Friday morning: This morning I am flying to Seattle (via Minneapolis) to participate in an event called “Alive Worship Conference.” This conference is hosted by City On A Hill Church in Auburn, WA, and it will be my second time at this church. This is a unique church in America—it’s a Russian church, pastored by a Russian-speaking brother whose English is extremely limited, and who does all his ministry in Russian, using an English interpreter in most contexts. There is a large Russian population in the Seattle area, and this church draws around 700 Russian-speaking adults between its two campuses on the north and south sides of Seattle. Their offices are located literally around the corner from the ministry center of my dear friends, Gary & Marie Wiens, who direct IHOP-Northwest in Federal Way, WA. IHOP-NW is cosponsoring this event, along with a number of other churches whose worship ministries will be helping to lead over the course of the conference. The conference organizer, Yuri, is the worship pastor at City On A Hill, and this conference is an extension of a worship training school that he conducts. I believe this conference is his first such conference, and so we’re all looking forward to what God will do.
If you’re interested, you can see more about the event at this link: aliveworshipschool.org/conference-2015
I am scheduled to speak Friday and Saturday evening, Sunday morning at the north campus, and Sunday afternoon at the south campus. The south campus is the main campus, and their service is at 2:30 p.m. on Sundays because they use the facilities of another church in the area, and can’t gain access to the facilities on Sundays until the afternoon.
One of the features of the conference is an all-night prayer room on Friday night. Incense will be arising all night long to the Lord!
In good Seattle fashion, rain is forecast for the entire weekend, smile.
I need and covet your prayer help. I am asking the Lord to put fresh fire upon my heart, and to enable me to declare His heart faithfully to those who gather.
Saturday 3:00 pm: Marvelous service last night. The worship ministry at this church is excellent musically, has spiritual depth, and passion — and then when they get to singing Russian, you come out of your skin. What a delight to be here! The Lord graced me to speak clearly last night, and the message set a good tone for the 24-hour prayer watch this event is conducting. They’ve had continual all-night worship and prayer from Friday night’s meeting to tonight’s, which begins (Saturday) at 7:00 p.m. I will be going over there in a few minutes, to join in on the prayer watch, and then stay for the evening meeting.
Sunday 10:00 pm: Greetings from the Seattle airport, where I am leaving at 10:30 p.m. for a red-eye special to Atlanta, and then a morning connection to KC, arriving into KC around 9:30, the Lord helping. The Saturday night service was excellent, with strong ministry around the altar at the end. The altar was filled with musicians, singers, worship leaders, sound operators, etc. A great conclusion to the conference. Then, we had wonderful services today (Sunday). The first service was an English service at the north campus at 12:45 p.m., the service was well attended, with an excellent spirit in the midst. Ease of ministry. Followed by Communion. Sweet. Then I was driven straight to the south campus to speak in the main Russian service of the weekend, which starts at 2:30 p.m. I got there at the close of worship, around 3:15 p.m. We had to wait a bit for my translator to arrive, and then we stepped onto the platform. I brought the same message again, on the Cross. One person at the first and seven people at the second came forward to express for the first time, publicly, their loyalty to the cross. I was told afterwards that it’s unusual for the Slavic people to come forward to an altar response like that, as they are very reserved. So it was great. And then a number of others joined them, who were responding not for the first time, but were wanting to come forward and renew their loyalty to the cross. The Lord was moving clearly and strongly upon those who came forward. A wonderful weekend.
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