CHURCH MINISTRY
About the Church
We are a growing church that sits on 10 acres of property about 10-12 miles southwest of Kalamazoo, Michigan, not far from Kalamazoo Valley Community College. The church has grown at a rate of about 25 percent per year for the past 10 years. During this time, the building has been expanded once and the parking lot has been expanded twice. The present attendance is between 400-500 people on a Sunday morning and 200-230 people on a Sunday evening.The sanctuary seats approximately 250 people which necessitates two services on Sunday morning. Plans are underway and a building fund has been established to build a new sanctuary so we may worship together as one family. The estimated cost of the project is 2 million and presently there is over $500,000 in our building fund. It is our prayer that we will not have to borrow money.
The ages, backgrounds, and occupations of those who attend varies. All who come into the church love a serious systematic approach to the Scriptures and a non-contemporary form of reverent worship. Recently there has been an increase in younger families with children and many are also coming from various denominations.
About the Pastor
Pastor David E. Thompson was a radio personality in Kalamazoo, Michigan back in the early to mid 70's. On June 10, 1976, as he picked up a Bible and began reading, God saved him. After fulfilling his radio contract, he moved to Grand Rapids to attend the Grand Rapids School of the Bible and Music, a school whose curriculum was fashioned after Dallas Theological Seminary. He was taught theology by John Miles, who was taught by Lewis Sperry Chafer, who was taught by C.I. Scofield.Pastor Thompson pursued a Pastoral course of study where his specific major was New Testament Greek. Upon completion of the regular course of study, he completed the additional graduate level courses in the Greek language, earning his Divinity Diploma in 1983. Pastor Thompson then taught at the Grand Rapids School of the Bible from 1983-1986. He has pastored three Bible Churches, the first in the Chicago area for seven years, where he was ordained in 1992. He pastored a church in Idaho for eight years, and presently is in his eleventh year at Texas Corners Bible Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He also received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Biblical studies in 2002 from Frontier School of the Bible.
About the Preaching
Pastor Thompson may be classified as a true systematic Bible expositor and communicator of God's Word. He carefully expounds books of the Bible in a way that is contextually, exegetically, grammatically, historically, and theologically accurate to the text and relevant to the time.He is thematic in that he seeks to expound the main theme or proposition of a text as it is developed by the context. His homiletical style of preaching comes from being trained as an expositor under the tutelage of those who were trained by Dr. Haddon Robinson.
Pastor Thompson is a full manuscript preacher. He was drawn to this style of exposition while visiting his brother in Dallas, Texas as they sat under the manuscript preaching ministry of Dr. S. Lewis Johnson. He follows the historical pattern of other full manuscript preachers such as Phillip Brooks and Jonathan Edwards. When you attend a service at Texas Corners Bible Church you are given a complete manuscript of the message before he preaches it.
He uses humor and illustrations as a means of helping people accurately understand a text. He does not ramble and share stories for no reason. Pastor Thompson is very intense and focused in his communication of God's word and a typical exposition lasts 35-40 minutes.