This is a great article about the practical outcomes of prayer. Our worship services in the 70s were a wonderful combination of planned activities and spontaneity, contemporary music and classic music, solemnity and joy; there was drama, prophetic utterances a sermon by the leader (usually Ken Pagaard) but there could also be a teaching by someone else. I have never been a part of such alive worship since then -- and I have been in many good times of worship; these times were special. Ken speaks the truth that it wasn't because of our spectacular leadership. This was a sovereign move of God. Prayer was not a substitute for doing. Prayer was the doing that seemed to unleash the power of God in our midst.
On the next page, Ken mentions the musical "If My People." The theme was from 2 Chronicles 7:14 where the people of Israel were enjoined to pray. If this was done, then God would hear and heal the land. This was a musical performed by a number of the churches in Chula Vista -- including ours. It was a good musical, a good performance and also an indication that we weren't separatists; we wanted to work with others.
Clay continues his article on love. As I mentioned in my previous posting, there is really no community without love. I especially enjoyed his section discussing how "professional" ministers are pushed into molds through the expectations of the congregation. This certainly can become "death" to the person hood of the pastor.
This is the conclusion of Clay's article. I will only mention the memory verse here. Memorization of Scripture was a big item throughout the 70s. This is a discipline that is recommended throughout evangelical churches, but we really put this into practice. This was a great help to me in my spiritual growth and in my ministry in later years.
McFoone illustrates shallow evangelism. We really believed that when we evangelized, we needed to "lay down our lives" for the person. We couldn't say that we really loved someone without helping them, spending time with them or even taking them home to live with us.
Jerry Jamison was one of the other major talented young men in the church. He and Gary Bell were the heads of Abbacraft. Jerry is still active in advertising and has recently written a book. We were very blessed with these young men.
The letter from Dr. Dan Fountain which concludes on this page was a real blessing. Of course, the first reason is that it was a letter of encouragement and it did just that. Secondly, Dr. Dan was a leading American Baptist Missionary in Zaire. Later he would become a major consultant dealing with health problems throughout Africa -- especially HIV. This is another example of our world wide outreach. I might also mention that Dr. Dan's brother Dave (a Navy Chaplain) was a member of FBCCV.
Larry Clark's article on the genealogies sounds much like my New Testament Professor's lecture on the genealogies. As usual, Larry's article is quite insightful.
This is a wonderful poem by T.S. Eliot. I can say no more but that our wonderful team of editors was always reading and bringing interesting items into OLT.
I don't think that we ever really came to terms about what OLT was; a magazine for subscription or a ministry of FBCCV. We really believed it to be a ministry, yet the expense was a real problem to our church. We really needed the help that subscriptions gave us. Yet, we would have liked to dispense with it and just send the magazine to those who wanted it.
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