God is faithful. God still makes miracles happen.
The past 2.5 years that I have been blessed to be one of the pastors at Las Vegas Church of the Nazarene, I have seen God do some incredible things in the life of this church - outreach, baptisms, new members, people being healed, people finding faith in Jesus. This year, some real modern-day miracles unfolded, and I am humbled to have seen them first hand. It’s hard to put into words the deep gratitude I have to God to have seen this all transpire.
It continued in what we now know was a MASSIVE way these past 6 months.
Our church was made aware of just how big some changes in our financial situation would be back in February. Collectively, our Finance Committee and Board put together a list of how to tackle our changes. It was beautiful to see the collective wisdom at play as together we teamed up to steward this change to the best of our ability. Our church treasurer, my friend Steve Hall, prayed Philippians 4:19 over our church. I never knew how prophetic it would be.
We decided to go through the COTN’s process in selling about 3 acres of undeveloped property here at the church. That can be a lengthy process of going through the right protocol with our District leadership, but we stepped into the unknown.
At the same time, staff cut down on expenses for the new financial year. Then, we were hit with another bombshell. Our insurance company dropped us due to some claims we’d made, mainly relating to crime. The only options available were roughly $36,000 more in premium payments. Again - collectively through our awesome church staff, answers were sought as we tried to find a solution. No answers came. Insurance companies have been dropping churches right and left recently because they have more money going out in claims than they do coming in with premiums. With the new situation, the COTN leadership didn’t even know what to do. I contacted pastors left and right, Nazarene and not.
In May, our board just decided we had to do what we had to do and bite the bullet with new premiums. The next day, I was drafting the email to our Admin assistant telling her to go ahead and finalize the paperwork. At that exact moment, I got a phone call. Miraculously, an answer was found that would leave us paying much closer to what we were before. Relief. Thank you, God. But wait, it get’s better.
June 9, 2024, our church had a meeting to vote on the sale of the land. We had a great meeting and a 93% positive vote to move forward with selling it. I reached out to our new DS and received word to move forward with the sale.
Then, our church experienced something so miraculous it left many in tears and in shock. I will never forget a conversation I had on Tuesday, June 18 with a colleague in ministry that completely floored me, made me cry tears of joy and left me so in awe of God’s faithfulness to act in situations that are difficult from our understanding. June 18 will be one of those markers in the 80 year history of Las Vegas Church of the Nazarene that we will tell to the future generations.
This is a moment that I will share for all my days as a reminder of just how good God is. As I shared the news with our church on June 23, I just did not want to leave the sanctuary. It was a true mountaintop moment. It meant so much to celebrate God’s goodness with our church family. As we worshipped the God who saves, calls us to the unknown, calms our chaos, and brings beauty from our ashes.
That news I shared with our church from that phone call was that some anonymous donor(s) had liquidated stock for the expressed purpose of paying off our entire mortgage of $650,000. I was left without words in that phone call, and instead cried tears of thankfulness to God.
It was a day I’ll never forget. It was a service of worship and praise that I’ll never forget. God was with us in the storm. God gave us wisdom on how to handle the storm. Yet, God has calmed that chaos we experienced.
I know for sure that not every storm will be calmed. Yet, I am grateful for the mighty way this storm was calmed. I also know, no matter the storm, God is with us in it and through it. God provides peace in our chaos. I had peace even back in February, that some how, God would give us the wisdom we needed.
We may never know who the donors are, but I am forever grateful that they responded out of obedience when they heard the Spirit prompt them to “pay off the debt, and so we wanted to be obedient to that.”
Miracles still happen friends. Our church can testify to this reality.
I’m so thankful for the team of people who have worked tirelessly, like the staff and board at LVCN, at the Arizona District, and even colleagues in ministry (like in the Group Coaching initiative from PLNU) who have offered their expertise this year to help us find a way. Some of it, God used, other times God used obedience. Regardless, God moved.
If you want to watch our service with that announcement, you can do so here: the whole thing was a wonderful service, but skip ahead to the 1hr5min mark to hear the story, and responses from our church:
https://www.youtube.com/live/QUjwEcRgvcs?si=WW5VELGwFHKtbWo9
Rev. Roland J. Tedder
Lead Pastor