Welcome, I am excited beyond words. I just had an exchange with my Pastor and husband that has triggered within me a trip down memory lane. Our church family turns 10 this weekend and as I showed him the flyer for the event that we have designed, he said to me ‘I think my name doesn’t need to be on the flier’. To which I respond, you have been a pastor in this place for 10 years, your name on the flier is not only deserved but earned.
10 years… 10 years of God’s absolute and total faithfulness. 10 years in which I have seen students graduate, marry and have children. 10 years in which I have seen new born babies enter secondary schools, 10 years in which I had seen children who when we started were barely five years old now teenagers living a continent away from their parents and doing well.
10 years, in which I have never been in church and felt like it was a waste of my time. 10 years in which people abandoned us in the thick of a really tough time, but God pulled us through.
10 years in which we have seen God build us spiritually and build himself a place of worship at the same time.
10 years of sacrifice and weeping sometimes, 10 years where we started as rookies with no one to tell us what to do but the Holy Spirit and He did stand with us even when we made mistakes and pulled us through. It has been 10 years, and we are indeed grateful.
10 solid years in which we have not had to bury a confirmed member of our church family…10 years of learning to work with and rely 100% on God and 10 years in which He has come true and through every time. 10 years in which our tree had definitely taken root downwards to ensure we are deeply rooted in Him and Him alone.
It has been 10 years!
Your question will be, as many have asked us; “so how many members do you have?” My answer will be really we are still about 100 people but who is counting? I can almost hear your thoughts ‘100 people, and you make such noise after 10 years?’ to which I answer; ‘absolutely! Because if it was dependent on just me as an individual, and not on God, we probably would not have 10 people’.
Why will someone determine God’s faithfulness by the numbers? Why does it matter whether the church has a building of their own to determine if 10 years is worth it? Why does it have to be a cathedral before we can celebrate 10 years of doing the same thing and getting results – eternal results every single time? Why do I even need to justify to you that God is faithful when you have not been on this journey with me?
In all of this, I cannot but remember the conversation I personally had with God for 4 months before we stepped out on this adventure. I remember when my husband was appointed to go and start this campus of our denomination, I remember that my greatest trepidation was; is this God or did man send us? I remember, I was convinced this was man and I remember that I had to take the time for myself to get with God because I needed to be sure that He was the one.
I remember He came to me about three months into that conversation and told me that this was all Him, I remember that He gave me Isaiah 55:8 – 13, and He told me to hold on to those words. He promised that if I bring those words back to Him, no matter what we face He will take us through. I remember that He told me, that He would lead us out in joy and be led into a whole and complete life.
Today, I look back, and I know without a shadow of doubt that He has kept His word to us. True to His promise He has not spared us in the experience but He has more than made up for every pain and sacrifice by standing with us when none else would.
So don’t ask me what there is to celebrate… you did not call us; you did not send us. As we prepare for another 10 years if Jesus tarries, here or wherever else, He will send us, my instincts tell me that because He kept us these first 10 years, He will definitely keep us in the next 10 years.
I know without a shadow of doubt that when you have taken root down the only other thing that can happen is that you will bear fruit up. I can assure you that the faithfulness of God to our house and church family is evident and we are truly grateful that He has kept us and brought us this far. I couldn’t have bet on us, but God did.
And today, 10 years later, we give Him the praise…
By the way, my name is Bidemi, and I am a Pastor’s wife.
Bidemi