Empowered for Service

“Does anyone have any suggestions for study topics for our future small group meetings?” we were asked at church the other night. Several ideas were mentioned, from Finances and Marriage to the study of Revelation. I suggested that, as we had had so much teaching already, we have a time of actual prayer, or an intercessor group, at the church. Then my husband, who had been rather quiet, raised his hand.

“I just want to tell you a story our son told me about something that happened to his pastor,” Howard said. He began to share that the pastor of Jamie’s church in Houston had recently come back from a mission trip to Pakistan. Somehow he and a team of several people were involved in an evangelistic meeting in this Muslim country. A large crowd had gathered, and for security purposes, armed guards carrying machine guns were posted around the American church workers.

As God’s presence began to be evident, with some being healed and touched around the platform, the crowd began to surge forward in an unmanageable mass. Suddenly there was a thud on the platform. A baby was tossed onto the platform by desperate parents who could not get there themselves. The preachers found themselves being rushed out of the building for their own protection and escorted by armed guards to their quarters.

As they sat in their rooms in disappointment, the ministers questioned how they could fulfill their mission and do what they had been called to do. Later, they found out that, even though they had been forced from the meeting, God had not left. It was told them that people continued to be touched and healed even after they were gone. The presence of God had lingered in such a strong way that their needs were met, despite their limited understanding. Perhaps they prayed, even as the man in the Bible prayed, “Lord, I believe. Help Thou mine unbelief.”!

Howard said he was amazed at how the Holy Spirit works, so his suggestion was recorded as the topic, “Works of the Holy Spirit.” Hopefully, this will be an open-ended class, as interactive as the title of the New Testament book, “The Acts of the Apostles, ” implies.