Is it God or Us?

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Ellis and I were courting back in 1956 and both attending and helping in the Minneapolis Baptist Church.  When we first started attending there, they had a lady preacher who took over after her husband, the pastor, died.  My mother, who was a very quiet person felt that wasn't right to have a lady preacher so when they had a church business meeting, she urged my bashful father to get up and say something about it.  "We need to vote on the preacher," he said.  Soon after that Bill Shroyer became the pastor and the church started to grown like crazy with his excellent bible teachings.

So many young families were coming that the Sunday School was overflowing with little kids.  The elders decided it was time to add onto the church building.  They purchased used lumber from the old courthouse and were making plans to build when some of the older members wanted to have a business meeting.  That business meeting brought in members who hadn't attended in a long time, they discussed all those "rug rats" running all over the church and put an end to our building plans.  At that meeting Bill was also voted out as pastor.

Half of the elders and Sunday School teachers walked out with Pastor Shroyer.  We all met at Bert Hawkins house on Rothsay.  A few of us continued to meet and fellowship there as a small group of believers.  Ellis and the other men got the notion that the Bible was the word of God and they should pay attention to it.  They wanted a New Testament church and felt it was important.  Ellis said, "We aren't well organized but the hand of God is working behind the scenes"  and we started building a church group that focused on the apostles doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer.

Acts 2:42  "And they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers."