This post is part of a series called "Meet the Team" introducing you to our Generation LINK staff. We hope it will help you get to know Generation LINK staff members serving around the country a little better.
Tell us a little about your bio (studies, work
experience, family, etc.)
I am originally from
Fayetteville, Arkansas. I came to know Christ as a teenager in high school. God
began changing my life and giving me new desires for him that I never could
have imagined. One of those desires was to serve him in full-time ministry.
That desire took me to college at Liberty University. It was in college that I
met my wife. I graduated a year before she did and moved to Dallas, TX. In that
year, I convinced her to move to Dallas when she graduated. In what was
unplanned by us but definitely God’s plan at work, we ended up moving to Wake
Forest, NC four months after Emily moved to Dallas. God provided a job at
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and shortly after we arrived we
connected with Open Door Church. During our time at Open Door, Emily and I grew
as a couple, were invested in by other godly couples, and were married on March
5, 2011. Our daughter, Amelia Ruth, was born on October 30, 2013. It has been
an incredible journey welcoming her into our lives. We are loving being parents,
serving together in ministry, being a part of community at Open Door, and
reaching others with goods new of Jesus Christ.
In addition to the serving
as the Generation LINK Raleigh Area Director, I serve as the Minister to
Students at Open Church. I have the joy of investing in middle and high school
students as well as college students. Before coming on staff at Open Door, I
worked in the president’s office at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
I served in various intern roles throughout college and my first years of
seminary at churches in Arkansas and Texas. Outside of ministry my most
interesting job was my first job as a door-to-door newspaper salesman for the Northwest
Arkansas Morning News. Residents couldn’t resist my charm and good looks.
I completed my undergraduate degree at Liberty University and
an M.Div from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. I am currently working
on a PhD in Biblical Studies at Southeastern. I desire to serve the church
by helping God's people understand their mission and carry it out in this world.
I am excited to be a part of equipping the next generation of disciple makers
through the local church.
What does Generation LINK look like at your
church/location?
Currently, we are in the
beginning stages of developing the full potential of Generation LINK at Open
Door. We currently have one GLINK Resident—Paul Whitfield—who is being equipped
and serving on our staff at Open Door. Paul functions as a church
planting resident and serves primarily under our Lead Pastor, Dwayne Milioni.
Paul has and is helping us establish a pattern and plan for training and
equipping future missionaries, church planters, church planting team members,
and pastors. We are looking to add both male and female GLINK residents in the
coming two to three years. Generation LINK functions in two primary ways at
Open Door: 1) an initial equipping and service opportunity for seminary and
post-undergraduate students who desire to serve the church in some capacity in
the future (1-2 years) and 2) a capstone equipping opportunity for church
planters and missionaries before they are sent out from the local church.
How have you seen God use Generation LINK in your
location?
God has used Generation LINK
in a number of ways at Open Door. Three significant ways are: 1) GLINK
has strengthened our training and equipping strategy. 2) GLINK has opened up
and deepened partnerships with other like-minded churches and church plants.
The value of GLINK is measured not only by its impact within our own local
church, but in relationship to the other churches we are able to serve through partnering together. 3) GLINK is allowing us to invest in future
leaders, pastors, missionaries, and church planters in a strategic way. Open
Door has been committed to this vision before GLINK came into the picture, but GLINK
has allowed us to do this even more intentionally through the residency.
What excites you most about the future of Generation
LINK?
I get most excited about the
potential of training men and women for the sake of gospel, some of whom will
be faithful church members and reach their communities with the gospel, others who will be pastors of established churches, and others who will be church planters to
unreached and underserved cities and communities in North America and around
the world. Generation LINK is the tangible vehicle for this actually coming to
fruition. It allows us the opportunity to invest in those God has entrusted to us
and is an invaluable opportunity for our residents to be equipped and sent.
What 2-3 books have been most formative in your walk
with Christ?
This kind of question always
makes me a little anxious because I either can’t remember some of the books
I’ve read or I start think about all the books I wish I had read. Here are a
few that I remember reading and that I am grateful for doing so:
Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by J. I. Packer. This book grounded by passion for
sharing the gospel in the confidence of God’s sovereignty. Knowing God’s
sovereignty should not dampen our passion to share the gospel, rather it should
make us bold, patient, and prayerful. God taught me through this book that
successful evangelism is being faithful to the gospel (both its message and its
invitation) and trusting God with the response. In fact, in the process of
writing this blog post, I had the opportunity to lead one of our students to
Christ. I think I might just need to go back and read this one again!
Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper. This book hit me like a ton of bricks
when I read it. I probably underlined 80% of the book. I
didn’t quite know what God was going to do with my life after I read it, but I
knew I didn’t want to be counting seashells—I didn’t want to waste my life but I
wanted to spend my life for the sake of the gospel among the nations. I think I read a few mission biographies around this time as well, which contributed to the work God was doing in my heart (John Paton by James Paton, Five Who Changed the World by Danny Akin, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya by Ruth Tucker). “Only one
life, ‘twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.”
Downpour by
James MacDonald. I’m not sure who gave me this book, but God used it and the
biblical passages it walked through to teach me the true weight and offense of
my sin and the nature and joy of repentance. I learned that repentance not only
marked the beginning of the Christian life but characterized the entirety of
it.
I commend any of these books
to you, but know that their contents will not allow you to stay the same!
What are your favorite things to do in your free
time?
This is an interesting
concept—free time. When I do get a little free time, I love spending time with
my wife and our daughter. If I’m not spending time with them, I enjoy reading,
a round of golf, hanging out with friends, going to a good coffee shop, and I
even enjoy doing a little work around the house.
What is your typical coffee shop order?
If I am not feeling snobby—a
grande black coffee from Starbucks with room for cream (but only because they
fill the cup up so much that it spills over and burns my hand). If I am feely
snobby and have a little extra cash, I go to the hipster coffee shops and
usually order a pour over of some coffee that I can’t pronounce (typically,
it’s from Africa).
Michael Guyer
