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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Prosperity (05/11/06)
Finally the evening we all had been waiting for so long was here. The well known minister and his unusual anointing had finally landed in our far away country –Australia from some place overseas. We had all heard of his coming for weeks and the excitement was mixed with curiosity this first night as it was the very first time for many of the people attending the meeting to experience something special.
This night there was no empty seats to be found in the front section of the church as on a regular Sunday morning, no, none of us wanted to miss out tonight and we all seemed so happy and smiled at each other as we squeezed in side by side. Tonight we were happy to find a spot anywhere as the church soon filled to its full capacity. God was in the house and our thirst was soon to be quenched a little. A meeting like these thrills me, when we as believers get together from near and far and don’t care from where we normally attend church. As I scanned over the crowd of heads I recognized a Pastor from a ‘hippie’ church a good four hours drive away. He and his wife had a few years ago left their comfortable lives and given everything to start a church that would relate and attract the hippie children in one of Australia’s biggest drug infested beach towns. Their struggles had been many and sadly some of them had been from their own sisters and brothers in the faith that didn’t seem to understand. They had literally live by the faith of God’s mercy and grace and life had not always been easy. However, now almost 10 years later the fruit of their labour and sacrifice was showing in their faces and in the large crowd of ‘flower children’ that had been in the prisons of drugs and occult. Now they would always be the very first group to approach the altar with their free style of worship, long flowing hair and literally beaming faces. Another familiar face popped up, a prophetic pastor from a nearby town. Originally from South Africa he had obeyed God’s word and started a prophetic church in a small country town nearby. This was another person and his family that had sacrificed everything to come and serve our country with what God had given them. Neither had he found a warm welcome from his brothers and sisters in Christ as they had felt threatened by his move into their territory, but wasn’t their enough people that still needed Christ to fill all the churches in the area?
Despite the opposition their little church had grown faster than anyone had dared to dream about. Further down my aisle of seats I also spotted an older couple that I knew from a previous church. They tried to keep afloat on some trade work but never seemed to be able to get ahead. The church was good to them though and gave them some food parcels on a regular basis. I had always tried to encourage them with God’s promises and we as a family had also taken them out for lunch once to get to know them better. However the good news that people tried to give them never seemed to stick. There were always sicknesses to share and other hardship to talk about and soon I felt as tired and weary as they did themselves and so did others.
Now the meeting had started and after worship the minister was giving us all an opportunity to be part of a large crusade in an African country by giving some of what we had been blessed with in the offering. As the bucket kept moving down my aisle I noticed the little old couple just passing it by without dropping anything in it and soon it was my turn to add to the collection. The meeting continued and soon the minister decided to give some of his preaching material on CD’s out to the crowd. The CD’s kept flying in the air, one after the other. The next CD is a great teaching on prosperity the minister said and in a flash the little old lady and her husbands arm went up, waving excitedly. They really looked desperate but the minister didn’t see them. My mind went back for a second to the scene when the offering bucket passed them by, what if…
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This article has been read 910 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
Valerie Routhieaux
05/22/06
We often forget the benefits of giving. Thanks for the reminder. Watch spelling errors in like words - There instead of their.
Helen Paynter
05/22/06
Very readable in content, although the dense paragraphs are off-putting - if you put more paragraphs in and spaced them with a blank line, it would be easier to read, and you may get more comments. I enjoyed the piece, and the way the pastors who'd turned up acted as a foil for the miserly couple. Interesting take on the topic.
Jan Ackerson
05/23/06
Interesting--I think that the real story here is that couple, and I'd like a whole story based on them. Why won't they give? Why are they always accepting charity? What is the state of their hearts?