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CURRENT MINISTRY |
The date was 1990. The place was Baton
Rouge, Louisiana. I had just resigned as the Director of a seminary.
I had been teaching in Bible colleges and seminary for the last 14 years.
A new direction was opening.
At the time, all I knew was that I was feeling a strong impression to
share the message of grace to as many people as possible. I have to
admit that I thought God would take me into different local churches
to preach the message of Jesus. Although there were several doors of
opportunity opened to me across denominational lines, I found myself more
and more being invited into the homes of people who wanted to hear more
about the grace of God that they were not hearing in their churches.
It actually began when I was leaving the seminary. Three seminary
students came to me and invited me to meet with them, whenever I was in
Baton Rouge. Tom and Mary Gray, Pam and Richard Blanche, and Andy
and Karen Watling were the first families to come together for a gospel
home meeting. I soon found myself, however, meeting in homes across
the States and also into Canada.
Perhaps, I am getting ahead of the story. The meeting in the home of
Tom and Mary was having good attendance. Soon we decided to rent a
building to conduct "ministry business" and provide a meeting
place for those who were gathering with us. The group was making
good progress and in about six months we had approximately 60 meeting with
us on Sunday morning.
I was preaching through Ephesians. I recall, I felt something was
not quite right with our meetings. At the time, I thought the
problem was with our worship. I decided to interrupt Ephesians to
preach a series of messages on worship. I had previously held
seminars on worship throughout the United States and recently preached a
series of college chapel meetings on the subject. I thought I could
just bring up those old messages to cure the plight I felt we were
experiencing in our meetings.
Little did I realize what would happen. The gospel of grace had been
breaking through to me with so much understanding that I found I could not
preach those sermons. Even though I tried, an amazing thing occurred
at the end of the third of the six scheduled messages. It not only
changed my views on worship. It also changed our entire meetings.
At the end of the message and service for that day, I heard myself saying,
"If you feel you need a church to attend, I want you to find one for
this is the last meeting of this church." I added, "I do
not think that God wants me to continue as I have been for the last six
months." I also told them that if they wanted to continue to
meet as a group there would be a meeting in Tom's and Mary's home each
week that I was in town. I thanked them for all they had done and
closed the meeting. It was the last time we met together as a
church.
When I had first left the seminary, I spent a large amount of time in making
sure I had places to hold meetings (in addition, to the "church"
meeting in Baton Rouge) in order to "make a living" for my
family. Gradually, however, the grace of God so worked in my life
that I was moved to let the doors open as the Lord so directed.
Thus, eventually, I would only have meetings where people contacted me.
Of course, it was rather "scary" to let the meetings be arranged
out of my control, but I have been kept busy and somehow the
"bills" have been paid.
Amazingly, since that time ten years ago, I have met in the homes of
families from the West coast to the East coast and from Canada (four of
the ten providences in Canada) to the Caribbean islands (Bahamas Islands
and Curaçao). I do not know how the
Lord does it, but new meetings places are opening every year. It seems
people all over North America are wanting to hear about the grace of God,
the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I have not only been kept busy, but I have had the opportunity to meet so
many special people in the Islands, the Providences, and the States.
I have found life to be very simple. It is to be loved and to love.
It is experiencing Jesus in the "connections" of the people. There is no better "ministry" that the simple
experiencing of Jesus through the lives of the people of God.
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