Smyrna, TN April 24-26

I would have never imagined that I would become so familiar with Smyrna, TN, a city northwest of Murfreesboro and southeast of Nashville.  However, as I shared with the people in a service last weekend, Smyrna has becoming something like a “home away from” our home in Watertown, about 30 miles away.  Over the past year, Carey and I have traveled to Smyrna every Thursday night (that we are not on the road to somewhere else) to meet there with our Civil Air Patrol Squadron.  Also over this past year, we became friends with Pastor Tony Clemons at the Church of the Nazarene there and have been blessed to share some there.  Then, I was invited to come at share April 24-26 at the Smyrna Free Methodist, where our old friend, Chris Curry, has been the pastor for the last few years.  It is evident from both the church website and from visiting that this is a church that is being build upon the concept of responding to Jesus.  I was encouraged to see this attitude in the weekend services as people came and responded.  What an excitement there was among the people!  After preaching in the services Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday morning, I was additionally blessed to get to share in the Hispanic service on Sunday afternoon.  Some of those who know us know that Trina and I have had a longtime love for Spanish, “the language of heaven,” as my former District Superintendent used to call it.  Trina has always had an ear for it and is better at understanding it, while I have had a more natural tendency to find the words to speak it.  In this we make a great team.  What a joy it was to just converse among some of the people in limited Spanish before the service.  I felt a courage from the Lord to just step out and try it more than I have.  Raquel did a great job of translating for me during the sermon.  Yet, even as she translated, I felt that courage and desire from the Lord rising up within me again.  There was a key question that resonated throughout the message from 2 Timothy 1:6 that still rings in my heart today.  “Come esta el fuego?”  In English, “How’s the fire?”  I am deeply grateful for the experience of being with the people of both congregations at Smyrna Free Methodist and how it stoked the fire in own heart again for dependency upon Jesus and what He desires to do in my life.  And I might just need to study Spanish more this summer! :)

 In Christ,

 John