Greg Cook's Testimony

My wife, Kim, and I moved to Barboursville the summer of 2003.  Our twins, Theodore and Anastasia, were 3 years-old and Kim was pregnant with Eden.  Accepting the call to pastor Providence has been a wonderful step in God's journey for me.

As a child I loved to read the Bible.  The Old Testament particularly fascinated me.  I was scared however, of going to Hell and though I had prayed many times for Jesus to forgive my sins, I was not sure He had done so.  One day when I was 8 years-old, I prayed for probably the hundredth time that Jesus would save me.  For whatever reason, I have known since then that He had done so.

When I was fourteen, I was reading the Bible and found the verse where Jeremiah, having forsaken the ministry in despair, comes to the conclusion that "if I say, 'I will not mention him or speak any more in his name,' his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot" (Jer. 20:9).  I recognized the same passion in me.  Since then, preaching has been the only vocation I wanted to do. 

I went to The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where I majored in physics and then proceeded on to Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi.  God used seminary to show me the truth of Reformed Theology and to teach me many things.  Unfortunately, I came out of seminary lacking much in true faith and dependence.  I did not truly understand the doctrines of Grace. 

After a year of frustration, working in two different churches in Memphis, I went to a conference in October, 1998 where my self-righteousness was exposed.  I saw my sin for what it was in one of the most painful experiences of my life.  God has graciously and patiently led me deeper into grace since then.  I have grown in my love for Him and for others.  As a result of my crisis, I realized that God did not need me, but rather it was an honor and privilege to serve Him.  To find my faith, I enrolled in a PhD program at Westminster Theological Seminary, studying biblical hermeneutics (interpretation) focusing in the Old Testament prophets (I am still in the long process of completing that degree).  For four years I was the minister for youth and college at a PCA church in Delaware.  In that time, I meditated deeply on Acts 2:42-47 and came to pray and long for God to allow me to be part of a body of believers who reflected "They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death" (Revelation 12:11).  Please pray with me for deep repentance and revival for Christianity in the West, that we may not love our lives so much to shrink back from following Christ, no matter where he leads.

In Christ,

Greg Cook

Minister 

Our children from left to right-Theodore, Anastasia, Eden, Caleb, and Joshua

5865 Davis Creek Rd.

Barboursville, WV  25504

(304) 736-0487

Email Rev. Greg Cook