My mind has recently taken me back to a little girl, swinging my legs on a hard wooden pew, tracing my finger over and over on a hymn books letters, "Praise and Worship." During the sermon, I'd become distracted and my gaze would wander over to the register board on the left hand wall in the front of the little church. I probably spent accumulative days of my life staring at that board. It recorded attendance in Sunday School and church and offering amounts as well. My mind became nostalgic and I decided it would be fun to have one of those old boards but to decorate it with an inspirational quote or Bible verse. It would look amazing in our new church, right?? I couldn't find one anywhere for less than $160 so I enlisted the help of my resident contractor and we made a couple of them this past Sunday afternoon. The "chalkboard" strips slide in and out and have two sides, so they can easily be changed out for the holidays or to fit special occasions. We plan to keep one and sell the other, donating the money to our building improvement fund. I can't decide which one I like best though....
Hi, my name is Karen Bork and I’m a home missions pastors wife from Caldwell, Idaho. My husband Rick pastors Heritage Holiness Chapel which is a part of the Southwest Conference of the Bible Methodist Church. I have never done anything like this before, so I have hesitated greatly over this and in fact, I even did one little video which I deleted as soon as I watched it. I’ve been asked by several though, to share some things in a more public forum that I’ve shared with select individuals, and I do want to share a little of our story, but only in a way which will glorify God. So please keep that in mind as you watch.
Our story is ongoing…but the theme I’ve chosen doesn’t change, and won’t change even though we don’t yet know how it all will end.
I want to talk to you today about a God who is trustworthy. I’m going to divide this up into five parts for easier listening.
- First of all, I’d like to tell you that God is trustworthy even when he takes us by surprise.
Nearly fifteen years ago God called my husband to preach.
Now…that was a surprise because I hadn’t married a preacher and he, coming from a preachers home was excited about being a faithful lay person. We had big plans and good motives; we were going to make good money and support the church denomination in which we’d both been raised. We lived here in Idaho at the time and had two small children. My husband had just accepted a large promotion within the company where he worked and we had sold our house in preparation to move across the country.
Time doesn’t allow details, but God had recently led us out of the church we’d attended all our lives. This was another huge surprise, as to this point, we had been fiercely loyal to the name over the door. My husband had been asked to serve as the lay leader of a small group of us until we were able to call a pastor. He was adamant that this was only a temporary deal…we had plans, remember? And they didn’t include living in the area, let alone pastoring a new fledgling church. As it turned out, it seemed no one had this in their plans….call after call went out and no one felt called to come be our pastor.
So here we were, a small group with problems among us already that would have stumped an experienced leader. Many of us were facing difficult relationships with our family and friends over our break from the previous church, and while we were all still reeling from that, and without going into detail, other problems began to surface. At a time when we needed desperately to be united, we were being divided even further. Honestly, my husband and I couldn’t wait for that move! We had plans to attend an established church in a new area and we felt like this new start was just what our family needed.
And then, three days before we were to fly out of town to shop for housing in a state far from all this trouble, God did the most ‘ridiculous’ thing! He called my husband to preach. To give up that promotion and live and work here in this mess with these hurting people….but guess what? All of the sudden we began to see people as not only precious in His sight, but it was as if God lent us a pair of glasses and we were able to catch just a glimpse of how he viewed them...souls worth dying for. I can still remember riding in the car with the evangelist who was there when my husband was called to preach and how my husband cried as he told him about the love God had given him for these people. In spite of all the mistakes we have made over the years, that is one thing that has never changed. I maintain that ministry isn’t hard….it’s just loving people plain and simple.
- Next, I’d like to tell you that God is faithful even when he doesn’t make sense.
For the next little while we stumbled around not knowing at all what we were doing and making plenty of mistakes to go along with our lack of experience. Soon, the newness and excitement of being called began to fade, and to our people, the newness and excitement of finally having a pastor was fading as well. Nothing seemed to make sense. We didn’t have a house, my husband had taken a large pay cut, and he was busier than ever because he was suddenly preaching three times a week, making calls, working full time, searching for a place to live and a place to have church and trying to work on the preachers study course in his non-existent spare time. Oh, and those problems?? They didn’t go away just because we were trying to do God’s will. They didn’t go away because we had some really wonderful supportive laymen. We were all just human. Honestly, the days were dark and they dragged into months and then into years. The numbers dwindled. The people became discouraged. We were discouraged. We all wanted a church building and looking back I think we all let that become a little too big of an issue. Jesus never had a church in which to preach…God’s people make up the true church of God, building or no. We were tempted to question God’s call. We all began to long for the padded pews of Egypt so to speak. And while we were and are so grateful for those who “stuck it out” with us, my husband and I had to go back so many times to the promises God had given us when he called us out of the old church and then subsequently into ministry. When the sun wasn’t shining and it seemed we were in a stalemate, when the tithes weren’t coming in the offering and we couldn’t rent a building any longer, when eventually, we were forced to let go of a nice house we had finally purchased and personally rent a house large enough to have church in, we went back to Colossians 1:25, the verse God had given my husband the night he was called to preach, “Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.” We had to put it back on God time and again and ask him to somehow work through our awkward strivings for the good of his kingdom. And for me, my verse was Psalm 118:27 “God is the LORD, which hath shewed us light: bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.” There were so many times in those years when I personally, as a pastors wife and young mother, had to go back to this verse with extra cords and tie the sacrifice a little tighter to the altar. I had to believe that God was trustworthy because humanly, I couldn’t see where this made sense at all.
- Thirdly, I want to remind you that God is trustworthy and working behind the scenes when it seems like you’re completely stalled out.
Under this point, let me say that ministry looks different to all people and in all places. Beware of putting God or yourself for that matter, in a box. We can’t compare ourselves to others. Blessings are often disguised as trials. My circumstances won’t be the same as yours and therefore, my direction and answers won’t either. One thing is certain though, God can be trusted with your life. Personally, one of my largest concerns as a mother was that I felt like we needed a church (both the building and the church family) for my children, and I felt this all the more as our family grew from two children to five. It didn’t help when people would people would make comments like “I couldn’t raise my children in those circumstances.” All I could do over those seemingly stalled out years was remind myself that God’s will was the very safest place for anyone to raise their children. That….and I could use this opportunity to “Bloom where I was Planted.” It didn’t matter if there were 14 of us or 40, we never missed making the most of an Easter or Christmas program. I tried really hard with God’s help to teach my children that one person, one soul entrusted to our care, was just as important as a large crowd, reminding them time and again, that God would have still come if there had only been one soul for whom to come. We’d pray and practice and invite and then we’d just leave the results with God. From the time they were tiny, the children would put their pennies in the building fund and their number one request at prayer time was that, “Jesus will help us get a church.” And so we went on like this for several years, and we struggled to think that we were having an impact on anyone. It was our hearts cry to help someone, but we struggled over just how to do this. It seemed like we could get people interested but they would find out how far we were from having the finances to secure our own building and be led elsewhere. I don’t resent this….I’m pretty sure we would have done the same thing in their place. But God is trustworthy and was being faithful, which leads me to my fourth point,
- God can be trusted to work behind the scenes.
Just a few months ago as we prepared for yet another Sunday, I was feeling a bit down about our situation and I forced myself to put to pen and paper a few of the things God had done since we started out. I began with our own family. You know what God has done for us through this? He has grown us. No, we’re still not “all growed up” by any means, but he’s deepened our trust, our love, our prayers, our compassion for others, and taught us a small part of all the many things we have yet to learn.
And then, in spite of our stumbling awkward ways, he has somehow managed to help others through us. Our children that I worried so about, love Jesus and they aren’t bitter over church splits, they aren’t a part of any of the cliques who feel too good to reach out to the lowest, they don’t desire to be like the world….our older ones work and attend college out there, and they stand tall and sure of themselves and their Heavenly Father, while at the same time doing their best to love others to Jesus. Our oldest recently sought and was rewarded with a holy heart. Once again, this is no credit to us, but serves as a reminder that we can trust God. Heaven has two saints from our church sitting at Jesus feet as we speak. They have made it….and somehow, all praise be to Jesus, they made it from this broken company of people. One is my mother, another a very dear friend. While we miss them terribly, we also feel special knowing that they are a part of the great cloud of witnesses looking down and cheering us on. There are others, no longer attending today, but they testify to the fact God established them spiritually during the time we were blessed with their presence. Others have since moved from the area, but are in holiness ministry today because God was faithful to their souls when we felt like we were spinning our wheels. He taught us the reality of His presence in the company of two or three. He taught us that his church has nothing to do with the four walls of a building. He taught us discipline as we prepared for worship Sunday after Sunday in our home. Simple things like curling the girls hair and dressing them up in coordinating outfits when resources allowed, helped me keep my focus. With God’s help, we still taught them that Sunday was a special day. Sacred. He taught us that helping people make it to Heaven doesn’t always mean that those people will attend your church or put their tithe in there. He taught us that support can come from rather strange places and in unexpected ways. He taught us that we don’t know everything; that we will never be done learning. He taught us to apologize. We learned to be graceful…when we knew folks were talking behind our back, even telling untruths, and making dire predictions about our future. We learned to smile and act dumb….okay, so sometimes the dumb part came pretty natural. We learned to have not just worthy desires, but worthy motives behind those desires; for one, we learned to desire a building for the sole purpose to helping people and not just to “save face” or make ourselves look better. We learned that we had nothing to prove except the simple fact that God can be trusted. We learned to love and appreciate God’s family, so very much the ones who supported us, but also the ones who left us, because only God can judge the motives. We learned that God has sheep who are not a part of our little local fold. We learned that he never forsaketh his own.
And finally, I said all that to say this,
- God can be trusted to satisfy his promises.
Our assignment is to be faithful when we don’t know what to do or what the future holds. Sometimes all we can do, is take the next tiny step ahead of us. You don’t have to see the whole staircase to take the next step. God was faithful to meet with us so many times over the years and to give us exceeding precious promises. The callings of God are without repentance. We clung sometimes with strength, bur more times on general principal to the fact that God had a plan. Over the years, we brought our strong reasons to God over and over, telling him that we “needed” a church for this reason and that. God listened faithfully to our cries and I believe even bottled up the prayers of some of our departed saints to pour them out in the time of his choosing.
The cost of living in our area is so high that almost everyone is struggling just to get by. Now would certainly not be the time that God would choose to give us a building. Most churches we’ve seen advertised are well over a half million dollars. Smaller ones might be around 300,000 but they’d need so many improvements it wouldn’t be worth it even if we could afford it. Once, we found a building for 75,000 but the area was terrible and the building itself had been condemned. It was really just the property that had any value at all.
A few weeks ago, I saw a little church advertised. I didn’t remember ever seeing it in real life, but I knew it was only a few miles from our house. It was listed for just over 200,000. I confess, my faith wasn’t strong and I assumed it had to be in a very bad area, and of course at that price it must be in terrible condition. We didn’t even do a drive by. The thing was though, it wouldn’t stop flashing before my eyes. When I prayed it was there, when I made the bed it was there, when I washed the dishes it was there. It was a humble little building and maybe part of my hesitation came from what I feared people would say….what we finally had to settle for. But, eventually, I took the ad to my husband and asked him if we could just go look….it wouldn’t cost anything to look after all.
And so we did, and no…it’s not in the very best and newest part of town, but it is an area that has gone through a huge amount of growth and renewal lately. It’s in the historical district and was originally the first salvation army meeting hall in this locale. It’s just a couple of blocks from a bustling farmers market and brand new promenade with lots of little shops and opportunity. At Christmas time there are hundreds of thousands of lights that attract visitors from all over our little valley. More importantly, we believe it is in an area where hungry hearts reside. No, the building is not fancy, but it is sound, and when we walked through the front doors, it felt almost sacred….like we were walking into “God’s House.” As we stood there, the realtor mentioned that it had been on the market just a little over a month and that they had already lowered the asking price by 13,000. We went away that day, and we couldn’t get it out of our minds; when we’d get in the car to go somewhere, we found ourselves driving by just because. To make a long story short, our little group, with some added support from our conference, made and had accepted an offer for 38,000 less than the asking price. We will have the opportunity to take over the existing food pantry and hopefully be involved with some NA meetings which have gone on there in the past. Offers have come in from all over the country, people volunteering their time to help make needed repairs. We haven’t done anything special, in fact, we made mistake after mistake and our mistakes and shortcomings are probably a part of why this whole process took so long. We appreciate so much the advice and prayers of our leaders over the years. God has helped them and used them to teach us so many valuable lessons. We have depended on their prayers and been encouraged again by their lives and examples. It seems God has appointed men and women of his choosing at just the times we needed them most. In spite of all our failings, we did our best to be faithful and patient for God’s answer, trusting in his timing. See, sometimes the greatest act of faith is as they say, simply being faithful where God has put you. Even when you feel that your faith is weak, your actions can be faithful ones. Our favorite promise through all of this has been from I Kings 8:56 “Blessed be the LORD, that hath given rest unto his people Israel, according to all that he promised: there hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised by the hand of Moses his servant.” Not one single word. We still haven’t seen fulfilled all of the promises God gave us starting out, some of the souls God promised us for His kingdom seem farther than ever before, but who is to say who is near to the Kingdom?? Only God knows that. Even when it looks impossible, even when others say it will never happen, not one single word that God has spoken will fail. He is trustworthy.
Now, we hope to close on this building by the end of next month and we are well aware that there are many details yet to work through. What will happen if the whole deal goes bad so to speak and we aren’t able to go through with the purchase at all? Will that mean that God isn’t trustworthy? Well, it would be hard for sure, especially since we have sensed his help and approval every step of the way so far, but no…..it won’t mean that God can’t be trusted because that’s an impossible conclusion. We do so appreciate your prayers. We’re so excited that we can barely contain ourselves, but more than we want anything, we want what God knows is best. And we’re also aware that the devil isn’t done fighting. We know we will face things in the future that may make the past look like a walk in the park. The good news is that our trustworthy Saviour will never fail us. I’m hopeful that once we start on the settling in process, my husband will have time to do some little clips of the journey and that we can share those with you as well. I don’t know about you, but one of the things has encouraged me the most over the years is hearing how God is helping others in ministry and being encouraged to keep on keeping on.
II Chronicals 6:13 says, “I have surely built thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for thee to abide.”
And so, dear small church, dear home missions family, whatever your need, God is trustworthy. He is trustworthy when you’re taken by surprise, because nothing ever sneaks up on God. He is trustworthy in the dark, when things simply don’t make sense. When you can’t see the sun, He still shines. He is trustworthy behind the scenes, when nothing on the surface is going smoothly, when you feel stalled out and when you feel like the wheels are spinning, trust him, because he knows where he’s taking you. He can be trusted. He can be trusted to satisfy every one of the promises he has made. Down to the very last word, because he cannot fail. Not. One. Word. Not. Ever. So move forward; expect surprises, expect situations that don’t make sense, expect rough seas, expect strife, expect stalls, expect setbacks, and expect that things won’t always go smoothly, but most of all expect that God is working behind the scenes. Expect Him to settle you in unsettled circumstances. Expect to meet Him in the secret place. Expect Him to satisfy, because in every situation, He is to be trusted.