How it Went Last Night
Prayer is a powerful strength if you pray relentlessly and with intention
Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who prayed for me as preacher at the event last night. I take opportunities to represent the Lord among unreached people groups very seriously and it meant a lot to me that you were standing behind me in prayer.
The atmosphere was fun and upbeat. The host group is very dear to our hearts. The leaders, Somkiat and Vida Jakchee, have been friends and ministry partners forever. They put out a call for their exact subgroup within the Lahu tribe, and 360 people gathered from as far away as neighboring Laos and Myanmar.
My Job
My task was to open the camp. Some members of the audience were from animist backgrounds. Others from different world religions. I felt like they needed to get some basic idea in their head that would help open a door to God during the next three days when they would hear the Gospel in different ways.
How do you speak to a group when some of them have never held a Bible in their hands and have no idea who Abraham or Jesus would even be?
I spoke about Joseph who was the 11th out of 12 sons. All leadership positions were already filled by older siblings. He really had no vision for his life and doesn’t seem to have been a particularly good brother. Then God gave him dreams of a higher destiny and that started his destiny story. He took his own attitude and development seriously, as a slave and then, as a prisoner. God began to guide his steps and his rise upward in life until he was the second most powerful man in Egypt.
I wanted them to understand that there was one great God and that they needed to approach him and ask him to draw them close and guide their life and teach them how to find their life destiny.
Through the years, we’ve learned that people don’t have to understand all the doctrines in order to establish a relationship with God. It takes years to get it right doctrinally and even then Christians themselves will be doctrinally divided on most points.
What is indispensable however is that they have a personal, mystical encounter with the God who made them and that they know the experience was real. Once they meet him—once Jesus touches them—a real interchange begins.
It will eventually result in knowing more correct details about God and his plans and actions in the world and learning about the Bible and Christian Fellowship and all these other helpful things, but the essential thing, the one at the heart of it all, is that they need a personal encounter with Jesus and that is what I was hoping to initiate during my time.
This is why prayer is so important. At the end of my talk, I stopped and asked them if they would just have a conversation with the God who made them and I guided the steps in that conversation and we did it slowly together.
I truly felt the presence of the Lord in those moments, and I believe some of the people in that crowd had a genuine encounter with God that will continue for the rest of their lives.
That’s what missions is all about. Thanks for taking prayer seriously when we ask for it. Sherry and I deeply appreciate it.
It’s working!
Chuck and Sherry