Every Family Has Stories

Family is usually defined as people related by birth or marriage. In a broader sense, though, we are all family, connected to one another in countless ways. As a pastor, I also discovered another kind of family—the church family. Over the years, I have belonged to several, and each one has left its mark on my life.

Many of the churches I served were small rural congregations that could not afford to pay a pastor a livable wage. That never bothered me. I worked as an accountant to support myself because ministry was never about a paycheck. It was about people.

Some of those little churches did not even have a pianist or organist. On those Sundays, we simply lifted our voices and sang a cappella. The music may not have been polished, but it was heartfelt. Those congregations gathered faithfully every Sunday to worship God, encourage one another, and offer hope to everyone who walked through their doors.

Today, I salute the small churches of America.

They are not perfect because the people who gather there are not perfect. Yet they quietly minister to their communities week after week. Sadly, many of these churches eventually close, and their buildings stand empty as silent reminders of another generation’s faithfulness.

Recently, I read that Thompson Creek Free Will Baptist Church in Wayne County, Mississippi, was destroyed by fire.

My heart sank.

That little country church was my first church. I was only fifteen years old when I became its pastor after my father died. It was there that I answered God’s call to ministry. I was ordained in that church. I preached countless sermons there, conducted my first funeral, celebrated my first wedding, and baptized new believers in a nearby creek on chilly Mississippi mornings.

Even though we were a small congregation, we had enough children to form a Bible Quiz team that competed in the district tournament. Those children, and the families who supported them, filled that little church with life.

The building itself was simple. There was no air conditioning and no indoor plumbing. During the hot Mississippi summers, we opened the windows to catch whatever breeze God might send.

One Sunday, while I was preaching, one of the neighbor’s cows wandered over. The church sat across the road from a family whose farm animals often roamed the neighborhood. In the middle of my sermon, that cow stuck her head through the open window and let out a loud “Moo!”

The congregation burst into laughter.

Without missing a beat, I smiled and said, “Thank you for that ‘Amen,’” and kept right on preaching.

Moments like that cannot be recreated. They become part of the stories that bind a church family together.

The building may now be gone, but the church is not. The church has always been the people.

I will always remember the faithful men and women of Thompson Creek who welcomed a shy fifteen-year-old boy and believed God could use him. Their encouragement shaped the rest of my life and ministry.

Every family has stories worth remembering.

Thompson Creek will always be part of mine.