A Big Opportunity

A little more than a month ago, I got a text message that offered a big opportunity. More on that in a moment, but let me lay down some groundwork first.

For a few years, we at Free Grace International have known we need to grow. We've created lots of videos, podcasts, books, and teaching materials. We're passionate about sharing the faith-alone message with the world and helping believers mature in their faith. We have loved every minute of it, but we've seen a need within the ministry to expand our team to produce more content and reach more people.

However, the kind of person we needed to hire was so specific it felt like we'd never be able to find someone that fit the description. The theology that we promote is underrepresented in evangelical circles. The media publishing industry requires a very particular skill set. The quality our ministry requires made it difficult to find a suitable match.

The Impossible Is Possible

This seemed impossible. There was only one person I could think of that would fit that description (Shawn Lazar), and he was already gainfully employed at a sister ministry and doing great work there. It seemed so unlikely that we'd be able to find someone like that that I only prayed about it occasionally.

It probably came up about once every couple of months in my prayer time. I'd pray something like,

"Lord, I feel the need to grow the team and to find a ministry co-worker that fits, but I don't know who. If you could bring someone like Shawn Lazar our way, that would be awesome."

I'm embarrassed to admit that I wasn't very confident that God would answer these occasional personnel prayers. Nonetheless, I continued these blue-moon, blue-yonder supplications for a couple of years.

Now back to that text message. A little over a month ago I got this text message:

SHAWN LAZAR: Is Free Grace International hiring?

LUCAS KITCHEN: Only if it's you.

That simple exchange began a month-long conversation/interview/investigation into whether FGI—which is a pretty small ministry—could hire Shawn Lazar. It's been an exciting month of looking forward to the future and considering what might be in store. So, we're finally ready to announce:

Free Grace International has hired Shawn Lazar as Director of Publications and Production.

Thrilled!

We're thrilled to begin rolling out new web content, publications, and productions with him. We will share more of what that will look like in the coming weeks. It's a dream come true for us to get to work with a talent like Shawn.

So, how can you show your excitement for this new phase of ministry? Subscribe, Share, Pray, and/or Contribute.

Subscribe:

Shawn's daily devotional blog will begin on Aug 15, 2022. Be sure to subscribe (by hitting the subscribe button) so that you can get his blog posts in your inbox.

Share:

We are in an important phase as we try to get the word out about what we're doing and how we're growing. If you've benefited from any of the content we've produced in the past, please consider sharing what we're doing on social media.

Pray:

We'll be jumping into some exciting initiatives in the next year. We know we'll need wisdom, passion, and energy. Please pray for those to be given to us in abundance.

Contribute:

We've hired Shawn, knowing that we will need to grow the budget of our ministry to accommodate the new salary. If you're interested in contributing to the future of FGI, a ministry dead-set on getting the free grace message out to the world, we would appreciate it. You can hit the donate button if you feel led to give toward this new need.

Thanks for your encouragement and support! We're so thrilled for this new adventure. Watch for updates coming soon!