Im a pretty ordinary guy, so I never really believed God could use me to lead a ministry that is winning people to Christ. But thats exactly what God is doing through me.

The summer of 1992 our interim pastor encouraged my wife and me to attend Home Mission Week at Glorieta, New Mexico. I attended the seminars about multi-family housing ministry. I later reported to the church about the possibilities for apartment ministry hoping that someone would take the challenge. During the next five years we talked about the need for an apartment ministry in our town of Norman, Oklahoma, but it never got off the ground.

While I wanted to see an apartment ministry started, I didnt feel capable of leading it. My attitude began to change in 1996 when I participated in a mission trip to Moldova. While there I helped lead people to Christ, and I discovered that God would use me if I were willing and available. I returned home with a willingness to do whatever God called me to do with my burden for apartment ministry.

Learning that 40 percent of Norman residents live in multi-family housing units and only three percent of those attend church increased my interst in apartment ministry. After hearing me talk about this need for six years, the leadership of our church made a sacrificial decision. When it came time to elect church officers, teachers and committee members, they told me they were taking away all of my responsibilities in the church. They said they realized God was calling me to do apartment ministry, and they knew that unless they turned me loose I would never do it. Its difficult for a small church to intentionally turn away people willing to serve. That decision plunged me into apartment ministry.

Melinda and I traveled to Arlington, Texas, where we met Tillie Burgin of Mission Arlington and saw firsthand how a successful apartment ministry was run. The way God was blessing that ministry further fueled our passion for the work. At home we spent several months seeking support and volunteers with disappointing results. We received some financial support, but no one volunteered to help. We found an apartment complex in which to begin, but before our first service we were told we couldnt use the building for religious meetings.

After a lot of prayer and pleading we found a different complex and were finally able to hold our first Bible study in the Parkwood Apartments on Easter Sunday, April 12, 1998. To promote the ministry we held a hot dog supper and passed out information. When Easter morning came, we arrived at the apartments prepared for people to comeno one showed up until five minutes after we were supposed to start. An 80-year-old Chinese woman came in and sat down. She spoke little English and I spoke no Chinese, but I opened my Bible and began to talk about the resurrection of Christ. She said, wait one minute, got up and left, and came back a few minutes later with two other people. So our first service turned out to be an international mission outreach.

Its been more than three years since that first service, and now we have active ministries in four apartment complexes. We have food and clothing closets to help meet the physical needs of residents. God has given us several people who help in the ministry. We are doing prayer-walks, surveys, Vacation Bible Schools, and were actively evangelizing the apartment communities.

The most exciting part of the apartment ministry is seeing people come to Christ. Forty-two people have made professions of faith so far, and many others have rededicated their lives to Christ. One evening I was going door-to-door sharing the gospel while a Bible study was being held in an apartment. A young man named Tony prayed to receive Christ. I told him to go to the Bible study and make his decision public. He did, and after he told them what he had done, Kyle, a teenage boy, said he needed to know Christ too. Kyle is now an active leader in the youth group at a sister church and has led several others to Christ.

I wish I could say I have never been discouraged. However, there is so much more we could do. Other apartment communities now are open to our ministry, but the workers are few. When I get discouraged I remind myself that God is in control. My job is to remain faithful and do what He has called me to do. I also have to stop occasionally and marvel that God is using an ordinary guy like me to reach people for Christ.