Keeping the Flame Burning!
Walking into my office recently I found a message taped to my computer that said, "I'm having a garage sale this Saturday - Mom has a lot of song books I think you should look at - come early." I went quickly to the office of the author, Pastor Bruce, and asked, "How early?" to which he replied, " 6:00 am."
Needless to say, I never made it to his house the next morning. Instead, I host to a slumber party of four little girls, ages 3-12, and was kept me up all night. I slept in the next morning until 10:30 as the girls watched the same video over and over. I forgot about the books because I assumed they had been snatched up already. In my mind, I figured I had enough hymnals and really did not need another. After all, every Minister of Music and Worship need only one for reference. Right?
I didn't give it another thought until I went to work the following Monday. Pastor Bruce met me inside my office and mentioned that my husband was coming over to his house that night to work on an electrical problem he was having. He mentioned that he still had the books since not one of had sold at the garage sale. I informed my husband that I was going with him that night, and we even called it a date.
My husband, Don, went to look at the electrical problem and I sat in the dining room with Pastor Bruce's wife, Dee-Dee. She brought out two large boxes of books that I was to look through. As I began to go through the boxes, I realized that they were not hymnals at all, but were old revival songbooks and testimonies of revivals. They were the songs that lit the fire that burns within every charismatic Christian today, revival fire. As I began to look through the boxes, I began to weep and dwell deeply on the fact that God had a plan long before I had walked into this house that would allow me to view these books and put them in my library for good use.
I could not help but thank my God for answering prayers. He knew how I had longed to touch that period of church history. I read about the old tent meetings, the miracles, and all the wonderful things that had taken place in them. I have prayed for ‘revival fire' to infiltrate not only our church, but the church at large. Somehow I had been trying to keep the story straight within my own heart. I can't help but feel that we, the church, have somehow watered down the salvation story. Do we include Christ in our songs? If the Pastor never gave an invitation, would a visitor know how to get saved through our music?
As I looked at the back of one of the songbooks, there were pictures of crowds of people waiting to get into the meeting, as well as pictures of crowds inside the auditorium. These pictures told the story of small and large towns that had been turned upside down for Christ by traveling evangelists. I had read about the tent meetings of old and remembered attending some of those meeting as a young Christian. But, as I grew in Christ, I had long forgotten my tent meeting experiences. Something was planted in me during those meetings, as I'm sure it was to others in history who attended.
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This is the debut album by EXW friend Paul Langford. Paul is a Chicago based singer, arranger, keyboardist, producer and conductor. Paul has a career that spans 14 years. Paul's work includes arranging for groups like GLAD, Voices of Liberty, VoiceTrek, The Chicago based "Caroling Party" and Day of Discovery Singers. His arranging has appeared on recordings side by side with greats like Gene Puerling and David Maddux, and he has sung with Don Shelton, Bonnie Herman and Bob Bowker, among others.