Words by Scott McCullar | Image by Blakeney Clouse
News reports about Carbon Hill typically focus on the bad. A negative tone is usually used if there is a headline or news feature about our small town. But my experience has been different. Sure, problems abound here as they do in every community, but some of the greatest people I have ever met in my life live here in Carbon Hill. I have gotten to know those who are full of faith, life, and joy. I have met individuals and families who are generous, encouraging, and overcomers. Carbon Hill is a special place.
Of course, I could focus on the negative. I could tear down this town like many do. But what I have found is that God loves Carbon Hill. He loves the people here just as much as He does those in any other city on the planet. He loves the senior adults, and He loves the elementary school children. He loves the business owners, and He loves those on disability. He loves all who were born here and all who moved here from other areas. There is not one individual here that God does not love. In fact, He loves them so much that He sent His Son Jesus to die for the people of Carbon Hill and then rise again from the dead to offer them victory over sin, death, and Hell. God loves Carbon Hill so much that He put churches in this city with great pastors and wonderful members.
I am thankful God brought me to pastor in Carbon Hill, Alabama. From time to time, I will be asked why I am still in Carbon Hill, as if I am shackled and stuck here. My answer is always the same: God hasn’t told me to go anywhere else. If He does, I will leave and go where God leads me.
Why would I bring this up? Because I want to ask you a couple of questions. Are you where God has put you to serve? If you are a Christian, are you growing where God has planted you?
Some of you may be called to the mission field far away and you will never be comfortable where you are because God has called you to go. You need to accept your assignment and head to where you are supposed to be. But if God has called you to a certain place, be it Carbon Hill, Parrish, Oakman, Aldridge, Dora, Sumiton, Jasper, Curry, Sipsey, or wherever, have you realized that God has placed you there to love that community like He does?
Are you giving your all for the Kingdom of God where you reside? Are you investing in a local church doing ministry to meet spiritual and physical needs? Or are you missing the opportunities and just looking at the negatives?
Social media can bring out the worst in us. We can anonymously complain and attack, hidden safely behind a keyboard or a smartphone. Or, we can do kingdom work where God has brought us.
We can be on mission right where we are. God loves this county and its communities. We know this because He sent you and me to serve as missionaries in our cities and towns. Your local church is an outpost of the kingdom of God, and God has gifted you the opportunity to be His hands and feet right here. If you don’t plan on moving somewhere else, assume God has called you to be His missionary where you are. God will give you a love for your area and the people who reside there.
So, let’s go. Let’s listen to Jesus and follow Him: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20).
Let’s be burdened like Paul in Romans 9 who said he would be willing to be cut off from Christ if it meant his people would come to salvation. Let’s pray for our communities like Jacob wrestled with God and wouldn’t let go until he was blessed.
Carbon Hill is a special place. I know God has called me to serve here for the last eighteen years and hopefully beyond. What about where you live and work? If God has called you to where you are, He will give you a love for that area.
Where we live isn’t perfect but the God who loves us is, and He sent YOU and I there to be on mission. Amen! WL
