As young church planters, Jan and I knew very little about what it actually meant to plant a church.  We had a calling and a measure of faith—and that was all. When we entered the ministry, few resources were available for church planting. I think our early ministry embodied the phrase, “winging it.”

When we arrived in Kalispell, Montana, we set up our home, and then I went around town looking for a place to hold our church services.  If we were to do it all over again, we would have started in our home, but that wasn’t the model for church planting in our day.

I found a local hotel, The Outlaw Inn, that had venue rooms available to rent. I secured the Colt 45 Room. It seated fifty people, and I set up fifty chairs for our first public service.  

I revisited that room a few years ago and wept as I remembered all that God has done in our lives since our awkward start forty-five years ago. 

The first Sunday felt dismal. I opened the service to just my family. We had one visitor, a traveling artist, who arrived midway through the worship time. For the next six weeks, only one person attended our meetings.  Her name was Gladys.  Gladys looked to be in her 70’s.  She had lived a rough life.  She couldn’t drive, so our location at The Outlaw Inn, just across the street from her home, was a good match for her needs.

For those six weeks, we never knew which room  we would use for our Sunday church services;  the Inn could see we weren’t a happening event, so they moved us around to whatever room was available. We would arrive early on Sunday mornings and check in at the front desk to find out which room we had been assigned.

Somehow, Gladys found us each time. She liked to have a nip of gin each morning.  I think Gladys was a lonely and functioning alcoholic. For those six weeks, she faithfully sat in the front row next to my wife, Jan, and our two preschool-age kids. The remaining forty-six empty chairs stared back at me while I led worship a capella (without instruments) and preached the Word.

At the end of each service, this dear little inebriated lady would walk up to me, look up into my face, and with gin-infused breath and say, “Thank you, Pastor.  I needed to hear that.”

I can now appreciate those words of thanks on many different levels.  I did not appreciate them at the time. At the moment, I had a vision of ministry success that did not include empty chairs and drunk people.

About four weeks into our church planting adventure, I felt like an utter failure.  In my naivety, I believed that if you mixed enough faith with a passion to plant a church, one would magically appear. It didn’t, and I began to get depressed.

At week four, I asked God why all of this was happening.  “Why are only my wife, kids, and drunk Gladys showing up? Then the Lord spoke to me and said, “If you learn to love this one, I will send you more.”

Two weeks later, we had enough of the revolving meeting room issue and decided to move the “church” into our home.  Within weeks, a trickle of new faces began to arrive on our doorstep, and growth began.

I never saw Gladys after we moved.  We lost contact with her.  Of all the great things I have had the privilege to learn over my years of ministry, what God taught me through Gladys is one of the most profound. “If you learn to love this one, I will send you more.” I needed to learn how to love people in all circumstances. 

I thought I knew how to love people until God sent me Gladys.  God desires to entrust the precious lives of people He loves to shepherds who will do the same. It was the most profound truth I learned, and it has changed everything.