It Started On My Street

by Paul Smith
(Lucerne, California)

In the spring of 2006 I was not feeling up to going to church one Sunday morning so I spent the morning in personal devotions. While praying for the people I had met who lived on my street I felt the Lord directing me to visit two men who lived down the street from me.
Steve and Darin were believers who were not not living a faithful Christian life. I felt the Lord gave me some very strange directions. He seemed to speak to my heart to go visit them and tell them that he honors their faith and that they were to pray for me. I felt a little weird doing it, but I felt God was leading me so I did.
While we were praying together I invited them to my house for prayer and Bible study. We met on Tuesday night, just the three of us. We prayed and looked at some Scripture, drank some coffee and had good fellowship.
After a few weeks their wives started coming and my wife joined us also, so now we had 6 people coming to our house on Tuesday evening. I met a local business man and invited him to come. There was a young lady from the church my wife was mentoring so we invited her.
After awhile we invited a homeless couple to stay with us for a week and they started coming.
Thanksgiving that year we had 23 people over for dinner and all of them were a part of our small group.
We continued meeting on Tuesday night until we moved from Springfield, Missouri in 2009... but the group continued to meet.
It all started on my street and a strange leading from the Lord.