Okay here goes. Let me begin by sharing a brief testimony. I attended my last church my entirely life. From nursery to 39 year old. I met and married my husband there. It was and still is a very dogmatic, legalistic, Pentecostal church. It was routine and very religious. It was a boys club where women had very little respect and could not participate in deep theological conversations because (really what do we know). I was not happy in the last years I attended my church but I didn’t feel it was time to leave until four years ago.
I was depressed and despised going to church. I prayed for God to lead me somewhere else. It was then that my husband was called to pastor the church we are in now. My husband and I love God very much and we promised to make our ministry all about God. Glory to God, He has helped us to be faithful to our promise.
We experienced so much hurt and honestly very little of Jesus in our last church . It broke our hearts and we did not want to go through that again.
My husband was asked to pastor a church that had gone through a terrible time. Their last pastor left them high and dry, he joined a movement , left them in debt and broken hearted. So we had a hard time but our hearts were torn for the new church family God had handed to us. And so our pastorship began and with God’s help it is still going strong.
Now to answer your specific questions.
After the unfortunate way the last pastor left the church many, I mean many of the congregants left. Some to other churches others rejecting the church entirely. It was very sad. We were given a church with less than 20 members. 8 of which were “active” members. So to answer your question the group I refer to in my response is the entire church.
My husband is not a man who is jealous of the altar. There are many leaders in our church but just one pastor. My husband strongly believes in helping an eager member to develop their ministry . He’s “hands on” with lots of things but he’s “hands off” with lots of things also. It’s a nice balance. No dictatorship here. Lots of mentoring and guidance and giving a person the chance to spiritually develop. So yes, I suppose it’s different than most. He is an active participant in our church services. He preaches the sermon and lately there has been a dynamic downpouring of the Spirit the Lord is leading us (the church) into an awesome direction and we just follow.
Being in one accord. This is pretty new and this is the crazy part. The church has been more in one accord than ever before. It was as if there was a sudden awakening. A sudden desperation to unite and seek His face together. Perhap all the prayers and fasting kicked in . Definitely because the Lord is doing something wonderful. I can’t really explain but I do agree very few churches have experienced it and honestly this is the first time I have had the experience of being part of a family with the same goal to serve, please, honor , work for and worship the Lord.
It’s a different time and I believe the humble attitude given to my husband and I (not without a lot of hard knocks by the way)has helped the church family see that we are all in this together.
I think people are tired of “Altar hoggers” “Theology braggers” who practically wave their PHD’s in the air (not that it’s a bad thing to have a PHD, on the contrary)It’s when you use it to make others feel they are not worthy of ministering to the lost because they are not “smart enough”
So getting down to the basics. God is God. Jesus is Lord, The Spirit guides us. He is OUR God. OUR CHURCH FAMILY has the same Father. We are all fighting the same battles, I guess we realized that if we come together in one accord we can get through anything. If we rely on our God and God alone there should be no discord amongst us. We are far from perfect but I think we finally “got it” When it comes to unity. It’s been a long time comin’
I hope this answers your questions feel free to ask me anything else. I love to share. Otherwise I wouldn’t be a blogger.
