An Interesting Day of Seeing the Lord at Work!
Wednesday, 30 November 2005 – St. Andrew’s Day
I had an interesting day today, with much to praise the Lord for and much to pray about for the future.
At our church weekly early morning prayer and breakfast study group, we began to show the Alpha course session on ‘How to be Filled With the Holy Spirit’. After the first few minutes, one lady asked if one’s growth in faith followed a sequence from interest to commitment to baptism to being filled with the Spirit, and is this the same for everyone who comes to faith in Christ? This generated an interesting discussion which took all our time up and caused most of us to go to the Bible to find guidance there. Some of the discussion revolved around the nature of denominational distinctives in baptismal methods and their relationship to Scripture. Thankfully the discussion was peaceful and unifying!
I received a phone call from a Christian lady who, although not a member of Messiah, came to most of the sessions on our last Alpha course, just ended, so she could get equipped to be involved in Alpha herself. Her story is a long and exciting one. Suffice to say she writes personal letters in longhand to prisoners in jail. She has laboriously copied the whole of the course through the Manual, including all the Bible verses, and is sending them by mail to prisoners she is in contact with. She met another lady in a launderette/laundromat last week who is also writing to prisoners and so she copied and gave her all the notes she had made. We talked and prayed that she will be able to speak to some other folk she knows who are involved in jail ministry to see if there is any interest in trying to run Alpha courses in local jails.
Pastor Marty, my pastor, asked me to be the point of contact for the Alpha course in our church, Messiah. He gave me the go ahead last week to hold a prayer and planning meeting for the next course, in early 2006. The P&P will be in the church Fellowship Hall between the two morning services at 0930 this coming Sunday, 4 Dec. I am very happy to do this but think a younger person needs to take on the leadership of the Alpha course in Messiah. I pray this added task will not prove to be the ‘straw that breaks the camel’s back’, leading to burn out. I have so much on my plate at the moment but feel the Lord has guided me to be so involved.
The Lord allowed me to take a step further forward with the planning for an Alpha course at Naval Air Station (NAS) Oceana, our local US Navy Master Jet Base, by agreeing with the Chaplain there that I will visit and meet the Adult Sunday School class at 0915 on Sun 11 Dec. It seems most likely we will do Alpha’s follow on course called ‘A Life Worth Living’, starting in February 2006.
I went to Dam Neck, an outstation of NAS Oceana, and spent over an hour with a Canadian exchange Chaplain whom I first met in Canada about 4 years ago. We had been trying to organize this meeting for a while and it finally slipped in to place today. I was able to share with him and we ministered to each other. Just before we prayed at the end of our time together, he asked me to specifically pray and consider helping him run an Alpha course for young sailors at Dam Neck on Tuesday evenings starting in February or March 06.
Tomorrow, the Lord has allowed me to go to the annual Alpha Local Office and Specialty Ministry Directors retreat being held near Chicago. It starts tomorrow afternoon and finishes after lunch on Saturday (1-3 Dec). I leave early tomorrow morning and will be back, God willing, late on Saturday evening. I have been given a $300 scholarship to enable me to go. Although Meryl is sad not to be able to come with me (so am I!), it will be a rich blessing to fellowship with, pray for, and discuss future national Alpha plans with the other 20 or so good folk who are going from all over the USA. Until last Monday afternoon, I had got used to the thought that I could not afford to go this year and had planned my week accordingly. Fortunately, I was able to reschedule my calendar and re-focus my mind to go at 72 hours notice and I am sure it will be as great a blessing as it was last year.
I had an interesting day today, with much to praise the Lord for and much to pray about for the future.
At our church weekly early morning prayer and breakfast study group, we began to show the Alpha course session on ‘How to be Filled With the Holy Spirit’. After the first few minutes, one lady asked if one’s growth in faith followed a sequence from interest to commitment to baptism to being filled with the Spirit, and is this the same for everyone who comes to faith in Christ? This generated an interesting discussion which took all our time up and caused most of us to go to the Bible to find guidance there. Some of the discussion revolved around the nature of denominational distinctives in baptismal methods and their relationship to Scripture. Thankfully the discussion was peaceful and unifying!
I received a phone call from a Christian lady who, although not a member of Messiah, came to most of the sessions on our last Alpha course, just ended, so she could get equipped to be involved in Alpha herself. Her story is a long and exciting one. Suffice to say she writes personal letters in longhand to prisoners in jail. She has laboriously copied the whole of the course through the Manual, including all the Bible verses, and is sending them by mail to prisoners she is in contact with. She met another lady in a launderette/laundromat last week who is also writing to prisoners and so she copied and gave her all the notes she had made. We talked and prayed that she will be able to speak to some other folk she knows who are involved in jail ministry to see if there is any interest in trying to run Alpha courses in local jails.
Pastor Marty, my pastor, asked me to be the point of contact for the Alpha course in our church, Messiah. He gave me the go ahead last week to hold a prayer and planning meeting for the next course, in early 2006. The P&P will be in the church Fellowship Hall between the two morning services at 0930 this coming Sunday, 4 Dec. I am very happy to do this but think a younger person needs to take on the leadership of the Alpha course in Messiah. I pray this added task will not prove to be the ‘straw that breaks the camel’s back’, leading to burn out. I have so much on my plate at the moment but feel the Lord has guided me to be so involved.
The Lord allowed me to take a step further forward with the planning for an Alpha course at Naval Air Station (NAS) Oceana, our local US Navy Master Jet Base, by agreeing with the Chaplain there that I will visit and meet the Adult Sunday School class at 0915 on Sun 11 Dec. It seems most likely we will do Alpha’s follow on course called ‘A Life Worth Living’, starting in February 2006.
I went to Dam Neck, an outstation of NAS Oceana, and spent over an hour with a Canadian exchange Chaplain whom I first met in Canada about 4 years ago. We had been trying to organize this meeting for a while and it finally slipped in to place today. I was able to share with him and we ministered to each other. Just before we prayed at the end of our time together, he asked me to specifically pray and consider helping him run an Alpha course for young sailors at Dam Neck on Tuesday evenings starting in February or March 06.
Tomorrow, the Lord has allowed me to go to the annual Alpha Local Office and Specialty Ministry Directors retreat being held near Chicago. It starts tomorrow afternoon and finishes after lunch on Saturday (1-3 Dec). I leave early tomorrow morning and will be back, God willing, late on Saturday evening. I have been given a $300 scholarship to enable me to go. Although Meryl is sad not to be able to come with me (so am I!), it will be a rich blessing to fellowship with, pray for, and discuss future national Alpha plans with the other 20 or so good folk who are going from all over the USA. Until last Monday afternoon, I had got used to the thought that I could not afford to go this year and had planned my week accordingly. Fortunately, I was able to reschedule my calendar and re-focus my mind to go at 72 hours notice and I am sure it will be as great a blessing as it was last year.
posted by Noel Dawes | 12:43 AM
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