From: Yves Perriard To: Frank Chappell Date: Saturday, March 27, 1999 2:51 AM Subject: REPORT Dear Brothers and Sisters, This report will have a little different nature than the one you usually receive because I cannot help but sharing the great spiritual changes that took place in us the last 3 weeks. THE REVOLUTION OF PRAYER Since the beginning of the year, I feel that things have been OK in the church. There is a very warm and loving atmosphere among us, the Sunday attendance has been regular with around 50, we always have had new visitors, worked hard trying to get new people studying the Bible, and have tried many different ways to get new people. For instance, we started new small Bible discussions at the dormitories where some of our Christian students live; we have invited people to the " Jesus" film the last Saturday of February where we had almost 300 showing up. (Because of such a positive result, we think of having every last Saturday of the month a film with a biblical theme. ) We had some well attended " friends day" ( the last Sunday worship of every month ), with attendances of over 60-70 or more, we had a worship service when some of our Christians gave testimonies of how they became Christians, which deeply touched many of us ; as leaders we were meeting 3 times a week for studying the Scriptures for 2 hours and praying one hour each time. In other words, we tried to work hard and smart. But in all those efforts I felt that something was missing. I felt that we were doing the right things, we had many contacts, much work, but no baptisms since December and nothing coming up soon ! I though a lot. For those who know me, you should know by now that nothing gets me more passionate than trying to restore in our century the very church we see in the New Testament. And what I see in the book of Acts is a church that grows not only in grace, in knowledge, in faith, in love, etc...but in baptisms as well ! So the question I always have on my heart is : "What allowed the early Church to have such a powerful impact on the world ? What power, what wisdom, which principles turned this small group of ordinary people into such an extraordinary army that conquered the world ? " Whenever there are churches or even denominations that are growing in numbers, I always try to study what they do that makes them grow, and than I always compare it with the Bible to see if there is anything I can learn from them. Well, here I was surfing the net and by curiosity I decided to see what was making the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Korea to be the largest denomination in the world ( 700.000 members in Seoul alone ) I found a message that their main pastor wrote, that I partially quoted for you. I hate to admit it, but as much as I don't like Pentecostalism, what this man wrote made me really think about my prayer life. If we believe in restoring the NT church, then we cannot ignore Acts 6:4 Here is what he wrote: "I want to speak on a very important factor that brings Church Growth. To have Church Growth, we must prepare to receive from the Lord. Church Growth does not come naturally. So the number one requirement to have Church Growth is to have massive prayer. Without prayer, you cannot even dream of having Church Growth. Many people try to bring Church Growth by human gimmickry, but they fail. Church Growth comes by the power of the Holy Spirit, and Church Growth is only available to you through much prayer. We are all created by God so that we can bring praise and worship unto the Lord. Ministry unto the Lord is the first requirement of the Lord. We think that we must pray for our ministry, our families, and all other things and then finally we will pray unto the Lord. That is a great mistake. Ministry unto the Lord should come ahead of anything else in your life. It is why you are called into this world. Regardless, of your many excuses, God wants you to come to Him. Many say that God is almighty, and He does not need our fellowship, but that is a terrible lie. God is love, and love has a limitless desire for fellowship. When you love your husband or wife then you want to spend more time together, because love requires fellowship. God has limitless love for you, and He desires your fellowship. He cannot be satisfied with the fellowship of the angels or the universe. He created you for His pleasure; to have deep fellowship with you. Rev 4:11, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. The number one responsibility in your life is to bring praise, worship and prayer fellowship unto the Lord. Many people tell me that they do not have time to pray because they are too busy. Usually, these people have 500 or 1,000 people in their church, and I don't accept their excuses. I have over 700,000 people, but I still have enough time to pray before the Lord. I have so much work piling up on me, daily. I have 700 ministers under me, 700 office workers in our buildings and in our newspaper , there are 800 reporters in London, Paris, Washington D.C., New York City, Moscow and all over the world, and I must make daily decisions for all of these people. I will never, never tend to these works until I spend enough time with our Lord Jesus Christ . I take time before the Lord and have fellowship with Him until I feel His righteousness, peace and joy, then He will say "that is enough today". He then fills me with His wonderful joy. Then when I come out of God's Presence: then His Presence follows me, and I can minister with great effectiveness and power. By empty rituals; you cannot really help people. If you meet the needs of people in God's righteousness, peace and joy; then you can really meet their needs. If you just do the motions without the genuine power of God, then you are just using fakery. That is a terrible, terrible travesty. So in order to become a genuine minister of God; you need to at least spend more than one hour in prayer a day. As a minister, it is a shame to spend only one hour a day in prayer. I tell my ministers to spend more than 3 hours a day in prayer. I say "even though you can't carry out visitation, it is fine with me". If you spend more than 3 hours in prayer, then with the power of God when you go out to minister to the people; you can accomplish more in one hour than you can in 10 hours without the power of God. Spending your time before the Lord will make you genuine. It is wrong to compare the quantity of our work with others' work. Before God, quantity does not mean very much, but genuine quality means very much. When I was young, I enjoyed comparing my Church Growth with other churches, but now I never do that. I may have 1,000,000 people in my church, but if I am a shallow Christian standing with God then it means nothing. " I don't know about you, but after reading this I started to think more than ever about my prayer life ! And interestingly, all of us leaders in Voronezh we had been individually thinking about the need to pray more. So Tuesday morning the 9 Th of March, we all decided to help each other in our prayer life by meeting every morning ( except Sunday morning ) for 1 hour of individual Bible study followed by 1 to 2 hours of prayer. We have done this every morning ever since and have opened the Saturday morning to the whole church to come to pray for 2 hours. Needless to say, we have started to see some big changes in our hearts ! The first and most important one has been that we really want to pray and enjoy being in the presence of our Father. The other change took place in the hearts of the people around. At our last prayer-worship service, I could really see how God was touching the hearts of some Non-Christians. Some were even crying. It is interesting and almost funny that sometimes we pray for God to do amazing things, and when He does them... we are amazed ! ( Acts 12: 5+15 ) Now, be ready to hear amazing things in the next report. I really believe that God opens the floodgates of heaven when we do not rely any more on our own strength and wisdom. MOSCOW EVANGELISTIC CAMPAIGN From Monday the 15 Th of March till Thursday the 18 Th , Volodia, Vladick, Sasha, Dima, Ira, Natasha and myself were invited for an evangelistic campaign that the Moscow Church had organized. Our mission was to go out in the streets and invite the people to the friends day that was taking place at the end of the week, and to try to set up as many individual studies as possible. Every morning we would meet with the Moscow leaders and pray all together for almost 2 hours. Right from the beginning we felt that God had bound our 2 churches just as if we had always been one church. Right away with the very first prayer morning we knew that God was about to do great things in a city that is considered the most difficult one in Russia. And indeed our Lord showed His power and mercy as we went out to share the good news. Every day we had new studies and numerous contacts were established. It was amazing how some people would open up their hearts right away on the street. I even had one woman crying as I told her how much God loves her. It takes miracles to have Muscovites opening up their hearts right away to strangers ! You see we have to be bold and ask God to do wonders and He does them ! ( read well Acts 4:29-30 ) VLADICK GETS MARRIED SATURDAY THE 24 TH APRIL This is official. If any of you wants to contribute to his wedding and all what it takes to start a married life, you can be sure he would really appreciate. Send your contribution to: Northland Church of Christ 4581 Cleveland Avenue Columbus OH 43231 (Mention: " for Vladick ") Thank you for all your prayers and generous contribution to the work here. The Lord truly blesse those who give themselves to Him, Yves