Darkness & Light
In 2011, I unknowingly started walking down one of the darkest paths of my Christian journey to date. It didn’t happen because of a loss or some tragic event, it happened because I chose not to listen to God. God told me to leave my church; the church I had been baptized in; the church I had started attending just six years earlier.
My reasoning for not leaving was that I liked the pastor and the people; it was the only church I had attended in my adult life, and where would I go if I didn’t go there? All my hopes and dreams had been wrapped up in this little church that had a history dating back to the late 1960s. Many men had come through the doors through the decades and been pastor, and seen moderate success in gaining attendance, and I had come in six months after the new pastor had been appointed to a then-congregation of two. At the church’s heights under previous pastors, the church had been sixty people strong, but by 2005, after the passing of the previous pastor, the congregation had dwindled to two: an elderly mom and her adult daughter, who had cancer.
When the new pastor was appointed, he came with his wife, two daughters, and a son, bringing the congregation to seven. That first Easter, my pastor had 50. Another local pastor believed that God would make our church’s Easter services double in attendance each year. That next Easter, we expected 100, but 180 came. For the next Easter, we expected 200, but 300 came. Eventually, we started having our Easter Services on Saturday at a local public school that allowed us to use their property. The next year, we expected 600, but 800 came. Then came the year when the doubling fell short, by the fifth year, we expected 1600 people, and we had 1500.
However, despite the numbers for Easter and the two services at two locations, our Easter numbers didn’t transition into growth for the church. Our church had gone from two saints to seven, six months before I started going there, to 50 that first Easter, and then to 100 just a few years later, shattering attendance records set by previous pastors. By year six, our Easter numbers were anywhere between 700 to 1400, but our Sunday attendance had dwindled to around 60.
This is when God started talking to me about leaving. I didn’t have a reason to leave. An evangelist friend of mine cautioned me about the repercussions of leaving against God’s will or staying against God’s will; a conversation that scared me into not wanting to make that decision. I had visited many churches and even if I had left, none of them seemed to really be suitable to what I had come to expect.
For six years, I walked a dark journey that had times when I felt my prayers were hitting a tin roof and coming back down, times when I wanted to end my life, and times when I absolutely hated who I was. Time and time again, I believed God had sent people into my life to tell me I was a preacher, but my pastor didn’t see that in me. I was getting mixed messages; God was calling me to preach, but there were things that pulpit ministries did that I wasn't comfortable with; but then one conversation with my pastor after a trip to West Monroe, LA, I took a spiritual giftings test, and while discussing the results, He told me, “That’s a preacher.” I was confused... “I have the giftings of a preacher, but I’m not a preacher (in my pastor’s eyes)”, I thought.
For six years I wrestled with God about leaving that church, and in the beginning, I believed it was the enemy that was trying to get me to leave that church. Finally, after twelve years of going to that church, I left after hearing that a young lady I knew was going to church in Joshua, Texas, fifteen minutes down the road.
My current pastor preached a message this week titled, “This Little Light of Mine”, and every once in a while, I am reminded of my former pastor’s wife’s sign that hung in her office that said, “Everyone brings light into a room; some when they enter into it, and some when they leave.” I left my previous church seven and a half years ago, and I’m grateful for the foundation it laid in my life, but being where I am now, my life is so much brighter. Having the friendships and family I have now, I wouldn’t want to trade.
As for becoming a preacher, we are all called to share the good news about what Jesus Christ has done for us, but few of us will ever become pastors of a church or have a pulpit ministry. I’m an encourager, and when I step into a room and encouragement naturally flows out of me without me thinking about it, invariably someone’s day is lit up.
I have walked through darkness... Whether it be the seventeen years of depression or the six years wrestling with God to leave my previous church. I have a light and I'm gonna let it shine.