Cliffside Baptist Church

The first church that ever trusted me enough to let me pastor them was the Cliffside Baptist Church of Amarillo, Texas. Cliffside was a church on the verge of closing. It was a handful of mostly senior adults who were desperate to save their church. I was a young twenty-something, out-of-work, wanna-be pastor who had nothing to lose. We were made for each other. Somehow Cliffside grew under my leadership. We did the hard work of knocking on doors, reaching children, and figuring out ways to improve the broken down buildings. We painted, we prayed, and we refused to give up. I remember cleaning out the rusted baptistry for our first baptism (theirs and mine). I remember illegally digging and installing a new septic tank system (we chose a holiday weekend so that the city wouldn't notice). Remember, I was young and they were desperate. Lots of lives were changed in those days including mine. Whenever I'm in Amarillo, I always drive out to Cliffside and take a look. Here's a link to their website: http://www.cliffsidebaptist.net/.