Jesus is most important!

I remember the first church I was ever pastor of and then again a person could never forget it if they tried!  It was horrible!  The church was over 40 years over and I remember my first Sunday there.  A huge crowd of 18 people!  And of the 18 there, 15 of them were from the same family.  That should have been warning alarm and I should have taken off running when I counted heads.



There was a lot of church growth and evangelism to do to say the least!  But I was excited and the church building itself and the parsonage was really nice so I was excited.  

Move 6 months into the future.  Average attendance was 139 people on Sunday morning.  It looked really good on the outside but behind the scenes it was horrible.  I had already been "called down" for having a diet soda in my pastor's office, singing a contemporary worship song and that are only two on the list of infractions!  What a Godly church it was. (sarcasm added there!)

Finally, I was standing outside one night when a young lady that had started coming to the youth ministry passed me and she had been crying.  I found out that the "Christian ladies" of the church had pulled her to the side and told her, "if she intended to continue coming back to church she needed to wear a dress and not the same coveralls she work weekly."  Needless to say, that was the straw that broke the camels back.

The young lady wore the best clothes she had and that is why she wore the same clothes each week.  To think that someone really believes what you wear is the measure of your Christian walk to just sad and totally incorrect!

My last Sunday there came just a couple of weeks later.  My last sermon was preached to over 140 people.  Not bad for 6 months!  The church today is back to the same amount of people it had before and even less.  The even more sad thing is that my time at that church was over 10 years ago.

Church growth, evangelism, ministry, love and outreach is the basis of any church and all this after prayer!  It is not based on your education, what you have or havent done in your past!