Greetings Everyone!

My name is Troy Sergey and I am beyond blessed to join the staff here at Grace Gospel Church here in Ada until December as the Residential Pastor here! I am well aware of the rich biblical teaching and preaching that has gone on throughout the years inside of these church walls which dates back to 1939. Knowing these truths makes me even more excited and humble to be apart of the pastoral staff here. I am also looking forward to meeting all the members of this church and to be welcomed and apart of this community of Ada Ohio. Part of getting connected to the Ada community will be making these weekly blogs. Starting next week I will be starting a blog walking through the Gospel of John.

I look forward to meeting most of you this upcoming Sunday morning (July 12th) at this week’s church service at 10:30am. I will be sharing my Christian Testimony during this Sunday morning’s service but I thought I’d give a sneak peak to those reading of my testimony!

I am currently 21 years old and originally from Marquette Michigan in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I grew up in a house that went to church once a month or so. My entire life I’ve always believed in God but did not have any type of personal relationship with him. As I got into high school, I had many friends, I had a family who loved me, I was on the honor roll, and I was captain of my high school Basketball and Cross Country team. I truly had what most high schoolers strive for, but something was missing. When I was 16 years old, I started my junior year of high school and I started to ask the questions “what am I going to do with my life?” “What kind of man am I going to be?” What kind of principles am I going to live my life off of?” Even though on paper my life seemed very successful, the purpose of who I wanted to be was very absent. As I had all these questions floating around in my head, my high School Cross Country team was driving 8 hours South to the wonderful city of Kalamazoo Michigan. All of us drove separately and I was paired up to ride with my Coach who was a pastor. I knew and respected his position as a pastor but viewed it no more that “just a job career”. As far as salvation, my thinking was that just acknowledging that there was a God was enough to get into heaven. During the ride, my coach started quoting the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 and one of the lines is “the pure in heart shall see God”. In my head I asked myself “what does it mean to have a pure heart?”. He went on explaining how much joy and purpose he had in his life because of the love of Christ and what he displayed for us on the cross. Again in my head I asked myself “how come he has so much joy and purpose in his life and I don’t. We believe the same thing after all”. After pondering these questions, my coach invited me to his house on a Wednesday night as he hosted a weekly Bible Study. Upon attending, we looked at different phrases in the book of Proverbs which talked about the righteous man and wicked man. These concepts made a lot of sense to me so I got more curious; which led me to start watching countless amounts of Billy Graham sermons on YouTube. Through all of those experiences, the cross of Christ and God’s plan for salvation spoke to me for the first time leading me to accept Christ as my personal savior and redeemer. Being born separated from God because of my sin, God sent his one and only Son into the world where he condemned sin in the flesh and ultimately died a painful death on a cross and rose again! This became personal and real in my life. What Jesus did for me on the cross changed how I treated others, how I viewed sin and ultimately the man I wanted to be. My purpose in life was simple, love God and love others. What better opportunity to outlive that purpose than becoming a pastor. After attending Grace Christian University in Grand Rapids Michigan for four years and receiving my bachelors degree in Pastoral Ministry, I feel prepared to serve and equip the believers here at Grace Gospel Church. To know and to understand who Jesus Christ is and what he accomplished for you personally will impact your life in every way possible. I hope everyone reading this is able to feel this joy in their lives as I have.

Thank you for your time to read my testimony!