Death from a Thousand Tiny Cuts

I was sitting across from a good friend of mine, Pastor Ben Weeks, in Sonny’s BBQ in Thomasville, Georgia, when he dropped a spiritual MOAB on me.  The picture that his words had painted were clear, obvious, direct, and almost shocking to me.  So much so that I could hardly even say anything for a good 30 seconds or a minute, the missile had pegged me right where I lived on that day.  I can remember the conversation leading up to the moment that day.  My world had been marked by some personal major health issues, an incredibly challenging building program filled with trouble, and the general hectic pace of moving through church life and my own private spiritual world.  It was on that day he told me a parable of sorts that continues to resonate even now despite the fact that it has been more than two years ago.  It had been a day of shoptalk for two Spirit-filled preachers about the need for revival, the hunger for conversions and spiritual growth among those who we were seeking to pastor, and the necessary disciplines of personal spiritual progress.  He had mentioned some sermons he had recently listened to and some that he had preached.  He also had spent some time with a couple of notable elders among us and shared with me some of their wisdom that he had gleaned.  We also talked about one of our favorite subjects as well; books—both secular and spiritual—and about the craft, the art, the work, and the discipline of preaching and sermon preparation.  What he and I both have discovered long ago about preaching is that it is more a work of the soul than of the actual preaching event itself.  (If you are wondering how I could remember these details from two and half years ago, it is not a good memory but a good journal and fountain pen) There are demands that are made on the life of every preacher from the mental, the physical, the emotional, and the spiritual zones of our lives.  

A Man Sent from God

One of the benefits of pastoring the church that you grew up in is the grasp of local church history that you are able to look to.  As a disclaimer, it was never my intention to be the pastor of the church I grew up in, it just sort of happened with God opening doors but mainly closing the ones I wanted to exit through.  My parents moved to Dothan, Alabama in the summer of 1968 which was about nine months after Brother and Sister Patterson had initially planted the church.  I was not quite two years old at the time and literally from that point on, my life was completely intertwined in the Apostolic Faith United Pentecostal Church which would later become the Pentecostals of Dothan.  My parents and the Patterson’s became so close that it was almost as if they were our extended family.  I know many of the ups and downs, the victories and losses, and saints and devils that have walked through the doors of the church over the years. 

 

In our almost fifty-five-year history, there have been a number of revivals that our church were involved in.  As a kid, I remember some of these evangelists coming through but especially those who appeared on the scene in the 1970-80s.   Revivals in those days would begin on Sunday morning and go through the following Sunday night and if the Spirit was moving, we would extend them with perhaps a rest night on Monday.  The world was a different place back then with very little distractions compared to what we are contending with now.  Seven-day revivals were pretty much the norm for a lot of churches back in the day, as they say.  Men like Aubrey Jackson, Tom Mitchell, Danny Perdew, Tom Sorrells, Reggie Dees, and others whose names have long dropped out of my memory came our way.  Some were seasoned full-time evangelists and others were young ministers trying to get their start in the ministry.  I realize now that some were showman, and some were powerful men of God.  Thankfully, the showmen were in the minority although at the time, I didn’t have the spiritual discernment to know they were showman.  In fact, I thought the showmen were pretty cool, but time has proved much about who and what they were about.  At the same time, the powerful ones deeply impacted my life even at a young age and it was in the innocence of those early altars that shaped much of who I am and what I have become now.  They fostered something deeply spiritual to which there was an almost visceral feeling that accompanied what took place in that old house on South Saint Andrews, and the old house at 1516 East Cottonwood before we finally moved into the church that was dedicated in 1976. 

 

In the almost fifty-five years our church has been in existence, there are three revivals that stand out to me like none of the others.  One of them was when Aubrey Jackson came through sometime around 1977 or 1978 or so when I was in the sixth grade.  I had no idea what the gifts of the Spirit were even about then but looking back, there is an absolute certainty that Brother Jackson was used by the gifts.  Some of the things that he prophesied had ominous outcomes on some people in our congregation and as life unfolded, it was clear that he had a gift and was very anointed by God.  But there was also the encouraging and edifying element of the gifts that Brother Jackson walked in as well and it ministered to some who are still walking faithfully for the Lord.  Another revival took place around 1979-1980 when a wild-eyed converted drug dealer came through our third building (we are now in our fourth one that was completed in August 2019).  His name was John Bliss and we had a revival that lasted for three solid weeks, every night, no rest nights, marked by prayer meetings prior to the nightly services, and it had noticeable great spiritual power.  It took our church about three days to get used to him because he was so wild-eyed.  He wasn’t a screamer that I recall but his preaching was definitely not the normal standard we were used to.  He and his wife both had come from the drug scene and it was clear that if they would have continued down that path, they would have come to a very bad end.  During that revival, there were a number of people who received the Holy Ghost and a lot who experienced spiritual renewal as well.  John Bliss had a powerful impact on our youth group at the time too.  I can remember one Sunday morning that the altar service continued well on into the afternoon and finally subsided around three o’clock.  During those days our Sunday night service started at seven o’clock with choir practice beginning at five-thirty.  On that Sunday night the church came back that night and the revival went on.  It was not abnormal for revival services to last until 9:30-10:00 at night and our church was greatly moved by the Spirit.  We still have a few people who attended the revival by Brother Bliss.  Brother Bliss was the first preacher that I can remember who always had a bottle of anointing oil in his jacket pocket and he would anoint people and pray for them no matter where they were.    

However there is one revival that stands out in my mind as probably the greatest in the history of our church.  It took place in May 2006 and there were 35 people who received the Holy Ghost during that period of time.  I can point out ten of those who have remained since that time that are still serving the Lord.  The evangelist was perhaps one of the greatest the modern apostolic movement has had in recent times.  The ministry of this man touched people coast-to-coast and from north to south in the United States.  We came into contact with him because Brother Patterson was on the steering committee for a district revival conference for a number of years and this man was one of the regular ministers at that meeting.  He first came to our church in October 2005 for three nights beginning on Friday and going through Sunday night.  There was no warm-up at all for our church with him, he walked in and the Lord immediately started using him in ways that were completely without pretense or theatrics, everything was authentic and powerful.  He preached incredible biblical messages that rarely went over 30 minutes, he was a worshipper prior to the preaching, and he worked the altars like a man driven with an incredible anointing.  I am convinced that Keith Clark was a man sent from God that touched our church in the years from 2005-2008.  After 2008, it became increasingly more difficult to schedule him because he was primarily preaching on the West Coast.  But not only did he have an impact on our church, but he influenced me in a very positive way during my times of being around him.  Much of this took place after the night services and when I was taking him to and from the airport to fly back to Houston or various other places around the nation. 

 

He was with us for the entire month of May 2006 which was five weekends because that happened to fall on a time when there were five Sundays in the month.  We would start on Friday night and conclude on Sunday night.  We regularly packed in 180-200+ people into a building that was only meant to seat a max of around 150 people.  There were people everywhere!  Chairs lined the aisles; the choir loft was packed, and we added rows of chairs in the front that as soon as the altar service started, they were quickly folded up and laid on the first two rows of pews.  Our church was literally on fire with Pentecostal fire!  People receiving the Spirit, people being renewed, life situations being worked out by the Spirit and there were even people who had demons cast out of them.  On a side note, we have almost reached a place where our churches have gotten so devoid of power that those who have unclean spirits rarely feel out of place and the devil has the ability to ride under the cover of our talented entertainment.  If we think that unclean spirits have disappeared from our days and they were only in the 1^st century we have forgotten what the Scriptures say.  Our days demand apostolic churches that are anchored by praying, anointed ministers and saints who have spiritual authority resident.  These kinds of churches are not going to be built by distracted and disinterested, prayerless, unanointed pastors and saints. 

 

Brother Clark stayed in the little apartment attached to our church and he tapped into the Spirit (and spirit) of that place.  I am convinced that churches take on attitudes, habits, and bents of the pastor, the spiritual leaders, and the people who worship there.  One of the things that Pastor John Harrell, formerly of Bridge City, told me one time was the importance of a pastor (if he was full-time) about being in the building every day and walking the halls, going through the classrooms, and moving around the sanctuary.  A pastor, a man of God, who is praying and just being in place where God had called that man to serve has a great impact on the physical plant.  That apartment was a place that many global missionaries had stayed, and I believe their own devotion had bled into the walls of that place as well.  There is something spiritual about an apostolic church that immerses itself in the presence of God and a commitment to apostolic doctrine.  That presence lingers all throughout that sanctuary during the week.  But back to Brother Clark; God would visit him with dreams and visions in our church, and it would pour out of his preaching and the Spirit of God would engulf both saint and sinner.  There were several times that he preached deeply convicting messages and would share something the Lord had shown him about individuals or even the church at large that would profoundly affect everyone who responded to the Holy Ghost.  We must continue to have that kind of ministry in 2021 and beyond.  The American and western apostolic church needs to respond to a serious call to desire and devotion to prayer, fasting, holiness, and doctrine.  We have to literally fight in the trenches against the materialism and spiritual apathy that would do its best to choke the life out of us!

 

Our church is loaded with medical professionals and one our members invited a young woman who worked in surgery at one of the hospitals in our area.  Brother Clark preached that morning and the presence of God was palpable in the building so that the entire sanctuary was turned into an altar area.  People everywhere praying, seeking, hungering for God from the front row to the back wall.  I saw Brother Clark almost literally wading through the congregation and praying for people here and there and he started moving toward the left side of the sanctuary about two-thirds of the way back.  All of this was taking place while Brother Patterson and I and many others were praying with and for people as well.  Here is Brother Clark is climbing over pews because there is no room to walk in the aisles until he gets to this young woman.  I watched him lean over and say something to her so that she was the only one who could hear what he was saying.  I saw her nod her head and then he started talking to her even more.  All of this was taking place in less than a two-minute time frame.  The next thing I see is that her hands were up, tears pouring down her face and she was praying, seeking, believing, and letting the Spirit minister to her.  Brooke Redden, who still attends our church, had brought her that morning and she was praying with her as well.  The next day at work, the young woman asked Brooke how that Brother Clark had known about her situation with such detail.  She wanted to know if Brooke, or I, or Brother Patterson had told him what was going on in her life.  Honestly, I had never laid eyes on her, Brooke had never said anything to me about her.  It was the Spirit of God working to restore and bring salvation to a person who desperately needed it.  Brooke told her that God had revealed all of this to Brother Clark.  How our churches and ministries desperately need this to be a constant in our churches!  Whatever we have to do to pray or pay the price, it is all worth it in the end. 

 

At some point later, Brother Clark and I were in one of the back-corner booths at our Red Lobster and I started asking him about how the Spirit operated in his life.  I specifically brought up this situation with this young woman because what he had said to her had been so precise that it had stunned her to know the Lord was concerned about her life.  The dreams and visions the Lord had shown him about our church were too detailed for it to have been just some generalized, vague “word” that could have fit any church in the nation.  The depth of his anointing had even caused some of our members to tell Brother Patterson and I that they did not want to come while Brother Clark was there to preach because they were afraid the Lord might reveal something to him about their secret sins and private life.  I will never forget the day that I said, “Brother Clark, how in the world have you gotten this gift, this anointing, and this power in your life?”  This kind of anointing was something beyond the norm that required more than just a perfunctory nod at God and the ministry. 

 

When I asked him that question, it was almost as if time stood still, and for a long, long time it seemed, he didn’t answer me.  I don’t know if a minute passed or two minutes but huge tears welled up in his eyes and spilled down over his cheeks and he finally answered me.  He simply said, “Pain.”  Pain in his life had ushered him into a place that most men can only dream about having with God.  Pain had pushed him to prayer.  Pain had forced him to the Word.  Pain had pulled worship out of him.  Pain had caused him to go for days without food.  Pain had removed every trapping of human relationship that he had.  He told me that pain had brought some of the most terrible and lonely hours of his existence.  Pain had left him alone with God.  Most would have dropped off into a pit of resentment and bitterness but not this man.  Pain is the forgotten gift that too many of us in the modern apostolic movement have tried to evade and shake off.  There were some challenges that Brother Clark had faced in his life that he told me about that I have often contemplated and wondered if I would have been able to stand up to them as well as he did.  I won’t divulge any of the details of it, but this pain was not just a “one and done deal” but there were several times in his life that he experienced deep setbacks and losses.  But during those days of deep mental and spiritual pain, there were some very unique visitations of the Spirit that sustained and helped him.    

 

In my Bible college days, long before I ever really knew Brother Clark, Brother Ensey had related to us some things about him that few people knew.  While Brother Ensey never divulged anything that would have been considered confidential, he was stressing to us that spiritual power and strength is often ushered into our lives by great loss and deep emotional pain.  Brother Clark had a close relationship with Brother Urshan who had helped him through the terrible time when his wife died at such a young age in the early 1970s.  Brother Urshan had been a steady voice of advice for him.  In fact, there was a period of time that Brother Urshan told Brother Clark that he did not want him to make any decisions at all until he had cleared them with him.  Too many of us scoff at allowing someone to have that much authority in our life and practice and that is perhaps why there are so few who reach the heights that God fully intended for them to have.  There were other men who guided him as well along the way to his usefulness and blessing to many.  The providence of God is always at work in our lives if we are willing to submit to the sometimes seemingly dead ends that leap up in our path.  Don’t forget that God uses will use the righteous and the rogues to help you get to the place you need to be.  Submission is a critical key for spiritual success to take place.    

 

May it be in our world that there can be a man or a woman who has been sent from God to come our way. . . but you can count on it that if they are truly one who has been sent by God, there has been some pain in their path. . . and may it be that we are going to be one of those who is sent by God! 

 

Thanks for reading. . .

 

Philip Harrelson

January 25, 2021

 

 

 

        

Why You Should Have a Prayer Bible

In a previous blog to encourage you to pray effectively, I wrote about the importance of having a prayer journal.  They are extremely useful for recording some of your prayer needs and answers to prayers as well.  A prayer journal is greatly encouraging because it can help you see the prayer needs that are being met and it can be convicting as well when it shows the way that we neglect meaningful prayer.  We are commanded to pray but it will require great discipline on our part to do so (1 Tim. 4:7-8).  There are a host of commands that we find in the Word of calls to prayer.  A prayer journal can help you to become more focused and more disciplined in your prayers. 

 

I think that most of the people who read this blog are familiar with the Pentecostals of Alexandria in Louisiana.  It is led by Pastor Anthony Mangun who has been there since the early ‘80’s and prior to that, his father, Bishop G. A. Mangun was the pastor.  One of the most important ministries of that church is the 24-hour prayer chain that has been ongoing since 1968 or so.  It is designed to follow 3-hour shifts.  A number of years ago at Because of the Times, I saw the signup sheets that are used.  They have at least three people present and praying around the clock.  Over the years, I have dropped in to pray at POA several times at varying times of the day when I was passing through the city.  I have been in there in the late evening and also in the early morning hours and there is always someone in the prayer area.  The prayer rooms used to be located in the G. A. Mangun center, but they have been moved now to the newer building that houses the sanctuary.  Two prayer areas are located to the sides of the sanctuary and in one of them is a layout of the Tabernacle where you are encouraged to pray through it as a patterned prayer.  They also have a table that has a large glass container to place written prayer needs in it.  Various prayer guides are also available and there are also framed pictures on the walls that are themed toward prayer.  It was during one of those times that I had slipped in to pray probably in the early ‘90’s that I saw several of the older saints who had open Bibles laying on the prayer altars that were in the room.  So that I would not be a nosy soul, I occasionally would slip a furtive glance over at them to see what they were doing with the Bibles.  After watching and listening to them, I realized they were praying through the Psalms.  That was the first time that I had observed this practice taking place and struck me in a very powerful way.  Some time passed before I started practicing it as well, greatly to my benefit.  I will never ever forget one Saturday night at our church that I made an effort pray the Word.  It was pushing midnight and I was alone in our old church on the front row sitting under one of the sidelights which barely illuminated the old sanctuary.  The following Scriptures were the ones I started praying through:

1 Timothy 6:11–16 (KJV)  ¹¹ But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. ¹² Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses. ¹³ I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession; ¹⁴ That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: ¹⁵ Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; ¹⁶ Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.

 

I prayed about the things I wanted to flee from which are in the previous verses (even chapters of 1 Timothy), particularly about the trap that money can bring into the lives of ministers.  But the thought of praying about things I wanted to flee from expanded and things that I would not have normally thought of began to enter my prayers.  Next, the focus of the prayer turned to the things I wanted to follow after which are character traits that need to be evident in my life.  The same thing happened, and other character traits entered my requests to the Lord.  Then the prayer moved on to the things I wanted to fight for, and this really opened up the avenues of thought for prayer.  Finally, I let Paul help me to see what an incredibly sobering moment it would be for me to stand before the Lord and given an answer for the charge that had been laid out to all apostolic ministers who have been called into service.  From that time on, I paddled around in the shallows of having a Bible with me at all times when I was praying especially in the private times of prayer. 

Once I started praying with a Bible, I adopted a small Nelson KJV and used it much.  The only regret I have was during those days, I thought that writing in a Bible was anathema.  Even though I had seen Brother Griffin’s well-used Oxford Wide-Margin KJV and also his Dugan Reference Bible which had been very much marked up, there was still some hesitation on my part to do so.  I am now guessing that probably 25 years ago, I started marking up my Bibles.  More and more I have come to believe that marked up Bibles can help us to see spiritual progress that we are making as time marches on.  This is just food for thought; I doubt your family is going to want your iPhone, iPad, or Android when you finally pass on from this life, but they will treasure a well-marked, prayed through, and wept over Bible. 

 

What are some things you should mark up in a “prayer” Bible?  If you have a personal library either physical or digital, make your books work for you.  Look at your books as if they are tools, or even soldiers that are under your command, and get the most out of them.  Herbert Lockyer’s All the Prayers in the Bible, E. M. Bounds single volume works on prayer, Andrew Murray’s With Christ in the School of Prayer, Dr. Jim Rosscup’s four volumes on prayer (given to me by Pastor Tony Mansinho) of all the prayers in the OT/NT, and John Eckhardt’s prayer books are all very good tools to push you into a direction of biblically driven praying.  Read through those prayers and then outline them in your Bible.  On another practical tip as well, use Flair marker pens and take the colors and use them for a variety of themes.  However, to keep track of your colors, mark them in the front of the Bible so you don’t just begin to haphazardly mismark your Bible.  Some of the different colors I use are for doctrinal content, holiness themes, spiritual warfare, and the kingdom of God.  One of the mistakes I made early on was not have a precise color system.  What the color choices do is help you to look through a “prayer” Bible and pick up on particular themes of prayer that you need to give yourself to:  intercession, supplication, repentance, empowerment, enlightenment, and discernment. 

 

Another one of the things that praying the Scriptures will do is force you to look at verses in their proper context.  For instance, there are four prayers that Paul prayed as given in his prison epistles (Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians) that confronted some faulty understanding that I had of how God operates in the churches.  Paul prayed for doctrinal understanding, a proper foundation in Christian living, to be filled with holiness, and spiritual understanding.  When you began to pray for this in your local church especially if you are a pastor or in some role as a spiritual leader, it can really move you to a place of clarity as to what we should be praying for.  In my thoughts, perhaps the majority of our prayers are focused more on material and physical needs than for the spiritual work both individually and corporately for the kingdom of God.  There is also a wealth of instruction that can be mined out by looking at what is commonly referred to as the Lord’s prayer in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6) which is really the disciple’s prayer.  If you truly want to look at the Lord’s prayer, go to John 17 and work through that during your prayer time and it can add so much to your understanding as to what the Lord really wanted to see happen in our lives and the forward movement of the apostolic church. 

 

Lastly, I would encourage you to let your “prayer” Bible be perhaps a different translation that you do not normally use.  I have picked up an ESV that I have set aside to use specifically as a “prayer” Bible in an effort to do all that I can to help me deepen my own work in prayer.  Next week, I will lobby for the need to have regular prayer revivals and other matters that will encourage you to foster a prayerful spirit in your local church. 

 

Again, thanks for dropping by. . .         

 

Philip Harrelson

January 7, 2021      

Why You Should Have a Prayer Journal

Prayer is one of the most crucial things that we can do as Christians and workers in ministry.  What a tremendous need in our hour to have praying pastors and praying saints in the church.  But as you quickly come to understand in the area of prayer, it is not easy.  In fact, it takes hard work and rigorous discipline to become a consistent person of prayer.  It is often easier to plan, to visit, to study, or do a multitude of other “church” things besides give ourselves to prayer.  If there is a great mandate for the apostolic church it is expressed in Acts 6:4 where we are to give ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word.  Those two actions do more for the work of God than anything else that we may determine to give ourselves to.  One of the tricks of the enemy is to move us out of prayer closets and into arenas of public ministry totally devoid of spiritual power.