Our Return to Billings...

I sat in my office that day a dreamed about what could be... I was 23-years-old, and had just set up my office as the Lead Pastor of Billings Praise Center, in Billings, MT. I was full of anticipation for what God was going to use us to do on the Southside of Billings. That day, God put such incredible vision and passion in my heart to reach the unreached on the Southside. I dreamed of ministry to single moms, and homeless teens, and hungry families. That was the day God put it in my heart for Billings Praise Center to become a sort of Spiritual Emergency Room for people in desperate situations. That day seemed so far away 15 months later when the church board of BPC suddenly asked me to resign... It's been over 8 years since that day, and I still have not been offered an official explanation as to why. The church was growing, and we were in the beginning stages of seeing some of those dreams and visions come to pass. We were only a few weeks away from starting a large scale food distribution ministry, and the first step would have been taken to become what I felt God had called Billings Praise Center to become. And then it all came to a very abrupt halt... We cried a lot during those days. We didn't know what we would do next, but that wasn't the main source of the tears. It hurt to have been rejected by people that you spent so much time praying for, and asking God to bless. It is almost like being asked to leave your family... For me, a huge source of the tears was knowing that the dreams that God had placed on my heart that day in my new office had just died. I knew that the people of the church would not continue the with the plans and dreams that God had given me, and they didn't. The vision to help the hurting left Billings Praise Center when I did... or so I thought... After leaving more than 8 years before, and inwardly vowing never to return, on October 5, 2013, we drove back into Billings. I never thought I would see that city again, but God allowed me to see something beautiful there, and He taught me some things about vision... When we lived in Billings, God gave me the incredible opportunity to meet a man named David Morales. David grew up on the Southside, and God had done some miraculous things in his life. He was doing ministry on the Southside for people that most churches wouldn't touch. He was reaching battered women, and women recently released from prison. He was touching people's lives in ways that traditional churches never would. I enjoyed getting to know David very much!! After we left Billings, David also went through some difficult things, and was also rejected by some people close to him. The ministry he had been doing, came to a sudden end, and the Southside was left without its Champion... But then God began to put broken pieces together again, but in a different way than they were before. David Morales became the Pastor of Billings Praise Center!! It wasn't easy for him to push through the desire of the people to control everything, but because David is like a pit bull, he was able to break through!! The church stopped holding Sunday services, and the people who had rejected me, left the church. Earlier this year, Billings Praise Center began holding Sunday services once again, and that is just one of the many incredible things we saw when we returned a few Sundays ago... Billings Praise Center now has a ministry that feeds hungry families, with a pantry full of food! They assemble and distribute kits of personal supplies to the teenagers who live on the streets in Billings!! My old office now has two commercial washers, and two commercial dryers in it, so that single moms can save the money they would use at the laundromat, and spend it on their kids instead! The house next to the church is being remodeled, and will be used to house women who have been recently released from prison, and need a safe place to try to restore things with their children. The church operates a day care for low-income families, and there was a family in church the Sunday I preached that have come to Christ through their relationship with that daycare!! The church building has been remodeled, and updated quite a bit, and the property looks great. And probably the most impressive thing we saw, was that there the atmosphere of the church was so much different than it was on the day we left. There seemed to be a genuine excitement about reaching out to hurting people. There was an honesty and sincerity in the way they talked about Billings Praise Center existing to help people in need. I almost cried like a baby when David told me that he viewed BPC as a type of Spiritual Emergency Room for the Southside!! God taught me an amazing lesson as we toured the property of Billings Praise Center. He showed me that His plans and vision never die. Situations might look hopeless, and it might seem impossible that God could ever fulfill His promise, and yet somehow He does it. I did not get to see my dreams and vision come to pass while I was in leadership at Billings Praise Center, but I did get to see them happen!! I am so thankful for the opportunity to have literally seen God's faithfulness to His promise with my own eyes. I would have never guessed that it was possible for our situation in Billings to have worked out in a good way, but God is too good to let His promise die!! As David and I have talked a little after our visit, we realized that we both really needed what happened that weekend. Our family needed to see how God has brought those dreams to pass, and David has said that there seems to be a renewed passion and a peace since we have been there. It as if something has finally and fully been reconciled. The hurt we never thought would go away, has turned to joy!! I know it seems simple, but it is so true: God is good!!! We had wondered for years about why God would have allowed this to happen to us. We had wondered why we had to endure this pain, or what we had done to deserve the things that happened. After going back to Billings, we have come to the conclusion that it wasn't really about us... We had given our lives to God and asked Him to use us, and He did. He used us to expose some of the unhealthy issues at Billings Praise Center. He basically used us to stir the hornets nest, so that the problems were easy to see. The difficult situation wasn't about us, it was about bringing His will to pass at Billings Praise Center. Now the Southside has a wonderful church that won't overlook the darkness of the neighborhood. The Southside of Billings has a church that loves the people, and is committed to reaching them!! It cost us some heartache and tears (as well as some from David and his family), but it was worth it!!