Earl Goode said if he understood exactly how it was happening, he’d be happy to share it.
“But I don’t know why it’s happening,” he said. “It has to be God.”
Goode, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, Warrior, in Sulphur Springs Baptist Association, has watched his country church grow to bursting at the seams over the past two years.
“I’m an old school kind of guy,” said Goode, who is in his mid-60s. “But somehow our ministry attracts younger to middle age couples.”
His church, which he described as “traditional, but a little bit country traditional,” has a southern gospel praise team and has its seats packed full every Sunday. It’s got a building program underway, with more than $256,000 already raised.
‘God is blessing them’
Dan Nichols, director of missions for Sulphur Springs Association, said God “is just richly blessing” the church.
“It seats about 130 or so, and most Sundays they can’t bring the children over from Sunday School because there’s no space for them,” said Nichols, a member of Calvary Baptist. “[The Barna Group] research would tell you that age of the leader and the location would be two detriments to growth. But he is a good solid preacher and has encouraged those folks, and God is blessing them.”
The biggest growth is not in numbers, Goode said — it’s in spiritual depth. “I was out for 10 weeks (for health reasons), and the church didn’t miss a beat — it kept growing and functioning as a church ought to function. To try to explain what God is doing in the congregation is impossible. I just preach and believe that God is going to give the increase.”
He does something else, too — he takes visitors to lunch.
“If someone comes to visit a second time, my wife and I will take them out for a meal to get to know them,” Goode said. “Many times when people visit a church like ours, they are looking for a place. They are looking for something.
So we try to make ourselves available to answer their questions and see what it is they are looking for.”
Goode said he is a strong believer in personal evangelism.
“I think a lot of the time we depend on the church facility and its programs to do the job,” he said. “God is depending on us as Christians to be the message bearer. If we fail to do that, we’re missing our calling.”
And members of Calvary Baptist are living that out. They consistently invite friends and family to come to church with them, he said. They’ve seen many people saved, including some out of drug and alcohol addiction.
Taking care of each other
And for many years, they have taken care of the people around them.
When the pastor before Goode declined in health after 20 years serving the church, the congregation continued to pay his salary after he retired. Then after he passed away, they continued to provide housing and other needs for his widow.
They’ve “loved on” Goode as well as he’s faced major health issues in the past few months, he said.
“This is a special church, as far as just being together. They want to help and try to be faithful to Scripture and dynamic in their faith,” Goode said. “I wake up every morning grateful to get to be a part.
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