As you know, Stephen has been taking classes toward teacher certification and we have been very happy regular attenders at Redeemer. We were satisfied with our current situation and had agreed that we were not looking for a church job at this time.

Well, despite this, Stephen got a call from a tiny little Baptist church in a tiny little nearby town (apparently the Truett placement office still sends out his resume from time to time). He declined the offer, but it brought the subject up for us again. We asked ourselves, “What would it take for us to accept a church job right now?”

It was a fun conversation, full of wishful thinking and idealism that reminded me of the “describe your future husband” conversations of my college days (who was to say that a handsome-Pulitzer-and-Grammy winner wouldn’t show up in College Station to sweep me off my feet?). Anyway, we agreed that the ideal job would be one where Stephen could work while also finishing his certification and where I could stay at my current job. It was also important for us to be at a church where we actually enjoyed the service and the people, where we would want to stay long term.

About a week after this conversation, Stephen got a call from a pastor of a church in Killeen. After a few conversations, we realized that the position being offered was exactly the one that we had described earlier. It’s a part-time youth job at this church, which is a plant of the church I had grown up in, where the current pastor (Dave) is my former junior high youth minister. Stephen had gone to some ministry events with Dave, which is where they got to know one another.

To make a pretty short story even shorter, they chatted on the phone a few more times, we went down to visit the church twice, and this past Sunday, Stephen interviewed with the elders and later in the week he received a job offer, which we accepted.

There’s quite a bit more to the story, like all the other reasons why we feel so optimistic about this job, and how exactly we plan to make it work living between Waco and Killeen (hint: Temple). You’ll just have to keep checking in to the NEW Watson blog for the rest of the story as it comes.