Rev. Logan Elder—God’s Man in Orlando
Spring 2023
January 13, 2023 saw the ordination of Rev. Logan Elder and his installation as the third minister of Orlando Free Presbyterian Church. Following the ministries of Rev. John Wagner and Rev. Derek Erwin the church had faithfully persevered during a pulpit vacancy of over five years. The church family, and visitors, rejoiced in the Lord’s kindness in answering prayer and sending an under-shepherd to care for His people. Truly the risen and ascended Christ had given a pastor-teacher gift to His church, “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12).
What follows is Rev. Elder’s account of the Lord’s leading in his life.
(Editor)
Conversion to Christ
In October 2015, the Lord gave me a saving knowledge of Christ through His Word. I did not grow up in a truly Christian home. When I was about thirteen, I started becoming a regular user of various kinds of drugs and alcohol. From that time on, I began to engage in very dark acts of wickedness. I thank God that, although I was allowed to go considerably far into that world of sin, God largely preserved me from the life-altering and destructive effects that lifestyle is ordinarily attended with.
The Lord is long-suffering and got my attention in my senior year of high school through various means. The Lord had brought the Bible into my life through my workplace and some Christians that came by to give everyone a gift bag containing, among other items, a Gideon's New Testament. About a year later, through two severe car wrecks, in which I was miraculously spared any injury, the Lord put a question and a realization into my mind: “Why am I alive?”and “I am being kept alive.” Through those events, I started to read the Bible for answers. I read from Genesis to Jeremiah, but stopped for various reasons and began to read John’s Gospel.
I believe the Lord led me to Christ through John 5:39–40. After reading that portion, I cried out to God on several occasions for this life that He promised. He graciously answered that prayer and gave me new life; I became a new creature in Christ Jesus. The Lord immediately delivered me at the time of my conversion from the vices that I had been enslaved to for so long, but it was a process for some of those vices which took the daily effort of mortifying the deeds of the flesh. Early on, the Lord gave me an insatiable desire to study the Scriptures, for which I am very thankful. It was the Word of God that helped me then and that helps me now to renew my mind and stir up the grace of God in my pursuit of personal holiness.
Call to Preach The Gospel
About six months to a year after my conversion I began to feel burdened to preach the gospel. Due to the nature of my life before Christ, I was extremely hesitant about such a thing. I felt and still feel extremely inadequate for such a task. It was through reading the call of God to Moses that the Lord gave me assurance that I needed to pursue the preaching ministry. I readily identified with the words of Moses in Exodus 4:10, but the Lord’s response to him in verses 11–12 was greatly impressed upon me by the Spirit. To this day I still turn to these words when I seek encouragement regarding the preaching of the gospel. I then spoke with the man who was my pastor at the time about this burden and began to pursue training for the ministry. Eventually, that pursuit led me to Geneva Reformed Seminary (GRS) where I received a Bachelor of Divinity degree in June 2022. A lot of testing happened during that time both within the classroom and without, but the Lord is faithful who called me and has kept me pursuing this sacred responsibility of preaching the gospel to every creature.
Call to Orlando FPC
Several factors led to my acceptance of the call to Orlando FPC. My family and I first visited the Orlando congregation in July 2022. During that time, the Lord gave me an initial burden for the work of God there. Matthew 9:36–38 was a part of my Bible reading and the Lord used it to plant the desire in my heart to take up the work in Orlando. I was concerned about this burden being a mere emotional response, but I would not be able to return to Orlando for the next several months due to other engagements. I knew that if the burden was genuine that the Lord would sustain it through those months. The Lord did sustain the burden as the months went by so that as my licensing was approaching, I was still uniquely interested in the work of God in Orlando.
At the end of October, after a congregational vote, I was surprised to learn that the Lord had led the congregation to vote unanimously in favor of calling me as their minister. The Lord used this to speak very keenly to my heart. Although that was an enormous indication of the Lord’s will, I did not yet have full assurance that I should accept the call. The morning after the presbytery had ratified the vote, I opened my Bible and began to read again and pray over the call from Matthew 9:36–38. As I prayed, the Lord began to impress two other texts upon my heart in relation to my burden for this work: Colossians 4:17 and Nehemiah 2:10. All three of these portions began to assure me that the Lord would have me accept the call. I believed this call was an answer to prayer and a ministry that the Lord was appointing me to. I believed that I needed to take heed to it, receive it, and endeavor to fulfill it, by God’s grace, as a man going to seek the welfare of the children of Israel. Even with that, I was still not fully convinced and I wanted more assurance. That assurance came to me the next morning. A part of my regular reading was Psalm 56:9 and the Lord impressed upon me the latter part of verse nine, “This I know, for God is for me.” In a strange way, as I meditated on that text at that moment and for the rest of the day, I became fully assured that God was “for me” in my receipt of this call to Orlando FPC and that He would have me serve Him there.
I am thankful that the Lord has given my family and me a promise to rest upon and plead before Him as I begin my ministry in Orlando. We covet your prayers as we seek to serve the Lord in this new stage of our life.
Rev. Logan Elder | Minister of Orlando FPC, FL