Background / Church Change Post # 1
The following is a transcript of my writings on EW about how our “church change” came about, with some additions, clarifications, and edits so that things are clear to non-exwitch folx.
By way of intro: Before we were saved, my stepdaughter’s mom became involved with Tabitha Ministries and as a result, she and Brandi began attending this church…”Calvary Assemblies of God”. Keep in mind that at this point I’d been pagan for about ten years. To a witch, “Assemblies of God” sounds pretty ominous. I thought they were a cult. I began to draft papers to get custody of Brandi. Brandi, on the other hand, insisted that her new church was a GOOD thing, and suggested we visit. We were actually very impressed with them, and thought she was in a good place. (It was the first time I’d seen Christians singing TO this Jesus that they were always singing ABOUT - it was so evident that they really believed in and loved Him! I remember being amazed by this fact!)
So, some months later, when God got ahold of us (through - HAH! - just incidentally, someone in the Assemblies of God (do I believe in coincidence? NO!) - we went back to the church that had loved us when we’d visited them. Calvary welcomed us with open arms, made us an immediate part of the family, and has been an integral part of our lives. What’s more - we have been grown and discipled (and even disciplined, a time or two), fed on the Word of God, taught the truth and encouraged in the Way of life. I thank God daily for the pastors, teachers, and mentors who have raised us up from the tiny babies we were in Christ!
It’s been six years. We were pretty firmly entrenched there. Calvary’s grown… probably 800-1000 people walk through the doors every Sunday. We had to go to two services because we outgrew the “HUGE” new building that we “just” built four years ago. A lot of people are uncomfortable in a large church like that, but I personally always loved it. In fact, I swore I’d never go to a small church. “Just not in me to do that”, I said. It’s amazing what God has done there, and it’s been amazing to be a part of it. We were looking forward to be a part of “the more to come”.
And then … God made it clear that He’s calling us out of Calvary. Not only is He calling us out of Calvary, He’s calling us to a SMALL church: Level Cross AG. (Small? Tiny, in comparison. Last Sunday (9/9) was their biggest: 58 people.)
We’re not leaving Calvary because there’s anything wrong with Calvary — we want, need, even beg our friends to know that. (I sometimes think that rumors get started in a big church even faster than in a small church). It’s true that over the years, not everything’s been “perfect” but gosh? Who’d expect it to be? We’re not in Heaven yet! It’s those “imperfections” that make a community into a viable family and when worked out draw people closer together (spoken as a true “community” person; I know that lots of folks have problems with that but it’s the way God wired me.)
We love our church family and we’re not breaking fellowship in any way by leaving to go to LCAG. We’re going to still pop in from time to time to visit, we’re still going to be involved with our friends, we still want folks over or out for dinner (perhaps a lot more often, since we won’t see them at church!), we still want to go hang out and have fun.
As of Saturday night, the 16th of September, we’re “officially” gone. We attended the Missions Banquet and were able to speak with Pastor David. We’d exchanged a flurry of emails over the previous week regarding what God was up to, but he’d held off with his last reply, knowing that he’d be seeing us at the banquet. He gave us blessing to go, tinged with sadness at our going but a high level of excitement for us at what the Lord is doing in our lives! Once we’d talked with him, we began to share the news with our … “gulp!” … forever family, but now former church.
More to come!
May 7th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
[...] - God has led us to leave our little church here in Level Cross. It’s a long story, and most of it’s not for public consumption - we’ll just [...]