Jim Ingram, pastor at First Baptist here, went looking to form a relationship with a new church plant and discovered a passionate flame for Christ in the coolness of Canada.
BASTROP – Jim Ingram, pastor at First Baptist here, went looking to form a relationship with a new church plant and discovered a passionate flame for Christ in the coolness of Canada.
The temperature on a summer day in the Canadian province of New Brunswick can reach as high as 73 degrees, a welcome relief, perhaps, to Ingram, who traveled there in early June to work with Dave Storey, church planter for Miramichi Valley Church.
“Dave is on fire for the Lord,” Ingram said. “He spends three or four hours a day just in prayer and Bible study getting himself ready to witness. I wish we could send everyone in [Louisiana] up there to spend time with him. His whole church is on fire. Everyone talks about Jesus.”
A little over a year ago, Ingram, looking to form a relationship with a church plant that First Bastrop could support and encourage, contacted the Canadian Convention of Southern Baptists, he said.
The convention referred Ingram to Gary Smith, a regional church planter in charge of the eastern part of Canada, the Louisiana pastor said. Smith referred Ingram to Dave Storey.
“Right away we began conversing by phone,” Ingram said. The two pastors prayed for each other’s churches and began to develop a relationship through phone and email communication.
“I’ve never seen a guy with a bigger heart than [Jim],” Storey said, adding that First Bastrop bought Miramichi an overhead projector, sent money for a foundation around their old church building, and sent up countless prayers for the new church.
“I know that God’s using their prayers to affect what’s going on up here,” Storey said.
And a lot is going on.
“Whole families are coming to the Lord,” said Ingram, who preached at Miramichi on Sunday, June 3, and then witnessed to a young man and woman who gave their lives to Christ, he said.
But that was only a hint at what had been going on, Storey said. A month and a half before, the young woman’s sister had given her heart to Christ followed three weeks later by their mother. Now the whole family is in church, gripped by the gospel, Ingram said.
In a poor area economically, Miramichi is beset by broken families and substance abuse, Storey said.
Storey, reared in Miramichi, was burdened for the town and began praying about how he could serve God there.
Janet Betts, a Christian from Miramichi, contacted Storey in the summer of 2005 when her family was in the middle of a crisis, Storey said. During that counseling session, Janet’s husband Keith and their two daughters, Brittney and Melissa, gave their lives to Christ. Since then, the whole family has been serving the Lord, he added.
Storey and his wife Lisa moved to Miramichi from another nearby town in December 2005. In January, he began a core group with Janet and Keith that prayed together every week over a list of 50 names representing lost people in the community, he said.
The plant had its first service on February 21, 2006 and more than 30 people attended, Storey said. During that service, Storey’s first cousin, whom he’d witnessed to the week before in the hardware store, gave her life to Christ.
“We really sensed the Lord’s presence,” Storey said. “After that, every week someone was saved, and it’s still going on.”
There have been more than 60 conversions since February, and church membership is at about 120, Storey said.
“What happened was definitely phenomenal,” he added. “God has blessed me by allowing me to lead a lot of people to Him since the time I was saved, but I’ve never seen anything like the way the Lord has moved here.”
Storey attributes much of the work to a brokenness and emptiness that existed in the area long before he arrived. In addition, believers in the area had been praying for years.
Now, First Bastrop is playing an important role in Miramichi’s development.
“We have all these new believers being discipled; [First Bastrop] has been helping us out with prayers and money,” Storey said.
Recently, First Bastrop sent Miramichi about $5,500 that will go toward work on Miramichi’s building: a remodeled grocery store.
Miramichi bought the grocery store, appraised at $700,000 Canadian dollars, for a mere $50,000, Ingram said. In addition, a local businessman has donated about $10,000 in sheetrock and plywood.
Though Miramichi is still in the progress of refurbishing the building, faith is running high, Storey said.
“We’re trusting the Lord that he’s going to work it out for us,” he added.