Alan Oesterling

For most of my formative childhood years, my parents and I were very involved in a Lutheran church. We attended every Sunday, and I was baptized as an infant. There were times where I enjoyed it and times that I didn’t, but nonetheless we attended very faithfully. I remember going to Sunday school and learning about many of the well-known Bible heroes, but was never really able to connect the stories I was hearing to the gospel of Jesus. I would go on to graduate from the Lutheran confirmation classes and take communion, but looking back I know that my relationship with Christ was not personal. ​

When I met my girlfriend Penny, who would later become my wife, she had experienced a very similar upbringing in a Lutheran church. After we met, we knew that we didn’t really have a personal relationship with Christ, and we both decided to go forward at a Billy Graham crusade that we attended. Unfortunately, there was no lasting fruit and heart change from that experience, and we still felt that we didn’t really know Jesus. We got married and had our first child, and moved to a new house next to a Christian family. Thankfully, through many hours of Bible study and prayer, my wife Penny decided to follow Jesus. I resisted at first, even becoming jealous of her newfound faith. We started attending church together, and I sat through many gospel presentations and altar calls before I finally gave my life to Jesus during a pastor visit at our home one evening. I remember the moment that I was saved, but looking back on it my salvation was really a culmination of many hours of Bible study and friends and family praying for me. I also decided to get baptized again after becoming convicted that my infant baptism wasn’t the biblical norm.

After I got saved, we attended a fundamental Baptist church in upstate NY, and received great biblical teaching and grew in our faith tremendously. We would eventually move several more times and over the years we learned that it was okay for us to be a little more flexible in regards to the worship and preaching styles of the churches we attended. We landed in SC in 2018, and started attending a large Baptist church that unfortunately split soon after. We were a little directionless for a while, but eventually learned that Pastor Daniel was joining the TCBR team. After attending for a while, we felt led to join the church and have been faithfully attending ever since.

We are now a part of the Capps Missional Community group and I regularly attend my cell group as well. I also serve on the finance team, and currently serve as an editor and proofreader on the writing team. The church has become like a family to us, and we are so thankful to be a part of the CFNW community. This is the first time that we have ever attended a church with a plurality of elders model, and I really appreciate the leadership structure of our body. We are also so grateful for the many prayers that have been raised on our behalf especially as my wife and I have walked through some serious health challenges. We love our church family, and look forward to seeing more churches planted in the future.