Saturday night, Kris, Alex and me travelled down to Philadelphia to attend an evening of Worship and the Word with James McDonald. His name might not be familiar but this pastor can rock the flock! He serves the people at Harvest Bible Chapel in Rolling Meadows (Chicago) IL. It is a church of about 8-10,000 and it is a unique blend of expositional preaching, contemporary worship, serious prayer and is planting churches like nobodies business! I stumbled upon him in 2000 when a friend of mine was serving as his singles pastor and he encouraged me to join "Harvest Bible Fellowship." I am proud to say that NewSong is the only HBF affliate in PA. But maybe that will change after last night.
James is on a 12 day/10 event tour promoting his radio ministry www.walkintheword.com -- which now broadcasts in Lancaster on WDAC each morning. James is a no nonsense preacher - he just says what it means and doesn't mince words. In a day when pastors are trying to figure out "what they should say NOT to offend" -- James lives by the code -- if its the truth it will offend - excellent!!!
This evening - after a wonderful time of worship - led by McDonald's son Luke - who is an awesome worship leader - James opened the scriptures for an hour and twenty minutes! Let me say that again - 80 minutes of preaching. And we could have kept going!! He spoke on suffering from Acts 12. This was the narrative about Peter being imprisoned and God miracleously delivering him. It is also the story about Peter going to the house and knocking and Rhoda leaving him there! When he acted that out - it was hillarious!
His message was right where I have been. this sabbatical has been good but i have experienced suffering. My surgery in May was supposed to take three days recovery -- it was two weeks. We had a founding member die suddenly. We had a mission trip go south and faced all kinds of conflict. Did i mention on the return flight the airlines lost my luggage for five days? Then I got sick - a sore throat like i was swallowing razor blades - that went into my ear and has lingered for three weeks. My editor is a month behind on my book. And then to top it off, our neighbor has been infested with flies this summer. 1000's of flies. We change fly paper daily kinds of infestion. I am talking Mosiac proportions.
Then James start taking about sovereignty and suffering -- his outline was this simple....
1. God is in control - even when I suffer....
2. .....even when it's midnight (when it seems all is lost)...
3. ....even when my faith is weak....
4. ....even when the wicked propser!!!
It was awesome - you know I can say that - my 15 year old son says so! We had a great discussion as we drove home! I would encourage anyone and everyone to check out James' website and read or listen to anything he does! James rocks!!