Pastor James’ Blog

   It hit me yesterday that in a few short days — April 8, 2009  — I will celebrate 30 years in the ministry.  It seems like only yesterday that the Lord spoke to my heart and pressed me to follow His calling.  It is forever etched in my mind how that one day (after many months of resisting His call) at the old Richmond Road Baptist Church in Texarkana, Texas I finally went forward during the altar call and surrendered my life to serve the Lord in ministry. I was overwhelmed, scared and certainly felt inadequate for the task before me. 30 years later here I am in Texarkana, Arkansas serving as a church planter for the North American Mission Board helping to plant a multi-ethnic church – who would have ever thought it. Cindy and I have shared some great years together in ministry. We’ve seen some wonderful victories, souls saved, churches grow and made some awesome friends. We have been blessed beyond measure and those blessings continue even to this day.  Sure, we’ve seen a few hard times. Yes, we’ve experienced dealing with some in the church who were less than cooperative and didn’t want churches to grow.  But one thing for sure…we’ve seen people that were hungry for God, desired to reach souls, were willing to work, pray, give and do whatever it took to reach out and grow a church for the Lord.  We’ve had a great journey these past 30 years and I wouldn’t “take nothing for my journey now”.  Where to from here? Well, my prayer and hearts desire is that I/we can continue to serve the Lord wherever He places us and be found faithful…reaching lost souls, teaching the Word and growing churches that are centers for evangelization. I want to be found faithful when this road of life ends or Jesus comes back in the clouds to call us home.  Thank you Jesus for allowing us to be a small part of your kingdom’s work for these past 30 years.  Give us even greater days ahead and souls for our labor.  Till Jesus comes… ON MISSION FOR HIM.  Pastor James

This entry was posted on Friday, February 27th, 2009 at 7:38 am and is filed under I've Been Thinking.... You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.