This
year I have truly felt like God has been trying to get our attention here at
Emmanuel Baptist Church. In February, God led me to lead our church in a time
of Solemn Assembly. The purpose of the Solemn Assembly was to call our people
out of apathy and to a love of God through Jesus Christ. That was the first
attempt to get our attention. God led me to preach a sermon the week after
Easter entitled "Our Desperate Need for Examination" and it was very
uncharacteristic of anything I have ever preached before. I truly felt that God
had a special message at a special time for His people. You can listen to that
sermon here: Our Desperate Need For Examination. That was the second attempt to get our attention.
Then God put on my wife's heart a Lay Renewal weekend. This was the third
attempt at God trying to get our attention. We just completed that Lay Renewal
Weekend and I believe God got our attention this weekend.
This
weekend I deliberately made a point to listen and not talk much at all. I
wanted to hear from God myself and I also wanted to hear from our people. It
was truly amazing to listen to the Lay Renewal Team Members share their
imperfections and hurts and then in turn hear our people share their
imperfections and hurts. God has gifted me with the gift of administration and I
spend a lot of time just trying to "keep things running" at the
church. I have to step back and remember that people are hurting. I pray that
the Lord will make me more sensitive to the hurts and needs of others. Our church has been going through the book of
Job on Wednesday nights. I thought it was odd that God would lay that book on
my heart to study this year but God knew what He was doing; God knows the hurts
of our people.
Many
of our church family have already shared how they want to continue small groups
and sharing together. I want to encourage us all to truly become friends with
the other people in our pews. I would love to see groups of church members get
together for fellowship and prayer similar to our "coffees" that we
had this weekend. We don't have to have a program to meet with others for
prayer and fellowship; just do it! But let me ask you, why can't our Sunday
School classes get together and pray, love on each other, minister, fellowship,
etc just like our groups did this weekend? Why can't we have times where our
men and women get together and pray? Your Sunday School class can be
transformed just by doing the same things we did this weekend!
God
moved in our church this weekend and that was evident with the testimonies
given last night. We had close to twenty testimonies! We even went thirty
minutes past the time service is "suppose to end" and I saw no one
looking at the clock. (That's one way I knew the Holy Spirit was moving!) We
heard dry bones come to life last night! Now where do we go from here? As I
stated last night, we have a warning and a challenge given to us from
scripture. When you look at the first twelve chapters of Nehemiah we see a
great revival among the Jews! But in chapter thirteen, they went right back to
their old ways. They went right back to who they were before revival. Will we
do the same? Will this just be a weekend of high spirits and emotionalism or
will this weekend be the beginning of greater
things in God's people and in God's church?
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