Luther Bible Chapel

    Linda and I were all of 21 when we started at Luther Bible Chapel and we were GREEN and inexperienced. Luther Chapel was a great training ground for us. I was especially green in preaching the Word and even preparing for messages. GRSBM taught us basics, but the real classroom came in the nitty gritty of ministry. A friend of ours, Phil Platz and his wife Linda came for a visit one Easter after we had been there a short while. Phil and I went over to the church to get ready for Easter Services and a message from God's Word. I was having a hard time getting my thoughts around the message and knowing how to present it. Phil sat down with me and in just a few minutes taught me more about preparing a message than I ever learned in school. Phil just recently went Home to be with Jesus in Heaven. I will miss him.

   In that first year I "told God" 2 things:

   #1: The church was started by the American Sunday School Union in the late 1930's and still conducted business using their constitution and by laws. This meant that they elected their Sunday School Teachers and officers. For some reason I was not happy with this and I "told the Lord" that I would NEVER be a part of that organization. God has great patience and a wonderful sense of humor. Every year the Regional Director of the ASSU, (Howard and Fern Peterson) would come to our church and share about the ministry in the Michigan, Iowa area. Each time he came, after the service, he would tell me and Linda about a church or ministry in Iowa that we would fit in perfectly with. I kindly ignored his invitation. BUT God had other ideas. Several years later we found ourselves applying to do ministry with the American Missionary Fellowship, which was the new name for the American Sunday School Union! (Now InFaith)

   #2: The second thing I "told God" was that I was willing to stick it out at Luther Chapel for 2 years and then I would start to look for another church or ministry. BUT GOD had other plans. We ended up staying at Luther chapel for 11.5 years until 1982. Lesson Learned: You NEVER "TELL GOD" what you are going to do, you submit to His will not yours.  

  We have a lot of fond memories of our time at Luther Chapel and the wonderful people there. We could tell many stories of Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting in different people's homes, the annual white elephant auction and Linda "buying" back her same old purse one year., the annual Memorial Day picnics, special evangelistic meetings with different speakers, the building of an addition to the church, a funeral for a couple that had been murdered, yearly and monthly business meetings, and much more. God allowed us to build special relationships with different people in the church and we praise God for those 11 years of learning and growing and learning the real meaning of ministry. 

   Some of my memories (Linda ): Learning to live by faith on very little money. The snake we had in the bathroom that our landlords dog trapped behind the toilet and ripped the head off ( 13 baby snakes went flying every where !) Being diagnosed with diabetes in 1974. Both of our sons were born while at Luther. Teaching VBS's and. Sunday,School classes, my Ladies Bible studies. We had many hard lessons and made many mistakes working with people, but God was patient, loving and kind. We thank Him for what He taught us and for the people we were able to love and minister to.


Stay Tuned...

    

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