When I came to FFWC (then First Assembly of God) 15 years ago times were different and this church didn't look like it does now. Most of properties around us were undeveloped woods. 1/2 of the roof was the original roof from 1974 and the other half was in 90 lbs. felt paper. The church was white and the doors or their original battleship primer gray color. The front yard doubled as a parking lot and the church sign (8' x 12") was lit by a 60 watt light bulb. The remnants of a day care were evident everywhere, but no day care. It had to go out of business long ago. All that was there was shadows of former glory and earmarks of failures.
I remember going to the Chamber of Commerce - I had thought about introducing myself as the new pastor of the church until... "Did you hear what they did to that pastor down at First Assembly... can you believe that they would treat people like that? " I knew what had happened and I knew what was going on. Good people were being demonized and gossip was rampant. I thought to myself, "Oh God, what are you doing here?" Well I skipped the whole introduction thing. Not sure how that would go, so I got some information and went on.
That first Sunday at FFWC was something else. Who was going to be there? Most of the congregation had left. They were done. So Betty and I, plus two friends of ours from Coral Springs came to have church. It looked something like this picture (actually this pic was taken just a few weeks later.) Two more people came and that was it.
What was I going to do? What would I say? How were were going to turn things around?
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