He Changed Me

The path continues in front of me today but I want to resume where I left off. “After our men’s group my dear friend said, you really need to come to our church. I knew then that my family and I had to go and visit this church…”

 

Church on Fire Ministries is the name of the church we were invited to visit. They are located in Harrison, Ohio.

 

This is an interesting story because my wife and I both have learned now that we should NEVER, say NEVER. One of my brothers travels about 40 minutes to church every Sunday. My wife made a comment that she would NEVER drive that far for church… I also made a comment about bigger churches. We use to attend a church which the attendance was usually anywhere from 30 – 50 people every Sunday. Well guess what… Church on Fire is 40 minutes away and is a HUGE churchJ (but it really is not the size of the church here that matters). God is HUGE and you can find Him in small and/or large churches. My point here is you have to be careful of what you say NEVER about. Now I will continue with my story…

 

So, my buddy invited me out and I just had this feeling of EXCITEMENT about visiting. This was different for me because I have not had this type of excitement about going to church in a long time. While we were visiting churches we did not just pick a church to go to, we let God guide us. I was a little worried to tell my wife that I felt we should go out and visit this Church on Fire because it was quit a drive… 40 minutes to be exact! But, I of course brought it up and she said, “Lets Go”.

 

All week I felt my spiritual self thriving to go and on Saturday night I felt sickL Immediately I started sending out text messages to all the men from the men’s group asking them to pray for me. That I felt God wanted us there Sunday but something was coming over me and I felt ill. PRAYER was answered and Sunday morning we arrived at Church on Fire Ministries for the beginning of something AMAZING!

 

When we first walked into the church I had this feeling of warmth around me. Everyone was in conversation with one another and greeters met us at the door and welcomed us openly with a handshake.  We went in and sat upfront with a couple of our friends and on the way to our seats the men from our men’s group seen me, came up, gave me a hug, and welcomed us. This really made me feel good and helped settle the atmosphere around me (I was a little nervous because it was a new place).

 

Service started and the worship group started praising God with song. I looked over to the middle of the church in the front and saw this gentleman who I learned later was “Pastor Doug (aka PD)”. While we were worshipping God I saw PD glance at me and then immediately look at me again. I knew then that this guy looked familiar to me and I had a STRONG feeling that he thought he knew me too. This will come back to play in a few minutes so hang in there with meJ

 

Service was AMAZING and the SPIRIT was INCREDIBLE! I knew then that there was a reason why God sent us here. After church my buddy said, “Brian I want you to meet PD”. I said without hesitance, “Cool let’s go”. Now get this, when PD first saw me guess what he said... guess… He said, “Don’t I know you?” I was at AWE because I knew then where I had seen him and I shared this with my friends later that week.

 

Over two years ago I admitted to ignoring a call that God had called me to do. I prayed to Him concerning this calling and asked Him to confirm to me that it is what He wanted me doing.