True Light began in the early morning hours of September 21st, 2017. As I was in the middle of my time with the Lord praying and reading His Word, I had felt an extra tug on my heart that morning about the city of Silverton and the people who call it home. That's when I journaled, "Lord, if it is Your will to plant a church in Silverton, please provide someone to lead worship". Fast forward three days and I was in church service, serving as a youth pastor for a church in Salem, OR. In walked Max Wilson. I had played basketball with Max on several occasions years earlier and knew him briefly from my days working at Silverton High School, where he was a star football player. I started talking to Max about how life was going and asked if he was still playing football in college. He informed that he was no longer playing football due to various injuries, but that "it was all good because it had allowed him to start leading worship with his girlfriend at her dad's church". On a side note, I knew Max as a stud football player, who could be overly competitive on the football field (to say the least). The first word that popped in my head when I thought of Max was "meathead", partly due to the fact that I'm pretty sure he could've benched 135lbs straight out of the womb. To say the least, he was one of the last people on earth I thought would be leading worship at a church. As shocked as I was to hear that Max was leading worship, I was much more shocked by what happened next.
So there I was right after church service, a couple youth group kids on both sides of me, and I'm having this conversation with Max who has just told me that he had been leadingf worship. Now I have never, to my knowledge, heard the audible voice of God speaking to me. I have had many instances where I've prayed and known exactly what I was to do in a given situation, and I know in these instances that it is from the Lord. If you've walked with the Lord long enough, you get to know when it is that He's leading you in a certain direction. Now on that Sunday (insert date), something new happened. Right when Max said that he had been leading worship, I was taken straight back to my conversation with God three days prior in my living room, and I felt as if I had just been slapped across the face. It was as if God was shouting, "I heard you Brian, here you go". I stood there with Max in front of me, youth group kids on each side of me, mesmerized and feeling that God had just spoken straight to me. I'm not exactly sure what happened after that, but I must have been acting weird because one of my youth group volunteers ran up to me in the parking lot as I was walking to my car and asked me if I was okay. When we spoke about it later on, he said I muttered something about football and worship, so who knows.
After over a month of prayer, I called Max and as we met for breakfast I told him everything that had gone on. We agreed to pray on it for another month, both very excited about the possibilities. Many things happened in that month to point us in the direction to plant. When it had become evident that God had made a way for this to happen, and that it was His will, there was yet another issue. What was I going to do for work? How were we going to pay the mortgage? Yet again God showed up in a big way. Not even 24 hours after my wife and I had decided that we were going to plant a church in Silverton, I received a call from a friend who was a teacher, who I had coached basketball with. He said, "Brian, I don't know if you even have the least bit of interest, but there's a special ediucation opening at my wife's school right now." I said, "as a matter of fact, I am interested." Within two hours the principal had called me by phone and offered me the job. Mind you, this is December, and there are not many teacher openings at that time of year. Yet again, God had made a way.
During the next couple months, Max and I continued talking and planning. I spoke with the guys from a Bible study I led in Silverton and asked them if they'd like to start a church. We all agreed that we had no idea what we were doing, but that God had made a way. We decided to ask a local coffee shop owner if we could meet in his coffee shop on Sunday nights and he agreed. So on April 22, 2018, True Light Christian Church had it's first church service at Gear Up Espresso. Now looking back, this sounds silly, kind of crazy, but up until this point, I had never heard Max or Rachel sing, never heard them play an instrument. Boy was I pleasantly surprised! I only bring that up to show how certain we were that God was behind the planting of this church, and that He had called Max and Rachel to lead worship there. About 30 people showed up for that service and we filled up that tiny little coffee house. We ended up meeting at Gear Up a couple times and then the owner came up to us one Sunday and said that he was moving locations next Saturday, so this would be our last Sunday there. That night we prayed about it and the next morning, another local church called and asked if we'd be interested in using their building. God showed up again.
I tell this story in order to show how great our God is, how faithful He is. These are just a handful of the many, many stories we have about how God has provided for His church. We can truly say that this has all been God. There was no clever marketing plan, no supporting church, no start up money from another organization. There was just God. True Light is a church that was built on faith, and that's exactly how we continue to operate. We had no idea what we were doing (still largely don't), everything just always fell into place. When we've had a need, God has always provided. Often in ways we never would've imagined. There have been ups, downs, COVID, and inexpressible joy, but through it all our God has been faithful to His people. In the end, He will get all of the glory for True Light Christian Church. Exactly the way it's supposd to be.
Pastor Brian