I am unsure how this message is going to go… Maureen and I had one of our more interesting days today for sure!
We put up a web page for a small church (Wintergreen Missionary Baptist Church) back in 2009, shortly after we started full time in the ministry the first time. The church was a small church, running about 10, and they were a blessing when we went to visit them. The Pastor back then was Charles Gandy.
Fast forward to now: Having gone back to a secular job, and not having a lot of time to keep in touch with the ministries we were supporting through the web ministry over the last severl years, I was unable to contact Wintergreen Missionary Baptist Church. I found some posts on Facebook dating back to 2013, indicating that the pastor had changed. The church did not have a phone number, so I thought it would be a blessing to go down there today and visit the church. Maureen and I have usually always been blessed when we dropped in on ministries that we have supported over the years, the Lord has usually left us surprised by his planning and timing! So we drove down to Desoto Texas this morning.
As we drove up to the church I noticed the sign had changed. The first thing I noticed was that it was no longer a Baptist Church it was a Bible church. The second thing I noticed was that the pastor had changed again. The third thing I had noticed was that there were a larger number of cars there than I had expected given the previous time we had been there. I had an uneasy feeling I had not felt in a very long time! Interesting day! Was it the fact it was a Bible church? I was not crazy about that. I told Maureen I didn’t think we should go in. Then I said, I at least wanted to get some pictures. Maureen came with me.
I was still wrestling with it, if we did not attend church here we would not be going to church this morning, and I felt that it was just wrong to not attend the church simply because it was a “Bible Church” but I still had a dread about going into the building when a lady left the church, got into her car, and started to drive by as I was taking pictures. She stopped and asked “is something wrong?” I told her “no”, and explained I had a website up for the church and knew the previous pastor. She smiled and told me the current pastor had just walked out of the church building. He walked up to me and started to talk to me….
He was a very nice elderly gentleman, and we hit it off really nice, but something was still nagging at me.
I have to get ready to go off to services tonight, I will finish the story up when we get back home later!