During the summer of 1995, I began to have a desire to get closer to the Lord because I realized that, being 43 years old, my time was running out.
I also realized that I was probably living in the last days, and that the Lord could come back anytime, so I really wanted my life to count for Him. I began to dig in the Scriptures and to pray that the Lord would help me to have a closer walk with Him and that He would use me in any way He wanted. It seemed as though the Lord kept asking me, “Are you willing to suffer?” I said that I was. (Little did I know how much, even to the point of my life being threatened.) As I continued to study and pray, I became very dissatisfied with…the church that I was attending…
Don’t misunderstand. I believe there are many fine Christians in [denominational] churches who love the Lord….My problem was not so much with the…people, but the… system. I didn’t know why exactly. I just knew something wasn’t right, and question marks kept popping up in my mind.
…I finally felt that I would try to start a…church in the town where I lived, and try to run it the “right way,” whatever that was. After getting a commendation from another… church, I rented a store front in town, put up a sign, and began to take my family to it and preach to them. I got out and went door to door, witnessing and inviting people to come to “my” church. Soon, a few people began to come visit. But, because I was really studying the Word, praying, and committing my service to the Lord, the Lord convicted me that the approach that I was taking was wrong.
In January of 1996, I closed up “shop,” and decided that I didn’t know what I was doing. I was determined to know what the Bible had to say about starting a church. Quickly I found out that I wasn’t to start a church, but that the Lord would. So, I began to pray earnestly that the Lord would raise up a “right kind” of church, whatever that was….
I began to assemble with my family only in the Lord’s name in my home on Sundays and God began to bless us, as I began to search His Word concerning what a scriptural church was. I also began to busy myself preaching the gospel over the radio and through bulk mailings, and waited for the Lord to reveal to me His will….
February through June, 1996, I studied the Scriptures to find out what God’s will was for a New Testament church. I only used a Bible and my computer. From my findings, I wrote a booklet, “The Truth About the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.”I have never written a book before, and this was never intended to be a book, but later developed that way from my study notes. I felt I would put my findings in booklet form so that I could give it to anyone who questioned how I believed and to defend my position concerning the church.
After completing the book in June 1996, my wife and I soon became very discouraged because we didn’t know of anyone practicing these NT principles. We thought we were the only ones to believe this way. But, surely there had to be others. Many times, we wondered if we were wrong about the whole thing.
But whenever we became discouraged, we would take the book and read it over again. I read it several times, and the Scriptures in it comforted me each time. Yes, they had to be true, even if there were no churches practicing them today.
We continued to feel that we were the only ones that believed this way because when we took inventory of all the denominations, we didn’t see anyone out there meeting according to the Scriptures. Some of my closest friends who read the book. told me that they couldn’t disagree, but “why are you the only ones to believe this way? Surely, if you’re right, then there would have to be others.”
So we felt like Elijah. We prayed and agonized and wondered how all this would ever turn out. I remember telling the Lord that even if we never found anyone else that believed this way, my family and I would continue to believe it and practice it in our home on Sundays until His return.
This went on for the next three months, until some time in October 1996. God performed a miracle! We went to the library and checked out a book about denominations in America. We were thrilled when we discovered that there was one group of people who refused to call themselves by a denominational name and that they did in fact assemble together exactly as I had studied. Oh, we were so excited!
In the book, they were referred to as “Plymouth Brethren,” but it said that they were called this name by outsiders, and that they refused to call themselves by that name or any other man-made name. In the back of the book, we got the name of the man who gave the information to the publisher. With the Lord’s help, we were able to contact him and get information about two “assemblies” of these kinds of believers in Kentucky.
One of these assemblies is in Lexington, so we visited there and found them to be practicing exactly as God had shown me from the Scriptures. Not only do they practice the New Testament pattern for a church, but they gave me a directory that listed hundreds of these assemblies of Christians in the U.S. and Canada.
…How exciting it was to see that God is still blessing His pattern today as He did when He instituted it 2,000 years ago. God created this pattern for a New Testament church so that it could grow to its fullest potential….
From October 1996 to February 1997, we drove the 70 miles from Louisville to Lexington to meet with these dear brothers and sisters in Christ who practiced these NT principles. There I became more grounded in these precious truths from God’s Word. I also learned the importance of the “breaking of bread,” which is the highlight of their meeting each Lord’s day in the remembrance of the Saviour. My family and I have been so blessed by this meeting which focuses on the Person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It was interesting that while writing the book I prayed and asked the Lord to give me a picture of the early Church’s meeting, and I began to get a glimpse from 1 Corinthians 14. I pictured the early saints coming in and quietly sitting down, reading the Scripture, praying, and asking the Holy Spirit to lead in the meeting. Then one by one the men would have liberty to walk up front and lead in Scripture, exhortation, prayer, or in a hymn. A few times, some of my friends came to visit on Sundays at my home and I would tell them how I believed the early church met. And, then we would do it.
The only thing that bothered me was the podium I had up front. I didn’t feel it was what the early church had, but I didn’t know what else would be there. When I took my family for the first time to the assembly in Lexington, I was overwhelmed. As I walked in, I saw how the people there were sitting quietly reading their Bibles, praying, and meditating, just as we had done in my home. But at the front of the room was the table with the “bread” and the “cup.”
I exclaimed to myself, “That’s it! That’s what should be there.” Oh, how excited I was to see the emblems that represented the Lord Jesus Christ as being the center of the meeting.
Praise His worthy Name for leading me by the hand into these precious truths. Friend, I am nothing special. The Lord will show His blessed will to any of His children who are looking for the right way to please Him.
On January 8, 1997, three families in the Louisville area began to meet in our home on Wednesday nights to learn more about these NT truths concerning the church. On Sundays, we continued to meet with the assembly in Lexington. On February 23, we had our first meeting…to break bread. Four families were present. We then began to look for a building that we could meet in, and soon found one in Mt. Washington, KY. The Lord has blessed our meetings. We have also been reaching out to the community in the Lord’s name with gospel bulk mailings, jail ministry, radio preaching, Emmaus Bible correspondence courses, etc….
I want to say that I am so thankful to the Lord that I have discovered these principles from His Word. They’re in the Bible. You can read them for yourself. They have always been there, but I never could see them before, because my eyes had been clouded by denominationalism. I had always read the Bible with “tinted glasses.” People always told me that I was looking for a “perfect church” and that I would never find it because churches are made up of imperfect people. True, but I was not looking for perfect people, but a perfect pattern–and God has given it to us in the Scriptures.