Little Brown Church and LLC-led Mission Project

I just received this wonderful report from Pastor Ross Lieuallen (Billings FBC), the Region's mentor pastor for central and eastern Montana. I hope to add pictures from this story when they're sent to me. Again, this is another excellent example of connection and missions working hand in hand together:

"In our May LLC, I asked Rusty Strickler to lead the 'dreaming' portion of our meeting. He asked if he could try 'something' different....and he let me know he wanted us to dream about something we could together as pastors/churches. He did a fantastic job of leading us in this 'dream.'

As our discussion took many directions, we knew that Little Brown Church in Lodge Grass, MT needed a partial, or total roof repair, and probably did not have the people resources to tackle a huge project. Though it is not a huge building, nonetheless a roof project is no easy matter. Rusty and Mike took the lead of contacting a contractor--Mike had one in his church. They surveyed what needed to be done. At our June LLC we committed to a potential date for August 22nd. It's a busy month with last minute vacations, getting back to school....and it didn't feel like it was going to happen. Mike surmised we needed at least 15 workers to make it happen in one day.

But it came together. Sadly, Rusty was called out of town on that weekend with a family death. He was the one who really moved us toward this project. Mike Iverson, with his contractor leader/church member, coordinated all the details of materials, finances, and leadership of the day. Mike did a great job of leading with this and all the details. Little Brown did have the necessary funds for the project, and with a few donations from others, I think most of the costs were handled at completion.

Churches represented were: FBC Billings, Hardin, Roundup, Crow Agency, and Belgrade, and of course a few folks from Little Brown Church. I would also say that Belgrade had the most volunteers bringing a considerable amount of the equipment we needed. And in talking with some of them, many have only been a part of the Belgrade church for a few months!

I know some pastors wanted to be there but had work crews coming to their churches that day from other ABC churches; some had last minute emergencies or vacations already planned. Mike Iverson, Wayne Gentry, and I spent the day there. And all total there were 12 to 15 men ( I can't remember exactly how many) and several women.

I believe the folks of Little Brown Church were blessed that other ABC churches and people care and wanted to bless them. This project really built a bridge to a church and the Reservation that sometimes we forget about. Mike said it well at lunch, "we often think of missions as overseas or disaster relief elsewhere in our country. But this was a project in our own backyard that we could do to really help our brothers and sisters."

And last but not least, this came out of our LLC group under the Holy Spirit's prompting and Rusty's faith to try something different!"

--written by Ross Lieuallen