, that's not that's not all that far from where you live. That's right. That's right. That would be really ideal, at least for the pastor. Yes. Well, and the thing is, I probably am going to have to move at some point. So, you know, we're the house that I that I live in. I'm renting. and the owner is not planning to sell, so we're just waiting to see where the church is going to end up before we decide where we're going to actually live. camping out in one sense. Why don't you tell the listeners, and it's likely people from the Hampton Roads, those who don't know Hampton, it used to be called Tidewater, and so the old timers there still call it Tidewater, but the more, I don't know what the word is, modern people, that's not fair. You call it Hampton Roads, but the Hampton Roads is like the conglomeration of the entire area. Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, even Williamsburg, Newport News, Hampton, I left one out. Chesapeake, I'm sure I left one out. It's that whole area. It's a pretty big area, I mean, as far as population, but it's actually a very small area as far as square mileage. I mean, everybody's just kind of jammed into this one corner of the state. So why don't you tell the listeners, undoubtedly we have listeners from that area, why don't you tell them where you're currently meeting in the morning and then in the afternoon, and then you've mentioned the prayer meeting already, but why don't you tell them about your locale, at least as far as the worship services? You bet. And, of course, you mentioned the size of the area. The Tidewater area or the Hampton Roads area has a population of upwards of one and a half million people. That's one of the reasons why the Orthodox Presbyterian Church was seeking to plant a church here, because we knew that there were already some Reformed churches here, but the number of Reformed churches in this area is like point eight maybe 0.08, I can't remember what the figure was, but just a tiny, less than 1% number of actual churches in the area. And so there's a vast population here and something like 62.4% of people in this area claim no religious affiliation whatsoever. And part of that, I think, has to do with the transient nature of the community. You've got a lot of military people, It's a vacation spot, a retiree place. So that's one of the reasons why we're here. There's just this huge population that needs to be reached. We do meet in the mornings across from Mount Trashmore. which Bill, as you know, actually at one time was a landfill. Well, hence the name, Trash Mount. I was going to comment on that for those who were like, that's kind of a weird name to name a mountain. It's actually not a mountain, it's a hill. And it was a garbage dump. It was actually a landfill at one time that Virginia Beach converted to something actually very nice. So anyway, I'm sorry. So we're right across from there. It's a great park. People use it. People by the hundreds are out there walking, jogging, bicycling, flying kites on the Mountain of Trash. It's actually a beautiful landscaped hill. And we've actually had the opportunity to do some evangelism out there at Mount Trashmore, since we're right there, right across from that. We're in a building called the Fleet Reserve Center in the mornings. In some sense, we're kind of outgrowing that building, and we need to find something else. But the location is excellent in terms of meeting people and inviting them to worship with us. So the Fleet Reserve Center is a naval retiree association. Then in the evenings, we worship at a place called the Indian Lakes Community Center. And that is closer to where I live, about five minutes from my home. And in some ways, it's a better facility for us. We have more room and it's a nicer looking facility. We have more space for childcare and those sorts of things. But ultimately, we'd like to find a building of our own and not be renting. Now, you mentioned, of course, the prayer meeting you have at your house. Now, do you have a website? We do. It's www.reformation-opc.org. So, www.reformation-opc.org. And we're also on Twitter and Facebook. Except you're not on Facebook. I'm not. I know that sounds ironic, but the church is. And we found it to be an excellent way for the church to be known by people and to put some information out and even have links to our sermons on Twitter and that sort of thing. So those have been useful outlets for us. Sure. Are you on Sermon Audio? We are, that's right, yes. Very good. All right, so just for the listeners' sake, if you are interested in, if you do live in that area, or even if you're going to vacation in Virginia Beach and looking for a place to go to church on the Lord's Day, in the morning they're currently meeting at the Fleet Reserve Center, and that's in Virginia Beach, not all that far from Mount Trashmore. In the evenings, they're meeting at the Indian Lakes Community Center. It's in the Indian Lakes area. It's not all that far from Kempsville, but anyway. They're meeting there and then their website if you want to get you know the specific directions and all that information It's it's Reformation dot OPC org Reformation dash OPC dot org and so but that information will be on the show notes section of the podcast When this actually gets released into the general public There's something else. I wanted to ask you in relationship to oh your service times. I Yes, that would be helpful, wouldn't it? Yes. 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. Very good. 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. Now, I'll ask you the million-dollar question. It's the question everybody gets when you go to Presbyterian or you go to any conference and they find out you're a pastor of some church. I already know what it is. And here's the question. How many people are attending? Was that the question? Yeah, well, it comes in different forms, of course, but yes. And of course, we always try to be very humble and say, well, the numbers don't matter. It's just that our people are growing. And it's true. That really is true. But I am thankful to the Lord that the church has now over 50 members. We just reached that mark last month. And what's happened since I've gotten here is that the Lord has added a few families to the church, including my own. And we've even seen, there's one family in particular that we're very thankful for that May and I met through responding to a Craigslist ad for furniture that is visiting with us that has little exposure to the gospel or to the reformed faith. So we're praying for them as well. That's fantastic. Yeah, I'm reminded of some of those situations even in my own ministry here in Marion where, you know, I tell my wife, I said, every time I go out into the community, it's an opportunity to talk to people about the Lord and about the church, what we're doing. You know, it's like my private life doesn't exist. You know, you can't go into the store and I jokingly told my wife recently, I said, you know how you go to Walmart and the lines are through the back wall and you just kind of stand there and get aggravated. It's like, what's going on? It's like, you just can't, you know, you just got to be, because you never know who's going to, who you're going to run into, you know, Craigslist opportunity. You're talking to somebody in a long line at Walmart, whatever, you know, you take advantage of those kinds of opportunities. So that's great. But, well, I'm glad you got a megachurch going there. Well, by OP standards, we may not be too far from that. By my standards, you're not too far from that. Many know that the church I pastor is somewhat smaller, but it's six years no pastor, so these things happen. Again, what Lowell said, it's not about the numbers. If the Lord is pleased to bless a church with 500 people, that's His business, and if He's not, the important thing is that the Gospel is being preached and people are growing in the Lord, and you're reaching the community for the Gospel. That's what we're here for. The Great Commission applies domestically as it does internationally. Dr. Piper always tells his students to preach through the Gospel of Mark first. And so that's what I've been doing, and we've been in Mark chapter 4, the kingdom parables, and so it's very fresh on my mind, the fact that the Lord is the one who grows his church. The parable of the growing seed and the mustard seed, it's very clear, especially in that parable of the growing seed, that the one, the farmer in that parable doesn't do anything to cause the seed to grow. It's the work of the Lord himself. Yeah, I wonder if we're probably, are we the only two students that actually took Dr. Piper's advice to preach through Mark the first time? I know others who have done it. Cause I did it right away. I mean, when I was stated supply here, I started in Mark. I said, I'm not just starting Mark. I mean, I might as well just go. And I'm very thankful for doing it. I'm about halfway. Well, I'm a little more than halfway through now. I don't think we'll ever get out of Mark. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever see another book of the Bible in my ministry. I take breaks. After a number of weeks in a row in Mark, I'll take a couple week break and do something different, but just because, probably for my own sanity. Then in the evenings, I started out with the book of Haggai and went from there to the book of Jonah. and almost done with the book of Jonah, and we'll be taking a little bit of break and doing a topical textual series on thankfulness in the Christian life. Outstanding. Well, it sounds like the Lord's really blessing you and your family and the work there. I know a number of people that go to your church, of course, and I've known them, at least one family I've known for many years, that I know are being blessed by being there. And I hear a lot of great things that are happening there. How can the community at large pray for Reformation OPC? Well, please pray for us that the Lord would continue to grow us in holiness, in love for His word, in love for His truth, that the ladies who are pregnant right now, that they would have safe deliveries. We see the Lord's hand at work in growing His church in that way as well. I was just going to say, that's a surefire way to grow the church. Yes, and my wife is one of those ladies right now, so I'm very thankful for that. And then the other thing, of course, is the building search committee. You know, I keep reminding our people that this is not just about a building. This is about a place that we might worship the Lord our God in spirit and in truth, and that our children and our grandchildren after us might have a place to worship Him. Fantastic. Well, Lowell, I told you half an hour. We've gone a little bit longer than that, but it's always good to talk to you about what the Lord's doing, and your background, and then where the Lord's brought you. It's really amazing. People say there is no God, but then you talk to a man like yourself, and you see what the Lord has done, all on his own good pleasure. And then to see how it's impacting now other people for the good of Christ's kingdom, the gospel, an area that, as you mentioned, less than 1%, well, 60-some-odd percent don't even profess any religion of any kind. You know, it reminds me of what the Lord said, the harvest is white. It just needs laborers. And we're just, you're a means of equipping laborers to go into the field. I'm a means to do that. We don't do it by ourselves by any means. And it's great to see that that's happening there. It's about 13 years, well, 17 years too late for me. Well, in the Lord's providence, that was His means of pulling me into the PCA, because that's all I had an option for. But now, with the OPC there and its strong Reformed presence, just pray that the Lord will bless it mightily for the good of His kingdom and for the glory of His name. The Lord deserves the greatest of efforts from His people, and so it's good to see it happening. They're in a sea of, as you mentioned, transient people. You've got a huge opportunity with the biggest naval base in the world. And you've got the Marine Amphibious Base not that far away. You've got Oceana with all those hotshot pilots. That's why I don't want to live out by the beach. Hey man, you know what I used to say when I lived there? Everybody would complain about the jet noise. You know what I would say? It's the sound of freedom. That's true. It is the price that we pay, that's right. I got to the point where I didn't even hear it. I am thankful I don't live right under those jets. No, it can, yeah, it gets loud. Yeah. Go out to Oceana. Well, you don't play golf, but if you play golf, you go to Oceana and play their golf course. You'll find out real quick how loud it can get. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's been fun talking with you and catching up. Thanks for the invitation. I really appreciate it. We'll pray that the Lord will continue to work and use this discussion to bring awareness to the church's presence there in Virginia Beach as well as others across the country and around the world to pray for the Lord to bless and create much fruit from the labors that are currently going on there. Good talking to you, Bill. You bet. Hold on the line just a second. Let me wrap things up. Coming up on the program, I don't even have it in front of me. So the best thing to do is just go to our website, confessingourhope.com. I'm sure there's something coming up. I just don't remember what it is off the top of my head, which is no big deal. So just go to the website and you will get all the information you need and probably more so there at the website. But don't forget about the seminary website, gpts.edu. In addition to that, start thinking about the Spring Theology Conference. I know it's October, almost November, but March is going to be here before you know it. And so start thinking about maybe making plans to come to the Spring Theology Conference. This year the conference will be geared around the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther is the main theme of the conference. Begin to make plans now if you are interested in any way. Again, you can get more information about the conference at the website gpts.edu. So until next time, we do thank you for listening to this particular edition of Confessing Our Hope, the podcast of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. And God bless.