God has promised that we have a mission field. That’s what I think small churches forget, that God gave them a mission field. We tend to jump to, “Let’s go overseas,” instead of going across the street to talk to your neighbors. I think every church has to ask, “God, how can we serve for Your glory, at the size that we are, to the community You planted us in?”
I came to pastor Wildwood Baptist Church in Mesquite, Texas, 11 years ago. Our church needed to find its mission field. We were financially weak and small in numbers. By the time I’d been there two years, we’d cut 40% from our budget to make things add up.
One of the things we noticed, and even complained about, were the kids walking through our neighborhood all the time. Sometimes they would mess with stuff at the church, or they’d get into areas they weren’t supposed to. The Lord laid on my heart, instead of seeing those kids as a nuisance, why not see them as a mission field? I didn’t know what the Lord would do with that until He laid on my heart a way for us to be involved in our schools.
Through Alex [Gonzales, the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s regional catalyst for Dallas/Fort Worth] I learned about Kids Beach Club [an evangelistic program for elementary school kids], and we decided to start with that, stepping through an open door and doing what we could. We also wanted a presence in the middle school and the high school, but we started with Beach Club nine years ago. We’ve seen more than 100 kids saved through that ministry.
We have connected with families in our community. Some of them have joined our church. Our church isn’t big — 50 to 80 people — but we’ve been able to minister to those families.
About five years ago, the Lord opened a door for us to get into the high school. Mesquite High School hired a new head football coach. I found out it was a guy I had gone to high school with, so I contacted him to congratulate him and ask how we might serve the football program. He said, “Well, we need extra nutritional offset — food, Gatorade, things like that.” Our church wasn’t able to provide that, so I started making calls to a few benevolence ministries. Through those, we started weekly deliveries of food for the athletic programs and the student athletes.
‘Character coach’
That developed into them asking me to speak weekly to the football team, and then to be the team chaplain. It all developed organically and by God’s grace and providence. Fellowship of Christian Athletes came along afterward, since I was doing everything they wanted a “character coach” to do, and said, “If you come under our umbrella, you can be under our insurance and access some additional resources.” That has been a blessing.
The principals now ask me to speak at a few events. Sometimes I’m invited to speak to the teachers before the school year starts. I’m just referred to as “Pastor Rick” on campus, and I go to all their football games, trying to provide resources when students or families are in need.
It was a couple of years ago that we were able to start doing FCA at Agnew Middle School. We began there with about 30 kids, and that has grown to more like 250 participating in FCA at Agnew.
I think God prepared me for this ministry. In addition to being a high school football player, God brought me up in a tough background. We were so poor we hauled water for drinking and washing from a pond when I was a kid. My dad also had serious drug abuse problems. But it was seeing him saved and changed that led me to follow Christ when I was 17.
In all of that stuff growing up, now I look back and I thank the Lord for it because it has given me a heart and compassion for people in difficult situations. I am able to look past the symptoms and expressions of their anger, frustration, and struggles they’re going through, especially our school ministries — those kids do some wild stuff. I mean, some of these kids will cuss you up one side and down the other —they’re very difficult. They have operational and oppositional defiance disorders. But to have an adult in their life to say, “Hey, it’s not acceptable to act that way, but I’m still going to love you and you still get to be a part,” that’s radical for some of these kids.
Now we have a church full of people who love to serve, and they love to look for ways we can bless our community. Some of the people who are our most faithful volunteers and servers within the church have been reached through these ministries to the schools.
I’ve learned a couple of things. The first is to not make assumptions about people, positive or negative, based on externals. Everybody has to go through life. Everybody goes through the good and the bad. Everybody has hard things they’re worried about. The second is that God uses small churches — churches like ours.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Rick Nichols and originally published by the Southern Baptist Texan.
