Camp Meeting Week

Inside a New Air-Conditioned Building

It's that time again!  Annual "Camp Meeting" worship services and Bible Studies began last night at the North Cleveland Church here in the state of Tennessee.  It's always a time of spiritual refreshing, seeing old friends, making new friends, learning more about the Word of God and experiencing our relationship with God and with one another.  It's always a busy time for a minister.  That's why this entry will be comparatively short.  Tommy Bates started us off last night.  This morning - THE BEST PART - (always the best part for me) was the Bible Study.  This year Mitchelle Tolle is once again the Bible Study teacher.  Wish all of you, my friends and blog readers, could be here with us.  You can see the services at night, streaming live, on the Internet.  Go to www.cogtn.org and click the link on the hompage, the 2011 Camp Meeting page or North Cleveland Church of God hompage at www.nccog.org.Services begin each night at 7:00p. through Friday night, June 24, 2011.

You might see me there!

Ministers Listening To The Bible Study

On Preparing To Be A Missionary

I have been asked by several people (especially those with a desire to become missionaries) if I could tell them what they need to study in order to better prepare themselves for being a missionary.  My normal response is to say – Study every subject that you have opportunity to study.  Everything you can learn now will make you a better missionary then. 

                Of course if you are a young teen-ager, you should at least finish High School.  A College degree is required by most mission sending agencies if you plan to become a career missionary.  Having a Master’s Degree in Religious studies is better and a Doctor's Degree is even more valuable.  The more formal education you have, the easier it is to obtain a work-permit type of visa.  Foreign government leaders do look for those who can perform tasks that their own people are not qualified for.  I was asked once by an African government official, “Why should I give you this work-permit if there is someone in your church from our own country who can do the job you are doing?”  No, our calling is not to be compared with a secular job – but his question did make sense to me. 

I don't think I was at any time consciously preparing to go to Africa. Looking back from this vantage point, I can see how God was preparing me in many ways; some little some larger.  As best I can understand it - the preparation started when I was 8 years of age and had that dramatic conversion experience which I have blogged about previously.  As I explained in that blog, my Dad felt “called” to preach at the age of 20 and started pasturing small churches near where he lived.  As a result, he soon realized that he needed more education so moved to Seveirville, Tennessee so he could attend our Church’s Bible Training School (now Lee University).  After much experience I believe that when anyone has the opportunity to preach from the pulpit he/she soon recognizes the need to be a better communicator.  There is a verse in Ecclesiastes 10:10 that says, “If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength: but wisdom is profitable to direct.”  One translations says, “Be wise therefore and sharpen the blade.”  If you have ever cut wood for burning in a wood stove, you have a better understanding of that principle than others.

At the age of 11 years, I felt in my own heart that someday I would be a preacher.  Dad was now pasturing a church in Jellico, Tennessee.  Jellico, on the border with Kentucky, was a small mountain town with it’s own unique culture.  I did not make a public announcement about that call but did share it with Mom and Dad.  They were very wise and did not push me out front but chose to allow me to be the first to say anything publicly about that call.  I attended the 6^th grade here, and entered the local spelling bee, won the county reading contest, and sung in a school choir.  All of these things were shaping my future. 

This is my High School Graduation picture

At 16 years old, while Dad was pastoring the church Spain Street Church of God in New Orleans, Louisiana, we had a visitor from South Africa who shared his slides with us about some of his work among the Bantu tribes in Southern Africa - and that started an awareness that I should try and help those who were less fortunate than me and who had never heard the gospel of Jesus.  In New Orleans, I learned how to adapt to a foreign culture.  I learned from the “Swamp People” and from the Cajuns of the big city.  While I had been very popular in the small school in Jellico and Campaign, Tennessee where my Dad was well known by most folks in those little towns, we were now in a town of a half million people.  My school (Francis T. Nichols High School) alone had more than 300 students.  That was as many as the whole town of Campaign, TN where I had been in the 7^th and 8^th grades.  God was preparing me for diversity.  In New Orleans, I was able to study French as a regular school subject.  This would not have been possible in the country churches we had just come from.  Little did I know at the time that I would be able to use that French in Africa while serving our Church as Field Director for 32 countries.  Twenty two of my countries officially spoke French.  No – I was not fluent in French but was able to understand much more than I could speak. 

Thank you for taking your time to come by and visit with me today.  I realize this blog may have been a little lengthy but thanks for enduring to the end!  Well - really there is more to the story which I hope to share with you on another day.

Pentecostals Speak With “Other Tongues”

           1 Corinthians 14:21 says, “²¹In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord.”
          At the age of eight years, while Dad was pastor of the Church of God at Morristown, Tennessee, I received the baptism in the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit in the "old time way".  The old time way was that after a person was saved from sin, he/she was encouraged bo pray to be sanctified and to “pray through” to the experience of speaking in other tongues as the Spirit gave the utterance.  I’ll never forget the time and the great feelings of exuberant joy which came over me that night in the altar.  I remember praying and hearing others praying for me as I knelt at the bench in front of the pulpit which was called the altar.  Those praying for me were saying things like, “Hold on, Son.  Hold on.  Don’t turn loose.  Don’t give up!  Keep on praying.”  On the other hand there were some saying, “Turn loose, Son!  Turn loose.  Give up.  Surrender it all to Jesus.  Let God have His way.”  Maybe you have heard someone else testify to an experience like this and think that I'm being a Magpie – but this is actually how it happened with me.  In those days most everyone seeking an experience with the Lord was prayed for (outloud and fervently) by the faithful.  This was all done by the most devoted believers, all speaking their words of encouragement at the same time.  Plus, the musical instruments were playing and the people were singing in the background, something like, “Oh Lord, Send The Power Just Now” or "Send Down The Rain, Lord" or "Jesus, On the Main Line (Tell Him What You Want)".   Confusing?  No!  Not to me.  I knew exactly what they meant.  So I did exactly what they were suggesting: I held on in prayer until I couldn’t hold on any longer and then I turned loose.  I "let go" and gave everything I had (or would ever have) to God until tears of joy mingled with my tears of repentance.  I kept on praying and giving everything to God until total deliverance from sin came!  I was overcome then with the joy of salvation.
          "Ah...just an emotional experience,"  someone said.  "He'll be the same tomorrow that he was yesterday," said another.  God was so good to me that he gave me an “out of the body” experience similar to the passage of scripture from the hand of the Apostle Paul that says, “Whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell.”  No - I'm not claiming any of Paul's excellence - but I am claiming that the same Lord that transformed him also transformed me.  Anyway, as I prayed that night at the altar, the last thing I remembered before being filled with the Spirit was praying and leaning forward and slightly to the right while earnestly asking God to fill me with His Spirit.  The next thing I remembered I was standing at the back door of the church with both hands raised while tears of joy were flowing down my cheeks and I heard myself speaking in a language I had not learned!  I did not/do not know how I moved from the front of the church to the back of the church.  My soul was singing praises to the Lord Jesus Christ who had forgiven me of my sins.  After only a few moments I closed my eyes again and next thing I knew was when I opened my eyes and stepped over someone who was lying prostrate in the floor.  I was speaking in tongues.  I know that I walked (or ran) to the front of the church while under the Spirit’s influence…but I was not aware of what was happening until I was already back down front.  I cannot explain why, or how, this happened – except that I knew I had been filled with the Holy Ghost.
          I learned some years later from some well-meaning folks that a person could not even be saved until they were at least 12 years of age.  Ha!  They just came too late to tell me that because I knew beyond any shadow of doubt that God had saved, sanctified and filled me with the Holy Spirit.  I have thanked God for that experience many times in my life as I went through times of doubt.  Thinking back to that time even as I write these words gives me strong assurance that God is real. As wonderful as my experience was  =  there were many other things which I was told later that would have negated all of my experience had my faith not been based in the Bible.  Of course I have had questions.  I have doubted.  I have failed the Lord and had to repent again (more than once) – but I KNOW that God changed my life that night in 1946 and that I’ve never been the same since. 
          How could this be?  You asked.  Let me try and explain something.  Understand that I was born into a Pentecostal Preacher’s home.  Mama was living next door to her mother who was the Pastor of the Church of God, so when it was time for me to be born Mom was at the Parsonage.  One of the first things my then recently converted Daddy did was to place a Bible in my hand.  He had been raised in a great number of superstitions – one of which said that the first thing a baby takes hold of will determine what he becomes in life.  Other things were “Step on a crack – break your mama’s back.”  “If your nose itches – someone’s coming with a hole in his britches.”  “If a black cat crossed your path, turn around and go home - or suffer bad luck that day.”  “If you break a mirror you will have seven years of bad luck.”  He used to tell me that he wanted to break all of those old superstitious rules that caused people to live in fear – but that one about putting the Bible in a baby’s hand he tried, hoping it would work.  ☺   Daddy also taught me this:  "I'm going to teach you everything I can about what it means to live right before God.  You are free to disagree with Daddy.  You do not have to believe everything I believe or do everything just like I want you to do.  But remember this - the Bible is true no matter what anyone says.  You are going to be judged by it in eternity."
          The fullness of the Holy Spirit is one of the areas where there is much mis-understanding.  I hope to blog in the future about some of those areas.  I welcome your input - or your questions.  Let me say up-front that I cannot give satisfactory answers to all the questions that may arise - but I know beyone any shadow of doubt that my early experience with God was real.

Pentecostal

L to R Me, Mom, Grandma Jones, Grandma Pearce (Grandma Jones' Mother)

My Story: Pentecostal

Acts 2:
          “ 1And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. 3And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. 4And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

Yes, I was born in and grew up in a Pentecostal Family. My maternal grandmother was the pastor of the local Pentecostal Church in the little saw-mill town of Lacoochee, Florida. Hearing people speak in tongues and seeing them dance ecstatically in the spirit was as common for me as drinking water from a glass. Praying for the sick that resulted in Divine Healing and miracles was not at all strange or different. I grew up thinking that was the way “church” was supposed to be. I have seen people “slain in the Spirit” in the church as far back as I can remember. Let me give you some background to my faith.

Dad had left home at 15 and had become a hobo on the freight trains, where he learned to smoke and drink and swear with his buddies. It was 1934-1937. When he and his friends would come back home after a long trip they would entertain in the dance hall and work awhile in the Cummers Saw Mill, where orange crates were made. He was making the fantastic sum of $9.00 per week for a full week’s work. It wasn’t long until he cut off the first joint of his index finger on the saw. He refused to go to a doctor but just stuck the joint of his finger on, wrapped it in a wrag, poured on the rubbing alchohol and let it heal back naturally. “Natural” in this case turned out to be a crooked “pointing finger”. While playing his guitar in the dance hall in the evenings, slipping a sip of whiskey from the bottle and getting himself generally drunk - the little Pentecostal church across the railroad tracks could be heard with characteristic singing, praying and shouting (in the old time way) for, you see, it was summer and the windows were left open for ventilation in the small wood-framed structure so typical of country churches of that day. As Daddy explained it to us, “While playing at the dance when we’d hear a shout break out we would run over to the church and peep in the windows to watch the show!” While peeping in the window, Dad saw the “most beautiful girl in the world” and was captivated by her beauty. He made up his mind that he wanted to get better acquainted and soon learned that this 16 year old young lady was the Pastor’s daughter.

Sister Jones was a very charismatic leader. She was charismatic before most of us ever knew what that word meant. She found out that Louis could play the guitar and invited him to play with the church band. I do not believe that was normal for Pentecostal churches in those days for they were also “Holiness” churches but this may give some insight into the wisdom of Pastor Jones. [“Holiness”, That will be a subject for a later blog] She eventually won the young man to a deep experience with Christ. During a Revival, while the house was full of fervent worshippers, Dad had “slipped a sip or two” before the meeting started. At one high point of leading the service, Sister Jones playing the fiddle, called out to the crowd, “Saints! I feel the Spirit in this place tonight!” Dad, by now feeling the effects of his “slippin’ and sippin’” shouted back, “ME TOOOOOO!” Grandma then called to the congregation, “Praise God, Church! The Spirit’s move is so powerful here that even these old sinners are feeling it!” I’m not positive that it was the same night – but during that or a similar service, the house was so crowded that there was no room to sit in the back of the church. So – after playing his guitar for the preliminaries – young Louis Brannen sat on the only available seat – the front row! After the sermon was finished he was invited to the altar to pray. He says, “The Devil said to me, ‘Just smack Sister Rosier in the face and tell her NO!’” Instead of obeying the Devil, he obeyed the Lord, “took two steps and fell into the altar” where he was gloriously converted.

Events moved swiftly. Louis was “Sanctified and Filled with the Holy Ghost” with the evidence of speaking in other tongues as mentioned in Acts 2:4. This Glossalalia phenomenon was for the common man. Louis became a changed man. He immediately stopped drinking. No more cursing. No more smoking. Just like that. It was permanent. I was 60 years of age when he died and I can honestly tell you that I never ever observed my Dad say or do anything that would make me doubt his experience with the Lord. Soon he became the clerk of the church and asked for the hand of Bonnie Jones in marriage. He was just 20 years old. Bonnie was 16 when they married. True to her oft repeated words, “I’ll NEVER marry a preacher, she married this saw-mill worker. However, it was only a few short weeks after they were married that Daddy announced to the congregation that he now felt “called” to preach. This was the beginning of 62 years together in full-time ministry before Dad passed from this life into the presence of his Savior.

Grandma Jones, Mom, Dad

The picture below was made about 1952, at a General Assembly of the Church of God in St. Louis, Missouri.  Mom and Dad were pastoring the church at Campaign, Tennessee about 12 miles out in the country from McMinnville, Tennessee.  Grandma still lived in central Florida.

Missions Memories and Missions Resources

Most of my readers already know that I spent 20 years working in Africa as a missionary for the church organization known as Church of God, Cleveland, TN. My personal friend, Dr. Grant McClung, who has taught in our Church's Seminary, in Schools and Colleges around the world, who was a personal guest in Africa and who was Field Director of Europe and the Middle East has released his book (GlobalBeliever.Com) which you may read on-line at no charge to you. I'll copy and paste his note here for your benefit. Grant and his wife Janice are quality people who walk the talk. I hope you enjoy the free E-books.

But First - some of my missions memories.




Water baptism was a practice that we urged all new converts to participate in as a public testimony of their personal commitment to follow Jesus Christ as Lord of their lives. First we had to find water deep enough. Then we needed safety. Most of our ministers would pray over the water first, rebuking the power of any snakes, crocodiles, and/or harmful bacteria which may be found in the water. Baptism in Africa is a powerful statement of the new convert's faith.


One of the joys of our work was the joy on the faces of our constituents. Here, one of our ladies is cooking a meal on a stove made of clay for one of our orphanages. Do you see the black area that charcoal fire has left on the home-made brick wall? Don't you love that smile?


I had many opportunities to speak to the people in the 32 countries which I was assigned to. Here I am in Uganda, introducing a guest (Roland S.) from North Carolina to a group of young people graduating from our local Bible School. He was moved to tears often as he observed the conditions our people live in.


I took this picture of our "National Overseer" (Makanudo R. B.) opening the first worship service of an Easter Convention in Gaberonne, Botswana. The entire meeting was under an old canvas tent. Cooking was done on open charcoal fires outside. Wonderful food! Wonderful fellowship!


Press Release:

Missions Resources Now in “Ebook” English/Spanish Formats

Dr. Grant McClung, President of Missions Resource Group, has produced his world missions training text, Globalbeliever.com: Connecting To God’s Work in Your World, as a free online resource, both in English and Spanish language versions. In the original print format, the books have been used widely by pastors, local church missions classes and prayer groups, and as a basic Biblical introduction to world missions in seminaries, universities, and Bible colleges. The Spanish-language version, “Creyenteglobal.com,” is widely distributed throughout Latin America.

“The best way to both versions – English and Spanish,” McClung noted, “is to visit the www.MissionsResourceGroup.org site, go to ‘Globalbeliever.com’ button and click on ‘Read the Book’ in English or Spanish.” McClung also noted that a weblink is available for those who begin their search as Spanish readers. “At the site (with the same name as the book title) www.creyenteglobal.com,” he said, “there are links to “Lea el libro” (“Read the book” in Spanish). Information at both sites also leads to ordering information for McClung’s classic review of Pentecostal missions, Azusa Street and Beyond: One Hundred Years of Commentary on the Global Pentecostal/Charismatic Movement (Bridge-Logos Publishing 2006). (You do not have to order them in order to be allowed to read GlobalBeliever.Com.)

“Through our training programs on five continents in 2010,” McClung noted, “we mobilized pastors, missionaries, missions leaders, and marketplace laity through printed books and curriculum materials. But we saw, especially in poorer contexts, how traditional print resources are not affordable for many. Now, the entire text is available as a free online world missions reader for anyone at www.MissionsResourceGroup.org, www.Globalbeliever.com, or www.creyenteglobal.com.” In addition, at the “Resources” link there are a number of lectures, sermons, articles, and background documents presented by McClung in a variety of global leadership training venues.

The availability of McClung’s “ebook” converges with an international, denomination-wide “Great Commission/Church Planting Mandate” throughout the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee USA). Dr. Raymond F. Culpepper, Church of God General Overseer, has urged the Pentecostal denomination to remain focused and active in “the missional mandate” and the planting of new congregations worldwide. “This is why I welcome Grant McClung’s significant book,” he stated, “and commend it to you as an insightful and practical ministry resource. It arrives at a time when the international events and global developments of our time need the perspectives and prescriptions of a rich and deep Biblical view of global engagement. This book adds value to pastors and local church leaders as they seek to motivate, train, and deploy their congregations in evangelism, church planting, and world missions. It is full of practical helps for preaching and teaching, including outlines, stories and illustrations, statistics, maps, charts, and global missions trends.”

McClung is one of the chapter contributors to a church-wide missional resource, The Great Commission Connection, Raymond F. Culpepper, Executive Editor (Pathway Press 2011) and is an editorial committee and research contributor to Until All Have Heard: The Centennial History of Church of God World Missions, Bill George (Church of God World Missions 2010)

McClung, a former member of the denomination’s International Executive Council, serves as Missiological Advisor to the World Missions Commission of the Pentecostal World Fellowship and is a member of the U.S.A Lausanne Committee. “Making ‘Globalbeliever.com’ available online – in both language versions,” he said, “will now broaden our vision for a more rapid and effective mobilization of the global Great Commission community for missional resourcing in these challenging times. We hope it will also speak to a younger generation who are increasingly active in global awareness and social activism through online connections.”

Email contact for further information:

grant.mcclung@gmail.com

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Enjoy

Cars With Bonnets and Boots

Tonight my friend Jack Darnell posted a blog showing a picture of an old Morris Oxford, a car with a bonnet and a boot.

Now I'm sure that if you are reading this and you are from Great Britain or one of her Colonies - or former colonies - you are going to have quite a different "read" of this post than most of my American friends will have. You see, for us here in the USA, when we say "bonnet" we think of an elderly grandmother with her old-fashioned head-gear which was worn regularly by our pioneer women to protect their hair from the weather. When we say "boot" we are thinking of something we put on our feet.

The year was 1966. We were on our first overseas assignment for the Church of God as missionaries to British Guiana. Shortly (within our first six months) they gained their Independence and became known as Guyana, South America. Still the British influences saturated everything. There was "Fogarty's" a big chain store where you could buy food and clothes and books and maybe even some furniture for your home. Booker's, Ltd, was the place to buy cars. Our missions board provided the funds (I can't be sure but it seems I remember $3000 being the price) for us to purchase a new one. The traffic all rode on the opposite side of the street we were used to driving on back in Tennessee. It was nerve-wracking but I actually did manage to get under the wheel and negotiate traffic in that town of 500,000 people driving "on the wrong side of the road"! I had spent the previous 5 years in Tellico Plains, TN, a town of less than 1,000 people at that time. What a challenge.

The car was a wonderful car. It was Automatic shift and we were getting 30 mpg on fuel use. After about six months or so of driving in this strange new environment, on the opposite side of the road, learning that I had to have the "bottom washed" before the mechanic would change the oil and lubricate it, I remember driving into the dirt road leading to our home. I pointed the bonnet towards our gate (which everyone knows you had to keep shut and locked) jumped out, switched off the engine and unloaded groceries. When I got back into the car to put it into the garage and lock it up, the engine would not turn over. My neighbor, Pragdat, who ran buses up and down the coast was quite the mechanic. He saw me with bonnet and boot both standing open and the worried look on my face. Walking over, he asked, "Would you like me to help?" Of course I said, "Yes!"

Try the engine once more. Nothing but "click" each time I tried. Then he looked at me and said so seriously that I just knew for sure he was joking - "Why don't you crank it?" Me: "Uh. Yeah. Well... I thought we just tried that?" "NO!" He said, "Crank it with your crank!" "But this is an automatic", I protested. "But you should have a crank in the boot or under the bonnet."

Sure enough, to my chagrin, He located the crank (like we used to use for old Model A Fords) and gave just one small twist before the engine started! I could not believe how easy it started. What a quality car. Pragdat then proceeded to take my starter off the Morris and clean it of the road dirt that had caked up on it, took it apart, greased it, and put it back. The starter never failed again.

Wish I had a picture of that car. The license plate was PT602! There, the initial number given on a car's license plate always stayed on it until the car was no longer usable. It could be that even now PT602 is still being used to drive around the little country of Guyana.