I was just in New York a couple weeks ago for the East Coast pastors prayer and fellowship gathering. I was able to meet with a lot of the New England pastors and I’ve had a dream to see 100 churches planted there in 10 years. The goal is not mega-churches necessarily, they may be only 50-100 people but we want to see a church planting movement in New England. I want to see churches that are influencing and ministering to their communities. I was encouraging the guys to work together, share resources and encourage each other. I really felt like God put us there, we gave the nudge and the guys out there were all over it. New England really is a totally different culture, so it’s best for them to go through a church planting pipeline program in their own city.
Something that really ministered to me from the gathering was a man who was teaching and said "before you can have a vision, you must have a burden for lost souls." I was thinking about the whole concept of a burden and I want more of a burden that is agonizing. If we don’t have a burden for people, we may think that we should try different processes, but if those things aren’t tied back to a heart that is agonizing for the lost, everything we do will just be a man-idea. We don’t want man-ideas, we want to hear from God. We want to be burdened for lost souls and spiritual growth in Christians in every area of our lives. We need to be about people. It’s about god placing His heart into our hearts. When we agonize over the souls of people, it will cease to be about us and God will take care of the rest. We are a vision oriented Christian culture, but none of that matters, all that matters is what God wants to do in the hearts of people. I’m inviting you guys to join me in praying for god to do a work in us and create a burden for other people so that we agonize in prayer for people. This Easter week isn’t about events, the goal is for people to be exposed to the Gospel, be convicted by the Spirit of God and give their lives to Him. God has to do the work.
As the gathering was wrapping up, NYC got walloped with a Nor’easter. Not wanting to get stuck in all the snow, we made our way from New York City to Buffalo, NY to catch a flight back to Vegas. As a child of God, I don’t believe in coincidences; only God-incidences. Our Uber driver to the airport, Wilson, is a local pastor originally from Pakistan. He shared his story of his miraculous conversion and his suffering for the gospel as a preacher there. He was charged with blasphemy against Mohammed, abducted from his home, beaten, and left for dead in the local garbage dump. He was sharing the Gospel the entire time until he was unconscious. They thought he was dead but God revived him and he got back to his home and to the U.S.
God saved him for a purpose! He’s been living in the U.S. for the last 7 years, where he preaches to the Indian/Pakistani community. He goes back to Pakistan holding public events to proclaim the message of the gospel and he is now protected by his U.S. citizenship. Pray for him! Needless to say, we may be visiting Pakistan soon.
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