Nate Pollard - Lay Pastor


I became a Christian through the faithful preaching of my grandfather at a young age in my hometown of Dana. Recently I’ve seen God shaping my life in the deepening of my love for His Word and the local church. Sins of my youth have become loathsome to me by God’s grace. Gospel centered relationships have become increasingly common as I see loving bonds forming with people with whom I likely would not have much in common otherwise. My interest in the Word has become more of an interest for reading together with my family and church as well as personal private devotion. Through my work in The Vine I have enjoyed teaching, which I expected. What has surprised me was how much I have enjoyed setting up the structure of this program. Planning the curriculum of large group lessons, finding appropriate chunks of Scripture for the memorization assignments, and writing and recording songs to help the students in that memorization have been administrative tasks I did not expect to enjoy as much as I have.


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Jake Ready - Lay Pastor

I grew up attending a Methodist church and was somewhat involved in the youth group while growing up (travel sports took priority over church). Church was simply another thing that my family did, and a personal relationship with Jesus was not emphasized to me while growing up, as far as I can remember. It wasn’t until I was on a mission trip in high school when, in the middle of the trip, I was struck by a question I couldn’t answer: Why am I here? Up to this point the trip was fairly boring. Why was I taking time out of my summer to squeegee floors in a thrift shop in rural Tennessee? I ended up writing down a lot of my thoughts that week and, entrusted those writings to an older student in the youth group, asking for his thoughts. I wasn’t friends with this guy, so I’m not sure why I chose him (but now realize it was God’s providence). He ended up discipling me for the next few months, explaining what it really meant to have a relationship with Jesus. He explained both the benefit (my sinful self was forgiven by the work done by Jesus on the cross) and the cost (my life was no longer mine to do with as I please; out of love and obedience to Jesus my life would have to change). Sometime during those few months it was like a light switch was flipped in my life. Where there was once darkness, I felt joy and peace that I had never experienced before. I saw the world differently, and the Holy Spirit began working in my life, changing me. Recently, I have seen God working in my life through his faithfulness and grace in helping me fight sin. He has provided many assurances to us that moving to Parkside a few years ago was the right move.

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