Small Church Big God

Iglesia Vida

During the Pandemic my husband and I decided to start attending a new church. We had worked with this church many times through our previous church, and we had know the pastor and his wife for years before deciding to attend. The church is small in physical size and congregation size. The sanctuary is the size of a large living room. There is a house next to the church which used to be our pastor’s house, but is now used as classrooms for the children’s classes, as well as a fellowship area where we drink coffee and chat after the service. Our church is in an area with a lot of need. Many people in the community are living in poverty, stuggling with illnesses and addictions. We often have people coming to church hungry because they don’t have food at home or money to buy any. The offering plate usually has a hand full of coins at the end of a Sunday service. Our pastor isn’t paid for being a pastor. Him and his wife both work outside of the church to be able to provide for their little family and for the needs of the church. I have never experienced a church like ours and it has been the most humbling experience serving this community. I say all of this to paint a picture before sharing some powerful testimonies.

I tiled this post “Small Church Big God” because I have been in total awe of how God has been moving in our church recently. The whole purpose of this post is to share some testimonies from a few people in our church, and to hopefully bring some encouragement to you and your small church. The first testimony that I want to share is of a woman who has been going to our church consistently for some years now. Her daughter had been diagnosed with cancer. One day her daughter asked her to pray for her, so she did. The woman said that they felt the Holy Spirit there with them and they wept. When her daughter went to see her doctor again they discovered that she was cancer free. What an amazing testimony of her faith in God.

A testimony that happened a while ago, but I only recently heard about, is one of an elderly woman in our church who had problems with her vision. She had started going to church and was hungry for the Lord. She wanted to be able to read God’s Word for herself, but because of the issues she had with her eyes she wasn’t able to. I don’t know all the details to the story, but I do know that the Lord healed her and now she is able to read her Bible on her own.

The last testimony that I want to share is the most recent and for me was even more impactful than the previous two. Maybe because we often hear of testimonies of God healing, but we don’t often hear about the seemingly smaller things that God helps us with. Another woman has been struggling financially for a while. She and her husband are older, but not yet retirement age. Her husband has been trying to find a job, but has yet to find anything. Our church has been providing some food for them as we are able. A week or so ago they were hungry and had nothing at home to eat. Her husband told her that he was going to go fishing to try to catch something to eat. So she prayed and asked God to help her husband catch something. He brought home 15 fish! I am still in awe of this testimony every time that I think about it! And! That is not even the best part of the story…. the following Sunday her husband came to church with her for the first time! God is so good! This reminds me of the story from Luke 5, when Jesus filled the disciples’ boats with fish after they hadn’t caught anything all night.

“As the crowd was pressing in on Jesus to hear God’s word, He was standing by Lake Gennesaret.^[a] 2 He saw two boats at the edge of the lake;^[b] the fishermen had left them and were washing their nets. ³ He got into one of the boats, which belonged to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from the land. Then He sat down and was teaching the crowds from the boat.⁴ When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and let down^[c] your nets for a catch.”⁵ “Master,” Simon replied, “we’ve worked hard all night long and caught nothing! But at Your word, I’ll let down the nets.”^{[d] 6} When they did this, they caught a great number of fish, and their nets^[e] began to tear. ⁷ So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them; they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.⁸ When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, because I’m a sinful man, Lord!” ⁹ For he and all those with him were amazed^[f] at the catch of fish they took, ¹⁰ and so were James and John, Zebedee’s sons, who were Simon’s partners.“Don’t be afraid,” Jesus told Simon. “From now on you will be catching people!” ¹¹ Then they brought the boats to land, left everything, and followed Him.” Luke 5:1-11

I see our small church being filled with people who are truly hungry to know God and I am so excited to continue to see God move.