Resurrecting Worship

In the community Deus E Amor (God is love) on Lago de Mateus (Matthew's Lake) we found a unique need. There was, for that area, a nice big Assembly of God church building. We made arrangements with the president of the village to hold the medical clinic there. One of the ladies in the community is entrusted with the care of the building and has the key to the padlock and chain that keeps the building secure.

As we spoke with her, we found that there had not been a worship service there for three years. She had kept the building clean and ready for use all that time. Beside it was a deteriorating partially built building that we later learned was to have been a house for the pastor.

We decided that the praises to the Lord had been silent in that building long enough and planned a worship service for the two evenings we were there. As we visited in the community during the day, I asked about musicians and soon found a couple of guitar players. One had a guitar and we had one on the boat. We invited some of the people to sing. Two of our people shared their testimonies and I preached from the passage God used to bring me to Christ. We had a great time of worship together.

On the second night we wanted to give as many of the people there a chance to offer their praise to the Lord. We had a service that consisted of singing, scripture reading, a monologue by Whitney Harman as the Apostle John, and a group of teenage girls from the community doing interpretive movement to a Christian song. While the quality of some of the music did not rise to levels to which most of us are accustomed, there was nothing lacking in the heartfelt sincerity of worship to our Lord. Groups of men, women, teenagers and children released their pent up worship to God.