I am so very excited because each Sunday it seems as if our congregation is growing. We’ve even had visitors to our adult Sunday School, which shows promise of people truly seeking to know more about our Savior Jesus Christ.
Part of this blessed change is generated by the fact that our church made the decision to follow God’s direction and voted to leave our old denomination, which has strayed from belief in the Bible as God’s word. We have now joined with a stronger biblically-based denomination. The vote of our membership was 100% in favor of moving forward, and that positively revealed it was God at work among our members.
It has been a trying 15 months but an exciting time in our church life. Our membership had dwindled over the years, and so everyone who remains is working at the top of their energy level and has been doing so since we began this move forward. Because of the strain, our prayer warriors have been working diligently to uplift everyone, seeking for all of us to rightly depend upon God daily for strength and energy.
Even as we are searching for a pastor in the new denomination, we have had absolutely wonderful, saintly pastors – mostly retired – filling our pulpit with God’s word and biblical wisdom gathered over their many years of service to our Lord. I do feel a tiny bit apologetic for a new, younger pastor having to live up to the preaching we have enjoyed, but I am sure God is directing the exact perfect pastor to our door. We are looking forward to a God-directed man to lead us into the next 100-plus years of our church.
It has been a good move for us, as it has caused everyone in the congregation to review their faith beliefs and their actions as we go forward. Taking that internal look at ourselves is prescribed by the Apostle Paul, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? – unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” I am praying that each of us in the congregation has passed that test.
Some of the visitors, who we pray will eventually become members in our new denomination, have joined us because of dissatisfaction with their own churches after realizing those churches have also forsaken following God’s Word.
I see these new people as a marvelous gift from God. We now have many congregants already well-versed in God’s Word, and we are currently undergoing a discipling course to help us learn how to come alongside and encourage new believers. As we acquire members who are filled with the knowledge of the Bible and live out that knowledge, we can then move on to the next step of seeking those who have an interest in learning about Jesus – knowing that the mature believers can disciple the new seekers.
Ocean City has multiple churches, but we also have many non-churched people in our city. A goodly number of the attendees in the Bible-teaching churches live on the mainland, which means we surely have numerous souls who are hungry for Jesus right here in our town.
God is always at work, and I hope to be pleasantly surprised by Him in all areas of our church life once we have our new denominational structure in place. The members of our current congregation can choose to join the new denomination immediately. We, of course, will have classes teaching us the specifics of the workings of this denomination, and then we will start new member classes, which I pray will be filled to capacity.
My prayer is that God might bring us young families seeking to raise their children in His light. There is such joy found in a church when you have the laughter of children about. The excitement the little ones get from learning about Jesus as they come to know the other children in class brings a wonderful delight to all of us.
God has His hand firmly on our church as we officially exited the old denomination during a Sunday afternoon service where we were handed over to and welcomed by our new denomination. I pray that we stay the course with God’s leading and direction. We will be appointing new elders and deacons and starting our new year under God’s rule, as we should be.
May all of the Christian churches worldwide – the Bride of Jesus Christ – look inward to examine themselves, to see whether they are in the faith, and to test themselves to make sure they don’t fail the test of having Jesus Christ in them, because the time is short.
Editor’s note: Amy Patsch writes from Ocean City. Email her at writerGoodGod@gmail.com.
