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Northside Christian Church has new pastor

It was with sadness that we received the news from Pat Rhodes that she and her husband, the Rev. Carl Rhodes, pastor of Northside Christian Church in Vandalia, were leaving the  area.

However, Pat was enthused about the new pastor coming to the church.
Meet the Rev. Curtis Sweeney, and learn the interesting and inspiring story of how he was led to his life’s work of ministry and sharing the word of God through a Bible that he pulled  from someone’s box of trash … at the age of 13.
Thirteen-Year-Old Curtis Sweeney …
… was just walking along a street with some other boys in a little Missouri town when they saw a box of trash that contained some books, a discovery that changed his life.   
“We lived in Shelbina, a little town in Missouri, where I lived for about 19 years,” he said. “There wasn’t much to do there, so me and some friends were just walking along, and we saw this random box of trash someone had thrown out that had a bunch of books in it, so we took some of the books.”
The book that 13-year-old Curtis picked up was a Bible, and he began reading it.
“I didn’t grow up Christian,” he said. “I knew about Noah, some of the very generic ones, like that, but didn’t know any specific ones. Most I had never heard of, because I didn’t know anything about the Bible.”
“But the Bible I found in the trash, well, I just picked it up and started reading it, and I told myself I wanted to know more about what Christians. I had an interest in it, so I told myself that I would read it once every day,”  
“And if there was a day I couldn’t read it, I would double up on it the next day,” he said. “When I read Jesus’s words on the Sermon on the Mount, that really touched me, and that really got me wondering more about what it means to be a Christian.”
“So I got in contact with the First Baptist Church in Shelbina and started learning more. And the more I learned, the more I realized that was what I want to be for someone, for someone who doesn’t know what the Bible says and what Jesus is like.
“I wanted to be that person to represent Christ to someone,” he said.
Curtis was 16 years old when he asked Jesus into his heart and dedicated his life to the ministry.
A Bit of History
“I came from Columbia, Missouri,” he said. “I started going to school for my associate’s degree at Christian College in Newark, Mo. That gave me some experience in the ministry, because I would do a lot guest speaking at my church, schools, drug recovery programs, colleges, at youth programs, orphanages. I was a youth intern for a while.
Then, I waited a little while and then went to school at Central Christian College of the Bible, in Moberly, which is about 30 miles from Columbia, and got my bachelor’s, and just graduated from there in December.
A New Life
“Ministry was completely and entirely new to me. “I was a manager at Walmart for a few years. I was the manager in the Moberly Walmart  and then I was manager at the Walmart Store  in Columbia, Missouri. I did that for a few years and I think that did me some good in people skills.  
And His Plans
“Most of the ministries, that Carl (Rhodes) has implemented I also plan to try to be a part of, the correctional center and some of the things that he has put his foot in the door. If I see that some of the other ministers may not have the opportunity to do that, I want to be able to do that.”
“I kind of want to find some other avenues, too. I want to find some areas where I can kind of be like Carl, but also some areas where I can be myself,” he said.
He shared the memories of how other kids who were raised in Christian homes would become bored while listening to the Bible stories, as they had heard them so often, while he was so interested in them.
He wants and plans to be a very active part of the community and has already contacted the Vandalia Chamber of Commerce.   
He likes to bowl, fish and, especially, read. He has already visited the local bowling alley.
Ripple Effect of the Bible in the Trash
“Right after I became a Christian, I asked my parents, ‘What about going to church?” and the response was ‘Go to church – why would we do that? And I said, ‘It probably would be something nice to do.’ The response was, “No, we’re not going to do that.’
 “It was not so much the words I had for them, when I was witnessing to them, but mainly it was the life change they saw in me, because I did a complete 180, I was completely different from the way I was growing up.
His parents saw that and realized that he was totally different and that was living proof of his testimony.
“My parents now are both professing Christians and my father goes to church regularly.”
One may wonder about the hands that threw a Bible into the trash, but one should have no doubt that the hands of a certain little 13-year-old boy was meant to retrieve that Bible, and surely the Holy Spirit guided and illuminated his young mind as he read, understood, believed and followed the words within the pages, which has enabled him to point others to a heavenly eternal life.    
 

Rev. Curtis Sweeney

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