Post by Alan Vandermyden on Jan 29, 2011 2:21:09 GMT -5
I would like to hear more how the workers are lead by the holy spirit from their initial responding to the call, how to preach their sermons, to interreacting/communicating and praying together and getting results for anything from Gods leading and guiding to healing.
I'll try! But please, as with all of these "Coffee Talk" posts, do not take me as trying to make some kind of "authoritative" statement on teaching. I am simply trying to share my experience and the way I understood things.
I well remember sitting through one (or both?) of the Gilroy conventions in the summer of '77, just before I began my junior year of high school. It seemed to me that every worker talked about going into the work, but none of my friends seemed to notice it! I kind of put it off in my mind, yet knew I was going to have to confront this question someday.
"Someday" came very soon. It was the day before school started that year. I was out stacking the 2x6 rails from a fence we had just dismantled, and it just hit me - I knew I was supposed to go in the work. I did not want to at all! I was angry, and my junior year picture shows it.
Now I had professed at 15 years old, but was terrified of taking part, and never had. I think I did pray in private though, and I eventually "re-professed" at 18, shortly after graduating. Jack Price, who had "tested" the Gilroy meeting I professed in, had sent me an Alberta convention list (I think at my Dad's prompting), and I drove up there with a high school friend, working for a couple of weeks for a professing man in Lacombe, Alberta. The two of us then went to Didsbury, where I professed. Almost didn't, because when they gave the opportunity for testimonies Saturday morning, they gave it first to those who had been baptized that morning, and it occurred to me they would likely do that Sunday morning for those who professed Saturday night. And I had been sitting in the front row. Should I wait til Sunday? No, that would be defeat before I started. So I professed, and sure enough, ended up giving my first-ever testimony Sunday morning.
Now, back to '77. I struggled with the idea of the work for a few months, and I remember "giving in" and finally having peace right during a Wednesday night meeting.
I knew of course that I had to finish high school, and also knew that Eldon liked young people to work for a couple of years at least before going in the work, so I graduated and got a job - just a "job," no career thing, and I found it difficult to really put any thought into college when I was by then planning on going in the work.
After working for a few months, I was kind of waiting for God to "speak" again, when I realized that nothing had changed, and I knew what I was to do. So I wrote my letter to Eldon, and got a prompt reply. I waited for about a year and a half. My brother Steve and I drove down to Gilroy (about 2.5 hours from our home) one Saturday, and as I was waiting for the lunch line to get shorter, Eldon came and told me he would like to visit. I never did eat lunch that day.
I went to the weekend of Gilroy I, then back to work, all of Gilroy II, then a couple more weeks of working before going down to Santee I and Buttonwillow II, and then was assigned to work in the Sacramento region with Dale Bors.
I spoke as a worker for the first time at Gilroy II. I had no clue about "getting ready" to speak. I had spoken at meetings for a couple of years, and from things I had enjoyed reading and trying to understand in the Bible, though I don't remember ever feeling particularly "inspired" at any time. But at some point before my first time speaking there at Gilroy, I remembered something James Walden (Texas/Philippines) had spoken at a funeral in Modesto not long before, about Jesus' comment that the woman "had done what she could." That meant something to me, and I felt as inspired as I ever had - through all my fears at that point - to speak on it, which I did. And I was certain people could hear my heart pounding over the microphone.
Though I would be the last to claim that everything (or anywhere near everything!) I said in meetings was inspired, I am glad that I can look back on specific points in which I felt very aware of God's directing, and it is still a reassurance as doors continue to open now. I will write about more about some of those, but not all in this posting . . .