Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Thoughts about pastoring

I fondly remember the day I moved into my church office; "The Pastor's Study" as it says over the door.  I had no idea what I was supposed to do.  I spent the first week moving in and getting established.

When I first arrived, the church was nearly dead.  The Spirit had not left, that's why it was still alive.  We had no real ministries to speak of.

No youth group because we had no youth.

No children's Sunday School classes because there were no children.

No outside ministries, except for a nursing home service once a month.

Week after week, there was no one else in the building throughout the week.  I had to leave the church building to have any face to face contact.

But God has moved greatly here at Immanuel Southern Baptist Church. 

We have Sunday school classes for all ages.

We have a youth group.

We have a choir and music program.

We have visitors.

We have an outreach program.

We have a Food Pantry Ministry.

We have a Cookie Ministry to prisoners.

We still visit the nursing home.

And we have plans for another outreach ministry which we will vote on during our next business meeting.

And someone else has asked about yet another outreach ministry!

Seldom am I alone in the church building.  In fact, there are so many people here during the week, it is almost hard to get my sermon preparation and other things done!

But that is a problem I'll gladly live with, for God is at work at Immanuel Southern!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

And you are sponsoring (or at least hosting) a Native American Church...
and you have a bunch of brothers and sisters in Christ praying for you and Immanuel So. Praise the Lord! Continue the good work, bro. Never forget 1 Cor. 15:58. Claudio.