STEPPING OUT IN FAITH by Gary Wilkerson

A short time ago I shared the first part of the story of when the Lord led my wife and me to London to plant a church. When we thought we might have to cancel our plans because we had nowhere to live, God miraculously provided a home through a businessman we met while on a missions trip to South Africa.

We had thought there was no hope, that we were not going to be able to make it and we would have to cancel our plans. But then we met this businessman. Only our God could orchestrate it so that a couple from New York would go to South Africa to find a place to live in London.

We moved to London and a few days after we arrived I took my son to a park near the house we were living in. As I pushed him on the swing set, I prayed, “Lord, You called us here to plant a church. Thank You for the house but I don’t know anybody here and I don’t know where to start the church.”

An older man walked up to the swings with his granddaughter. He turned to me, introduced himself, and asked me what I was doing in London.

“I’m a pastor,” I responded, “and we’re here to start a church.”

“I’m a pastor, too, and that’s my church,” he said, pointing to a beautiful, big church down the street named Holy Trinity Brompton.

I told him the story of Teen Challenge and Times Square Church and what we were now doing. The pastor invited me to his home later for tea and as we visited, he said, “I’ve been praying all afternoon and the Holy Spirit has put this strongly on my heart. We have a coffeehouse in an area where young people are into drugs and the party scene, and they are coming to Christ but there is no church. We have been praying that we could plant a church there but we have no pastor. Would you be willing to help us start this church? And would you be its pastor?”

I had been worried, but God had everything under control! The truth is, if we do not step out in faith, if we are not willing to risk, we will miss God’s best.