(midnight)
Today was a great day! Breakfast in fact, was the low point: tuna salad sandwiches – go figure. We got to the church on time and began the session by teaching the people Psalms 23a and 46 which they learned very quickly. They are very musical people without any technical music skills. The teaching went particularly well this morning. I taught Chapter 9 on Presbytery meetings and had Dr. Allison give a practical run-through of a Presbytery meeting since he has been the moderator before. 
After the break, he had to interview baptism candidates, so I finished the chapter and took questions. All of them were pretty easy until Kowah asked for a detailed explanation of our style of conservative worship as opposed to the contemporary/tribal music style of the Charismatics. Somehow the Spirit gave me the ability to explain our worship standards more rationally and Biblically that I thought I was capable of – amazing grace!
We left and picked George up at the lumber yard (working on shelves with a terrific guy from the church named Evangelist Jones). With Kowah, we went straight downtown to finalize/amend the church’s registration papers. We had already informed the church that we would be absent from the scheduled afternoon session and that they should hold a prayer meeting for the crusade.
We got home after 3pm, ate a phenomenal roast beef, potatoes, gravy and bundt cake lunch, after which Paulcy, Kowah and George left to pick up the finished lumber for the shop. Dr. Allison and I stayed back and had sweaty naps (our EGH generator was broken and not fixed until this evening).
When the men returned, Michael (caretaker) hopped into the van with us to go to the crusade. On the way there, we saw something remarkable I had noticed the day before. On a large dirt soccer field, a large crowd had gathered to watch a match consisting entirely of one-legged players on crutches. Kowah told us that it is a team of civil-war victims practicing for the Special World Cup to be held soon in
The crusade meeting seemed to start out rather discouragingly – few people and shallow worship songs. 
However, by 7pm at least 125 people were there, not counting the cars and pedestrians hanging around the perimeter. Dr. Allison preached one of the best evangelistic messages I’ve ever heard – it dealt with the men on the three crosses and their positions before both man and God. When he finished, a young lady came forward and I was able to help her with some issues of Christian growth. While I was talking to her, close to 30 people gathered in front of the podium, with about 20 of them seeking salvation. The pastors and our men dealt with them, sometimes in whole groups, and most of these made sincere professions of faith. Additionally, a Muslim cabdriver who had heard something from last night while driving by, who had been under conviction all day, and who therefore came to the service, was saved. So were the radio and newspaper journalists who were there to report on the crusade! I’ve never been in a meeting more obviously blessed by God’s power in salvation – Amen! God is good – all the time! We’re praying for another great meeting tomorrow night.
Back at the EGH, Michael joined us for dinner along with Kelly and we had some very animated discussion of church offerings as used in Charismatic circles – no one won.
I had a nice, long chat with Linds, who finally had a disaster-free day and then took a shower only to find I have no towel. A wash cloth and a fan worked fine however, in this heat. That’s all for tonight, folks.
No comments:
Post a Comment