The People of Trace Crossing

When Was It Written
This article was written in fall 2006, a few months after the church began meeting for weekly worship. It simply recalls the first meeting between the first 20 or so people and their prospective pastor.

Who Wrote It
Kevin Wood, Pastor


THE PEOPLE OF TRACE CROSSING

“Are you hungry or are you angry?”

That’s the first question I asked of the twenty or so people who at the time were calling themselves the “no name church”. They were a mix of people from three or four different churches in Tupelo, Mississippi, drawn together by a common desire to birth a new faith family in the Northeast Mississippi town. They asked me to come and be their pastor. And that’s why I was there, in the living room of a virtual stranger, perched on the edge of the most difficult decision in my life. I simply wanted to know what stood at the core of their convictions – anger at what they had experienced at previous churches in the past or hunger for what God might do with a new church in the near future. The question brought on an hour’s worth of answers.

Sandy Nance was the first to open up.

“We hunger for a place where people are accepted as they are. We want to be a church that is a place of grace.”

Sandy Nance and her husband John had been in Tupelo for three years. They had been in church for virtually their entire life, but in the past year God had begun to stir in them a passion for something new. Sandy’s response was followed by the rest of the group, as one by one they told the story of how God had stirred the same hunger in each of them. What a response it was.

“We don’t want to water down the gospel. We want to live it.”

“God is doing something in my heart that he’s never done before. I’ve been in church my whole life. I’m just not satisfied playing church anymore. I’m not hungry for something new. I’m hungry for something real.”

“I had the chance a few years ago to preach in Africa. I remember feeling so alive. I want to feel that again. I want to take my son and two daughters to Africa and have them see what this world is all about, and how we can make a difference. I want them to have a passion for God, and I want them to be able to look at my life and see that I have a passion for God, too.”

“When I read the Scriptures, like the book of Acts, I ask myself, ‘Can that really happen? Can church really be like that?’ I’m starting to believe it can be.”

For a full hour the answers came one by one from almost everyone in the room. It was then that I understood clearly what stood as the core conviction of this no-name church: a desperate hunger for God to do something real in their lives, something that could only be explained by his people devoting themselves to his purpose and experiencing his power.

The question, “Are you hungry or are you angry?” was asked a few minutes after 7:00pm. The conversation didn’t stop until well after midnight. And by the time the words had been spoken, the tears had been shed, the hearts had been opened, and the burden had been shared, I knew where God had called me to be: a no-name pastor for a no-name church with a passion so great it just couldn’t be put into words… at least five hours worth.