Pastor Sammie Nelms told his congregation a while back that the church shouldn’t forget their sick members.

The church members took that message to heart.

Last Sunday, United AME in Verbena moved their Sunday services into the front yard of a sick church member who is unable to come to church.

Nelms said church member Joseph Postell has a debilitating disease and has been bedridden for several months.

“He can’t come to church, so we brought church to him,” he said. “I was raised that way. When a church member couldn’t come, we would take the church to them.”

Nelms prayed about this for a while, and he decided to do it when the Lord told him to move church services to the home of Postell.

“It was just perfect. Everyone came together. We prayed about it, and everything just fell into place,” Nelms said.

However, moving church services to a member’s home did involve a lot of work. One member who works at a military base was able to get a tent donated for the church’s use that Sunday.

Then it took other members putting the tent up in the yard, moving the audio equipment to have music and numerous other activities.

On Sunday morning, several others helped move the pews from the church to the tent. Sunday School and a quick meeting were held at the church building before the morning worship service began at the house.

Postell actually opened the service giving a testimony about how good the Lord was to him and how the Lord had touched his life.

“There were a lot of shed tears on both sides,” Nelms said. “I think he encouraged us more than we encouraged him.”

The singing and praising began later.

Nelms then preached from Luke 8:43-48, which is the passage about the woman with the issue of blood. The sermon title was “Unclaimed Blessings.”

One of the main points in his message was “God is bigger than anything your going through or struggling with.”

At the end, there was a time of prayer and singing.

“We just had a good time in the Lord,” he said.

Nelms asked that everyone continue to remember Postell in their prayers.

“God can answer prayer, and we are believing for a miracle in Bro. Postell’s life,” Nelms said.