Churches We've Ministered At
Sunday morning we had a great service, the pastor shared the message, but we shared about our ministry, traveling, and added a p.s. to his message. That evening, even though they didn't know us, the pastor had Rich minister on “An Excellent Spirit.”
One lady in the church felt led to bless our children, so she went to a store
and bought some clothes for each of
them.
22 Nov 98 - We had been ministering at Perry County Fellowship (see below) in the morning. Since they didn't have an evening service, we decided to check on how they were doing here. They were thrilled to see us. We were able to encourage them, and Rich preached on "The Ten Blemished That Exclude You From the Priesthood."
On Sunday, we went to Living Waters Fellowship with the couple who had invited
us out for the seminar. Rich and the pastor fellowshipped a while.
They gave us a love offering. On Wednesday, we were still in
town, so we went back to the church, and Rich preached on "But if
Not."
Florida
During morning service, we danced, and gave testimony on the motor home. At the end of the service, the pastor had us come to the front for prayer. He prophesied that God would be moving us more in ministry, and less in selling our books. They took up a love offering for us.
During evening service, we were asked to do a special dance, and Rebekah
was asked to do a special dance. After service, Rebekah anointed and prayed
for those who felt the Lord leading them into
dance.
Next morning, we were asked to go to the Christian school and share chapel with the upper elementary grades. Spent an hour (chapel was usually ½ hour) sharing about Jewish customs and festivals.
Went back for the marriage seminar on 17 Oct 98
(Saturday). Ended up being the best marriage seminar we'd ever done.
Also ministered Sunday night on "Taking Your Tabernacle With You" with
slides of a model of the wilderness
Tabernacle.
At the end of the service, the pastor asked us to pray for him, and the church.
Even though this was a small church, in a small town, in the middle
of nowhere, God directed Rich to pray for God to send him to the nations.
Afterwards, he told us that the prayer was a confirmation, and asked
if we knew where he could learn to witness in Swahili. He bought one
of the first copies of "Bible Swahili 1"
from
us.
Wednesday eve wasn’t a service, they had decided to have a work night, so we pitched in cleaning. It didn’t seem that anyone wanted to get into a spiritual conversation. Afterwards, we went back to the motor home, and were wondering what we were doing there. The pastor came over to the motor home, and asked us to stay over till Sunday. One of the church members was going through a rough divorce, and had been charged with child abuse for spanking his daughter. He came over Thursday & Friday night, so we could minister to him. In the Sunday morning service, Rich preached on “The Year of Jubilee.” Afterwards, we prayed for people, and God gave us several prophetic words which obviously brought healing to hearts. The “catchers” didn’t know what to do, so they were holding people up, so they weren't able to fall down under the power of the Holy Spirit.
In the evening service, Rich preached on “Two Sons” (Ishmael & Isaac).
The Holy Spirit took over the message and Rich talked about Tereh stopping
at the desert. They were blessed by our dancing. Although the pastor was
72 years old, he still danced before the
Lord.
On Sunday (the 26th) Rich ministered on "The Bride." That evening, there was no service planned. Some people showed up, so Rich taught on "The Tabernacle). On Monday (the 27th) Rich preached on "What the Talmud Says About Sex." On Tuesday, Rich preached on "On the Altar." On Wednesday, Rich preaced on "The Holy Place, the Place of Service." On Thursday, Rich preached on "Worship - Entering the Holy of Holies." Saturday night (the 2nd), after the worship pagent, we had a bunch of people praying, and God moved very powerfully in a communion service. Sunday morning (the 3rd), we didn't have anything planned. However, a bunch of people gathered together and we prayed, anointing each other, doing a foot washing, etc. God was preparing something in the Spirit.
On the way back to Texas in January, we stopped in, and he asked us to come minister in three weeks. While there, Rich ministered to the pastor about allowing the Holy Spirit to preach through him.
We ministered the evening service. Rich preached on
“Being Led by the Spirit.” God told him
this title in Dec, when we were through here. After preaching, he prayed
prophetically for several people. Several went down under the power
of the spirit. The church had prayer cloths, although they were in
the storage room. Then, since it was obvious that God was moving, several
more people came up for
prayer.
7 Oct 98 - Went back to Word of Faith to talk with the pastor about becoming our home church. He asked Rich to minister on Wednesday night. Rich preached on "Loving God With All Your Heart." They agreed to become our home church.
11 Oct 98 - While we were there, the pastor asked
Jenni (who was 11 at the time) to minister to the youth group on Sunday night.
She preached her first message on "Being Totally Sold-Out to
Jesus."
Since we didn't have anything scheduled, we prayed, and asked God for direction. Both of us felt that God wanted us to go to Kentucky anyway, so we went. Finally was able to get in touch with the conference again on Wednesday. They said we could have one table (we needed two), but there was no way we could get there on time. I answered that we were almost there, and we'd see them the next day. When we arrived, and were paying for the table, someone gave the man a note saying that another vendor couldn't make it. We now had our two tables. The first customers we met were a couple of ladies from Tri-County Open Bible church. We talked for a while, and they invited us to the church for Sunday service. When the conference was over, we went over to park our motor home in the church parking lot, so we'd be there for the morning service. It turned out that the pastor and his wife lived in a mobile home on the church lot. We spent the evening fellowshipping with them. Late in the evening, the pastor said "The Lord's been after me for the last three hours to have you minister in the morning, would you be willing."
Rich ministered in the morning service about
"Being Led By the Spirit." For
the evening service, Deborah had a vision/prophetic word that God wanted
people to lay things on the altar, hurts, sins, whatever, and He'd burn them
up with His fire. The pastor confirmed the word, and the whole service
became one of confession, and turning things over to God. At the end, people
gave prophetic words, speaking new ministry into the church. The Pastor asked
Jenny to lay hands on the children, and pray for them. She had prophetic
words for several of the kids. Rich had a confirming word about the
church’s vision/role in the
community.
When we arrived, the conference coordinators informed us that exhibit space was by invitation only, but they had some space that we could have anyway. There were a couple of couples we met at teh conference whom we were able to send some time ministering to. One of them, who was in the ministry really needed encouragement. We'd met them a few years earlier in New York, and they were struggling. Ended up spending some time talking to the conference coordinators. They invited us to come spend a couple of days with them. We went to church with them Sunday morning, and the pastor said that there was a reason God had sent us, so he asked Rich to minister. Rich preached on "Believing God for the Impossible." PLUS -
They invited their pastor over to meet us, and he asked us to minister at
the church Wednesday night. Rich preached on
"The Bride." On Sunday, we were still in town,
so the pastor asked us to minister the evening service. Deborah and
Rebekah (our youngest) introduced them to praise dancing, and Rich preached
"On the Altar."
When we arrived, Rich talked to the lady who schedules the workshops. They do a three day conference, with the third day being free to the attendees, and done with a missions emphasis. Rich asked who was doing the Sunday morning service, and she said "you are." Rich ministered on "Vessels of Honor." The lady who was recording the conference gave us a nice love offering. Another vendor, whom we were right next to, had been seeking God about getting rid of their house and living full time in a motor home, ministering. God put us right next to them, so that we could minister to them. Before leaving, they blessed us with some books, and a love offering.
When we left the conference, we visited some people we knew in the area.
Ended up staying up most of the night ministering to
them.
The Pastor invited us to park at his house, so we did. One of the guys in
the church blessed us by changing the valve cover gaskets on the motor home.
We had been needing a cargo trailer, and the pastor had one that he offered
to us, if we would give an offering to the ministry in Africa that he works
with. We were able to minister to the pastor and his
wife.
After the service, one lady came up to us and said that she had something for one of our children. She gave Jenni a $100.00 love offering, saying that God had told her that Jenni needed something. Jenni had been needing clothes, so she was especially blessed. God managed to stretch that money so that Jenni got about $300.00 worth of clothes for it.
They had been interested in learning about praise dancing, and starting dance
in the church. So, that afternoon we did a dance class.
Before the service, met the pastor. He walked off, then came back to see Rich again. Was wondering why this “orthodox Jew” was in his church. Started talking about “The Bride,” and he got excited. After praise & worship, he asked us to introduce ourselves. Then he mentioned to the church what we had been talking about before the service, and asked Rich to come up and share on it. Rich asked “for how long,” and he said “about 20 minutes.” Before Rich could start, the pastor interrupted, saying “take as long as you need, if anyone has to leave, go ahead and leave, we’ll get it on tape.” Rich did the full message on “The Jewish Wedding and the Bride of Christ” it took over 1 ½ hours. Then did an altar call for prayer. Everyone came forward, and God moved. People were falling down as fast as they were touched, the ushers had trouble keeping up. Once everyone was on the floor, including the pastor, there wasn’t anyone to close the service, so Rich just prayed and closed it. Stayed over Monday to put a new alternator in the motor home, and weld the trailer frame, which had cracked for the umpteenth time. The church was an old Salvation Army building that they had fixed up. It seemed like walking into God’s house, homey and comfortable, not sterile like most churches are. They had a nice bedroom set up upstairs. The pastor and his wife came over a couple of times and we ministered to them. Just as they left in the evening, a man from the church stopped by with a friend who had put a x-acto blade through the bottom of her foot. We talked and prayed for a little. She gave us a love offering big enough to pay for the gas to get to New York. 23-25 Sep 98 - Went back to do a marriage seminar. This was done on three consecutive nights, instead of a full day Saturday. Several couples said that they were ministered to greatly. 27 Sep 98 - When we came for the marriage seminar, the pastor also asked us to do the Sunday service. God started moving in people's lives, and we never got around to the message. There was a great time at the altar and in prayer, specifically prayer for freedom. Dance broke out for the first time in a bunch of people. As we were dancing, Rich saw the Spirit on several people, and got them out to dance. For most of them, it was the first time.
30 Sep 98 - Pastor Tony & Rich both felt we should stay and do
Wed evening service. Rich preached "On the
Altar.”
The pastor asked if we had bicycles, and we answered that we had bikes for
the kids. "What about for you and your wife? "he asked. We said "no,"
so he offered to give us a bike. They had about a dozen brand new bikes
from Wal-Mart in an upper room. He told us to pick one. After we had,
he asked if we had room for 2. We ended up with 2 new mountain bikes.
God had been speaking to us about needing exercise, which is very hard
to do while living in a motor home on the road. This gave us an easy
way to
exercise.
15 Nov 98 - God told us while we were in Kansas that it was time to come back and minister at Word of Faith Tabernacle. At the same time, God had put us on the pastor's heart, and he was praying about having us come back. God made sure that we both were hearing about the same thing, at the same time. Rich preached about King David, "A Man After God's Own Heart." At the altar call, most of the congregation came up. The pastor announced that we were going to be there Monday night also, and instead of the ladies's prayer service, the service would be open for everybody. That night, three ladies from another town, who went to a different church came. One of them had heard about us from a lady in the church, and told the other two. They were hungry for God, and for revival. We spent some time talking with them, and prayed for them. On Monday night Rich taught on Intercessory Prayer. After the service, the pastor announced that we would meet Tuesday night also. On Tuesday morning, the pastor announced that we'd meet Tuesday and Wednesday night. By afternoon, he'd announced that we'd meet Tuesday and Wednesday, and we'd minister at their Thursday night midweek service also. That night Rich taught on "The Bride." On Wednesday night, Rich taught on "Being the Gift of Love that God's Called You to Be." A brother that knew the pastor 10 to 15 years ago showed up for the service. Although he didn't even know if there was a Wednesday evening service, he felt that God told him to come that night. On Thursday night, Rich taught on "Four Moves of the Holy Spirit." Another pastor from the area had called the pastor of Word of Faith that morning, and he told this other pastor that she needed to come and hear us minister. Even though she didn't have time to come, the Holy Spirit made sure she was there.
The next morning, we had breakfast with the other pastor, and she told us
that God had told her to have us come minister in her minister's conference
in June. Until then, she didn't even know that she was having a minister's
conference. |
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Copyright © 1998 by Richard A. Murphy, Maranatha Life All rights reserved.