Dipping In the Jordan River

As we continue to meet each week to worship the Lord and receive from His Word, He is knitting our hearts together. Even though the daylight savings time change was a bit of a challenge, most overcame it and was able to receive a timely word of encouragement along with prophetic prayer.

We’re getting closer to our church anniversary celebration and as that weekend approaches, God is positioning us to be ready to receive a fresh anointing and a special impartation for our next level.

We are still a very small gathering, but each of you has come to a place where you are willing to do whatever it takes to be healed. Your simple acts of obedience and perseverance have brought you to the brink of a major promotion in God’s purpose for your life.

As we prayed for one sister during last Sunday’s gathering, the Lord brought forth a wonderful revelation about this ministry. In the exhortation, she was encouraged to invite friends and family to come to Urban Life even though it would be like dipping in the Jordan River for many people.

To understand that reference you must read 2 Kings 5:1-16. In this passage you will discover the story of a Syrian king whose name was Naaman. He was stricken with leprosy and was told about a prophet in Samaria who could heal him.

When he visited the prophet, it turned out to be the prophet Elisha. The prophet did not come out of his dwelling to greet the king and just merely sent instructions for him to go and dip himself seven times in the Jordan River.

Naaman was insulted and left in a rage. How dare the prophet treat him so disrespectfully! He ranted about how the prophet could have come out and called on God and waved his hand over the leprosy and healed him. Instead he just sent instructions to go dip in the worst of three rivers.

However, one of Naaman’s servants humbly reminded the King that he had been instructed to do a very simple thing. If he had been told to do something difficult, he would have gladly done it.

Basically his healing was all based upon the king humbling himself. When he followed the servant’s advice and did what Elisha told him to do, he was healed after dipping himself seven times in the Jordan River.

We believe that this narrative depicts the Urban Life Church experience. In a sense, there are nicer churches with better facilities in Harrisburg. Many have choirs or worship bands. They have scores of volunteers and are able to enjoy numerous exciting activities.

Yet, the Lord has sent His Word to many people about Urban Life Church. He is leading them to a small gathering where there will be no spectacular displays of waving hands and calling down fire. It will just be them, God and the simple instruction to dip themselves in the waters that flow through this house.

We believe that in the weeks and months to come, you will receive many opportunities to tell people about a place where they can be healed of their spiritual leprosy. They may ask questions like, how many members does your church have? How big is your choir? What kind of multimedia equipment do you guys use? What is your pastor’s title?

That just means they might want to dip in the other rivers that seem to be nicer. Some may have a picture in their imagination of how God is going to heal them. You may have felt the same way before you visited Urban Life. However, they will discover, as you did, that this ministry is not about its pastors, the music, the singing, or the facility. This is all about the presence of the Lord and our willingness to humble ourselves to receive what he has for us.

I'm Just Along for the Ride

The most incredible thing imaginable is happening to our church family. We are becoming a TEAM. We just had our first logistical meeting and as a result, Sunday went pretty smoothly.

Suddenly we have a lot more young people attending. Four children and three teens may not sound like much, but with our past history, that is a huge influx. Four more teens are planning to attend next week and now we have to put together a ministry for teenagers.

Wow! How did this happen?

New faces continue to come and this time they are coming with hearts that are hungry and ready for the word of God. Once again I had to abandon the planned lesson and move with the spontaneous flow of the Holy Spirit.

More and more I’m getting my heart in sync with what God wants to do in our gatherings. It’s been almost a year since our Bishop gave us a prophetic word about putting on a new strength. Now we are watching it come to pass, week by week.

As long as I stay out of the way, God can have HIS way. I have learned my lesson over the past seven years. I cannot do anything to bring to pass what God alone has to do to heal the brokenness in this community.

All my efforts have been exhausted. We have no reputation to uphold. We have nothing to prove to anyone. All that matters now is the Lord God Himself. At this point, I’m just along for the ride.

Like Those Who Dream

Psalm 126: 1-3 reads: When the LORD brought back the captivity of Zion, We were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter,And our tongue with singing. Then they said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.” The LORD has done great things for us, And we are glad.

That’s how I’m feeling today. A couple of weeks ago, we were so discouraged that we just knew that our ministry was over in Harrisburg. Our youngest son made his final departure from home and our middle son was off to school. Our oldest son was making plans for his departure as well; which left us with no choice, but to prepare to close our ministry because there was no way we could carry on without some help.

I made a request to the members and attendees of the church and was blown away by the response. Almost everyone has responded back to us, offering help in nearly every area of the ministry.

Suddenly, we have help in setting up the equipment every Sunday. We now have help with our ministry to children. We now have help with our computer projection. We now have help with the bookkeeping. We now have help in keeping up with the food supplies. We have help in placing our signs every week. We have help with organizing the church. Help has come.

Now our church family has taken ownership and responsibility for the ministry. They have embraced the call and purpose of God in a real and tangible way. We are putting on a new strength. The Lord has done great things and we are glad.

I can hardly wait to see what is in store for this TEAM. Yes, we are becoming a team. God is putting together that special group of people who will bring healing to hearts and homes in the Harrisburg community.

Thanking God for making it through this year

We’re only a few days away from Christmas and I’ve just been thanking God for making it through this year. This has been a very difficult year for Carol. She lost a childhood friend, an aunt and her father . Back home in St. Louis, there were a few more losses with some of our friends and spiritual children losing parents as well.

Then there have been the most heartbreaking tragedies one could imagine with the devastation of earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes and hurricanes across the world and the country. This year, we got a little taste of everything here in Pennsylvania. An Earthquake, a hurricane, tornadoes and flooding have impacted this area in some way or another.

We’re still very thankful that the Lord has sustained us in spite of massive layoffs and job losses all around us. Carol and I are both still employed. Our family is living comfortably in a townhouse apartment. We cannot complain at all.

What we are most thankful for is how the Lord is moving in our church family. We held our first baptism service in the history of our church. We also held only our third new member confirmation. Those were landmark moments for us.

For a while, the attendance went down again, so we decided to start meeting in one of the smaller conference rooms within the United Church Center. That setting was very comfortable and made for a better atmosphere in which to teach and answer questions.

Gradually, the attendance picked up again and we’ve had to move back to the dining hall. More important than the attendance has been what God is doing in hearts and homes. Over the final three months of this year we’ve seen one person get saved, another return to the fold, and a visitor or two who have said they will definitely return.

God is moving in miraculous ways. The praise reports have been awesome as the Lord is providing for our church family. Our prayer has always been that God would bless the people of Urban Life Church and not just the pastors. In fact, we felt badly that we were being blessed, but we didn’t see very much happening with the people. Now we’ve seen a powerful outbreak of blessings amongst the people. Now that makes us happy. We didn’t come to Harrisburg just to be blessed. We want to see the people of God blessed.

When we hold our first gathering on Sunday, New Year’s Day (January 1st), we plan to allow everyone to testify what God has done in their life during 2011. It’s going to be a great day.

Now we’re about to spend some quality time with our family during this Christmas holiday before we’re scattered for a while. David returns to college for his final five months before graduation. Jonathan will be off to school in January. Chris continues his process to getting back in school as well.

What does 2012 have in store for us? Lord, may you get the Glory out of our family in 2012!

We've Hit Our Stride

We feel like we’ve hit our stride for the first time since we’ve been in Pennsylvania. One of the prophetic words that came to us through our Bishop almost exactly six years ago was that the Lord was going to adjust our pace.

A lot has happened to bring that into our reality. Now we’re in that certain stride that you recognize as a distance runner that will carry you throughout the remainder of the race. I know it well because I used to jog almost every day in the summer heat of St. Louis, Missouri. That was back when I was only 16 and 17 years old. I would set a pace that flowed with the rhythm of my heart, lungs and legs. Often I would have a tune in my head as I ran. It was an awesome feeling.

Today, even though the body can’t do what it used to do, in the spiritual realm I feel that same way. The last few adjustments seemed like minor things, but they have become major factors. One adjustment was moving our weekly meetings from the cafeteria to the conference room that sits next door to our ministry office.

We first used it for our Breaking Free weekend with John and Kerry Shuey. The Friday evening and all day Saturday sessions were so comfortable and cozy that we decided to stay there for our Sunday gathering. Well that day was so perfect that we carried it over to meeting there for the next Sunday. That little adjustment has become a major way to set the atmosphere for a close family encounter with the Lord every week.

The other adjustment was to go back to teaching Bible basics. We are literally walking through what it means to be saved, what it means to be filled with the Spirit and what it means to be empowered to live for God. We absolutely love this. The response has been really wonderful. We have reached near capacity in just three short weeks. We only had two vacant seats in our last gathering.

The significance of that gathering was that it was on the heels of a snow storm that roared through our area on Saturday. I had to fight the thoughts that no one was going to come to the Sunday gathering following a snow storm. However, the street crews plowed the streets and roads and everything was clear by Sunday morning. Six years of experience in Harrisburg told me that cleared streets would not make any difference. Yet, we were wonderfully surprised and thankful to have a tremendous turnout. We even had a visitor.

So we’ve hit our stride. We’re meeting once a week, and connecting with everyone in some way or another throughout the week through the internet. This is just so completely different from anything we could ever have planned and it is working. It’s working because this is what the Lord wants and the WAY He wants to do it. Carol and I are just following Him.