Outside of approximately 5 years, I have spent my whole life in Wabash, Indiana. From birth until my early 30’s, I was in and around the same local church: a restoration movement church with a long-standing history and impact in the community, as well as roots that run deep within my own family. I have many great memories within this church, including coming to faith in Christ, and I’m grateful for the many folks who evangelized and encouraged me in Him along the way.

While my 20’s were spent teaching, coaching, and farming, by the time I reached my 30’s, I had a newfound and growing desire to pursue local church ministry. This desire ultimately led me across the country to Phoenix, Arizona, where I enrolled in a residency program within one of the largest churches in America: a multi-site, restoration movement church with a big vision to do big things for Christ in the Valley. Upon completing this residency, I stayed in Phoenix for the next four years after accepting my first ministry position as an Assistant Pastor of a relatively new church plant; one with slightly more of a Reformed leaning. It was during this time in Phoenix that I also met and married my wife, Kaylee, who has been a great blessing from the Lord!
In 2020, amid some COVID downtime, I was introduced to full-blown, confessionally Reformed theology for the first time. As I immersed myself in Reformed reading material, sermons, and podcasts, I realized that what I was consuming not only aligned with convictions that had been forming from my personal Bible reading—and to be sure, in bits and pieces from my local church context—but I was also experiencing the blessing of more rest and assurance in Christ in the process. Over the course of the next couple years, as I continued to publicly serve in my first ministry role, I privately continued digging deeper into confessionally Reformed theology. As I did this, I began realizing a couple things: the need to pursue formal reformed theological training, as well as the need to start prayerfully seeking a new ministry opportunity that would better align with certain convictions that had shifted for me over time.
In the Fall of 2022, by recommendation from a trusted reformed pastor, I enrolled in the MATS Program with Reformed Baptist Seminary. In my time since enrolling, Kaylee and I relocated back to my hometown in Wabash, Indiana, where we have also recently welcomed our first child and daughter, Jordan. Aside from the joys of being a new dad, it has also been a blessing to be back around family and to re-join the family farm. Ministry wise, we are now prayerfully and patiently taking steps toward planting a confessionally Reformed church in the area; one where there has historically (and currently) been a lack of confessionally Reformed churches.
I am very grateful for the education that I received through RBS, and for the top-notch professors who have equipped me with such a robust theological foundation for pastoral ministry. Throughout this shifting and refining journey over the last few years, one of the doctrines that has most captured my heart is the doctrine of Union with Christ. Lord-willing, in the days to come, I look forward to taking what I’ve learned to help pastor and plant “Grace Union Church” here in my hometown, where, by God’s grace, we will be a family of fellow broken people gratefully embracing fellow union with Christ.

In Him,
Josh Merrick