Sunday, February 21, 2010

Speaking In A Foreign Land

Today I'm speaking at Maranantha Evangelical Free Church here in Winnipeg. I have never been to this church in my life and only yesterday found out where it is located. Why am I speaking there? Because I went to Bible College with the pastor and made the mistake of innocently sharing his Bible College nickname with someone from his board. OK, maybe it wasn't totally innocent. Needless to say I owed him one! Going into a church "cold," where you have no idea what they are like, how many of them there are, what their culture and personality is like, etc. is always exciting and scary at the same time. Dave (the pastor) refused to give me any information - undoubtedly to make it more difficult for me. Strangely I haven't felt any nervousness about speaking until this morning. So if you are checking your blogs in the morning and you are the praying type, please feel free to pray for me. The service starts at 11:00pm . . .

3 comments:

Elayne said...

Didn't see this in time Mark. I'm sure you did a great job!

RLE said...

How did it go? And who is the pastor there? I'm curious about the nickname. :)

Mark said...

Hey Rayna, the speak went excellent. And when I say it was excellent, I don't mean the speak itself or the delivery which were both mediocre at best. But the reaction of the people itself was excellent. Based on how they looked at me and how they responded to me after the speak, I can tell that God used it to hit home. My subject was on accepting one another and bearing with one another - and I was fairly direct. I've given versions of the same speak in other churches and it usually gets a strong response, but this was the most powerful. It was humbling and gratifying all at the same time.

The church was Maranantha Evangelical Free church here in Winnipeg and the Pastor is Dave Friesen (married to Jess Schneider, also of BBC). The nickname I will not divulge here as I think he is a bit sensitive to it, but ask your husband and he'll probably remember it. . .