Pastor Marty & Susan Larsen

Susan and I had the privilege of being the Associate Pastor of Meadows Baptist Church from June 1976 through January 1994. Our children were 4 & 2 when we began ministry there and were in college when we finished giving them just one place in which to be raised… we’re still very grateful for that! They are now 35 & 33, married and have ‘given us’ 4 GRANDchildren! Without question our years at Meadows were some of the most special of our lives in ministry. We loved being the Associate Pastor and wife. We remain deeply thankful for the input into our children’s lives through the people of Meadows and her programs. Our lives were enriched because of so many people at Meadows which now includes lifelong friends and even several partners for our current ministry to Missionaries.

Meadows was our first full-time church work experience. The confidence that the Sr Pastors and leadership placed in us to minister freely in the name of Jesus provided a springboard for 17 ½ yrs of ministry at Meadows for which we are deeply thankful to the Lord for. We believe the people, leadership, and the ‘core philosophy’ of Meadows and its implementation taught us or reinforced several things in our lives and ministry that define our thinking to this day:

• The centrality of the Word of God!
• The importance of both being a light and sharing that light!
• The paramount importance of Missions and Faith Promise Giving!
• The necessity of an all-encompassing church program that includes: Worship / Instruction / Fellowship / Evangelism / and Service [‘WIFES’]!

In God’s timing we have moved out from Meadows, but we feel to a large extent that Meadows has not moved out from us! Not only is this church at large continuing to partner with us in our ministry through prayer and resources, but we believe that we have ‘taken from’ our years at Meadows a deeper love for Jesus, a deeper love for people, the importance of forgiveness, the priority of missions, and keeping the main thing the main thing and that’s JESUS, who is our LIFE, as believers!

After our tenure at Meadows we spent the next 5 years of pastoral ministry in both a Sr Pastor role at Grace Baptist Church, Waverly, Iowa, and an Interim Pastor role at Cedar Heights Baptist Church in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Many invaluable life and ministry lessons were learned through this time. We made many deep and lasting friendships. We were able to understand deeper the role of a pastor through our experiences in Iowa. We have also experienced the ‘difficulties of ministry’. It has been said that, ‘no one survives pastoral ministry unscathed’, and we have found this to be true in our pastoral ministry lives as well. We believe deeply the truth of Romans 8:28 for all of us as believers in this life. As such we have been profoundly impacted by both the blessings and the difficulties of life in pastoral ministry. We believe that the broad range of our ministry experiences have served us well in understanding the breadth of experiences that the missionaries that we serve encounter on the field.

We also experienced a great health trauma in Susan’s life when she contracted a serious case of viral encephalitis during the end of our time in Iowa. Thankfully the LORD has restored her to health and vitality through HIS gift of healing during this time. We are grateful to God and friends who helped us navigate through these 5 years. From our time in Iowa we learned the importance of allowing God to carry us and cause His plans and purposes to unfold in and through our lives.

As pastor and wife we travel to any missionary entity in the world that invites us for 2 wks to 2 mos at a time for the express purpose of coming alongside of their group to ‘do all things pastoral’; i.e. preaching, teaching, prayer, counsel, befriending and acts of service in Jesus’ name. [Pastor Marty & Susan]

NOTES: While we are under the ‘legal umbrella’ of Larsen & Larsen Ministries, Inc., we are also associated with a group called ‘Pastors Beyond’ [PB], composed of several pastor & wife couples in this form of ministry. PB was founded over 20 yrs ago now by Cameron Townsend, the founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators [WBT]. PB is not a legal part of nor directly accountable to WBT; i.e. we have no legal or financial ties to WBT. PB was established in this fashion by Townsend intentionally so that pastoral couples could minister and pastor freely amongst the WBT mission entities without the missionaries feeling that anything they would say and share would find its way back to the home office; i.e. he knew the missionaries needed ‘safe people’ to talk to.]

Our ministry of Larsen & Larsen Ministries, Inc. has a four member Board of Directors who meet annually. We are under their direct authority for all matters of the ministry like purpose, vision, finances, goals, etc.