Editor’s note: Joey Tombrella is pastor of First Baptist Church Kerrville, Texas.
On July 4, 2025, a storm surged in Kerrville, Texas, sweeping multitudes away in horrific flood waters and turning a peaceful city into ground zero for one of Texas’ biggest tragedies. More than 100 people were killed in Kerr County, with widespread destruction to homes and businesses in the area.
As the pastor of First Baptist Church Kerrville, my early morning was cascading with phone calls and text messages of those looking for loved ones, and for ways we as a church can help. It was a terrible day of watching moms and dads look for children at drop-off points, and seeing desperation on people’s faces as they were on their phones. The funeral homes were packed. Chaplains needed chaplains.
Looking back this past year, it’s hard to believe all that went on during those early months. We had the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s disaster relief teams sleeping in our Sunday School classrooms and working during the day, while Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) staff were in our gym daily, helping thousands in the city. We set up a prayer tent for people to receive encouragement and prayer, as well as hear the Gospel. We organized teams to mud out homes and businesses. My phone rang constantly. Every day, we were manning the phones, receiving encouragement and getting donations. We set up a team to research the many financial requests we received and to give out money and resources to those affected by the flood. This relief help has been ongoing for months.
In many ways, we knew that the hardest part was going to be several months down the road, when the adrenaline runs out, the fatigue sets in, and the calendar doesn’t stop. Our youth group used spring break as an opportunity to help rebuild a local camp, and the summer months to help with cleanup and rebuilding. Indeed, the needs don’t stop. The needs are ever present, not just with those affected by the flood, but those helping too.
I recently got off the phone with a church member suffering from guilt, depression and serious exhaustion from helping others. I have church members who floated in debris in pitch black darkness praying that the water would recede. Ironically, they are the ones that shoulder the burden of helping others and combining families together while their home is being rebuilt. We have reached out to families that saw people swept away and saw horrors in their backyards in the aftermath. Many of these families stay silent and distant, processing this every day. So many have given their time money, and muscle to help rebuild, while they also have responsibilities and stress of parenting, being a husband or wife and paying the bills. In many ways the war is over, but the Guadalupe River, which is the heart of the city, has left a permanent scar of mangled trees and uprooted lives.
So yes, the cleanup remains. The city has a plan for cleaning up the area, to ensure that the next disaster doesn’t happen, and to rebeautify the Guadalupe River. Scores of mental health organizations have descended to encourage dialogue, to process the pain and to be empathetic.
However, the real cleanup is pastoral work which only the church can provide. People need more than therapy; they need pastors and godly people who love the Word and share the Word. They need hope that only the Gospel can provide. We used to call this personal work, because it deals with people face to face, and soul to soul. They need pastors and ministers who will get into the heart of people and ask, “How is it with your soul?” They need to cut through the surface and allow the Word of God to be applied to their exhausted souls.
Tired hearts need to know that in a world of unforeseen disasters, God is real, powerfully graceful, loving, kind and knowable. God has theological edges, boundaries and attributes that are clearly explained in Scripture. He can be precisely and unequivocally known.
When disaster strikes, the church is the pillar and buttress of the truth walking through doors of sorrow, but along with the Man of Sorrows acquainted with grief. Our weekly evangelism effort called “The One Mile Project” had a different backdrop after July. Our people have had many conversations with people in our city about not only their need for Christ, but who Christ is in the midst of a tragedy-filled world. People want to know “Is there real hope in Christ, or do you want me to join your church?”
People want to meet with God. The Sunday following the disaster, we started the morning crying out to God in prayer. We heard of a church member that had passed away in the flood, and we prayed corporately together for God’s help and mercy. How amazing it is when the church gathers to pray. Currently, we are setting aside time each month for people to pray and to call upon God in the midst of their personal storm. As I write this, we just had a powerful Sunday night prayer time, where we called upon God to save the lost, lifting up names of individuals. Our people have been so hungry just to meet with God, to drop their façades, and to cry out for help and deliverance. There is nothing greater than seeing a faithful church member wipe the tears from their eyes and say, “We really needed this.”
Through this trial, Southwestern Seminary has been a beacon of encouragement and a personal Ebenezer (1 Samuel 7:12) for me, reminding me of His faithfulness during my time there. My daughter Cate started her freshman year at Texas Baptist College in the School of Church Music and Worship, and watching her thrive with her fellow students and receive encouragement from the professors has been invaluable. They have shown that they genuinely care about what’s going on in our trial, personally reaching out to me and her. But more than that, Southwestern has provided a reminder that God is faithful through it all. In the fall, I was able to visit my daughter in chapel. My preaching professor of 15 years earlier, Dr. Matthew McKeller, preached as boldly and as clearly as years earlier, when my daughter was just 5 and I was taking notes in class. I remember thinking, “Thank you, God. You are faithful!” I was likely the rowdy one in chapel that day, saying “That’s right!” and “Amen!”, and joyfully embarrassing my daughter.
My time at Southwestern allowed me to rub shoulders with and hear war stories from pastors and leaders who had been through the hardest of times. I loved those stories, books, and late-night study sessions with future leaders. The professors reminded us of the essentials of the Gospel, the inerrancy of Scripture, real pastoral care, unapologetic evangelism, and of becoming a hard thinker. They forced us to think and to be clear with what you know. The world needs clarity. The battles they fought then are, in many ways, the exact battles that we fight right now. Everything is a battle for the truth, a battle for the Bible, and God is calling us to fight.
There may be some reading this who have their own personal storm or flood and battle right now. Ministry isn’t getting any easier; in many ways, it’s getting harder. But walk the halls of Southwestern and you will see the portraits of those that went before us. They fought hard for the souls of man. In many ways I think, “What would this professor or pastor do in this situation?” They trained and gave us opportunities and runways for real ministry. The classrooms remind me of those moments where truth and practice came alive, where I was reminded of what God has called me to do. The battle lines have been drawn in so many ways and we need schools like Southwestern to hold the line.
Southwestern, hold the line. We need spiritual men and women who say, “This is the way. Walk in it” (Isaiah 30:21).
This article originally appeared at Southwestern Seminary’s Equipped the Called.
