Hopefully by now you've read the first part of my story...
All the little signposts leading me down a spiritual path towards an
encounter with God in 1983 that I still haven't gotten over (and
I hope I never do).
Previously I said a third thing happened "that night."
Actually it happened the same week, three days later, on a Wednesday
night.
I was back in church, still floating from my experience from Sunday.
Towards the end of the service a few people went forward to be
prayed for.
One of them was an elderly little lady with red hair that I had
never seen before.
She was "slain in the Spirit" as they used to call it...
fell right out and lay there for a long while, weeping.
That wasn't so unusual to me - not anymore.
What's unusual is what happened next.
She got up and looked around like she was trying to find someone.
Then she saw me and she came over, trembling, and took my hand in
her hand.
"Who is this boy? Who is this boy?" she kept saying.
(She didn't know me because she wasn't there three days ago
when everything happened.)
Finally someone told her who I was and what had happened to me the
past Sunday.
"I didn't know that," she said. "But I have to
tell you this. When I was over there praying a few minutes ago, I
had a vision."
She kept squeezing my hand and tears were streaming down her face.
"It was beauuuuuuuuutifulllllll," she said. Just the way
she said it gave me goosebumps.
"I saw you standing in heaven... you were holding a Bible in
your hand..."
She closed her eyes and whispered, sweeping her arms in the air.
"And behind you... as faaaaar as I could seeeeee.... were all
the SOULS you had led to the Lord!"
By now some of you may be thinking, "O.K. Chip, we get it -
you've got a calling on your life! Enough already."
To be clear, I'm not sharing all this to impress you, but to
impress UPON you, that this is a lot for a 12-year-old boy to take
in.
I'm sharing it because it sets the stage for the big failure
that was bound to come.
All this happened just before the end of summer vacation, and when I
started middle school, the whole world knew that something had
happened to me over the summer.
I started a secret Bible Club at school and got in trouble with all
my teachers for handing out "propaganda" (that's what
one teacher called my Gospel tracts).
I would pray for classmates and lead them to the Lord.
When I wasn't in school, I would go out with people from the
church, knock on doors, and tell people about Jesus.
One day I accidently knocked on the door of a man who was the deacon
of the biggest Baptist church in town.
How did I know? He told me!
"Hey kid, I'm a deacon at ____ Baptist Church, and I
DON'T NEED WHAT YOU GOT!"
*** SLAMS THE DOOR IN MY FACE ***
I thought. "Huh? You don't need Jesus at the Baptist
Church??"
When I was 13 years old, the pastor invited me to preach, and when I
did, people came from miles around to witness it.
Thinking back on it now, it's a little crazy to let a kid
preach.
But I did. Several times. And God blessed it, somehow.
People at that church would call me their "Young Timothy."
But the kids in the youth group had a few other names for me...
Goody Two Shoes.
Preacher Boy.
"Here comes the Preacher Boy, are you gonna preach us a
sermon?"
Sometimes they would just irritate me to see if I would lose my
temper and say something bad. And if I did, they would say,
"Hypocrite! You're no better than us! Look what you
said!"
But I had one good thing going for me...
Karla and I started dating when we were 15.
We got married when we were 19.
By then I was an associate pastor. Karla and I took turns doing
every possible job in the church - you name the activity, and we
either led it or organized it.
I mainly preached, led worship, and taught Sunday school.
Karla organized the nursery, directed Vacation Bible School, and
helped me with the youth group.
Eventually a nearby church had a vacancy for a pastor, and someone
submitted my name for consideration. After a quick confirmation
process I became the pastor.
I was 23 years old.
No offense to anyone in their early 20's who may be reading this
- but 23 is way too young to be a pastor, no matter how gifted or
called you think you are!
What were they thinking?
Anyway, with such a great history behind me, everyone (including
me) had the highest expectations as I took over the reins of this
tiny little storefront church.
We did grow - new pastors always get some growth in the beginning,
just because you're new and everyone is excited.
But that soon passes, and then you realize there's still a lot
you don't know about people.
For example, I went to the hospital and prayed for the sister of one
of our members who had cancer.
The next day, they did an MRI and could not find the cancer. She was
healed!
Now, I'm not saying I did anything; clearly that was the Lord.
But (just speaking on a human level) when you pray for someone, and
they are healed of cancer, you would think that this would almost
guarantee that they would keep coming to your church, right?
Well, it didn't, and at the time I was amazed.
I was also amazed that I could preach and teach and do all the
"right" things and yet the church continued to decline.
My wife, my two little girls and I practically lived at the church,
working, working, working.
Keepin' it alive, keepin' it alive.
We held on for a couple of years before getting completely burned
out.
About that time, something really interesting happened...
A Hispanic man named "Joel" contacted me and wanted to see
me.
I set a time, and we met in my office at the church - the guy, along
with six or seven of his brothers.
Turns out they were all migrant workers from Mexico, living on the
edge of town.
Joel was a pastor to about 50 or 60 of these folks, with all their
families and kids.
He wanted to know if he could rent our church building on Sunday
afternoons so they could have a place to meet for worship (they
lived in single-wide trailers that were too small for all of them to
meet).
Of course, he had tried other churches but the people in our town
weren't receptive to the idea of letting Mexicans use their
facilities.
In fact, we were the only racially-mixed church in town.
I didn't ask him about his beliefs, or his teachings, or
anything.
I gave Joel a key and told him to use the building whenever he
wanted, rent-free.
Needless to say, they were all ecstatic.
The next Sunday, the place was packed and overflowing; they had the
music going and it was a real celebration. I even preached for them
through an interpreter.
Now the funny part is...
As time went on, the Hispanic congregation kept getting bigger and
bigger, while my congregation was getting smaller and smaller.
That's when I did something that didn't earn me any brownie
points with the denomination, but it was the right thing to do.
I gave the whole church over to Joel, and explained why.
He said, "But brother Chip, we don't want to be part of
your denomination."
I laughed and told him I didn't care about that.
He said, "But brother Chip, the landlord won't like what
you're doing."
I told him I would sublease the building to him, and as long as he
paid the rent, the landlord couldn't do anything about it.
So that's how my first church ended - a great social, moral and
spiritual victory, where we did the right thing and helped people
who needed help.
And yet, personally, I felt like a failure.
I was happy for Joel, but I couldn't figure out why God would
bless his congregation and not bless mine.
At first, of course, I was relieved to have the whole church thing
over with.
Then I was kind of hurt.
Then I was kind of depressed.
Then I was kind of angry and bitter.
Where did I go wrong?
What about all the wonderful things people said about me - all those
"souls" I would lead to the Lord?
Nothing made sense.
I was disappointed with people, of course.
I was disappointed with myself.
But mostly...
I was disappointed with God.
Maybe you're going through a similar situation.
Something isn't going the way you think it should.
Maybe people have hurt you.
Maybe you feel like a failure.
Maybe you wonder, "If God loves me, why would He allow this to
happen to me?"
I don't have all the answers.
But in my case, God has always used "failures" to reveal
Himself to me on a deeper level.
Because there are some things you just can't learn until you go
through some things you'd rather not go through.
Disappointment with God can be something that drives a wedge between
the two of you, or...
It can motivate you to press into Him more deeply.
Well, as a 25-year-old ex-pastor, I knew I had to choose between
getting down and out or getting up and getting on.
It's the same choice you have to make, whatever you're
facing right now.
And when I finally became determined to know the Truth, the Truth
was revealed.
Stunningly, brilliantly, devastatingly beautiful Truth!
But I'll have to save that for another email.
I am your brother,
Chip Brogden
http://TheSchoolOfChrist.Org
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar