Letter to Ministry Partners / 2020

Dear Ministry Partners,

We cannot thank you enough for supporting us personally, and the ministry work we have been doing through HCDS. Your encouragement, financial support, prayers, notes, phone calls and meals have been God’s lavish grace to us in a difficult season. You have both ministered to us and invested in us, and we are truly both humbled and thankful for each one of you. 

When we first left Surfside PCA, our primary goal was to get some healing and counseling for ourselves. We had a severance that allowed us to do that without immediately having to get a job. The Lord graciously provided a SoulCare provider for us in Bishop Thad Barnum, who specializes in working with clergy and people in ministry. We have been seeing Thad almost every week for about a year and a half! About halfway through our counseling we realized Tim was showing all the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress. The Lord has used Brad Hambrick’s video seminar on PTSD to really help Tim work through that. Although we received a lot of wounds from what happened at Surfside, the Lord has also preserved us and continues to prune us through what happened.

Before we had officially resigned from Surfside, the Lord had brought Tim a lot of pastoral counseling opportunities both in and outside the church. There were several people we kept meeting with after the resignation. Proclaiming Gospel Hope to others was also balm to us and felt like something the Lord was leading us to do for right then. We weren’t sure whether it would be something temporary (until Tim got a church) or if this was the ministry he was calling us to start permanently, but we registered Hope Christian Discipleship and SoulCare with Artists in Christian Testimony, Inc (an organization that gives us accountability and help as a nonprofit and handles our finances) and we asked for financial help. It was terrifying. We talk about how Christian growth is learning how to be more and more dependent on Christ but it is not emotionally easy to do in practice! The response we got from all of you kept us going. 

Tim built a website for HCDS, we opened our home on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays for SoulCare (Pastoral Counseling) appointments, Tim made some discipleship videos and lessons, and wrote a book on prayer. We also enclosed our porch to use as Tim’s office and Counseling room. The Lord has brought us so many people needing to hear how the Gospel applies to their marriages, work, parenting and personal trials. Some people we see every week. Some we FaceTime. Some we see just occasionally. Recently we have had several pastors and youth pastors seek us out for SoulCare. It has been good of the Lord to allow us to comfort with the comfort we have been given (2 Cor 1:3-4). It is such a privilege to be able to help folks really understand the “good news” of the Gospel. We definitely need to hear it everyday ourselves!

When we first started HCDS, we were also thinking that in a few months the Lord would either call Tim to an established church or that we would possibly plant one. Tim applied for a few jobs, and we asked for and received some good wisdom about Church Planting. In both cases, the doors were either shut, or we could not get any sense of peace that it was the Lord’s leading or timing. The one thing we have felt led to do is for Tim to be “reordered” in the Anglican church (ACNA). If down the road we are ever called back into church ministry we feel we best line up with the conservative Anglicans. Tim has been slowly working through the requirements to do that. We also joined Christ Church in Murrells Inlet which has been a huge blessing to us!

While we have not either had the opportunity or the peace about taking a Church position, we continue to have both opportunity and peace about Hope Christian Discipleship and SoulCare. We are finally at a place to fully focus on this ministry alone! A.C.T. Intl, our non profit accountability, requires us to do an end of year report which includes our goals for the next year. Tim and I are both on the same page that we want to do a much better job communicating with and involving our support team! We want to print up brochures that clearly explain what the ministry offers and that people can share. We want to have business cards to be able to hand out. We need to keep the website updated and make regular posts. We want to learn how to raise support in a way that glorifies the Lord and blesses those we ask. We also want to invite our supporters to tell us how we might better fulfill our purpose of: proclaiming the gospel of the Christian’s Union to King Jesus – through the means of Soul Care, Discipleship, Online Resources, and Speaking. We welcome your input in this ministry. Also if you know of anyone looking for a Retreat or Conference speaker, please pass on Tim’s contact info (843-997-8862). All of these goals are also our prayer requests!

On a personal note, our daughter Callie and her husband Drew moved in with us in April, and our son Camp decided to finish college online and is also living with us for the time being. We thought we were going to be helping our children out, but instead they are helping us both financially and in our ministry. It has been a joy to have everyone home! On March 3, Callie safely delivered our first grandchild, Atlas Scott Nelson. Grandparents, parents and uncle are all completely smitten!

If any of you would like a copy of Tim’s book, The Valley of Vision Remix, we would love to send it to you for free. If you have already purchased a copy from Amazon, and would like a free copy to give away, let us know as well. Text Martha Jo (843-267-8879) with your home address and we will get it out to you.

Again, thank you so much for your love and support of us. 

Much Love and Blessing,

Tim and Martha Jo Melton