In Texas' Detroit, Baptist laypeople
propel ministry into high gear
___By George Henson
___Staff Writer
___DETROIT--As Larry Spangler sat in his new recliner in his new home watching his new television, he knew his life was good.
___Everything around him was new; he had moved in only the day before.
___Less than five weeks before, however, Spangler had been feeling quite differently. He and his wife had lost their home and their dog to a fire.
___"This is the second time I've lost a home," he explained. "The first one got blown away. But this was nothing compared to last one, because I had people with me."
___The people Spangler had with him included friends from First Baptist Church in Detroit who came to his aid after the fire.
___Losing a home and all its possessions for a second time was a shocking experience, he said. "You'd have to be a little shocked, sitting there with nothing but a T-shirt and pair of blue jeans. We were just hopeless--for about five minutes until Danny and the rest of the church got here."
___Danny is pastor Danny Robbins.
___Robbins and his congregation have found themselves with a lot of opportunities for ministry since Easter.
___On Easter morning, the nephew of one of the church's members tried to swim across the Red River and drowned after becoming caught in brush.
___The young man's death brought a renewed fervency to Youth Minister Jody VanDaver's Wednesday Bible studies, Robbins said. And that in turn brought dramatic results.
___One Wednesday night, a 15-year-old girl called her estranged mother and told her she had accepted Christ as Savior and urged her mother to do the same. The young girl died less than 48 hours later from smoke inhalation in a home fire.
___VanDaver was supposed to go fishing with his grandfather that morning, but since his grandfather was a volunteer fireman, the trip had to be postponed. VanDaver knew several church families lived in the area of the alarm, however, and was one of the first on the scene.
___"I can't describe how terrible I felt," VanDaver said. "I just sat in my truck and wept, because I thought I had an opportunity and missed it. She hadn't said anything to me. It wasn't until later that I found out she had called her mother and talked to several friends about how she had accepted Christ."
___Even though in this instance the opportunity wasn't missed, VanDaver's convictions about the urgency of evangelism have only been strengthened.
___"Every time you have the opportunity to speak with these kids about the love of Christ, you'd better take it," he said.
___VanDaver, who is 21 and a newlywed, is a man with a lot on his plate. He works 44 hours a week as a sales consultant at a Ford dealership in Paris, is a part-time college student and helps out on his dad's ranch in addition to his youth ministry duties. In his mind, his 14-month-old youth ministry comes first.
___As a result, he taken a youth group of one (the pastor's son) and grown it to about 20.
___The youth ministry isn't the only thing that is growing at First Baptist Church, however. The recent spate of ministry opportunities have caused the church to grow in maturity as well, Robbins said.
___In addition to the tragedies already mentioned, the church also ministered to a young couple whose month-old baby died in his crib.
___"All these things have really brought us together. The church has matured from these things, even though we wouldn't have ever wished for any of them to happen," Robbins said.
___"The people here have forgotten the small things and are concentrating on the important things," VanDaver agreed.
___"The people are looking for God's will, and they don't sit on their pocketbooks at all, but are looking to do whatever it takes to get done what God leads us to do," Robbins said.
___On Easter morning when the young man drowned, Robbins was out of state on a family emergency. The weekend before Vacation Bible School began, he again was called away unexpectedly, but in both instances members of the congregation took care of the ministry without him around.
___Getting ready for Vacation Bible School was no minor task, either. The church went all out decorating classrooms until not an inch of wall was showing, transforming one room into a palace. Following the Truth Trackers VBS theme, a fully enclosed maze also was constructed through the church gym. The maze included decorated rooms with ceilings more than 6 feet high, theater lighting and theatrical smoke. The walls and ceilings were constructed from cardboard and 2-by-4s.
___"We've just got some really great people here," Robbins explained. "We keep getting called away at the worst times, but the people just jump in and come together and get the job done."
___One of those times the church came together was in providing the Spanglers a place to live after their home burned.
___A member in the church had been renovating a home to get it ready to rent out, but things were progressing slowly. The Spanglers' home burned on Monday, and by Tuesday a crew of about a dozen was helping with the renovations. By Saturday, the home was completely remodeled and the Spanglers were able to move in.
___Spangler was left speechless by the love the church showed his family.
___"Words can't describe it," he said. "I just tell everybody that there are some great people over at the First Baptist Church."
The Baptist Standard
News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.
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