Reflecting On Nine Years

***Did you know that today marks the 9th anniversary of the weekend in which we went public with our ministry in this community? We initially started in September of 2004 with weekly prayer and church-planting training and preparation.  But we didn’t go public until March 25-27, 2005.

Before that public opening we were already ministering in Harrisburg. We ministered in a weekly food outreach, providing praise and worship while a team from another local church, distributed food to the people who gathered. We also participated in various prayer gatherings and even ministered in a couple of churches. All the while, we were preparing our team to minister to the hearts and homes of Harrisburg. We met weekly in a leased facility in uptown Harrisburg. Meanwhile, another congregation was preparing to unite with us as our ‘opening day’ approached.

However, we weren’t ready for the spiritual warfare that was about to be unleashed upon us. Even as we were purchasing equipment, furnishings, chairs, carpet and flooring, the demonic forces over this community were preparing their weapons and sneak attacks against us.

By the time we went public on the Easter weekend of March in 2005, the other congregation had been manipulated by its interim leader into voting against uniting with us. Within our own ranks, there was division as we fell into disagreement. We didn’t handle it very well. Since then, we have all been reconciled, but at that time, we were overwhelmed.

We held our first public service on Good Friday and the place was completely filled with people from the community, including one pastor who brought his entire congregation to welcome us to the city. Our first Sunday service was filled with well-wishers and visitors. We were feeling pretty good about things, in spite of the relationship strains and the broken promise from the other congregation. Little did we know that this weekend was the start of what was to become a pattern of warfare and opposition over the next nine years.

Six months later, in September of 2005, our Bishop and overseers came to Harrisburg to officially install and appoint us in our new roles as senior pastor and first lady of the new church. This took place exactly one year after our initial launch in September of 2004. Many powerful exhortations and words of wisdom came forth, as several pastors from the community joined together to unite with us in the spiritual battle over this region.

But, just three months after that, most of our small congregation was gone. Our initial team was gone. Miraculously, someone paid off our final two months of our lease, and we moved out of the facility, placing all of our church equipment and furnishings in storage a couple days after Christmas. It was the saddest and most depressing moment
of our lives.

The first thing we had to do was look for jobs and start the transition from full time ministry to full time employees in someone’s company or organization. God graciously gave us both jobs with the state of Pennsylvania.

We tried to keep the church family together, as we met in a hotel for about four weeks before shifting our meetings to our home. A few more of the members dropped off at that point.

One of the local pastors, who befriended us, offered the use of a room within their church. We took him up on that offer and we began meeting in one of their classrooms on Friday evenings. On one of those Friday gatherings, a new family started coming to our church.  So we just began to focus on ministering to them.

The years that followed were nothing short of hell on earth. We were simply crushed with one disappointment after another. It became too much to keep trying to meet in a public setting so we shifted our weekly gathering to our home. We continued to meet on Friday nights for several months. The Lord ministered healing to us, even as we ministered healing to those who attended faithfully.

After almost a year, we moved back into the public, returning to a hotel on Sunday mornings.  Then we returned to the church of our pastor and friend. We met on Saturday evenings until the Lord opened the door for us to move into the United Church Center in December of 2009.

Since moving into the United Church Center, we have been able to stabilize the ministry and provide consistent teaching.  After a couple years, the same old attack pattern of the devil came against us again. This time we had to fight through satan’s attempt to get us kicked out of the Center and that fight led to an open door for our own meeting space.

As we sit in our new office or walk into our meeting space, we’re incredibly thankful to God for His presence. We’re so thankful for our church family. Even though people have come and gone, we have been able to stay on track and establish a foundation for rebuilding, restoring and renewing hearts and homes.

All of this, and so much more, fills our thoughts as we reflect upon the significance of this week. It simply causes us to proclaim the goodness, mercy and faithfulness of God.

Please receive our testimony and story as confirmation that God will sustain you through anything. This is the reason why we declare, “You cannot lose unless you give up. So don't give up!.”

In spite of our disappointments, failures and fears, God has brought forth the fulfillment of many of His promises to us. This is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.

Say 'Yes' When God Says 'No'

***We believe that one of the lessons the Lord is teaching us is to trust Him even when He doesn’t answer our request in the way we desire.

This month just so happens to mark the anniversary of a profound event in the life of a missionary who is not well-known in many urban communities in America. In his blog on Church History, Dennis Alan Ray presents the story
of a missionary named Amy Carmichael:

When Amy Carmichael was a child in Ireland, her mother told her that if Amy were to pray then God would answer. Amy had dark hair and brown eyes. Since she didn’t like her brown eyes she prayed for God to give her blue ones. The next morning Amy wailed in disappointment. It was a while before Amy would understand that "no" was an answer, too.

Even though the “no” answer disappointed her, she never lost her faith in God. Service to Him became the passion of her life, leading Amy to start classes and prayer groups for Belfast’s many poor and homeless children. Her Sunday classes were also attended by factory girls who were so poor that they could not afford hats to wear to church and wore shawls instead.  Unfortunately, most “respectable church people” refused to have anything to do with them.

In the years following her father’s death, the Carmichaels found themselves in tough financial circumstances. Amy's mother decided to move to England and work for Uncle Jacob. Amy and another sister joined her. Uncle Jacob asked Amy to teach his mill workers about Christ and she threw herself into the work, living near the mill in an apartment infested with cockroaches and bed bugs. Amy was constantly sick with neuralgia and had to lie in bed for days at a time. Her bad health eventually forced her to give up that ministry for the mill workers.

When she announced she was going to be a missionary, her friends thought she was being foolish and predicted that she would soon be back in England. Nevertheless, in 1892, she answered the call to the mission field and made her way to India.

In Dohnavur, India, Amy Carmichael was mightily used of God in what we, at Urban Life, call STEALTH MINISTRY.

According to local custom, young girls were often abandoned and left on the temple steps to be dedicated to the Hindu gods. They were forced into prostitution to earn money for the priests. Amy heard about a five-year-old girl named Kohila who faced just such a fate. Dressed in a sari, her skin stained brown, with her dark hair, and because of her brown eyes, Amy could pass as a Hindu. Disguised in this way she rescued the little girl and gave her shelter.

Now she understood why God had given her brown eyes. Blue eyes would have been a dead giveaway!

When the child’s guardians discovered what had happen, they demanded the child’s return. Amy refused to return the little girl to a life of certain abuse and arranged for Kohila to "disappear" to a safe place. Technically that made Amy a kidnapper.

Over the years, the brown-eyed, dark haired Amy would rescue many other children, often at the cost of extreme exhaustion (due to her illness) and personal danger.

Eventually, charges were brought against Amy. She faced a seven year prison term. However, she did not go to prison. A telegram arrived on February 7, 1914, saying, "Criminal case dismissed." No explanation was ever given, but those who worship Amy's Lord have no doubt that He had a hand in the decision.

Amy would continue her mission for the next fifty years until her death in 1951. Her mission and ministry is still operating today. Her first under-cover mission, to rescue little Kohila from the temple, happened on March 9, 1901
— 113 years ago this month.

Through the lives of countless Believers and Christians like Amy Carmichael, we have seen faithfulness and perseverance that puts many American Christians to shame. These are the kind of stories I grew up hearing as a child. This is the legacy that has been passed down to us. This is the way we are to see the Urban Life ministry in this community. We must have hearts, like Amy Carmichael, to rescue families, even at the risk of our own lives.

Now it’s our turn to serve God in our generation. Now it’s our turn to say ‘yes’ to God, even when His answer to our personal request is ‘no’. We must trust that He knows where He is leading us and trust that He is working His plan and purpose through our hearts and homes.

Until Christ Is Formed In You

***In one of my daily devotional readings last week, the writer (Oswald Chambers) talked about what it really means to follow God. He rehearsed the story of Paul’s friends warning him to not go to Rome because he was going to face suffering and imprisonment there. But Paul said, “None of these things move me.”

Chambers went on to talk about how many Believers simply will not follow God into seasons and places of suffering. Once they truly realize the price they are being called to pay, most of them will retreat from the call of God and settle for a simple, comfortable, American-dream working life. They refuse to believe that God will actually SEND them out to go through life-altering trials, live through seasons of poverty or in places that are like war zones, and suffer through pain, loss and disappointment. But it’s really true. YES HE WILL!

After Jesus was baptized by John, the Bible says the Holy Spirit SENT HIM into the WILDERNESS to be TEMPTED BY THE DEVIL. Many Christians today feel that, "GOD CANNOT POSSIBLY EXPECT ME TO GO HERE, GO THERE, LIVE HERE OR LIVE THERE!" But we can tell you from experience: YES HE DOES!

We recall some of the things we have suffered in our quest to follow Jesus. We have lived in horrible places, in dangerous neighborhoods, and even had to work through some life threatening situations in overseas missionary travel. Sometimes, when we tell bits and pieces of our story, we are smiling, so it can give the impression that things were not really that bad. Listen closely: They were bad. Sometimes, things were far worse than we can put into words.

However, we had to learn to not turn against one another and to not turn against God. At the same time, we could not back away from the call of God and the people He had called us to serve.

You see, the goal of ministry is not to someday become famous and rich. The goal is not to someday live in a big mansion and drive fancy cars. The CALL of God is not a career and it's not like a job. It does not have a guaranteed salary with health benefits. It does not have performance-based promotions with automatic pay increases.  You can’t just pick up and move anytime you want; although we have certainly felt like doing that on countless occasions. The goal has always been, and still is, to follow GOD and lead others into a solid relationship with HIM through Jesus Christ.

For now, we have a nice comfortable lifestyle, but our daily living is very different from what appears on the surface. Sleep is almost nonexistent for us. We are always in warfare and intercession. Most nights we get about 3 or 4 hours of sleep. Our weekends are filled with ministry preparation and ministry work. That’s why we don’t meet on fifth Sundays. It’s because fifth Sundays give us some personal time to rest and recover.

Please know that we are not complaining. It’s just our reality…. NO, it is our joy! We would not have it any other way if this is what it takes for Christ to come forth in our church family. Comfort and security are not our goals. Our only desire is to be obedient to God, no matter the cost. Now we understand why Paul wrote, "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you..." Galatians 4:19

The day may come when we can meet more than once a week. We desire this expansion only because we want to provide MORE OPPORTUNITIES for families to gather and get to know one another, to worship together, and to experience the Word of God together.

In the meantime, God is beginning to bring people from the north, south, east and west to Urban Life. He is forming a unique family of Believers who will fulfill the mission that has been assigned for us: to rebuild, restore and renew hearts and homes.

Pray and Prepare

Last month we sent you an email about looking for a window of opportunity in the midst of perilous times. Two weeks ago, we sent an email about seeking the Lord because we believe intense persecution is coming against churches and Christian leaders. I also warned that we will no longer see these events taking place only in foreign countries. My exact quote was, “We can see a lot of trouble on the horizon for America, Pennsylvania and Harrisburg. The trouble will no longer be in the news, in some country far away. It will be knocking down your door or a neighbor’s door." 

This past weekend, a local pastor, and dear brother and friend of this ministry, was arrested for something that should have been handled by a simple citation in the mail. At worst it should have been a citation hand-delivered by a sheriff.

Instead, to make an example of him; to publicly humiliate him; to make a political and public display of him, this pastor was ARRESTED. This pastor happens to have been very involved in fighting against many racist and controversial political and public policies in Harrisburg. Therefore, to make a point and instill fear in Christians and leaders all over our city, a photographer just so happened to be present so that his arrest could be posted on the front page of the main local newspaper. That, my friends, is called a SETUP! If it wasn't a setup, then why was a photographer there? How did the local newspaper come to know and why did they send a photographer to be at his home at just that moment?

I truly believe that this is just the beginning. After reading the news article, I looked at the comments from the public that were posted beneath the news article and most of them were filled with hatred against pastors, churches and Christians. When I saw this, then I realized that the whole point of the arrest was to stir up the emotions of the community and begin to fan the flames of hatred against God and His people.

Again I say, “It’s time to pray and get ready for the trials and tribulations that are to come.” Very soon, the only way you and I will be able to hear a sermon or any other type of Biblical message will be via internet-based churches. Eventually, this will go away, too. I’ve been sharing these things with you guys for several years now and you are watching it unfold right here in Harrisburg.

I can only continue to encourage you to get your house and home in order. Let’s continue to gather on Sundays for teaching, fellowship and prayer. This simple weekly commitment is going to fortify and prepare us for the new version of America that is being revealed every single day. There really is no such thing as freedom of speech anymore. There really is no such thing as freedom of religion anymore. There is no separation between church and state. The government is now dictating to the church how things are to be done.

This past weekend was a very clear warning to every pastor in Harrisburg, who is seeking to change this city; that they will be arrested for any misdemeanor or mistake that can be found against them; even if it is not a criminal offense. This pastor's error was not a criminal matter at all. Yet, he was arrested like a common criminal. So we have now been forewarned that for pastors and churches, there will be no due process. While drug dealers and slum lords continue to rule our city, a pastor will be the one who goes to jail for failure to meet certain city codes and ordinances.

More and more I see why God has led us to this facility and our current setting where the emphasis is on solid Biblical instruction and learning, instead of all the usual ministry hype and musical entertainment.

Eventually our friend and brother will be vindicated and his name will be cleared, but that’s not what this past weekend was about. This was about "the powers that be" sending a message. This was about drawing the line in the sand. I’m not sure if the church leaders of this city understand that. I believe it’s a signal that it’s time for us to pray and prepare. And that’s what we’re going to do.

Time to Seek the Lord

I just can’t explain it, but I’m constantly overwhelmed by a strong urgency to pray. One evening, last week, I was just going about our nightly routine to prepare for the next day when I just had to get down on my knees on the side of the bed.

My sleep is filled with prayer and dreams about our nation and world. I don’t mean to come off as some type of prophet of doom and gloom. I honestly don’t know what we’re about to go through. I just know that I have a very strong call to pray.

Absolutely bizarre things are happening in our communities now. Overt racism has risen back to 1960’s - 70’s levels. Gun violence is out of control. Police brutality is horrendous. Meanwhile, hatred is intensifying and growing stronger, everyday, against anyone who claims to be a Christian or a follower of Jesus Christ.

Personally, not necessarily prophetically, I see a day in which we will see terror attacks against churches and various ministries and our government and police forces will do nothing to stop it because they will be in secret approval.

All I know is that God is directing me and Carol to lead you in a very specific strategy of prayer, teaching, and fellowship. Somehow, this simple little strategy will be enough to fortify and prepare our families for the future.

I sincerely believe God is setting the stage for something that will be so profound and powerful that we will all know that HE alone gets the glory. We just need to be willing to be stagehands that He can depend upon to do our part.

We say it all the time at Urban Life: We don’t need to be in the spotlight. God did not call us to be famous. He called us to be faithful. There is never any question about the faithfulness of God towards us. The question is: Will we be faithful to God?

If the day comes, in our lifetime, that we have to decide between faithfulness to God versus imprisonment or death, Carol and I have already decided that we will never turn our back on God.

I urge you to make every effort to spend personal time with God daily. Read from a daily devotional book or a daily Bible verse. Take the time to pray. I mean really pray. I also encourage you to meet with us on Sunday mornings or at least connect with our new Urban Life Daily Postings that are designed to build your faith.

I always hated the times when I was completely unprepared for a serious trial that came into my life. Trials seem to always come when I had not been attending church very much. I had not been reading my Bible very much. And I certainly had not been praying very much. 

When the trials came, I would scramble to get back into fellowship with God and the church community; struggling to build my faith in the midst of a crisis. Trial moments are not the best times to try to build your faith. Trials will test whatever level of faith you already have.

At some point, we all have to stop living like that. We have to get prepared BEFORE the crisis moments. The Proverbs state that a wise man sees trouble coming and starts getting ready for it. We can see a lot of trouble on the horizon for America, Pennsylvania and Harrisburg. The trouble will no longer be in the news, in some country far away. It will be knocking down your door or a neighbor’s door. There will be gunfire in your children’s school. There will be disaster in your family tree.

I’m not speaking negative confessions. This is a prophetic warning. It’s the kind of warning that Jeremiah gave Israel, but hardly anyone believed him because others were prophesying about prosperity.

We will no longer be able to get away with the immature patterns of the past; back when we quoted a few scriptures and screamed out a prayer and God bailed us out. I believe the bailout prayers are coming to an end. Now is the time to seek the Lord, while He may be found.