WHOA JESUS WHOA!!! This is something that was just bursting in my head while I was at church this morning.
So recently I had a conversation with my dad about spiritual maturity. One of the things that really stuck with me was my lack of depth, commitment, and service within the church I'm attending. So I've been attending Grace Bible Church which I really liked, and it served me during that season in life. Now I want to be able to be living out my faith not just on campus or within AAIV but with a body of believers in the church. I thought about getting more involved with Grace but I feel like it's so big... I might still look into their ministries but I will see.
So in response to wondering about being involved in a church I decided I wanted to look into smaller churches. The list was two long: Life Church and Westminster Presbyterian. One being a nondenominational church and the other one I had attended for a semester and a half. My discipler Meghan went to Life Church and said lots of good things about it including their life groups, and I know that there is good teaching as well as Sunday school classes at Westminster. But out of nowhere I ended up last minute deciding to visit Antioch because Lori had wanted to visit it the end of spring semester. From her experience with a girl who attended the church I could tell they were being moved by the Holy Spirit, and I definitely got that today.
So me and Jeff went to the Hilton Hotel on University which is where the church meets and went in. The church was probably 50-70 people big but that's because a lot were gone on missions. The church seemed really close knit which was kind of sad for us since no one went out of their way to meet us. I wasn't in the mood of stepping up and introducing myself today either so we just sat down. Today's service was not a regular one and consisted on worship then a skype conference/joint prayer time.
At first the worship songs were not really touching me, because I didn't know any of them and they were all contemporary (I like hymns D:) but over time I began to realize a lot of the lyrics were pulled from scripture and as I sang could remember the context in which it came making the songs more beautiful and meaningful. The last song had parts of Isaiah and it was just beautiful! Everyone worships freely there too whether standing, sitting, kneeling, and throughout worship I saw a two girls stop and just turn to a girl next to them and pray over her. It was really cool. After worship we talked with a group in India from the church all in the college ministry. They have only been there 7 days and they have shared the gospel with over 2000 people. 2000 PEOPLE. Yea, I was just wow. They just went out and talked with people on the street, rickshaw drivers, a middle school assembly, etc. There was testimony of God giving clues of who to speak to and leading a team to a red shop full of tricycles to a lady dressed completely in teal. They found her and knew this was the lady God wanted them to talk to, and it turned out she was a believer who needed encouraging so they prayed over her. A praise to God who gives the gift of healing was a testimony of a man with a split open toe from a bike accident. A team member prayed over him and watched as the skin began to grow over the toe and heal. This is the power of our God. We all as a church stood and prayed asking for God to do even more. I wondered how we could ask this when He was already doing so much. But then I remember He is God, and we were asking for exactly what he wanted and He would deliver. A thing to pray for is that they would know who is coming to the Lord. The people they have met in India are very nice and receptive, but to the point in which they agree with everything you say. That has been one of the toughest parts of telling who are saved on the trip.
We then talked to the group in Gulu, Uganda and even more amazing testimonies were told. The group came in with a heart to reach those God had already been preparing and who were hungry. They found 7 believers there and have started discipleship with them and encouraging them to go out and share their faith with others. Two girls were witnessing at print shops and ran into a lady named Grace who was in school to be a social worker they shared Christ with her and she became excited and asked if they could come out to a sight where a lot of university students met. Over the past couple of days they have started home groups with the university students (kind of our equivalent to discipleship+small groups) and now those university students have a couple more weeks before they leave to return to university where they will share the gospel. We again prayed for this group and for God to keep moving.
Both teams still have 4 more days till they return, and I'm sure many thing will still happen.
After this we worshiped and church was over. It was probably the most intense 1 hour church service ever! My heart was so full and my amazement in the power of our God and the perseverance and love found in these people who traveled across the world to share. Their love, obedience, and faith in God and reliance on the Holy Spirit was just so amazing. I kind of sat there for a while taking it in, and decided I wanted to visit this church again to see what a regular service is like as well as their teaching. The thing about these type of churches is the services is not where you get the meat, its in their life groups which are the heart of the church. So me and Jeff picked up a thing on life groups which we might look into after next Sunday.
Information on their beliefs and missions:
http://www.antiochcs.org/#/beliefs-and-values
