E-Connect - Raymond Woodward

welcome tonight to eConnect I'm so glad that you have joined us and we are really excited about the subject this week we have been talking about leadership in crisis and of course after this interview tonight we invite you to connect with your small groups and to discuss the principles that have been talked about tonight we want to be more than just here's of the word but we want to be doers of the word also what a great chance to be able to connect with your friends and those that are in your small group home friendship format so that you can connect lectronimo do conference in or through watch parties Facebook message in however it works for you we just encourage you to connect with your friends and with your family and to discuss these principles and share I know you'll be blessed well we are so excited tonight to have our special guests Pastor Raymond Woodward pastor Raymond Woodward pastors the Great Capital Community Church and Frederick to New Brunswick he's a very much sought after speaker preacher and teacher all over the world and especially in North America and he is also a person who has a tremendous presence on the Internet in fact I was looking at YouTube brother Woodward and you've had more than a million views of your messages your teaching and your training on YouTube and we are so glad that you have joined us tonight so welcome pastor Woodward thank you my friend it's an honor brother Myers to be with you for this session it's a great privilege and you forgot one thing as you were so kind of introducing me I have had the privilege of ministering at Eastwind so that should have gone at the top of the resume right there so to God Church you're so kind thank you so much and thank you for all that you do for the kingdom of God your understanding of the Word of God is so revelatory and amazing and recently brother Woodward taught a series on discipleship here at East when it was such a blessing and one of our favorites and we we love and appreciate you so much pastor Woodward but I just wanted to sort of jump into this and maybe we can just unpack this a little bit about you know what it what it means to lead in the midst of a crisis like this there's there's so many different aspects of leadership that we look at and we study and of course the Bible is the road map but when we look at biblical precedent for leadership in crisis what jumps out to you well a couple of things first of all it I was ready to begin a series Putin on the book of first Peter and I hadn't noticed this but when this crisis hit we ended up doing a midweek series we're still in the midst of it I think I'm doing part five tomorrow night actually tonight because we're recording this before and and and the the scripture that jumps out and this is kind of how my brain works I guess the scripture that jumped out was when Peter says to the disciples scattered you know in in first Peter he's writing to a group of churches you talk about social distancing they've been scattered all over the five provinces of of Asia Minor so I got into that series but that's kind of one of the things that jumped out at me at the very beginning of this is you know we're all feeling scattered we're all feeling isolated we've been doing everything from stay-at-home orders to self isolation to self quarantine to whatever our different governments are calling it but we really do have it quite easy compared to these first century believers they didn't have modern travel they didn't have social media they didn't have so many things that we do and so they felt this isolation on a pretty consistent basis and so so that's one of the scriptural things that just hit me very strongly at the beginning is you know we're not the only ones that are feeling isolated the scripture speaks to that and it's amazing how scripture I was teaching this past week you and I know and all of the the the wonderful East Wing folks listening know that there's been you know different pastors churches that have kind of pushed back very hard against you know government restrictions you and I are our feeling is let's cooperate you know let's let's you know let's be part of the solution not part of the problem that's kind of our our catch phrase here and so we've really made a diligent effort to do that but that being said it's amazing how the word of god I was teaching last week and they're just been something in the media about yet another church and yet another pastor that defied something and and and so I my starting scripture picking up in the middle of chapter two last week was you know submit yourselves to kings and governors and honor the king and you know it's amazing how a 2000 year old book can just wade into to our current situation and and there's another thing but we'll get to it but it's one of the things that jumped out at me at the very beginning yeah you're right you mentioned that is the relevancy of the scripture in modern times it doesn't seem in it doesn't matter what it is that we face it seems like there's always that parallel and a main level gives us this this clear roadmap you know and we were talking a little bit before we started recording about how much different Canada is where you're at in terms of America in terms of the restrictions and you guys are much more restricted and what all you can do in terms of meeting and all so is it more difficult to find a biblical precedent in terms of obeying those that have ruled over you in a Canadian culture or is it easier you know it's a it's a challenge and and you know one of the dynamics that I've dealt with here because the government has been you know and and we're all trusting at this point I'm not a conspiracy theorist I'm gonna believe as long as humanly possible that they're doing all of this stuff are good I'm not pushing back in that way but but I have noticed among some of our volunteers because we're very restricted here are our restrictions right now as you and I discussed before the call is you know 10 people in the building at any time so you can have a maximum of 10 broadcasting a service that's a pastor a worship team all your tech people it's 10 or less in the building at any time we haven't had the privilege of you as you had of doing drive-in services so we just finally got that permission on Friday but the permission itself was so restrictive only fifty cars on your property anywhere during a drive-in service so that wouldn't even do a fraction of our church and so you know we really are feeling that so again I'm trying to honor those that have rule over me because I expect that and I teach that there always can come a point it came with the Apostles in Acts chapter four well you know don't speak anymore in the name of Jesus so if you read what happened there they address the elders that counsel with great respect and honor but when it comes to preaching the gospel at some point now I'm not having debates about whether we preach the gospel online in the building in a drive-in service if we're preaching the gospel and they haven't prevented that I'm still good right but at some point there does come a point it came in the book of Acts it came in with Daniel's friends it came with Daniel himself there comes a point when you just say if you're preventing me from serving God or if you're preventing me from preaching the gospel now I'm going to overrule that principle with a greater principle but so far we're good but I we're we're good but I'm frustrated that's just a pastor in a time like this I'm not a big fan of speaking to you know camera distant cameras in an empty room and hoping it gets there that's not a big deal now I know you normally travel every week and you're speaking somewhere every week and it has all that been shut down all of that has been shut down so things like this you know I've kept busy I think this week in addition to doing a couple of our we've got three services a week a midweek and a couple on Sunday so I'm doing two of those and I've got a couple more events the next two days so like I'm doing four online things in the first three days of this week so somebody said the other day you know are you getting lots of rest whether I said I need to get back traveling so I think so I think you get a break I've preached more at our church than I have I don't know how long it's been amazing I can relate well I you know it's it's interesting to me and you were talking about this a little bit earlier with this series that you started but you know it's interesting we were looking at the Gospels on Sunday and we were talking about how that Jesus showed up through the disciples they were huddled in a house and they were in fear the Bible said they were in fear of the Jews and Jesus showed up in the midst of it and he showed him his handprint of course this was after the crucifixion but before the Ascension and after the resurrection he showed of his nail print hands he showed him his side and then the Bible says he breathed on them so he would have been fine Labour's for today he breathed on them and said receive the Holy Ghost you know so you know when we look at Jesus we think what you know he did he did say to obey those have rule over you but yet he was somewhat of a revolutionist also of us you know so when you look at the the leadership paradigm of Jesus how do you relate that to where we are today you know Jesus is a of course that's why we see what we see in the Apostles Jesus is firm in his mission firm in his conviction firm in his ministry but he's gentle with individuals and I think that's the thing you know we have to distinguish between the individuals that you know we were talking about government are wonderful medical professionals we're so grateful to all of them you know they're trying to protect the populace I think politics can't help but get in the mix somewhere when there's politicians involved but I really attribute good motives to all of these people but you know there comes a point when you have to distinguish between ministering to that person I think we always need to give an answer for the hope that lies within us with what is it meekness and fear or something like that in other words with respect for them and and also with a humble attitude a humble spirit and and so in fact that's something Peter said and so we have to distinguish between those individuals that want to be able to maintain a connection with Minister to and the government systems or whatever that can get politicized and can get co-opted to actually you know kind of put down persecute limit restrict the church I can't say that that's going on that there's some sinister plot again I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I do think that that what we see right now I think one of the concerns of probably all pastors is you know wow this came out of nowhere and really shut so much of our ministries our churches our services down what if it was another kind of situation I think that's the concern for pastors and and you know one of the the big questions I've been asked repeatedly over the last several weeks is you know is is this part of the end times is this the end is this a sign of the end and whatever and I tried to answer consistently there because I think so many of these things are signs of the end because though the Bible tells us that the signs of the end are like labor pains as we get closer to the end we see more and more they happen more and more frequently with more and more intensity so is a pandemic a sign of the end yes because you have pestilences and plagues and whatever is a conflict war a sign of the end yes and we've never had more ongoing conflict simultaneously in the world you know than we do in our generation all of those things our nation shall rise against nation that's ethnos shall rise against ethnos we've never seen more ethnic tension than we have today and it's so it's not that it's never happened before there was ethnic tension in the Old Testament but it gets more intense more frequent and closer together like labor pains and so I do think this plays into it somewhere I don't have that all figured out but here's my concern for the Myers is that I was here at ccc it wasn't called ccc back then but i was here at this church as an assistant pastor in the 80s I was here during the time of the first Gulf War and I remember this vividly all of a sudden when that conflict unfolded you know overnight you know they do the first air raids and all of a sudden the world is just in in a panic anxiety everywhere our church filled up it was when I say packed I mean packed people we haven't seen for years people we'd never seen they're there every service just hanging on everything that said and praying and crying and weeping in the altar here's my concern as soon as that conflict came too near resolution it wasn't even over yet now these are people that the CBC Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has got a microphone in their face out on the church step saying you know what are you thinking their whole jesus is coming it's it's the end it's you know these are people that like they just freaked out three weeks later we never saw them again and and so my concern here the Bible says at an hour when you think not that's when the son of man cometh so so one of my concerns here is if we do get through this we will get through but when we get through it I should have said so if that's June if that's July if it's August whenever we get through this that that slack off right now is a key time in the hearts and the minds and the spirits of people both in the world and in the church because I think if we get past this everything kind of just it just we ease off again and to me that's a more dangerous prophetic time than when the whole world is buzzing about something and they're aware I think that the the thing we've got to watch for is that we don't adopt the the attitude of the world right now we're very restricted as to even you know we can't go to hospitals we can't go to nursing homes we can't go to food banks we can't go to anything right now so we're very limited here in Canada and you've got a few less restrictions that we do my concern is not so much this time my concern is what do we do when the restrictions lift you know oh good we can finally go back to our church and do our services and to hear our pastor know God's trying to set us up you know like it's like he's pulling a bow back and and and he's pushed the whole church because although God does cause disease and pandemics and curse and sin and well that's all part of of the sin of Adam and Eve in Genesis but God can use all those things I feel like right now God's pulling back the bow of the arrow of the church and and and we feel like in so many ways we're stalled or we're stymied but boy when that arrow gets let go I think we should be prepared to just surge forward in all of these ministries that right now we're saying we can't we can't we can't well boy we better be prepared and be preparing during this time and I think that's really important you know as we talk about leadership and certainly I view the church as being a leader in culture as well as politics and economic cycles other things that you talked about but if we look at it in terms of the church and we look at what our posture should be as as a leading part of our communities what do you see the church doing during this pandemic that will have a positive long lasting effect even after the scare is over as you mentioned mm-hmm you know I wish I had I'll say it this way I wish I had as good an answer as you have in Palm Bay because you have more freedom to do you know everything from you know driving services distributing food whatever we really in this is a very frustrating time because we're extremely restricted however what we're trying to do and it is is develop some things you know we can't have more than ten people in the building and typically it ends up being very similar people because we're trying to to keep the the risk down of you know having different people mixing up teams we're trying to to really be diligent on all of this but what we're trying to do right now is prepare some you know some online things we've done more online than than we normally do our online presence you mentioned a couple minutes ago but you know we've we've quadrupled our normal monthly output of people interacting with our own stuff whether that's views we don't really and no no this is not a put-down but we really don't pay a lot of attention to Facebook other than the interaction on Facebook because Facebook views can just be somebody scrolling by but YouTube they actually have better diagnostic tools I don't even know how to do this but our team tells me that you know if somebody logs onto YouTube they're basically staying for the majority of the service typically not always but but typically Facebook they could just be scrolling by so you have to do some real work to figure out who actually watched like a whole service on Facebook but YouTube has gone off the charts and you know it's just amazing to me you know we're up III don't even I had these numbers the other day but I don't want to misquote but I do know it's about four times the number of viewers we've gone up I do remember this number we've gone up like eleven thousand subscribers in the last four weeks or a couple of weeks I can't remember but in in the last short period of time and I think one of the great things about right now is Hollywood shut down they're not producing anything new they can't the church like what you're doing this week for your church and far beyond the church is producing more and more resources little tiny churches that had no online presence have been forced to develop it so I think that bodes really well now some of its not going to be long term as soon as they get back to the building they're gonna drop it but I think a lot of those churches especially those that have seen baptisms or people filled with the Holy Ghost or connected because of this I think that is going to really bode well going forward because I don't think they're going to drop that when we come back so that's where I feel like we're trying to do things we're also just you know you've been in a construction project we've tried to get all that we were in the middle of a construction project in our youth wing so we're trying to get all that out of the way so that when we get back we've got some new resources we've got some new skills on the team and and whatever because we really are I think I think we're not quite comparing apples and oranges with the restrictions we really are like shut down I mentioned this to you before we began today but you know they this just happened we're six weeks into the pandemic and just on Friday they finally said okay you can have two homes now that can visit each other well before you couldn't you couldn't go to anybody else's home for any reason so on Friday it's like you can now go to one other home it's not interchangeable you pick your home so if you've got four grandkids or six grandkids or eight grandkids it's like I saw on one of our members forums this morning from the church wasn't the young lady she said somebody was asking you know who's your bubble because that's what they're calling it because you're keeping two houses in a bubble to protect them so the question on the forum this morning for our church members was who's your bubble you know and she said well I'm not the favorite child in my family so I'm not in anybody's bubble yet it's like that's pathetic but when we're limited and here's the thing I think where I'm trying to remember is when we're limited although I don't believe for a second God caused coronavirus I believe that's part of a sin curse planet but God can use it and I feel like God has put his church in the secret place right now I feel like God is teaching us things about what can happen in our homes right now and I really feel like God is saying you know why you've got this time I told the church the other night you know we've been saying for four months some of you people I don't have time just spend a lot of time in prayer spend a lot of time in the word well tell that to the Lord now he just arranged for you to have a lot of great time wow that's so good you know one of the things we've seen as I'm sure you've seen with your church is that you know everybody kind of haven't hit the pause button during these weeks has been a great time for people to connect with their family to slow down I mean we played more board games we've had you know more family conversations I've got as you know you know teenage sons and we've had this great time as a family to just slow down and really to develop a stronger relationship with each other and with the Lord do you think as part of this the Lord is using for for Christians to really strengthen their personal relationship with God there's absolutely no question about that you know part of my statement the other day to the church was you know while you're home I'm glad if you can get some housekeeping done spring cleaning clean something build something do whatever you want to do but but don't just sit home and binge on Netflix while you're home and binge on the word binge on family time binge on prayer like you know that's that's very very important so yeah I do feel like God is using this too you know you used a great phrase there to press the pause button and say you know here's what it is you're my people here what are you going to do now that you have your time yeah because that's the big excuse today I don't have time that's the big excuse well God just kicked that one totally right out from under all of us all right you're so true that's a you know I was thinking I know you're a great student of the word and I was wondering you know when you look to the Word of God and you look to what the Lord is saying to us all of us in our spiritual development what do you think that the Bible is speaking to us very directly about during this season to answer that I want to I referenced it earlier I want to go because there was another scripture that hit me so powerfully and this was I flew home I had a couple of meetings and flew home the weekend that I got home early I flew from Toronto to Fredericton early on a Sunday morning got here too late for that service but somebody else is preaching and I preached that night and that weekend while I while everything's like shutting down around me by the time I get home they're starting to institute quarantines for anybody that had been flying I just got in under the wire on that and and and God really just and and like the verse I mentioned first Peter 1 and 1 to the Saints scattered you know that's a throwaway verse but it just came so powerful to me but the other verse what was greet the church this is Romans 16 and 5 likewise greet the church that is in their house it's a throwaway verse but that verse brother David that just it hit me so hard because the early church they did not have church buildings we all know that but we forget it and so you know they met in the streets but the streets could turn into hostile territory very quickly they met in the temple but again that's not a Christian temple a Christian Church building that's a Jewish temple that could turn into hostile territory very quickly so my challenge is that scripturally speaking is we get fascinated with the big numbers at the beginning of the book of Acts we like big numbers so three thousand five thousand and we forget because some people hardly ever read past the first couple chapters of Acts you know we forget that most of the book of Acts is one-on-one conversations where maybe one of the Apostles one of the the Christians one of the seven deacons somebody is talking to somebody else and it's an influential person people like Christmas people like a Paulist of you know and and that person gets one to God on the Apostle Paul great example that one person gets one to God and the church just takes these leaps forward the point that God drove so so forcefully home to me is the church the word church is only mentioned eighteen times in the book of Acts not one time is it ever referring to a building because they didn't have those buildings it's referring to the body of people so our buildings are relatively shut down right now the church is not shut down prayer is not shut down worship is not shut down preaching is not shut down so the church is not shut down but here's the flipside of that that I had never noticed and it just hit me so forcefully the word house is mentioned 39 times in the book of Acts and almost every time a couple of exceptions but almost every time it's referring to the place where the early church prayed and preached and you know they they would witness the neighbors they would baptize people Paul was baptized and received the Holy Ghost in the house of Judas when Ananias came it's it's just amazing so I went through the book of Acts and i apprec-- and I went through the book of Acts and it's just every instance where something happened in a house you and I are sitting here today because in the household of Cornelius in acts 10 the Holy Ghost first fell on Gentile believers there would be no Gentile Christians in fact Sten hadn't happened but acts 10 didn't happen in a temple or in the streets or in a church building it happened in a house you go through the book of Acts it's amazing and that's what I feel God's saying right now is okay you're shut out of your buildings right now you're in your house it's awkward it's uneasy you're not used to being home as much as we love our families we're not used to being home cooped up in a house and and from what I'm discerning from our conversation today even before we came on the call is that you know we've had a little more serious restriction we had a couple of weeks here where it was just like I mean you you go get your groceries and that is absolutely it you're done after that it was really really very restrictive and so you know we've like you we've enjoyed you know just the the pause button and all of that but I really feel like God is saying how apostolic would the church be if you were confined to your house if that's where church happened for you because that's what's going on right now are you just gonna watch it as a spectator watching your pastor preach to a camera in an empty building is are you just going to kind of watch that while you're eating breakfast and and and flip them through Facebook and play a video game or and half paying attention or or can you have Church in your house can somebody receive the Holy Ghost in your house can somebody have a home bible study with you in your house can somebody be prayed through can somebody receive a miracle in your house because if you look at the record of the book of Acts that was their battleground was the house when Peter gets set free from prison he doesn't hit for a church building there are none he heads for a house where they're praying for him to be released from prison and that was the the big message that in the book of Acts greet the church that is in their house what does the church and I'd say this to all my Eastwood friends that are listening to this what does the church in your house look like I know what your church building looks like I know the capability and the anointing and the vision and the burden of your pastor but what does the church in your house look like because if we have strong relationships of God at home the church just goes crazy with revival but if our homes are weak then pastor is is is limited because every week he's got a prop us up pray us through get us encourage and and so the church that is in your house that's huge to me right now for the Myers well that's so good it's so important to you know one of the things that we do here at Eastwind is we have a group of men that I mentor each year that we call Joshua's men and you know we talk a lot about you know since we're talking about leadership in this series that we're doing this week you know we've helped a lot with these men about being the priests of their homes there's again leaders in their homes and how how important that is what do you see you know we've heard a lot of new terms through this whole pandemic we've heard about you know flattening the curve and yes we've heard about gating and social distancing and all that and and now this phrase we're hearing a lot about is the new normal you know and what is the new normal gonna be you know we're not gonna shake hands you know anymore as a culture as a society you know are we all gonna walk around carrying hand sanitizer for the next several years what is the new normal gonna be you know and of course there's a lot of speculation but in terms of the church what do you think the new normal is for the modern spirit-filled Church in or America III think it's like everything else in scripture scriptures a balance book so you know the same the same Bible that says occupy art that says that Jesus could come at any moment they expect the coming of the Lord you know be ready at any moment it also says occupy until he comes so the Bible is always a book of balance you know and I think the the balance here is also very very important the new normal I think on the positive side is going to be increased revival an increased desire of many people to get to the house of God I think some backsliders will be really impacted by this time because their their whole attitude was well I can go back to church anytime I want I can get back to God anytime I want you know next week next month yeah and I think this has made a lot of people think so I think the church is going to be poised to have a much greater impact on some of those things and I'm grateful for that that's that's part of it but I also think and this is just being honest as a pastor I also think I was talking with Pastor Jack who works closely with me here at ccc we were talking this morning and right now I just read today Ashley Madison which to our shame is a canadian-based website their slogan is life is short have an affair so Ashley Madison promotes online affairs it's it's horrendous that a site like that could exist but it is exploding with new signups during this time of social distancing a twin article - that one this morning on the same website was that pornography sites are seeing this incredible boom of subscribers and use and it's up by you know whatever thousands of hours a day and so so being honest I think the church is going to have to do some repair work when we come out of this and I wish I could say that all that work is going to be in all these new people that flood our churches but the reality is as a pastor I've got to say you know beam away when the the Bible says for good reason forsake not the assembling of yourselves together so much the more as you see the Day approaching the Bible says that for good reason church attendance is so important there are nearly 61 another commands in the New Testament you can't even obey if you're not part of a local body of believers exhort one another encourage one another you know all of those commands they're based around a local church setting so that's extremely important so I think when we come back together I do think there's going to be this surge forward especially among the core the committed it's gonna be Pentecostal pandemonium the first service we have back together in our buildings with everything functioning I don't care if only one quarter of the church shows up because everybody else is scared to come we are gonna have one incredible time move of God worship fellowship it's gonna be wonderful and I think the church the core and the committed will quickly negotiate some of these tensions you know shaking hands laying on of hands whatever I think once we get back together and and the media finally stops harping on this narrative of fear and anxiety and panic I think we'll mediate some of that quite quickly it's the Fringe and churches don't grow from the inside out they grow from the outside in and so we're always working with this friends that are not yet committed not yet discipled whatever my heart really breaks for some of those people during this time because although you can try to connect with them on facebook on social media that face to face there's a reason God told us to meet together that face-to-face contact is missing during this time and I really feel for those people and I'm concerned I don't want old addictions to resurface I don't want people to regress spiritually and so you know so that that sounds like a downer but it's not I think you've got two things simultaneously happening that the core of the church it's going to be this time of incredible Holy Ghost energy we're so grateful to be back together and be able to do things we haven't been able to do for months but I also think we need to be on the alert that some people have really struggled in this time and again I would say to my Eastwood friends if that's you you need to talk to somebody even though it's hard to connect during this time compared to normal you need to reach out to pasture you need to reach out to a friend that's in the church you know don't don't go down alone so I'll say one last thing pastor and that's that you know that sounds a little negative except when you read the Word of God there are two parallel endtime rivers they're always there one is a river of end time harvest end time revival end time in gathering and the other is a parallel river of apostasy a great falling away men are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God so these two parallel rivers always coexist and always flow parallel in the end times and you just got to pick what River you're gonna be in throw yourself in with your whole heart and so I don't think there's gonna be any challenge for the core of the church but I think the core of the church and all of us has pastors we need to be on the alert for people that this is really gonna break them some of them have lost jobs some of them have have resurfaced old family issues during this time you know you and i we're loved and extra time at home with our families some people it's like it's resurfaced all kinds of heartache and pain so again I'm not trying to be a negative voice but I'm trying to be a sensitive voice I think that's where I yeah wow that's so rich brother would work so appreciate give them those great words of wisdom and I know where we're running out of time but I would ask you just one last question sure you talked about these two different rivers two different paths really that people can take yes and in closing what would you say are three things that Christians could do right now that would help them to have a successful outcome as we are trying to emerge out of this pandemic and and we're relating back to what we've gone through and looking forward to how we can be better Christians and better husbands and better family members better friends and all that moving forward what are three things that we could do to ensure that we do not lose this opportunity to spiritually mature into advance in our relationships with each other as well what a great question number one lock into God right now we have extra time right now this is God putting the church in the secret place in so many ways so many of us can't go to our jobs so many of us can't go beyond essential trips into our neighborhoods into businesses whatever so many of us are working from home or whatever so your situation has changed whoever you are so I think God's signal is very strong lock into God lock into prayer lock into the word lock into your Christian disciplines that you know but sometimes in the busyness of life they just slide a little bit so number one lock into God now number two is counterintuitive lock into your local church and your pastor's heartbeat like never before you say well I don't get to church right now I can't see my pastor right now so we've only got online but we can do this online stuff we all surf YouTube every day so give me a break we can do online so you know what used to be a convenience an online service is now your lifeline to your local church what used to be a convenience listening to your pastors message you know online because you're away with work or or or you got busy or somebody was sick and you couldn't get to Sunday service what used to be an online convenience is now your online life blood and so lock into pastor's voice pastor's vision walk into your church like never before and I would say that includes number one faithful attendance to everything online that your church is doing don't just kind of put it on like background noise or elevator music sit down gather your family gather your spouse sit down participate in every way that you can don't just kind of have it on in the background and be doing everything else lock in and lock into what east wind has always been about you know yesterday not yesterday yesterday was Sunday all the days are the same they all end in Y and they all blur now through social distance Saturday our mutual friend missionary Brad Thompson posted a great need in Guatemala on his Facebook page on Friday night you know people are literally starving there and so it's so pitiful if they don't have food they're putting a white flag outside their home and we have many pastors in Guatemala that have no food and and brother Brad said there's no way one of our pastors is going to go without food in the eyes of his neighbors there's no way that's happening so he's taken you know thousands of dollars out of his own accounts his own funds to help some of them but so he just put a simple plea on Facebook on on Friday night we formed during this time it's been a good thing for us a private CCC members Facebook group so it's private it's not out there for the world so on Saturday morning one of our teams flagged that request that we just put on Saturday morning this is missionary Brad Thompson you know he's got a need if you can give just reply with a yes and you know by evening we've got eight thousand dollars to send a brother Brad Thompson we haven't announced it to the church yet that was just the people that happen to belong to this private Facebook group we did a virtual foyer on Sunday which was wonderful people seeing each other it was the first time we've done it and little kids and they were so excited we did a virtual prayer meeting on Friday night your church is providing similar things if you're from east wind you've got this wonderful opportunity right now and you've got the time to interact and I know it's only online but lock into the the vision of my friend brother Myers and walk into your church like never before so lock into God lock into your church and then finally and this varies it's different for than it is for you in Florida lock into your family and if you're allowed lock into your neighbors right now lock into the people that surround you whatever that circle looks like now I know it's limited but you know we had this is tearful pastor on Sunday you know we were broadcasting and then we had this virtual full year after church and our people get on and one of our couples they watched church they have three backslidden children they watch church that morning and they put a picture of their kids buy their Bibles buy their iPad or whatever they were watching on on their table and they sat right there with their Bibles open and it's picture of their kids and pastor Jack just happened to preach a message on Sunday morning and he referenced you know God bringing kids home and bringing backsliders home and so they posted online our kids don't serve God but they went to church with us this morning they don't even know we had church and we prayed over our kids and you know lock-in to your family right now lock into God lock into your church walk into your family and lock into your neighbor's if you're allowed to do that with all this crazy social distancing but those are three things that I think really would be important during this time so good so good pastor I can't thank you enough thank you for your friendship your kindness your ministry thank you to your great church that allows you to go and be such a blessing to the kingdom of God in so many ways I just ask would you mind praying over us as we are dismissing here tonight I would be absolutely honored Lord Jesus I thank you God thank you from my friend and I thank you for the great church that you have called him and his family to lead I thank you for all the other leaders that have locked in step with Pastor Myers I thank you God for people that share his heart for that community and for their state and for their nation and for the world and god I thank you for every faithful church member that's part of that great church I thank you for all the east wind volunteers and I thank you for all the east wind Saints Jesus you're doing something so speck ocular in that church and right now our our feeling is different our circumstances are different but your plan is not different your power is not different you're calling on us is not different and so Jesus help us all to have the wisdom to figure out what this looks like in our own homes in our own lives and I do pray that every church at Eastwind every house would become a church every home would become a little Church and God when we are allowed to come back together in full form whenever that is and whatever it looks like God I'm praying that you would help us to use this time wisely so we'll have stronger homes and we'll be a stronger Church when we get back together it is all for your glory we thank you for your blessings and your calling and we ask you to let your blessing rest on everybody that watches this particular interview I thank you for all the small groups that will interact with this Jesus uses for your kingdom we pray it in your name amen amen thank you so much for the wood word what a great blessing and we just ask you now to connect with your your friends and your family and to interact and allow this to be a season of growth spiritual maturity and allow it to be a time for us to grow as the Bible says in the Grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ how many god bless you in Jesus name everyone what an amazing eConnect that we just had and now we are asking that everybody takes time for themselves and applies this word through discussion just as we have made it very important and stress the importance of us applying the word through prayer and of course we still want you to do that we are now asking that everyone takes time with your family if you don't have your family with you maybe call a friend call somebody in the church text somebody and let's all apply this word now through discussion in just a few moments there's gonna be some questions pop up on the screen and those questions are exactly what we want you to to discuss about tonight's session and we're looking forward to hearing all of the great reports about our eConnect lord bless [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Eastwind Pentecostal Church of Palm Bay, Florida

Views: 1,879

Keywords: first, pentecostal, apostolic, sermon, pastor, david, myers, palm bay, melbourne, brevard, county, florida, upci, upc, bishop, j., e., jackson, ellis, Eastwind, Eastwind church

Id: H82QehUQTRo

Length: 52min 17sec (3137 seconds)

Published: Wed May 06 2020