The preaching list... Definition: “A sequenced list with names of the Hidden World 2014 team predicting when one would prepare and present a message to a church, school, assembly or gathering.” A.K.A – THE LIST! I knew my time of preaching will soon be here. And I looked forward to it! The previous time when it was almost my turn, the Lord threw a surprise at my front door. In Guyana, which already feels like it was ages ago, our team split into our small teams to visit two different churches on one sunny Sunday morning. Tiaan gave us the names of the pastor and church that we will be attending. He told us that they don´t expect us to preach, we will only visit them. The morning before we went to church, I had the opportunity to visit the beautiful and powerful Demarara river just down the road from the church, with tea and condensed milk for some quiet time with God. For some reason, I went through the theme and some ideas of my preach that I prepared while we had training in South Africa. Now I know it wasn´t by accident, but by the guidance of the Holy Spirit! We left with someone from the church that came to pick us up. When we arrived at the church, the name of the church nor the name of the pastor was anything like what Tiaan told me... We must have switched churches with the other team. By chance? I din´t think so...! The worship started and they worshiped like only the Guyanese can worship! After about an hour the pastor took the microphone. She welcomed us warmly: ¨Welcome to the visitors from South Africa! In a moment they will minister to us!¨ WHAT?? Yes, the Lord has prepared me for this moment in some way. And there I stood, ready to preach the Gospel. With Spirit given peace and excitement I could stand there and enjoy every moment of bringing the great news of the Gospel to the people of the Grapevine Full Gospel church!
But the next THE LIST experience was completely opposite... In some way...!
The preaching list again provided an amazing experiene with God in the great country of Brazil! In the third week of our visit here, I was next on the list. The whatsapp message comes through: ¨the next two people on THE LIST should prepare¨. I am super excited because I have been busy with a theme for some time now while spending time in the Word.The more time I spent with the message, more and more beautiful truths, wonderful mysteries and touching truths appeared on the surface. And then I understood how preachers could start with a series about a topic. There was just so many things which I felt the Lord arerevealing to me! One night I was sitting on the roof of my beautiful house I was staying in, spending time with this message. The beauty of the Perfect Plan of the salvation that God gives, overwhelmed me. I never want to forget that moment...! I was so excited about this message, I used a presentation programme called ¨Prezi¨to create a presentation that will show the flow of the message. By using Google translate (which hás become a living human being in our house) I translated it to show the message in both English and Portuguese. I worked on it for quite some time, but every moment was worth it! I thought that I will maybe bring the message on the following Sunday morning at the church we were linked up with. I knew they had a projector and that there will be someone to interpret and work with the presentation on the computer. But the Saturday at the church, while watching the soccer game between Brazil and Chile, Tiaan told us that there will be no message given íon the Sunday morning, but we will be sharing testimonies. I was disappointed because there will not be another chance to share the message with the Portuguese subtitles which was in the presentation! It was disappointing to know that I worked on something that was not going to work out how I planned it. But I asked the Lord to give this message to the people He would liketo hear to it. And so He did...
About two hours later Tiaan walked up to me and asked: Äre you ready to bring a message tomorrow?¨ And I am like: ¨Yeah!¨ And he explained: There is a group of New Yorkers that would have visited a certain church in São Paulo the following day. They had a problem with their visas and they could not be there on the Sunday anymore. The pastor from our church suggested us to go and serve there. Thus, Eileen, RP and I went to the church early Sunday morning. We were received with arms wide open! Welcomed with coffee, cake, juice and breakfast bread, we met some of the church people. They introduced me to my interpreter, and after asking him: ¨When does the service start?¨, and him asking me to repeat it like three times, I realised that the chances of him understanding all the well prepared English treasures I wanted to share is very small. And yes!I prayed...! After a while, an English girl whom we met a little while earlier came to me and told me that they asked her to interpret! She was freaking out inside! I could see it! This would be her first time interpreting! We prayed together and she was ready to walk on stage for the first time as an interpreter. She did extremely well!!
We had the amazing opportunity of being involved at two services in that church that Day. We did a drama, shared another unplanned message and I could even sing two worship songs with them. Even though the backing music they played for the one song was not the song I sang at all, I can now rank it as one of the funniest and best worship experiences I had in a church. Afterwards I spoke with the pastor and the interpreter and he told me that he the message really meant a lot to him. The way they receive the message is usually very emotion driven and the message I brought was filled with a lot of questions, a lot of Scripture references and a lot of things to think about. It made him think...!
Yes, I very strongly believe that the message was planned for this specific church. For these passionate people. For His children gathered in this small piece of land in the middle of the huge city of São Paulo. What is the chances of New Yorkers struggling with Brazilian visas? Or the chances that the pastor of that church phoned the pastor of the church we are visiting? And that the English girl was at church that morning? His perfect will, obedience of His children, and the beauty of the mystery of God... I asked Him to give the message to the people He chose. And He did!
I had the most amazing time bringing the Word of God! I coud speak to His people! I could share my heart with them. I could give something to them! Something that you can not see, or feel or touch. But something that the Lord placed on my heart!
THE LIST may be just a normal list, but the Lord uses it to reach His children. To speak to us. To stretch us. To build our faith.To work with us. And to give testimonies on how perfectly an unplanned sermon at a planned meeting, and a very well prepared sermon at an unplanned meeting will always work to the glory of His name if we are open and willing for Him to work through us!
And as Tiaan shared at the beginning of the year:
2 Timothy 4:1,2 – “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge te living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct; rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction.”