There are some weeks on the road that you look back on and say, “That was God from start to finish.” This past week was like that.
Five days before the week began, we were scheduled to go to a church in Georgia. That day, I received a call from the pastor, who had to cancel the meeting for various reasons. At this late of notice, a cancellation is a guaranteed hotel bill for a week with nothing to do and no souls to be saved. After the disappointing news, I sat in my truck and told the Lord, “I don’t just believe that you can work this together for good, I thank you that you are working it together for good.” God gave me peace in my heart. Two days later, Pastor Michael Barnett in Tarboro, North Carolina was on his knees in the woods crying out to the Lord for some way to reach the youth in his community. The moment after he said the words, “Lord! What can I do to reach them?!”, he got a text on his phone. The text was from Jim Van Gelderen. It said that one of his teams had a cancellation and was available if he was interested in taking the week. This news was such a clear answer to prayer, that he jumped on it.
When we arrived at the meeting, the Pastor shared with us what God had been doing in his heart. In the past few years, God had been doing a deep work in his heart, preparing him for great blessing. His church had been through some challenging times and God had recently given him a vision for rebuilding. This opportunity, he believed, was going to be the catalyst that he had been praying about for years. As a team, we knew that his expectations were so high, it had to be God.
Our team went out recruiting on Thursday and Friday. The team put forth a great effort, but our numbers were very low. So low, in fact, that I was very worried about our turnout on Saturday night. We got on our faces and God met with us. Saturday night at 5:45pm, we had a small handful of teens on the field and it looked like not that many more were going to show up. I stepped into the auditorium and sat on a pew. I felt horrible because of some sickness and nerves. I told the Lord I was trusting Him. After all, He brought us there and He would have to deliver us. I stepped outside, saw the crowd had not grown, and said in my heart, “Well Lord, let’s see what You can do with the kids you gave us.” We began our first competition, Big Ball Volleyball. Before the first competition was over, many more teens had arrived. In fact, by the time we all came inside, we had nearly 60 teen in attendance, almost all of them from the outside of the church!
Though God had delivered in our attendance, Satan was fighting. Right before the guys finished singing the message in song, a little 15-month old jumped out into the aisle and began to dance like a fiend. This amused the crowd so that they began to laugh at him. Someone picked him up and he stopped. As I began my opening illustration, some of the teens had taken him on their lap and began to play with him. He was an obvious distraction to the whole room. Stopping mid-story, I kindly asked if someone could take him out of the service and then prayed for God to bind the devil’s distracting devices. Immediately, I sensed the presence of God on the place. I opened my mouth to preach, but my voice could hardly produce sound due to my sickness. I asked God for strength and began to preach. My voice never really got better, but God gave great liberty and boldness to preach the gospel. At the invitation, nearly the whole room raised their hand that they needed to be rescued from the wrath of God. I gave the invitation, and 31 teens stepped out into the aisle to be dealt with. Before the night was through, 24 had placed their faith in Jesus alone to save them. As we all were wrapping up the night, the pastor’s wife summed the night up to me and said, “Preacher, do you realize what happened here tonight? This was the single most incredible thing our church has ever seen the entire time we have been here. God is answering our prayers!”
We had a total of 74 teens attend the events, despite cold and rain over the next two nights. Each night, God kept on working. 10 more teens trusted Christ as their Savior on Sunday and Monday nights, bringing the total harvest for the week to 34. God did a great work in Tarboro and His work is not through. If you are reading this post, please pray for Mike Barnett to have power, love, and success in discipling these young people to become effective servants of Jesus Christ. God did it all last week, and He will have to keep on doing the work the next week. To God be the glory!!
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