We woke up at 9:30am this morning, got ready and went to the General Session #3, did some more worship with David Crowder Band (and by the way sounds the same in person and on the Cd, so he must be an awesome artist) also had a speaker named Matthew Barnett..
He's a Senior Pastor in his later 20's at a church, LA Dream Center, from the inner-city of LA. He is taking inner-city LA by storm, he is a white- boy from Scottsdale, AZ that was asked by his Father, after 10 candidates had turned down this position, to be a Senior Pastor. Matthew took the position, moved from everything he knew to LA, his congregation went from 80 to a congregation on 2 in a matter of 6 months. One day, while weeping in his apartment in LA, prayed to the Lord... How can I be successful? The Lord spoke to him and told him to go to Echo Park, at midnight, no less... he thought sheesh God must be punishing me for wanting to be successful so he's sending me there to my death. Anyone familiar with how dangerous Echo Park is?
God spoke to him that night in the middle of Echo park and told him, I want you to throw away any desires you have of wanting to be successful. I want you to look around you, understand that this is your mission field. The gang's, the pimps, the prostitutes, and the drug dealers. When he set aside all of his desires to be successful, at the age of 22 now, his congregation grew from 2 to 700 in 6 months. He's converted gangsters, pimps and and prostitutes. They would go out to areas of LA that no one would want to touch, and give prostitutes a place to be able to run away. LA dream center had purchased 16 homes, and drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes could come here, live, and it would give them an option to be able to turn their life around.
He once brought this girl in from prostitution, grew up in foster homes her whole life. They had a van, smuggled her in there, meanwhile her pimp is chasing them down the street. Who is waiting at the church, but the gangster's, drug dealers, and pimps who had been converted waiting at the gates to scare off the pimp chasing after that girl. When Matthew had a chance to talk to her, she told him her story. She had been prostituting and she got pregnant and everyone told her that she could not keep it and continue in this business. She decided to keep the baby because she thought that this baby would somehow bring her dignity and that it would motivate her to want to change her life. Her pimp came in one day and told her to get to work, and she told him No. While holding her baby the pimp had shot her baby with a gun killing it, and then used a curling iron to ensure that she would never be able to have children again. LA Dream Center brought her in, changed her and now she is going out to those places she once worked to convert pimps and prostitutes. To even further this she had been talking to these 3 pimps in a donut shop for some time, so they told her because she had been so persistent that they would go to church with her just once. And in the back of the church stood 6 or 7 pimps she had brought in, that day all of them had confessed Jesus as Lord.
Another story, Matthew came into the church one day and noticed that a young gang boy had been killed just outside his church. And Matthew said, we've got to do something. The ex-gang members told him, that's not how it works out here... you need to just leave it alone. Matthew continued and said, I am going to do something about this. So they got together $28 to give to the young boy's family. We went across the street to the apartment of the family and knocked on the door, opening the door was the biggest, most tatooed gang member he had ever seen. He asked him what he wanted, well we got together $28 to try and help with the loss of the young boy and to pray for the mother. So he gave them the money and tried getting out of there as soon as possible. And as he walks away, he felt an arm grab him and said can you come in a pray for our whole family? Matthew went in, and had several gang members and the mother. So, he started praying, but nothing so he continued praying bolder and nothing. He prayed even bolder, and he felt the gang members hands tighten with him and he prayed bolder and he felt their arms raise above his head and when he had opened his eyes they were all crying. So, he ministered to them and was able to bring them all to Christ that night. Had he done nothing because of fear, these people may never have come to Christ.
This may be an extreme case, but how many times have we been to scared to do anything or go somewhere out of fear? I admire Matthew Barnett, not because he's saving lives... but because he's not afraid to go out into the scariest place and try and reach people. We will be purchasing the DVD of his speaking from today because it empowered us so much that if this white boy can go to the inner city of LA, then maybe there is somewhere that God has called us to be that we could have been scared of. Too often we stay in our comfort zone. We will be doing a Bible study with our kids on this speaker, He is very powerful and you know what He's under 30... so crazy.
**On a side note, today was my sister's baby shower. She is having a boy, naming him James. My grandma still has suspicions that it will be a girl, my grandma had guessed all of us grand-children's genders before we were born. My mom one times had even bet her house that she was going to have a boy, but just like my grandma had guessed it was a girl. My grandma let us keep the house! That was lots of fun, I can't wait til I will be able to have a baby shower and get all sorts of clothes and stuff. Maybe someday in the future :)
