17 Years Ago Today

10 a.m. March 5, 1991...

I looked at my flock of eight for the first time...

Pastor R Kent Smith on his first day!

I had tiptoed through raw sewage to get into the side door of the ragged building...

The flock that had been meeting for six months held few promises...

A pulpit made out of an organ bench since the organ didn't work...

A yellow painted piano...

Seven orange benches...

Tracie took the three kids to have Sunday School....

Leaving me with five in the congregation...

Prime Time Pastor Hour...

The message...

X Is Not Equal to X....

Drawn from the algebraic principle the something is always equal to itself.....

Yet with God all things are possible....

And my flock of eight would not stay eight...

It didn't.....

Today we have touched thousands...

Ministries and staff...

Blessings and finance....

Monday morning early I remembered that the first Sunday in March was our first day in Conroe....

This year the first Sunday in March came and went without our remembering what day it was...

But we did see an incredible display of the Holy Ghost and souls saved...

What better way to forget to celebrate...

But as I sit alone in my cottage room overlooking Lake Buchannon while on a retreat I remember....

The seventeen years have flown by....

I would not trade a second of the journey....

Well.....

Maybe a few of them...

God has blessed...

The first Sunday standing behind the makeshift organ bench pulpit.....

This Sunday I stood behind a most ornate custom built one...

The message seventeen years ago was not so different from the one Sunday night...

Shake This Place!

And the place shook with the power we couldn’t muster that Sunday in 1991...

But I knew...

If I could somehow lead the little flock into the realm of faith and the supernatural...

The little flock would not stay so little....

And His blessing would settle upon us....

Tracie, Redonia and Trent.....

Thanks for sticking with me even in the toughest of times...

Tracie you and I alone know the tears, hurts, sacrifice and joys along the way....

Trent and Doni....

No one knows of the times in your teen years you both emptied your checking accounts into the church...

I know...

But so does God...

Is it any wonder people hand you money like they did this week?

God has blessed your sacrifice....

His blessing upon you is really a blessing upon me...

CUPC family....

Every one of you has a special place in my heart...

All you ex CUPC'ers who read this....

You as well are special to us and I want to go to heaven with you......

And Lord...

Thank You for everything...

I hope You find me worthy...

You humble servant...

rks