I was the young adults pastor at a very large church in Orlando, Florida, from
1987 to 1989. The pastor of that church knew that God wanted to send my wife and
me on the road full-time. So he came into a pastors' meeting at the beginning of
1989 and announced it. The pastor and I felt that the right time would be
January 1, 1990. Based on that, the church kept us on salary till December
31,1989, and we were launched in January of 1990 as planned.
Now the end of November came, and I knew our salary was about to be cut off in
one month and all I had booked was a meeting in a small church in South Carolina
the first week of January and another church in Tennessee the end of February.
All we had was three hundred dollars in savings, and I had two small children
with needs to care for. My pastor, who is very well known in this nation, had
given me a tremendous letter of recommendation and had made available to me a
stack of six hundred address cards of churches to which he had been. I had made
copies of the letter and was in the middle of addressing the envelopes to send
out to those six hundred pastors when the Spirit of the Lord came on me and
said, "What are you doing, John?" I responded, "I'm letting pastors know I am
available to minister." He quickly said, "You'll get out of My will!" I said,
"God, nobody knows me out there!" Then He responded by saying, "I know you!" I
knew He was showing me that His way was not to advertise myself. Now I didn't
call it advertisement, but that is exactly what it is! When I heard Him say
that, I threw away those letters and envelopes that were addressed. This did not
line up with what I was told in training for the ministry, but I knew God had
spoken to me.
Since then we have not lacked one cent or been idle. We have not made one phone
call or written one letter unless it was reported that a pastor wanted us to
contact him. We have seen God open doors in ways that caused us to marvel. In
the next two years we ministered in churches in seventeen states and five other
nations.
Ministries in America have become political and professional in many ways. God
is looking for men and women who will trust Him for their every need and not try
to give Him assistance in doing it.
Today we have traveling ministries who send out promotional packages trying to
sell their ministries to pastors. They call churches and prostitute themselves
and their gifts. We have hirelings who travel and charge fees to "minister."
They justify prostituting the gift of God by the reasoning that they have a
budget to meet and churches don't always realize what their needs are. They will
only go to a church and "preach" if they are guaranteed so much money and
provision. They have made the churches their source and not God!
Bevere, John. The Voice of one Crying. Apopka: Messenger Press, 1993, p. 26-27.
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