Pastor attends
Harvest Evangelism
conference

Being able to attend the conference was an answer to much prayer. The St. Joseph, Missouri, and Topeka, Kansas, congregations agreed to provide financial support for the trip.

The conference was not just a conference, it was a city reaching experience. For four days and evenings we worshiped together, heard Spirit-filled messages and prayed for a mighty move of God upon the San Francisco Bay Area. By the end of the conference, about 80 percent of the about 356,000 homes in the San Francisco area received prayer and door hangers announcing God’s love for them.

In my city, Topeka, a vocal element openly condemns sinners. The Harvest Evangelism conference promoted the gospel, God’s loving provision for sinners and prayer evangelism. Prayer Evangelism consists of praying and talking to God about your neighbors, before talking to your neighbors about God.

I was greatly blessed as a participant of the conference. I attended with a strong desire to receive a fresh touch from God. God answered that prayer mightily. Most if not all of the sermons ended with an invitation to be prayed for—to receive God’s special blessings. God is not stingy, and his blessings overflowed to hungry hearts like mine.

I attended the conference because I read a book by Ed Silvoso, That None Should Perish. After reading this book I learned about his ministry, Harvest Evangelism. Because God has filled my heart with great desire to see Topeka reached with the gospel, I knew that attending this conference should be my next step.

At the conference Mr. Silvoso encouraged us to receive a blessing that would move us to reach out to the lost and be a blessing to them.

He shared with us that the title of his book, That None Should Perish, captured what he termed "the heartbeat of God."

I learned so much. I learned that I must be willing to be changed before my city can be changed. That to make progress I would have to go back to my first love and rekindle the freshness of my initial relationship with God. A key element of being revitalized is to ask God to show me my family, my friends and neighbors and community as he sees them.

Guest evangelist Carlos Annacondia asked us: "Where is the victory?" It is given in the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit. It is common today to look at Bible times and the miracles at that time and to think, "That was then; this is now." Yet Jesus promised his followers power and authority and even signs and wonders. God has not changed, his promises remain fresh and vital.

Having faith and proper expectation, and having asked God to cleanse our lives, to forgive all sin, to cover our lives with the salvation given in our Savior, we likewise may expect the miracles that Jesus promised to his disciples.

Some time ago I viewed the video Transformations by George Otis and the Sentinel Group. This video depicts the transformation that occurred in four cities, on four continents, when Christians came together under the banner of Jesus Christ.

This video, which was shown at two interdenominational gatherings of pastors I attended, whetted my appetite for God’s presence and power over my city. It made me hungry for Topeka to experience the changes that occurred in the cities depicted in the video.

At the conference we were asked to consider the church of the future. Will it succeed in taking the gospel to the masses if it waits for the people to come to the church on their own?

Or will the church be much more effective if it mobilizes itself to move outside the four walls of the church taking the truth to the masses by getting out into the marketplace, into the schools, into all the places where people live and work and play?

If you will allow me a personal observation: It seems that we live in an environment where it’s OK for everyone except Christians to come out of the closet. At the same time there is a continuing effort to get Christians to limit their witness (pushing them into the closet). The church has been given God’s truth for salvation. We must not bend to the pressures of society to keep our Christian views to ourselves.