“The Church is so preserved in the world, that it sometimes rises again from death; in short, the preservation of the Church, almost every day is accompanied with many miracles…many resurrections.” John Calvin, Sermon on Micah 4:6-7

David and Barbara Cross met at Columbia Bible College where they both earned degrees in Biblical Education. While a student at Reformed Episcopal Seminary, David became concerned with church planting. In the 1970s, he began Westminster Presbyterian Church, Bull Creek in Perth (western Australia). The family then returned to the United States (Carlisle, Pennsylvania) where David served the Reformed Presbyterian Church as organizing pastor.

In 1987, Mission to the World (MTW) sent David to work with a new denomination, The Evangelical Presbyterian Church in England and Wales (EPCEW). David’s first responsibility was planting a church in Chelmsford, Essex County, about 40 miles northeast of London. He also served as Clerk of Session and became involved with leadership training.

It may seem ironic that American missionaries must serve in an area with such a great history of Christian witness. Three miles north of Chelmsford, along A12, is the village of Witham, where Dorothy L. Sayers lived from the time of her marriage (1925) until her death (1957). Ten miles further along the A12 is the village of Kelvedon, birthplace of the Reformed Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-92). And it is only another 20 miles to Colchester, home of Old King Cole (of nursery rhyme fame) who was, as legend would have it, the maternal grandfather of the Christian Roman Emperor, Constantine.

In 2003, after a British pastor was called by the Chelmsford church, David and Barbara moved to Worcester—home of the Royal Worcester Porcelain Works and Worcestershire Sauce. They are now working a team involved in planting three fledgling churches in Cheltenham, Neat (Wales), and Solihull (a suburb of Birmingham).

David and Barbara will celebrate their forty-fourth wedding anniversary this summer. They have two grown daughters and four grandchildren. Son-in-law Mark (husband of Shelly) has been called as Associate Pastor to the Bull Creek Church that David had planted. Shelly was 12 years old when she left Australia with her parents and considers her return to Australia as if she is, in some sense, going home.

Please remember to pray for David and Barbara Cross as they attempt to live out God’s truth.

• Pray that God will protect their physical and spiritual health.

• Pray for David’s pastoral ministry to the developing churches. May his advice always be based on true knowledge and ripened with wisdom. Also pray for the wider work of the presbytery and for the development of effective church-planting teams.

• Pray for Barbara’s ministry to the local women and children, as well as her labors in hospitality and her work with MTW’s Europe Care Council (with special responsibility for 49 women working in Eastern Europe).