To my brothers in Christ at Connersville Baptist Temple. Darcie and I have been earnestly praying for God’s will in our lives and for your church. We regretfully must remove our names from consideration. This was a very, very difficult decision. We were both very impressed with your church. The sincerity and spiritualty of the men serving on the board was evident. The generosity of the salary package was more than I expected. Your church is a fantastic opportunity and whoever God calls there will be truly blessed to have found it. We realize that such a great opportunity will not come our way again. That made this decision even more challenging. I am not sure why God has not given us the green light to go. Darcie and I will both continue to pray for your church and its ministries. We truly did enjoy getting to know you guys and look forward to watching God continue to work in your church. Thanks for your kindness and patience towards us.
Joe & Darcie Ferreira
Joe called Tyler to discuss this shortly after sending the email:
- Said he was grateful for the opportunity
- He and Darcie have been praying all week. Have even cried over this
- They love us, love our, church, and said there is no other church out there with as a good an opportunity as what we have
- They feel ready, but have ZERO clarity from God as they pray and at this time take that as God’s answer as “not now”
- They are highly impressed with our pulpit committee, the process we have in place, and even the questions we asked
- He feels with no clarity that it is unfair to the church to make us wait any longer
- I asked him 1st a weekend visit would help him with clarity. He said no. He already knows he would come here in a heartbeat if that is what God wants. That if he were to come up, that would be him already making his decision and would even go as far to say he would most likely stay at that point. He is all or nothing when he makes decisions, but God has not lead him one way or the other at this time.
- I also discussed that make a big decision like this in 1 week may not be enough time if he would want another week. He again did not feel that was fair to the chruch
- He did let me know that he does feel led to be a Senior Pastor of a different church for sure, but God has yet to give him any clarity on where
- He will continue to pray for us, follows us on facebook, and if something changes where God makes it plain as day for him to come if we are still looking he will let us know.
- He was being funny and said something to the effect that if God made it clear I might just find him(Joe) knocking on my door one day because he moves that quickly when God moves him