Words From the Wilderness, 23
Establishing a Prayer Team To Share God’s Heart to Reach the Lost
“Well, It’s Been a Quiet Week In Lake Wobegon”
With those words, Garrison Keillor would announce the beginning of the most famous and anticipated portion of his weekly Saturday night radio show, The Prairie Home Companion, and anyone who was familiar with the show knew that it was time to stop whatever you were doing, lean in real close to the radio, and prepare to be transported away to a wonderful place and a simpler time. For Keillor was and still is a masterful storyteller. He paints masterpieces with his words, describing narratives in such detail that the listener can naturally see in his or her own mind whatever Keillor is talking about, and weaving tales and stories with such expert craftsmanship and word-smithing that the hearer can, within the same story, find himself laughing at one moment, and then moved to tears in the next as Keillor speaks of far away times, familiar places, and realities that are so universal they connect with and tug at the heart strings of longing that lie within us all.
That is the power of story — When a storyteller is an expert at his craft, he can lift us all up, transport us to exactly where he wants us to be, and impart us with a rich experience that can entertain, and yet educate with profound reality. It is true of all the great storytellers: Keillor, Tolkien, Lewis, Hemingway, Disney, Sean Dietrich…even Jerry Clower! We know them for their stories, we are moved by their words, and we want to join with them in their adventures, for they connect with and draw out longing and laughter that lie within our souls - and truths we yearn to find yet again.
And above all these, God is the Great Storyteller
That discovery was one of the pivotal moments of my own coming alive to what Christianity is all about - and how to read the Bible to understand it. The Bible is not simply a collection of 66 separate books, connected in one canon, but disconnected in their themes, subjects, and dispensations. Rather, the Bible is the record of God’s one, great story: Of a Creator who made a perfect world, but a rebel race that broke it, and yet that Creator, rather than rejecting the rebels - Identifies as a Father, a Lover, a Hero - running toward orphans, redeeming what was lost, and fixing what was broken. The story of God with mankind is the story of the Great Rescue, and of a God who wouldn’t let enemies like sin and death come between Him and the Ones He is determined to love. That is what God is doing in the Bible — and it is what He is doing in the world today.
God is telling His story in Ocean Springs
Stephanie and I moved to Ocean Springs last April, but we really have only been “on the ground” and starting ministry for a little over six months now — and already God has done so much. This past Sunday, a new core group gathered in our home for the first of what we hope will become twice monthly Bible studies - time in the word together toward becoming a community of believers gathered around the gospel and building it into each other. In the meantime, God is adding almost daily to the “parish” of people that I am meeting, building conversations with, and gaining their trust toward “pastoring” these lost people toward the gospel. There is much to celebrate!
Yet, what is happening in Ocean Springs is not our story. It began over ten years ago, when people in local churches here on the coast began to pray for a gospel-centered ministry to the lost in Ocean Springs. And then that took flight when Phillip and Lori Sealy answered the call and moved their family to Ocean Springs to begin building an evangelistic based church plant here. That is an amazing part of the story, for even when Phillip got sick with the cancer that would eventually take his life, when it surely would have been easier for them to pack up and go back home — Phillip and Lori so believed in the story God is telling in Ocean Spring that they doubled down — working faithfully and frantically, giving themselves to see the gospel come to this town. They believed in that so much that Phillip is even buried here, as a way of “claiming this territory” for Jesus Christ. But, in Lori’s own words that she shared with me recently, “Our story isn’t ours, but God’s. And may it be used for His glory and for the gathering in of sinful, suffering sheep in need of a saving, sanctifying Savior!”
(To see a powerful explanation of the Sealy’s vision and part in this story, click on the photo link at the end of this newsletter!)
And now, we are here, trying to take up the pen, to write a new verse, all to plant an evangelistic church plant, one that we pray will some day include many people who, at the time you are reading this, do not yet know Jesus Christ as their Savior, but whom God has called and claimed as His own.
For all of this is His Story. It is a story that we are praying will bring the Great Commission in power to the lost of Ocean Springs. That will see us discipling believers in a new church to own and step up into their part in the Great Story. And we are praying that this story will spread far from here — to new church plants up and down the coast, and even echoing and reverberating back to other churches, established churches, churches that are partnering with us in this story and that we pray will in turn be blessed with evangelistic revival, conversions, and blessing in their own midst and to their own parishes.
But, through it all — Make no mistake: While there is much to do, and even much fruit to celebrate already, and more stories that we hope to tell in the years to come — From the beginning, to now, and to eternity itself — This is God’s story, and He is the One telling it here in Ocean Springs!
So, please pray with us for God’s unfolding story
Praise God with us for the new community of believers that is now meeting in our house twice a month for Bible study. Pray that they will be rooted in and grow in the gospel of grace.
Pray for my “Fishing Trips” to the lost around town and especially to Government Street. I am seeing some of the people there start to look forward to when we can talk next — That is an encouraging sign for my opportunity to come alongside their lives as a trusted confidant and pastor
Carnival season (Mardi Gras) is ramping up into full swing. There will be craziness, wildness, and all of the things that come with this “celebration.” The enemy does not cede territory easily, and he comes in like a flood. And I plan, like a medic on the battlefield, to be right in the middle of it. Please pray for my opportunity to shine light into darkness!
And finally, I invite you to join us as a supporter of the story God is telling on the coast - and beyond
Stephanie and I rejoice and thank God for each of you who have given to this ministry. Thank you so much! Be it a first time gift or as an ongoing supporter, would you consider making a financial investment in the story God is telling of reaching lost people and building His church with the gospel?
Here is how you can give:
Checks can also be sent payable to "Mission to North America"
PO Box 890233
Charlotte, NC, 28289-02333.
(Write “Mark Horn, Ocean Springs Church Plant” on the memo line)And finally, more information for all of this and updates on our Ocean Springs journey can be found at our website: www.PlantHopeOS.org!
“Oh me! Oh life! Of the questions of these recurring. Of the endless trains of the faithless. Of cities filled with the foolish. What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer: That you are here. That life exists, and identity. That the powerful play goes on…And you may contribute a verse!”