Humble Pie: It’s Not About Us — Thursday
Matthew 16:18
“…I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.” (NLT)
Holding the door open, I did my best to greet each person warmly.
“Hey! So good to see you! How are ya? Glad you’re here!” It had been too long.
For a little over a year, our house church of a dozen Jesus freaks gathered for worship in the hopes of someday planting a church. Then, in October of 2019, our launch team of around twenty people held our first service in a bar that was closed on Sunday mornings and allowed us to use their space for free. God had been so good.
Then, in March of 2020, just as our team felt the slightest sense of momentum… the world suddenly shut down. Stores, shopping malls, restaurants—and, of course, churches.
Our team scrambled for answers. What would happen now? How long would this last? Would our little church be able to survive? We argued. We cried. We prayed.
We never had any ambitions of being an online church, especially with an average weekly attendance of 31.7 people. But we were blessed with two amazing tech guys, and we unanimously felt the Lord calling us to keep going.
Now, over four months later, Tennessee was permitting churches of our size to meet in person again. Back at the bar, we greeted the masked faces who walked in. But there seemed to be a lot of new faces… Who were these people?
“We found you guys on Facebook,” a young couple explained. “You guys were one of the few churches near us that offered an online service. We told ourselves that if things ever went back to normal, we had to come check this church out!”
Choking back tears, I watched as over eighty people raised their hands in worship together. Soon, our church outgrew the bar space and moved into a CrossFit gym, and later a school auditorium.
What the devil had wanted to use to close our church, God used to double it.
There’s a reason the Church is referred to as the bride of Christ: Jesus loves the Church. It belongs to Him, and because of this, the powers of hell will not conquer it.
The church plant I was a part of in Nashville is still an incredible church today—and so is the amazing church I work at now. But what makes both of them (and any church) so wonderful is that it belongs to Jesus.
Thursday’s Reflection
What are some ways you have seen Satan attack the Church? What are some ways you have seen God protect it?
