God's Miracle on MainStreet

I saw a miracle this morning in a small town in Indiana. This was a miracle I have never seen before. It was awesome, beautiful and it came straight from God.

We moved to this small town four years ago, and we checked some of the churches, and finally chose this church. It was not a huge congregation, but enough to make it interesting and worthy of trying to help it grow. It did grow for a while, but then it seemed that we were shrinking gradually. First two people left, and then quite soon, two or three left and the first thing we knew we were not taking in enough in the collection plates to sustain the church and keep it growing. It was even difficult to find enough to pay the pastor.

Then suddenly we realized our funds were running out, and there was only one thing to do - close the church. A couple of leaders who were still in the church had 'something up their sleeves.'

Also, it so happened there was a church that had started here one year ago and they were without a church building. They were holding worship services and other programs in a banquet room of a local restaurant. This congregation was over three-hundred strong. Somehow the two parties got together and worked up a way we could all merge into one church. They had people (the Real Church) and we had the building to meet in.

Soon, a meeting was called at our church to talk about what we should do. The leaders had worked out something where we would merge and the two churches would become one church. Our church is now called "The Cross" and we are not a part of any organizational group of churches such as Baptist, Methodist, etc. These two men (leaders) had talked to the Pastor from The Cross, and taken care of any legal ramifications, etc. By the way, this pastor seems to b a great pastor and friend.

This all happened so quickly it is still difficult to conceive what is happening here. We had so few people left that it was difficult to get all the work accomplished it takes to keep a church going. I collected all needed material for the weekly bulletin, typed it up and ran copies and collated them each week. I also sang with the praise team as a fill-in when a regular member was missing and helped on the committee that took care of congregational dinners.

So today, Sunday, October 10-10-10, we staged something I will never forget. At 10:00 a.m., we all (each church's congregation), meant at that restaurant banquet room and bid good-by to this place. There was prayer and many happy tears. As planned, we all drove straight down mainstreet to our church. With all of those cars, we had a long procession. There were policemen posted at every intersection, so we didn't have to stop. It was a beautiful thing to see. As our new pastor said, "We are going Home." He also said he knew this was God who had been working for awhile.

We will probably start two worship services each Sunday at different times so it won't get too congested. Luckily, we all found a place to park and a place to sit inside the building.

Sources:
Experience