My wife and I are thrilled to be back in the USA and at Harvest OPC to begin a new chapter of our lives. Katie (formerly Wagenmaker) is a past member of Harvest who went to Westminster Seminary California in 2006 and met a debonair, slightly balding Texan. I got my Masters of Divinity and Katie got her Masters of Arts in Theological Studies degree in 2008 and we married in 2010. I took a call as a Youth and Family pastor in Houston in the PCA where our ministry was blessed to see new converts in our youth group and young adults. We also had two of our children while there.

After serving in Houston, I began a slow process of becoming the pastor at Horsley Christian Church in Wollongong, Australia. While we waited for our work visas to be approved, we spent six months in Grand Rapids—attending Harvest during that time—before moving to Dallas where I worked in information technology at Interstate Batteries. We also had our third child while in Dallas.

Once our work visas were approved, we moved to Australia. We ministered at Horsley Christian Church for the next five and a half years (2016-2021) as a solo pastor. Horsley is a part of the Presbyterian Reformed Church of Australia, similar to the OPC and URC. At Horsley I had the joy of every Sunday preaching the Gospel, seeing new converts in the church, counseling marriages, discipling people and families, and mobilizing the church towards becoming a more inviting church to the unsaved and low-churched. We had our fourth and final child in Australia (who is, sadly, not an Australian citizen), so now we have Esther (9), Josiah (nearly 8), Moriah (6), and Miriam (4).

We are so excited to be coming back to Harvest and to be a part of a church plant. The statistics show that church plants are one of the most effective tools for evangelism, if not the most effective. It requires individuals to focus on inviting people to their church and church functions. After all, the church won’t exist if it doesn’t see new converts and the low-churched discipled. And we’ve seen new converts and low churched people at every stop of our ministries. Therefore, we are overjoyed to have the opportunity to church plant and be a part of how God does His amazing work through it. We ask that you would pray for us and for Living Hope. Pray particularly for our family’s transition from living overseas to living here in the USA. Pray for the church planting group—that the Holy Spirit will work mightily and keep the devil at bay. Pray that lost souls in the Wayland/Dorr/Moline areas will find their hope in Christ alone and finally pray for unity and focus around the Gospel.

In His Service,

John Terrell