God has given us the power to return lost souls to him, however we need to actually act on that power! God will save, but sometimes we need to first bring the people to God, that’s our job. . .
Ever since our team has arrived in India we have been treated as celebrities. Our ministry this month is to lead a church service every night (testimony, sermon, singing songs, and praying for each individual who walks in) in remote villages. Whenever we get to the village we instantly become the number 1 attraction in the village (most of them have never seen a white person before and on top of that an American). Kids come flocking to greet us to just get a chance to shake our hands. Teenage boys come out of nowhere to get our pictures on their phones. People just stop and stare at us as we pass through their streets. For those of you who know me, you know how truly awesome I am, and that must be why I got to autograph 2 boys’ hands last week. It’s just very different for us since we are just regular people, aka not celebrities.
But we have been using our celebrity power has a huge advantage in our marketing ploy to draw people to our church service. Only 2% of India’s 1.2 billion people are Christian, 94% are Hindu . . . Every night before our service we walk the village and stop at homes to pray. As we are walking the village we pick up more and more followers. By the time we get to the church we have a nice following of villagers to come hear our message. Yes I understand that most of them are at the service to SEE us, but if that means that that many non-Christians HEAR God’s message, then that’s just fine with me!
Last week we had just finished up our prayer walk before service and were seated at the front of the church (that’s where we sit because they are honoring us). All the villagers were taking their seats as close to the front as possible, except for one 14 yr old boy (who I had met while walking the village), who was just standing in the back. The service started and 3 of our team members started the singing portion. I had this feeling that I was supposed to join him in the back (it was God talking to me), but we had strict instructions by the pastor to sit in the front. The singing portion ended and he was still standing there, but as we bowed our heads to pray, that’s when he left. I might have had my eyes open during the pray to watch him. As he left, so did I, and I actually ran after him barefoot (no shoes in church) down the road. When I caught up to him he had been joined by another boy to go play cricket (their form of baseball). I quickly introduce myself again to his friend and him.
The conversation went like this:
Me – Would you like to come back to church and sit with me in the back?
Him – (he spoke broken English) Yes, but in a little while.
Me – Why not just come now?
Him – We are going to play cricket at the school.
Me – Ok. When you get to church, I’ll sit in the back with you.
Him – Ok. . .
But I read his eyes and body language and they said something completely different.
Me – You can be honest with me, if you don’t want to come, that’s ok. You’re not going to come back are you?
Him – (a slight grin on his face) No, I’m not.
I told him that that’s ok, and asked if I could pray for the two of them. They said yes.
I made it back to the service thinking how that was an epic fail, but if you put yourself out there, that’s going to happen just like anything in life.
About 5 minutes later, both him and his friend were back in the street in front of the church surveying the service. I bolted out of my seat in the front of the church and greeted both of them with a huge smile. I asked if they wanted to sit with me in the back of the church – they both said yes! That’s when I thought how amazing is our God!
India church services are roughly 2 hours long, so I wasn’t too upset when the boys left after being there for over an hour. Yes I was disappointed, but that was still a huge victory in my mind. The service ended and it was time for our team to pray for each individual member of the service. They would line up in front of us, tell us what they wanted us to pray for and then we would pray for every member. The boy and his friend came back again – and for MORE prayer! I was able to talk with him after the prayer session, and found out that he is Hindu. I will never know what happened to that boy after we left. . . . Was God able to creep into his heart that night. . . ? Only God knows. . .
But what I do know: We need to act when God says GO! God gave us the power to do his work here on earth. And my example of listening to God didn’t involve that much effort. God gave me EVERYTHING I needed to complete his task. When God calls your number, are you willing to listen?
Ps. If you wrote on my last blog, I replied back and plan on doing that moving forward. Thanks to all our followers!
