Yakima Pastor Prepares for Overseas Ministry

By Robert Rife

Dear friends, many of you may know me primarily from my role as Worship and Music Minister at Yakima Covenant Church. If not, it’s likely we’ve shared a holy guffaw or two at Midwinter or perhaps online. In any case, I have so many reasons to be a grateful, newly ordained (woot!) co-labourer with you in the Gospel.

For a couple years now, my wife Rae and I have been exploring a renewed call to serve the Lord in Britain. We’ve joined Serve Globally and are eager to serve as the Covenant’s first missionaries to the United Kingdom! Check out this short clip which reveals more of the specifics of that call.

Rae was born in Wales and is still a British citizen. She is a professional cartographer for Graphic Information Systems with Yakima County. She will pursue a similar career in Britain. I’ll build my ministry from wherever she finds work.

We both share a heart for the disenfranchised, especially millennials, and we’re passionate about sharing Jesus in contextual ways. Most of my career has been as worship and retreat leader. My goal is to weave together contemporary liturgies, the arts, and spiritual formation in developing creative ways to reach exvangelicals, the de-churched, and the un-churched.

For more information about us and how you might partner with us in the Gospel, take a look at our most recent newsletter. Our current donor initiative is “Coffee Money Gospel.” We invite you to become a sustaining member of our community by contributing only $21 (or more) per month. Three dollars, seven times a month (or the opposite if you’re given to more uptown drinks) – coffee money! With enough of you joining us, we’ll be there in no time. Then, we’ll share a coffee in your honour!

Email me anytime at robert.rife@covchurch.org. Check out our page on the ECC website. We love you all, and we thank you for your friendship, your laughter, and the many ways you help us love and serve our common Saviour!