My radio pastor's gave me good guidelines in finding a church. I was living on Palomar Mountain, CA so I checked out the local community Church. Now it took me awhile to obey God's voice, "Go to church", about 7 months to be exact. So in Feb 2003 I attended my 1st church service in 28+ years. At Palomar Mountain Community Church, PMCC, I found a loving group of believers. The Pastor and his wife showed the love of Jesus and the members were open to me. Being new, a child in Christ, I had no knowledge of a church's inner struggle. This small gathering of 30 people were not immune to satan and his influence.
I became a regular attendee and continued my radio studies during the week. The Bible was making sense to me and I was realizing how sinful I am.
I enjoyed the worship, the Bible messages and the fellowship. I was greatly encouraged to continue my walk. Many of the elders stepped forward to help me in my studies. One elder, Don, offered to guide me in the "One to One Discipliship" program which I accepted.
I began to assist Lorrie, the Pastor's wife, on the worship team and began playing / reading music, something I had not done in over 25 years. Reading music came back to me as if I never left it.
But the curch was shrinking. I didn't understand why, but slowly I was putting together the pieces from the various members / local residents. Over the next 5 years the church fell to only 6 attendees and the Pastor left. I was now one of two elder's left, so we decided to start teaching through entire books of the Bible while we searched for a new Pastor. Teaching through the Bible was a great experience. I learned much more doing in depth studies and preparing each week.
After 6 months we selected Matthew to be the new Pastor. He also taught entire Bible books at a time and the number of attendees began to increase. As I stated in my last post I relocated to North Dakota in June 2010, at that time there were 15 - 20 regular attendees. Still only 10% of the local residents, but a good start dispite the trials we went thru.
My next post will share the MANY answered prayers in my life. Prayer is so important in our Christian life. Don't neglect it for any amount of time. Paul encourages us to pray at all times, all day, in all crcumstances. It is one of our most powerful tools, use it....
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Finding Christ, a new birth.
In our US of A we are blessed with the freedom of worship. Having recently relocated to North Dakota, due to lack of work in Southern CA, my wife and I started the task of locating a new church home. Of course we started out on the web long before we left San Diego County to scan what church's were there. The Lutheran dominance popped up right away with a scattering of others to be found. We made a short list, packed and started our 4 day journey.
Let me start by saying that our journey, both married and spiritually, has been filled with answered prayer. I became a Christian when I turned a radio dial. I am one of those individuals who can work all day and listen to the radio too. Having been a fan of conservative talk radio for many years I was busy one day digesting the usual political rhetoric. At the time the Iraq war had just begun and the backlash from spineless politicians was filling the air waves. Being fed up with the talk I tapped the scan button on my radio and it went 4 clicks north to AM 740. Never hearing this station before I was intrigued to discover that it was a call-in pastor show. People from all over the country were calling in asking advice on their particular life issue. I was recently separated from my 2nd wife and feeling quite low at the time so I continued to listen. I was being encouraged by the fact that compared to these caller's I had a minor problem. Here were people with major problems; dealing with physical abuse, drug abuse -(me too), abandonment, poverty, etc.
I found myself tuning in the next day and there were various Pastor's doing bible studies and topical sermons. I hadn't opened a bible in 28 years, but found myself writing down scripture references and looking them up in the evening. Sometimes I had 10 -15 verses to look up.
As the days turned to weeks I was listening to 740am for 4-5 hours each day, soaking up the gospel message I had heard as a child but there was something new here. There was talk of a personal relationship with Jesus. This was never taught in my childhood church. It wasn't long before I knew I needed Christ as my Savior. That evening, alone, I knelt down, bowed my head and accepted Christ as instructed by the radio Pastor's.
I never looked back. My Christian walk had begun. My next step was to find a church home and other believers....
Let me start by saying that our journey, both married and spiritually, has been filled with answered prayer. I became a Christian when I turned a radio dial. I am one of those individuals who can work all day and listen to the radio too. Having been a fan of conservative talk radio for many years I was busy one day digesting the usual political rhetoric. At the time the Iraq war had just begun and the backlash from spineless politicians was filling the air waves. Being fed up with the talk I tapped the scan button on my radio and it went 4 clicks north to AM 740. Never hearing this station before I was intrigued to discover that it was a call-in pastor show. People from all over the country were calling in asking advice on their particular life issue. I was recently separated from my 2nd wife and feeling quite low at the time so I continued to listen. I was being encouraged by the fact that compared to these caller's I had a minor problem. Here were people with major problems; dealing with physical abuse, drug abuse -(me too), abandonment, poverty, etc.
I found myself tuning in the next day and there were various Pastor's doing bible studies and topical sermons. I hadn't opened a bible in 28 years, but found myself writing down scripture references and looking them up in the evening. Sometimes I had 10 -15 verses to look up.
As the days turned to weeks I was listening to 740am for 4-5 hours each day, soaking up the gospel message I had heard as a child but there was something new here. There was talk of a personal relationship with Jesus. This was never taught in my childhood church. It wasn't long before I knew I needed Christ as my Savior. That evening, alone, I knelt down, bowed my head and accepted Christ as instructed by the radio Pastor's.
I never looked back. My Christian walk had begun. My next step was to find a church home and other believers....
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