I remember when we started Verity Baptist Church 11 years ago.
When we started Verity Baptist Church, my story
is like the story of your pastor, like the story of many pastors in the new IFB.
We started Verity Baptist Church while I was working a full-time job.
And I would work
50 hours a week in my secular job
and still go soul winning and
still preach three sermons a week and still do all those things that
needed to be done. I remember in those early days, oftentimes,
I would be working on a Wednesday night. Our Wednesday night Bible started at 7
p.m. and I'd be working on a Wednesday night and I'd be driving straight from work
to church and getting to church at around 6
40 and my wife would be standing there at the door
holding up the hanger with my
suit and my dress shirt and my tie. She'd
iron it and get it all ready. She'd have it for me there and I'd walk in and
grab the coat and go into the restroom and change out of my work clothes and
into my preaching clothes and I'd come out like Superman, you know, just
ready to preach the Word of God.
Those were busy days.
It was hard. I remember those days I'd have to be at work at seven in the
morning, which means I didn't really need to start getting ready.
I didn't have to get up and start getting ready to go to work till about six in the
morning. But in those early days, I'd get up at five in the morning so that every
morning I would have at least one hour before work to work
on the sermons that I needed to preach for that week.
And oftentimes that one hour Monday through Friday, Monday through Saturday,
wasn't enough to get those sermons written. I would commute a lot and I would drive a
lot in those days and a lot of those sermons were written as I was driving and
those sermons are on a website and I do not encourage you to go listen to them.
I'm not telling you they were good quality, but I'm telling you this,
a lot of work went into it. I remember in those early days when the church was
meeting at our house, I worked at an air conditioning company and during the
summertime it was just mandatory pretty much that we worked seven days a week.
And my boss knew that I was a pastor and I talked to him about it and we
came to an agreement and during those seasons on a Sunday morning I'd be
at the job site at 7 a.m. and this was something my boss and I agreed,
be at the job site at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning, work till 930, would get off at
930, drive back home, my wife would have my clothes ready for me, I'd change into
my clothes, we'd have church at our house starting at 1030, we'd go from 1030 to
around 1145 noon, my wife would have a quick lunch for me and I would get back
into my work clothes, go back to work, be back to work around 1215 or 1230, work
till 5 p.m., get off at work at 5 p.m., come back home, again change into my
clothes, we'd have our Sunday night service at 6 p.m. and sometimes even on
occasions would go back to work even after our Sunday evening service and
those were busy times. Back in those days we had church in our house. I was
too busy to help my wife so while I'm at work she's preparing the house to have
10, 15, 20, 30, 35 people in our house for church. We stayed in our house, we had
church in our house for a year and a half when we left our house the church
was running around 35 or 40 and she'd set up the chairs and she'd get
everything ready and clean up the whole house and make sure everything was ready
and the hymn books were out and the bulletins were printed and all those
things. Here's all I'm telling you is the ministry and serving God requires
tenacity. It requires somebody saying I'm gonna work harder, I'm gonna get up early,
I'm gonna stay up late and I'm gonna do what it needs to be done and I don't
think most Christians have the tenacity that's needed.