Follow-up from Stephen Longu Night
0 comments | Posted by Steven Layson on 23 May 2010 in From Steve's Study ::
As many of you will be aware, a number of us went and listened to Stephen Longu speak at St Albans last Wednesday night. Stephen is an evangelist from Malawi, in Africa, and told us of his conversion from a homeless & violent gang member, determined to kill Christians (and anyone else who crossed him), to an Evangelist who travels the globe telling people the good news of Jesus.
It was a very encouraging night with some great challenges too. Here are some of the issues he raised that made me think:
- He identified the fact that in the West, we are so addicted to having everything fast… fast food, fast cars, fast marriages and even fast church. In Africa, a church service would go for 2 or 3 hours, with no one “watching the clock” to keep it to a certain time. He thought it strange that we might complain if a sermon went for more than 20 minutes, but were quite happy to stand talking over morning tea for up to an hour! What does that say about our priorities?
- As he spoke from the story of Blind Bartimeus, he pointed out that Jesus stopped and called Bartimeus to him and that he then followed Jesus. His challenge to us was to stop sitting by the “side of the road”, where it is easy to criticise or complain, but to get to our feet and follow Jesus with all that we have.
- The other thing that really challenged me as he told his testimony was that fact that the very day after he had become a Christian, he was already telling people what God had done for him and a number of people became Christians. His challenge to us was that he had seen seven people become Christians through his ministry after just 24 hours, how many people have you and I seen become Christians through our ministry in our lifetime? We can’t really make the excuse that we don’t know enough… he’d only known Jesus for one day and no theological or biblical knowledge at all… our problem is that we’ve lost the excitement and wonder of the cross and of God’s grace. What opportunities will you have this week to tell others of the wonderful things God has done in your life?
« Out with the old, in with the new! Bearing Fruit»
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