I want us to do something a little different this week. I want to read the Scripture and then tell you a story and how this section of God’s Word impacts us here today. Our passage comes from Mark chapter 2, verses 1-5. Now this passage has a parallel in Luke 5:17-26, but there’s an element that Mark picks up on that is crucial to how the passage impacts us. So let’s read together Mark 2 starting in verse 1.
“1 A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2 They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. 3 Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. 4 Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’”
The story I’m going to share with you today was a story relayed to me when I first came to Quartzsite by one of the founders of this church. It was the late 1970s. The US was going through a cycle of crisis, with issues that would eventually lead to a confrontation with the Iatola of Iran. The 80s are just on the horizon and the country is hoping for some change. Quartzsite, an old mining town, had become a spot for people to get some gas off the newly linked Interstate 10. The town boasted that they were the destination for rock hounds and the biggest yard sale in the nation. With the advent of retirees, Quartzsite became a cheap place to come, buy some property and spend the winter away from the harsh storms of the north.
At that time there was only one church in town, so if you were a believer that’s where you went. But as it is today, when you have older people wanting to enjoy their retirement years, you’ll need people that are still working to help them experience that. Young families began to migrate to where their grandparents were, and a new dynamic was brought into our desert town.
But for some, the young families were not as welcomed as the retirees, and one such person was the pastor of the only church in town. As it would be later told, the pastor was almost manic at the thought of having children as a part of the church.
So the families began meeting together in houses, just studying the Bible. Families such as Herb of Herb’s Hardware, and Maude of KBUX Radio. Eventually more and more people gathered with the small group of families, which led the group to deciding it needed more room. Ever the generous man, the newly formed church renovated, and moved into Herb’s house out on the edge of town, on 720 W. Desert Vista St., where we meet this morning. That little building that we now call the Fellowship Hall began seeing weekly worship services, and the church continued to grow.
When the group of believers decided to move in the direction of an establishing a local church, they began to look at different denominations to connect with. Most of the people were from a baptist background, but there was already an established baptist church in town, so they looked at other options. After looking at several, they decided on a small denomination that had at its core the sharing of the Gospel through missionary work. They chose the Christian and Missionary Alliance, and in 1984 became an official church of the denomination. There wasn’t many Alliance churches around them back then, but they did have a sister church up in Lake Havasu, and the young Pastor of the church, Jeff Jones, was invited to come and preach.
Eventually, the church called their own pastor, a different young man with a family. And under his guidance the church continued to grow. Years later, another pastor was called, and another, and throughout the these roughly fifteen years, the church saw steady growth. But although the church saw growth with the snowbirds and older local residence, at the core of the church was a focus on the young families of the town. And towards the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, a recently retired couple by the name of Ellis made sure that the church stayed true to that core purpose.
After some issues that led to the termination of the current pastor, the search for a replacement began. As fillers, people like John Maltby of Maltby Chiropractic lended their gifts to help the church through this transition. But the church wasn’t the only ones looking for a pastor, the district was looking as well, and a now more seasoned pastor became available. Jeff Jones, who spoke in Quartzsite at the church in its formative years, was invited back to take the reins of the pastorate.
Within the first years of Jeff’s tenure as Senior Pastor, he navigated the church through several tough issues. First, the Ellis’ greatly encouraged the church to hire a youth pastor, as they were getting older and were concerned that they wouldn’t be able to continue the work for too much longer. A couple of promising candidates were tried out, but never lasted more than a summer. This eventually led to the first full-time Youth Pastor being hired, and for four years the youth group grew. Jeff also navigated the church through a transition from a board model based on a baptist governing style, to an Elder Board model, which was standard in the Alliance. Finally, Jeff and the church called another youth pastor in 2007, which eventually led to another issue that Jeff had to navigate.
Around 2012, a group in the church decided that Jeff’s leadership was lacking, and that the youth ministry was out of hand. They believed that the church began to focus and spend too much on the youth and needed to reign it in. The goal was to terminate the Youth Pastor position altogether, get rid of the van ministry, and if possible, replace the Senior Pastor. But the core of the church had always been reaching out to the young families in town, and the church was able to move forward in continuing this work that God had called them to back in the 70s.
In 2015, Pastor Jeff was led by God to step down as the Senior Pastor of our church. The Elders asked the Youth Pastor to step into the position. After a three year transition period, Pastor Jeff officially step down from the position he held for roughly 17 years, and became the church’s Community Pastor. It was then I stepped into the position I am in today, and then in 2021, Pastor Jeff passed away, a loss to this ministry and to his family, but a gain for a servant who walked well the path God laid out for him.
We are now in a new season of ministry here at the Alliance Church of Quartzsite. We see new faces all the time, those that founded the church have either gone on to be with the Lord, such as Maude Burdett, and others are on the cusp, such as Herb and Rylis Kell. Yet the ministry God has called this body of believers to accomplish and what so many of you stand with, is the work to reach out to the young families of our town. In two years we come to the 40 year anniversary of the official Alliance Church being founded in Quartzsite, but we are living in the 40 years of work that started in the 70s. A work that started because there was no room for these young families, so they had to make room for themselves.
God has spoken and said that this is the work that he established this church to do, and if ever we stop, our lampstand would be taken.
The Alliance Church of Quartzsite does not have the best facilities. The carpet is getting ragged, things break all the time. The chairs wobble, the paint is chipped, the tile on the roof falls down. We make improvements as we can, but it takes time, because our ministry isn’t to build a nice building, it’s to minister to the people of Quartzsite. We try to be good stewards of what God has given to us, but ministry takes precedence over ascetics.
“1 A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2 They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. 3 Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. 4 Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’”
In the passage, the house where Jesus was, was full of people. So much so that a person in need wasn’t able to get in. His friends, undeterred by the crowds, dug through the roof and lowered the paralyzed man down to be healed by Jesus. And it says, “When Jesus saw their faith…” Jesus forgave sin and eventually healed the man, because of the faith the friends showed in their action.
I’m sure that when the digging began the home owners were not very pleased, but the work of God was more important. This is the philosophy of the ministry of this church. Everything that God gives us, is to be used for his work. The ragged carpet, though an eyesore, has a story of ministry being it. The whole in the wall, the not so nice paint, has stories of God’s work in them. The loud ruckus on a Sunday morning, the booming noise on a Friday, those are sounds of God’s work. The money that is given, to keep the vans gassed up and going, are vehicles of the Gospel at work.
By all means, with in the purview of what God has given us, we use to accomplish the work that he started in the 70s and continues today. We are just another called group of people, who have joined this work of God, though we didn’t set out to do so. And we are both inheritors of this work and relayers to the next group.
I have wanted to share this for the last year, and God did not allow it until today. Now I see why. We needed to walk through the work of the seven churches to realize that the work God calls us to can be taken away by him if we do not continue in his will. And I thank God for you that you have join in this work.
We can so easily think that it is us who accomplish what God sets before us, but we are simple workers in God’s vineyard, servants of the King, who mere do as the Master says, and it is he that completes his work. Praise God for that!
And that’s my challenge for you this week. Each of us comes from a different place, yet God has brought us into this work of Quartzsite. Let us praise him that he has done this good work here. That together we are to work in the fields he started cultivating 40 years ago. And may we each take a moment to ask, “Lord, how can I be used in the work of Quartzsite?” I pray that God leads us to do all that he has for today, and prepare the way for all that he has in store for the future. Amen.
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