THE ENCOUNTER III > What started as fictional in the Encounter 1 & 2, has now become reality in The Encounter 3. One man’s path to an encounter with God cloaking him in God’s “covering”, and hearing the call… “Gotham needs me.” You can run but you can’t hide. You either answer the call, or settle for less. This is one man’s story who decided to not “settle”.
The financial and sickness storm was finally over. Don was healthy and also working, although it was only part-time, 22 hours a week, if they were frugal they could make it work. The job promised to go full-time in just a couple of months. Two giants had fallen and now the challenges became more spiritual than physical. This was the day he had been praying for.
Because of his connection to “Oasis of Hope Church”, Don was invited to a Southern Baptist Prayer Meeting of “Church Planters”. It was a morning prayer meeting and since he worked evenings he was free to go. His day started with early morning prayer at a Pentecostal Church called” Charity”, on south Tibbs. It just happened the prayer meetings hit on the same day. Charity did this 6:00 a.m. prayer meeting every Tuesday, and he had been a regular. The Baptist meeting was at 9:00 a.m.. “Perfect!” he thought.
And so he did. He attended both. What a day of praying it was. But while he was at the Baptist Prayer meeting, he met two men in process of growing downtown inner city churches! He even got teamed up to pray with one of them. This man’s name was Kerry, Pastor Kerry of the “Circle City Canvas Church”, having services in the Arts Bank building right on Massachusetts Avenue, or Mass. Ave. as everyone likes to call it. The other Pastor was Pastor Yale, holding services on I.U.P.U.I. campus, reaching young people, college people, for Christ. Both these services were evening time, and Don immediately made plans to attend.
With the new job in place there began to be the challenge of working around that schedule. His job now interfered with his “Oasis of Hope” involvement at the Hawthorn Apartment complex, but he was still able to attend prayer meetings and weekend services, which meant he could connect with both “Circle Center Canvas Church” and “Living Faith Church” with Pastor Yale. After going to each once, he decided to focus on “Circle City Canvas Church” first, and see what might develop.
The “Gotham Call” still meant being out of the Church box and into the streets. God had given him a vision of being involved in not only the downtown area, but also neighborhoods. It was the same vision. What he saw for downtown involved being out of the Church box and in the neighborhoods. In the meantime, the Pastor at “Charity Church”, Pastor Paul Slagle, was preaching on “Our Priesthood”, and a real move of God was stirring the people. A lot was going on! And he was carefully watching it all, and involved with it all. The early morning prayer meetings was causing a fresh move of the Spirit, but only time would tell if the stirring would lead to great things, or fade?
And then, on top of all this, came the chance to meet Ying Kia, of T4T, and hear him personally speak and teach on “Training for Trainers”, a discipleship outreach causing quite a stir of its’ own. God was supernaturally ordering his steps and answering his prayers. This was the last piece of the puzzle he needed for “1000 Houses of H.O.P.E.”. He just happened to be off work and able to attend, and so he did. More to come.
It is the bird with broken wings that Soars... 
For some reason this reminds me of Elijah’s ministry in Israel. He though he was alone against all the evil and Baal worship. But God said, “But I will leave 7,000 in Israel—every knee that has not bowed to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him.” You are not alone, brother, and I am excited to hear it.
Hey Sean, always good to hear from you. I got caught up at a site belonging to “Nate”. You might see his comments here. He used to be a Christian, but became convinced the Bible contradicts itself. And he probably has a few translation problems too, but whatever, it was like 10 against one there. I tried to point out a few things, but no matter what I pointed out, well, you know how it goes, but I felt I at least had to test the waters. Sometimes people are drawn to your light, but when they are not, it seems all you can do is move on and hope maybe something you said will linger with them. I sure felt like Elijah at that site. I do get your analogy though, and I am very much enjoying my Southern Baptist brothers. It does feel good when family comes together.
Actually, I guess Nate is not on here. It all took place at his site. I invited him here, but so far nothing. He has a site called, “About Finding Truth”. I think he needs to change his title.
Very interesting. I was debating several atheists in the last week or so, too (in comments on an atheist blog). A couple called themselves “de-converts” from Christianity. They had similar positions on the Bible and God’s (lack of) morals, etc. It is a tough field. But I did join one guy’s blog who was nicer than the rest. We shall see how it goes.
I found the blog of which you wrote. I just put my own thoughts out there. You are not alone, my friend.
What a “Great Adventure”!