January 6, 1999
Panhandle church stretches
revival from four days to 18
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___WELLINGTON--A siege of tragedy plus hard work, prayer and the Holy Spirit's movement among laypeople provided the ingredients for an extended revival in Wellington, a small farming community on the eastern edge of the Panhandle.
___A scheduled four-day revival meeting stretched to 18 days and resulted in more than 60 spiritual decisions, reported JamesMcLeod, pastor of First Baptist Church.
___"Old-timers spoke of a revival that took place here in the early '50s which was extended as well," McLeod said. "Most of the people, however, had never seen anything like it. God kept on using people to speak that would have 'never before gotten up in front of a group of people even to say my name,' as one man put it.
___"The wonder-working power of the Holy Spirit was evident all through the revival."
___That spiritual harvest was sown in tears and fertilized by much prayer and hard work, McLeod noted.
___"Wellington has seen a lot of tragedy for a small town (population 2,500) within the last ... months," he explained.
___Fire destroyed one local church building, he said. Fire damaged a church parsonage. Two local teenagers were killed in a car wreck that seriously injured a third teen. McLeod's wife suffered a miscarriage. A child in the town died of disease. A former schoolteacher/ coach died in an accident. A wreck claimed the lives of a teenager and grandmother, and another child was injured seriously.
___Those are "just a lot of things for this town to be dealing with," McLeod observed. "But these tragedies have given an opportunity for the church to reach out to the people in its community. The church should shine out brighter when things are dark. ...
___"There is a real need for the church to understand that people need to see the grace of God where they live and through their brokenness and pain."
___Part of the way First Baptist reached out was expressed in preparation for the revival.
___Prior to the meeting, church members met on Tuesday and Thursday evenings for a meal and to praise God. Then they divided up and went into the community.
___"Prayer blazers" walked the community's streets, praying for the people who live in homes there. Door-to-door teams came behind them and "made efforts to witness to and/or pray for the ones they had a chance to talk to," McLeod said. "It became a visible, practical, working expression of taking the Great Commission seriously where we live and work."
___A huge ingredient was the in-depth involvement of the church's lay members, he stressed.
___"A major element was the involvement of our people," he said. "With the exception of the invitations, this was from start to finish a lay-led revival. Only laymen did the preaching and teaching. We had noon services with different people speaking and teaching as well. The music was led by a team of laypersons as well."
___"One of the tragedies of the modern church is that we have accepted a clergy vs. laity dichotomy in which the clergy are the hired hands and the laity are not as actively involved as we should allow them to be," he added.
___But in Wellington, the laypeople have a larger vision, he added. "We emphasized revival and commitment in five areas--the individual, the home, the church, taking Jesus to the schools and taking Jesus to the community."
___They're taking that last commitment literally, he noted. Since the new year began, "we are organizing an evangelism team so that we can concentrate on going to every home in Wellington before year 2000."Frontpage / Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!