The little, extraordinary things of God

I attend and serve in a small church on a nondescript corner in a small, north Texas town. Passing through town, you could take the "Flyover" and miss the traffic lights that would slow you on your way to your destination. And you would miss the town

What can God do in such a town? It's not a metropolis where tens of thousands can be reached with the good news of Jesus Christ. The sizable churches here can be counted on a couple of fingers, and I'd be hard pressed to call any of those a mega-church.

But with such an attitude, I would miss the truth that the God who holds the beauty and majesty of the solar system and the cosmos in place is the same God who blooms a flower in northern Canada that no one will ever see. All for his glory and his good pleasure. Big and small. For his purposes clear or confusing.

The God of the metropolis is the God of small town. He cares for and works in all those who would call upon his name.

Eighteen years ago, we began attending a tiny church, Messiah Baptist Church then, with a small congregation of passionate people who loved the Lord. The pastor, Keith Stone, had begun the church six years before that, 1995, when the Lord moved his heart to begin that work. It met in his home. And grew. They then paid cash for an abandoned building in our mostly deserted downtown area.

Pastor Keith Stone & his bride, Debbie

Since then, through various circumstances, all with God's mighty hand at the tiller, Troy Scott, Lukus Counterman, Luke Love, Josh Longoria, and an occasional pinch-pastor, have shepherded this little church in north Texas, now Wichita Falls Baptist Church. Each one used of God to invest in and nourish this small body of believers in the hot plains of northern Texas. 

Today, through God's good providence, the current pastor, Jeremy Mollenkopf, got to meet the first pastor, Keith Stone, as the latter and his bride, Debbie (our first pianist), were back in town for Debbie's high school reunion. In sweet providence, Jeremy was preaching on Haggai 2:1-9, a passage that highlights that the size of a thing does not correspond directly to what God thinks of the thing. We might think it meager but God is doing an amazing thing in that which appears puny.

Pastor Stone & Pastor Jeremy Mollenkopf

Jeremy highlighted this truth by referencing the time when Jesus, in the Temple, witnessed a poor widow place two mites, two small copper coins, in the coffers of that majestic facility, a pittance in relation to the amounts that others were giving. Jeremy noted, "Two coins didn't make much noise" going into those coffers. 

But what did incarnate God think of such? She "has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. for they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on" (Mark 12:43-44).

God doesn't call us to create the harvest. He just calls us to be faithful to use the few talents he has given all who believe in this life for his glory. The harvest is in his hands. Perhaps I teach a Sunday school of three or three thousand. Perhaps I give ten dollars or ten thousand. Which is better? Which is bigger? In truth, only God knows. Which has poured out heart and soul in service and love to God in their service? Ah, there's the rub.

Today, my soul was blessed of God to see these two men stand side-by-side. They bookend the last twenty years of my life and all that God has done for me within this small, "insignificant" ministry in a small north Texas town. I praise God for the noise he has made through these two small coins and all those in between.