MINISTRY- THE EARLY YEARS part 2

It was a rainy weekend. I had to travel alone because at the time there was not enough money in the church to send my wife and myself. Melinda was working full-time, like a lot of Pastor’s wives, but it was well beyond our means to afford two plane tickets. Ron Luce was preaching Friday night on “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” About 4500 young people were in attendance.

I had never seen such a radical presentation of the gospel before.; The lights, sound, pyrotechnics, drama team and worship was amazing. I had VIP privileges so I sat at the sound-board because I liked the technical side of production. As Ron preached, my mind was captivated by the Holy Spirit. I began clenching my Bible with extreme force because something was erupting inside of me. Something I couldn’t explain was happening inside my spirit. God was speaking and He was calling me out.

Suddenly the altar call came and I witnessed nearly 80% of the room move towards the front to get their lives right with God. At the same time my emotions began to well up inside me. I began to see my home church and all the faces of the young people that served there. I began to see them being radically challenged to new things. As tears rolled from my eyes I stood on top of a chair to see what God was doing. The Holy Spirit was changing and challenging lives. Young people were laying their lives down at the altar. Drugs, alcohol, boyfriends, girlfriends, cars, cd’s, music, priorities were being left as they were turning their heart toward Jesus. It was awesome.

I left that night with all the free stuff I could muster. Ron had told Rich Franzen (now leader of Impact Africa) the production head to give me whatever I wanted, so I took advantage of it. I had every single book or tape that Ron had produced. As the weekend wore on I talked on the phone in to the early hours of the morning with my Pastor, some of the youth and my wife. When I wasn’t on the phone, I was reading or listening to tapes. Later, on the flight home I realized I hadn’t slept in 53 hours. God had so rocked my paradigm that my physical needs became unimportant as the vision for my city and our youth began to erupt.

There you have it, one of the most impactful weekends with God in my life...more to come later.