Finding Felllowship and Serving

 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....