Unsearchable Riches of Christ

2011 Christian Family Conference

2011-07-05T02:18:00.000-07:00

Christian Family Conference 2011 started on July 3. The theme is: Preparing the Way of the Lord. Speakers are Stephen Kaung, Lance Lambert and Dana Congdon. You can watch Live Webcast. Schedule can be found on http://www.christiantestimonyministry.com/

After the conference, the audio and video files can be downloaded from the same website for free.

Some Practical Suggestions on Corporate Prayer (by Stephen Kaung)

2011-04-14T23:54:00.000-07:00

“And they persevered in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles, in breaking of bread and prayers.” (Acts 2:42)

“And having been let go, they came to their own [company], and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them.And they, having heard [it], lifted up [their] voice with one accord to God,” (Acts 4:23-24a)

We find that at the beginning of the church on earth, they emphasized very much on two things. They persevered in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles in breaking of bread and prayers. The teaching and the fellowship of apostles are nothing but the teaching and fellowship of God’s Son Jesus Christ. There are two things that will express the teaching and fellowship of apostles best and these are breaking of bread and prayers. Therefore, we find from the very early the church did two things, breaking of bread and prayers. Of course, the prayers here are not personal, private prayers. We do not break bread alone. We break bread with our brothers and sisters. So you find that the prayers here do not refer to our personal, private prayer. It is when God’s children come together to pray together. Now we call this church prayer or corporate prayer.

There are certain basic principles that govern both private prayers and corporate prayers. Of course we know that we have to pray with burden. We have to pray out of our spirit. And we have to pray according to the leading of the Holy Spirit. These are common principles that govern both our private prayers and our corporate prayers.

But there are some differences between private prayers and corporate prayers. Because if it is personal, private prayer, you just pray whatever you are burdened with. You can pray every burden that may be out of your heart. You can pray for yourself, for your family, for your friends, for the church , and for the world. As much as you are burdened with, you can pour out your heart before the Lord. So you alone are responsible to discharge your burdens in prayers.

But the church come together to pray. We are all together, and yet even though we are together, we pray as one. So you find in the Scripture that phrase “in one accord” when two agree in the Lord, so this matter of one accord is very important. It means that when we come together, we need to lay our burdens aside, and open our hearts to the burden of church so that our burdens may be the same. And not only our burdens are the same, but we pray for our burdens together. It is like a symphony. You have a number of musicians playing together. They may be playing different instruments but they are not playing independently of each other. They play together as one. So you find that their playing is with one accord under the direction of the music master.

Now we who are the Lord’s when come together to pray, no matter how many we are, we are praying together as a symphony. And we are under the direction of the Holy Spirit. So as we open our hearts to the Lord, lay our private burdens aside, learn to accept the burden of the church. May be in the beginning of a corporate prayer, the brother in responsibility will share with us what the church is burdened with in these recent days and then we all try to take up these burdens and be guided by the Holy Spirit to pray with one accord.

To put it in another way, you are not going to pray all the burdens that have been mentioned. I have been attending many prayer meetings. I find that there are some places where when burdens are being mentioned and we began to pray. And one brother or one sister will pray all the burdens that have been mentioned. So it leaves the other ones to repeat the same things over and over again. That is not praying with one accord.

You know there is a difference between personal prayer and corporate prayer. In corporate prayer, you learn to pray just that part that the Holy Spirit seems to burden you especially. And you leave the other parts of the same burden to the other brothers and sisters under the direction of the Holy Spirit. And then you find that when we pray over this matter one after another. When we feel that the burden has been discharged, then we can go to the next item. And at the same time, you find different brothers and sisters will pray only that particular point they are burdened with. We pray until we feel that the burden has been discharged. So you find that you are not praying all by yourself. You are praying with your brothers and sisters, and with one accord.

Now in order to do that, it is important that we should pray short and not too long. I heard of a place when they come together to pray. When the burdens are mentioned, then there are four brothers and sisters, every one prays for twenty minutes and they pray over all the things again and again. And because of this, I heard that several brothers and sisters go to sleep. Now that is not corporate prayer. Corporate prayer is that everyone is burdened and everyone has the opportunity to discharge that burden. So you have to pray short prayers, concentrated prayers.

You do not need to repeat all the formality. If one brother has done the formality, you do not need to do it again. We are already in the presence of the Lord. So you just pray what impress you most. That is enough. The all round prayer is done by all the brothers and sisters. It is not done by you alone. Now because our time is limited. So I think it is evident that we have to pray short, concentrated and focused prayers.

And when we pray, we need to in touch with the Holy Spirit. When one burden has been fully discharged, you sense it within yourself. And then we can go as the Spirit leads to the second one.

And then because we are praying together, so you have to pray loud enough to be heard. In private prayer, you can pray silently or you can just murmur with it. But in corporate prayer, you have to pray aloud enough. When you kneel down to pray, and if you pray towards the ground, and your voice will hit the floor and other people may not hear you, especially with the older ones. Now I have the problem with hearing, even with my hearing aid. Unless you pray aloud enough, I cannot hear you. Oftentimes, in the church when we are praying, I only hear a few prayers. Most of the prayers I just cannot hear. And if I cannot hear, I find it difficult to join in because I don’t know what they are praying. So when we are praying, our voice should reach out to other people. So it is better when you are praying, lift up your head and lift up your voice. Now it is not because when you pray quietly, God cannot hear. It is because you have brothers and sisters with you, then they can say “Amen” with you. And that is corporate prayer.

I find in some places when people pray, you almost cannot hear anything. But I can hear people say “Amen, Amen” all the time. They say “Amen” by faith, because they can’t hear anything. Now it is better if you can hear it and say “Amen”. Then you find that we really pray as one together.

And another thing I find is helpful. In many places I find that when people mention the items of prayer, they ask everybody what is in your heart. So you find there are so many things to pray for. Not only things that concern the whole church, but even personal things. And they try to cover all these things. And they find that time is so limited. They just cannot really pray as they should. So it is better if we can be more concentrated. Now this is not a rule but I think it is a good way. That is, if there are only two or three things that we can center upon that we are able to pray thoroughly.

So these are a few practical suggestions. Of course, we need to be led by the Holy Spirit.

Note:

The above message was transcribed and edited from the recording of Stephen Kaung's sharing in a prayer meeting on August 19, 2010.

Related post:
Corporate Prayer : by Lance Lambert

West Coast Christian Conference(WCCC) 2010

2010-08-06T07:38:00.000-07:00

West Coast Christian Conference is a conference organised by some churches at the west coast of USA and Canada. It has been held yearly since 1986. As far as I know, the emphasis and focus of this conference is placed on God's eternal purpose. Main speakers in this conference in these years include Stephen Kaung, Lance Lambert, Christian Chen, Hoseah Wu, Dana Congdon, Godwin Sun and Kwok-Hin Wong. The conference is usually held in Los Angeles, Seattle or San Francisco. The languages used are English and Chinese.

This year it was held in Los Angelos and just ended on 1st of August. The theme was "The Road of recovering the Testimony of Jesus Christ". The main speakers were Stephen Kaung, Dana Congdon, Kwok-Hin Wong and Godwin Sun.

The messages are now available for download as MP3 file:

https://www.acfhome.org/wccc/messages.php

Video Webcast Live of 2010 Christian Family Conference

2010-06-25T00:07:00.000-07:00

2010 Christian Family Conference will be held in Farmville, Virginia from June 27 to July 1. The theme is "They Overcame". The main speakers are Stephen Kaung, Lance Lambert and Dana Congdon.

The conference is planning to video webcast live during the sessions. The video webcasts will be available during and immediately after the sessions.

This is the first time they do this webcast live.

It's a good news for those who really want to join the conference but cannot go to Farmville for any reason. You can now join the conference through the webcast.

You can go to the website of Christian Testimony Ministry for this service.

Related Post:
Christian Family Conference 2009

Audio Files on the School of Prayer by Lance Lambert

2010-05-03T22:37:00.000-07:00

I bought the book The School of Prayer in 1996. It was a transcription of a series of messages on corporate prayer given by Lance Lambert. The messages inside the book really took me to another realm.

Then I got a burden to translate this book into Chinese so that those Chinese-reading christians could get the benefit from it as well. In the meantime, I really desired to get the audio tapes to listen. However, I couldn't get them. The Chinese translation of this book was finally published by Cedar Publisher last December. (Click here to see)

Yesterday, when I browsed the personal website of Lance Lambert, I found the audio files of this series of message were available! That's really a pleasant surprise to me. Even though being one of the translators, I am so familiar to these messages, I still would like to listen to them as soon as possible.

They can be downloaded for free. Click here.

Related Posts:
Lance Lambert's Middle East Update
Lance Lambert's Personal Testimony
Coporate Prayer: by Lance Lambert
Messages on Coporate Prayer and Intercession
Common problems in Corporate Prayer

Life and organization (by Stephen Kaung)

2010-01-24T22:48:00.000-08:00

Concerning the matter of church and service, my feeling is that the biggest problem lies on our paying too much attention on the outward things. Oftentimes we only think of how to make the church go forward, how to make the work more successful, but overlook the fact that these two issues lies on the matter of life, but not just the outward arrangements. The problem of christianity today is on this very point ... .

When our Lord was on the earth, after his resurrection and ascension, and during the beginnings of the church, we did not see any outward arrangements, organization, or planning. The attention was paid on how the life grew and developed naturally. Both aspects were connected with the development of life, not just individually, but also corporately. In other words, this is not a matter of outward organization, but a mater of growing process of inner life.

Oftentimes we say that church is not an organization, but an organism. Yet this does not mean that church does not have any organization. Everything is in chaos and everybody acts according to what he thinks right, just like the siutation in the Book of Judges. Strictly speaking, the organization of our body is more closely knitted together than any outward organization. Yet the difference is that in outward organization, it is organized from without, so it is legalistic, it is letter. The inner organization is the growth and development of life. The organization from within is of life whereas the organization from without is mechanical. This is the difference between the church and the world.

Unfortunately, in these two thousand years of christianity, the development from inner life was degraded into the development from outward organization. Today, what is christianity trying to research? They are trying to find out how to make the church prosperous and multipy, how the work can suit man's needs, how to help people according to their needs. Strictly speaking, this is not the way of the Lord we see from the Bible. The Bible lets us see that everything in the church begins from within and then develops without. If there is nothing within, and we just pay attention on the outward things, thinking on how to make the church go forward, how to make the organization more closely knitted together and more effective. Yes, in this way, it seems to be more effective, but shall these things be approved before the Lord in future? That is a big question. ...

Translator's note:
1. This is a portion of the sharing by Stephen Kaung. He shared this in Chinese with some saints in Hong Kong in December of 2009. The transcription was already published in the "Question and Answer" in the booklet "The Salvation of the Soul".
2. The Chinese version can be seen here.

The 16th Christian Conference on Service

2010-01-23T05:27:00.000-08:00

The 16th Christian Conference on Service(its shortform is 16th CCS) was held from 15th to 19th of December 2009 in Singapore.

The theme of this conference was "Christ-centered Service". The speakers of the theme were Dana Congdon, Christian Chen and Stephen Kaung. They shared from three aspects, namely, "Service according to Christ as the Way", "Service according to Christ as the Truth" and "Service according to Christ as the Life" respectively.

The messages can be downloaded at the following website in MP3:
http://www.16thccs.com/messages/

Messages on Corporater Prayer and Intercession

2009-11-23T00:13:00.000-08:00

Lance Lambert was invited to Memphis of Tenneesses of USA to speak on Corporate Prayer and Intercession last November.

The audio files can be downloaded in these websites:

http://manhattangathering.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/school-of-prayer-lance-lambert-memphis-tn/

http://www.christiantapeministry.com/search-page.php?searchquery=corporate+prayer+and+intercession

Related Posts:
Lance Lambert's Middle East Update
Lance Lambert's Personal Testimony

Coporate Prayer: by Lance Lambert
Common Problems in Coporate Prayer

Corporate Prayer: by Lance Lambert

2009-11-11T21:47:00.000-08:00

Corporate Prayer: by Lance Lambert

Related Posts:
Lance Lambert's Middle East Update
Lance Lambert's Personal Testimony
Messages on Coporate Prayer and Intercession
Common Problems in Coporate Prayer
Corporate Prayer (by Stephen Kaung)

Common problems in corporate prayer

2009-09-10T00:23:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been proofreading the translation of a book called The School of Prayer, which is a transcription of a series of spoken messages by Lance Lambert. This book was published by Christian Tape Ministry in 1993.

Message on prayer is the strength of Lance Lambert and prayer is the emphasis of his ministry.

The first message in this book pinpoints some common problems on the matter of corporate prayer.

For instance, he said that in many prayer meetings, the saints were just praying their own prayers as if they didn't hear the one who prayed before them. It seems that the prayers of the saints in the meetings were not related. He said perhaps it would be better to distribute the prayer items to us to pray at home individually and that would save us plenty of time.

I think this is the real situation of many church prayer meetings.

He also points out some other things we have to avoid in corporate prayer:

．horizontal prayer (only speak to men but not to God)
．sermonettes
．"shopping list" prayer or "world tour" prayer
．artificiality
．long prayer
．mechanical noise
．praying into your hands (the voice is too small)
．insensitivity

Related Posts:
Lance Lambert's Middle East Update
Lance Lambert's Personal Testimony
Coporate Prayer: by Lance Lambert
Messages on Coporate Prayer and Intercession

Books by Watchman Nee

2009-08-28T20:47:00.000-07:00

Perhaps Watchman Nee was the first christian from China who has global spiriutal impact. His open ministry only lasted for twenty some years. During that time, he only wrote a few books and articles but his messages of life had great influences in a wider circle. The reason behind was that he made good use of literary work.

Watchman Nee started Gospel Book Room for publishing his messages in China. He published christian periodicals for free. Many christians subscribed these periodicals. Most of the articles in these periodicals were written by Watchman Nee himself. Some of his coworkers also took notes of his spoken messages and put them into written form. Some other coworkers did the editing work. In this way, many books and booklets were published. Some of these were translated works from very good authors. All of these literary works were in Chinese.

During Watchman Nee's visits to Europe, he delivered messages in English. Angus Kinnear took notes of some of these messages and edited them into books. The first book published was The Normal Christian Life. This book has had great impact on the spiritual life of many christians, both individual and corporate, since its first publication. And then, some more books were published - Sit Walk Stand, Love Not the World, Changed Into His Likeness, What Shall This Man Do? , etc.

Stephen Kaung, one of Watchman Nee's coworkers, moved to USA in 1952. He started to translate Watchman Nee's Chinese books into English and published through his own publishing company, Christian Fellowship Publishers in 1968. The first translated book was The Spiritual Man. These translated works introduced the ministry of Watchman Nee to English world in a fuller way.

The works of Watchman Nee were also translated into many other languages. That's the reason why his messages have global spiritual influence.

Related Post:
The Prison where Watcbman Nee was imprisoned

The Prison where Watchman Nee was imprisoned

2009-08-21T23:54:00.000-07:00

I've visited Shanghai for two days this week. I went with two brothers. One morning, the brethren in Shanghai drove us to visit some places relating to Watchman Nee and his ministry. Without their help and guidance, we could not have visited these historical places in such a short time.

Here is a photo of the prison in which Watchman Nee was imprisoned for some time.

Watchman Nee was not perfect but he commited himself in the hands of God and was like a bread broken to become provision to many. He placed himself on the altar and be burnt to ashes to become an offering of fragrance before God. He broke the vessel to pour all the ointment upon the Lord, its fragrance is still be smelled until now.

He was imprisoned for many years for the Lord. Just before the time of release, he died in a labour camp, being with the Lord he loved so dearly.

Related Post:
Books by Watchman Nee

Brother Bakht Singh of India (3) : Hearing the voice of the Lord

2009-07-28T23:03:00.000-07:00

In the biography Bakht Singh of India, the author T. E. Koshy pointed out some salient features of Brother Bakht Singh. One of them is that he learned to hear the voice of the Lord.

When Bakht Singh was a new convert, he read the book of Genesis and found that it said of "God said, God spoke" many times. Phrase of this kind appears in the five books of Moses 558 times. So he prayed to God and asked Him to speak to him. He began to learn to hear the voice of the Lord. The voice of the Lord he heard of oftentimes was in spirit, not physical voice listened by physical ears. There were several times he heard voice of God with physical ears. Of course, the vocie of God must be in line with the Bible. Otherwise, that voice is certainly not of God.

One day, Bakht Singh saw a person passing by. God said to him, "Go to stop him." So, he stopped that person. That person stopped and asked him why he stopped him and then he continued to walk. Bakht Singh stopped him again. That person said the same words and asked him why he wasted his time. Bakht Singh said, " It is because the Lord has sent me." That person said, "I don't believe. Don't waste my time anymore."

Bakht Singh went after him again and asked him to stop. Then that person told him that he was tired of his life and was going to commit suicide. Bakht Singh asked him to give him half an hour and went together to a park nearby. Bakht Sing brought with his Bible and prayed to God first. Then he shared the gospel with that person. That person told Bakht Singh that his desire to commit suicid was gone. After that, he visited Bakht Singh once or twice more and he became a Christian and was born again.

West Coast Christian Conference 2009

2009-07-27T06:04:00.001-07:00

West Coast Christian Conference is a conference organised by some churches at the west coast of USA and Canada. It has been held yearly since 1986. As far as I know, the emphasis and focus of this conference is placed on God's eternal purpose. Main speakers in this conference in these years include Stephen Kaung, Lance Lambert, Christian Chen, Hoseah Wu, Dana Congdon, Godwin Sun and Kwok-Hin Wong. The conference is usually held in Los Angeles, Seattle or San Francisco. The languages used are English and Chinese.

The conference is held in summer. This year it was in San Francisco and just ended on 26 of July. The theme was "Recovering the Testimony of Christ". The speakers were Lance Lambert, Christian Chen, Stephen Kaung, Kwok-Hin Wong, Godwin Sun and Dana Congdon.

The messages are now available for download as MP3 file:

http://www.westcoastchristianconference.com/2009/messages.html

I've downloaded all the files except the last message of Stephen Kaung since it is not available yet.

Some audio messages and transcripts of previous years can also be found in:

http://www.westcoastchristianconference.com/

The Life and Ministry of T. Austin Sparks(3)

2009-07-23T07:32:00.000-07:00

In the messages on the life and ministry of T. Austin Sparks, delivered by Hoseah Wu, he shared about the book The School of Christ by Brother Sparks.

I bought this book over eleven years. In the Preface to the third and revised version (1964), Sparks wrote, "Of all the books that have issued from this ministry, I regard this one as that which goes most deeply to the roots and foundations of our life in Christ with God."

There are eight chapters in this book. All the messages were delivered in a conference:

1. The foundation of spiriutal education
2. Learning the truth
3. Learning by revelation
4. The House of God
5. The Light of Life
6. An open heaven
7. Learning under anointing
8. The governing law of divine love

Sparks said, "Then, my advice is that not too much, indeed not a lot, should be attempted at once. Almost every page requires thinking about, and weariness can only overtake if too much is read without quiet meditaion."

Why? because "the ministry contained in this little book has been wrought on the anvil of deep and drastic dealings of God with the vessel. It is not only doctrinal; it is experiential".

"Only those who really mean business with God will take the pains demanded to read it."

Related Posts:
The Life and Ministry of T. Austins Sparks
The Life and Ministry of T. Austins Sparks(2)

Christian Family Conference 2009

2009-07-17T06:21:00.000-07:00

Christian Family Conference has been held every year in Richmond, Virginia of USA since about 1975.

The word "Family" doesn't mean that this conference only puts the emphasis on the matter of family. It just means that this conference is suitable for family members of different ages.

As far as I know, this conference is now organized by some fellowships in the States, including fellowships in Richmond of Virginia, Memphis of Tennessee, South Jersey of New Jersey, Washington D.C., etc.

I attended this conference in 1992 and 1996. At that time, the ministry time and group sharing were mainly for the adults. There were some classes for the kids, with similar emphasis on the main theme.

Besides, there were also another group sharing for the young adults and youth. All meetings were in English. In 1996, they provided simultaneous interpretation into Chinese. Those in need were given wireless earphones. The interpretator was an elderly sister. She translated the English messages into Mandarin in a remarkable way.

Usually the conference is held in summer time. The conference for this year has just ended on July 2. The theme was Preparing for and Hastening the Return of the Lord and the main speakers were Christian Chen, Stephen Kaung, Dana Congdon and Lance Lambert.

The following website provides records in audio and video form. These can be listened and watched on line and mp3 files can be downloaded for free.

http://www.christiantapeministry.com/tape-page.php?id=2800
　　

Lance Lambert's Personal Testimony

2009-07-15T17:55:00.000-07:00

Sometime ago, I found a file of "Personal Testimony of Lance Lambert" on the website of www.christiantapeministry.com and this was an audio record of his personal testimony shared to a group of young people in Seattle Chrsitian Assembly last July (http://www.seattlechristianassembly.org/Messages/SpecialMsgsEn.html).

Lance shared about his family background. His father and many members of his family, who were all Jews, died in Holocaust in Austria. Before this, his father told his mother to go to Britain. She went with Lance and Lance's younger sister who was in mother's womb at that time. In this way, they survived in Britain. However, his mother didn't tell Lance that he was a Jews until he grew up.

Lance also shared how he got saved and how he had a burden for China. Then he saw God's eternal purpose. He prepared himself to serve in China but he could not go there. He stayed in Richmond, Surrey.

In the fifties of last century, God used him and some other saints to raise up a church in Richmond. He also shared what lessons they learned on prayer and faith.

He said they had to find a meeting place at that time. So they prayed together and had a word from the Lord. From that word given by the Lord, they found a place called Halford House. However, they were all young people and did not have much money. Before the deadline of payment, they prayed in one accord to ask God to provide for them. In the meantime, God provided the money in a very wonderful way.

Related Posts:
Lance Lambert's Middle East Update
Common Problems in Coporate Prayer
Coporate Prayer: by Lance Lambert
Messages on Coporate Prayer and Intercession

Lance Lambert's Middle East Update

2009-06-28T21:10:00.001-07:00

Lance Lambert is a Jews and a Christian. He lives in Jerusalem. He is the author of Uniqueness of Israel, Battle for Israel, etc. He has had his own website since 2007: http://www.lancelambert.org/. Its content includes different aspects of his ministry in audio visual form and written form. Among these, there is a quarterly audio recording Middle East Update, which gives his unique perspective on current events in the Middle East, in the light of God's word. This update is available on this website and also being transcribed into written form.

In the beginning of this year, Lance Lambert published the January issue of Middle East Update. He gave his perspective on the reason behind the recent global financial turmoil. He saw it as the judgement of God. He said most nations' policy on the peace of Middle East was to ask Israel to divide her land to let Palestinians to have their own nation. He said according to the word of God, the land of Israel should never be divided again. So, God used the financial turmoil to judge all the nations.

The May issue of Middle East Update has been published both in audio and written form.

Related Posts:
Lance Lambert's Personal Testimony
Coporate Prayer: by Lance Lambert
Common Problems in Coporate Prayer
Messages on Coporate Prayer and Intercession

Brother Bakht Singh of India(2)

2009-06-26T19:23:00.000-07:00

I've read the biography of Bakht Singh, Brother Bakht Singh of India, which was written by T. E. Koshy. I was so touched by the testimonies of Bakht Singh.

From the Acknowledgements, T.E. Koshy told us that Angus Kinnear of England had a plan to write a biography for Bakht Singh. After he knew that T. E. Koshy also had the same plan, he gave all the materials he collected to Koshy and gave him very precious advices.

Angus Kinnear was the author of The Story of Watchman Nee: Against the Tide. When Watchman Nee visited T Austin Sparks in Britain, Kinnear was ready to be a medical missionary to India. Nee’s advice for him was that as a missionary, he should have a learning attitude. Then, he went to India as a missionary and that’s why the first edition of Watchman Nee’s famous book The Normal Christian Life was published in Bombay. It was the first series of messages spoken by Watchman Nee that Angus Kinnear edited. While Kinnear was in India, he worked with Bakht Singh for a period of time. If he had written the biography for Bakht Singh, that would have been a very specail thing, namely, the biographies of the two servants of God raised up in Asia to be written by the same author.

Bakht Singh was born in 1903 and became a Christian in 1929. He went with the Lord in 2000. Brother Bakht Singh of India, the biography written by T. E. Koshy, was first published in 2003.

Related Posts:
Brother Bakht Singh of India
Brother Bakht Singh of India (3): Hearing the voice of the Lord　

Brother Bakht Singh of India

2009-06-26T19:19:00.000-07:00

In the Forward of the book Prophetic Ministry, T. Austin Sparks mentioned about two brothers. One was used by God to plant assemblies of considerable spiritual depth all around China. What Sparks spoke of was Brother Watchman Nee.

Another brother raised up many assemblies of New Testament character , bearing the testimony of the Lord according to the spiritual principles and example set in the Scriptures, in India. His influence extended beyond India and this brother was Brother Bakht Singh.

Related Posts:
Brother Bakht Singh of India (2)
Brother Bakht Singh of India (3): Hearing the voice of the Lord　

The Life and Ministry of T. Austin Sparks(2)

2009-06-26T10:54:00.000-07:00

In his sharing, Hoseah Wu mentioned a book about the life and ministry of T Austin-Sparks. The book is named Shaped By Vision which means that Brother Sparks was a man shaped by vision.

Hoseah Wu began with the family background of Brother Sparks. Brother Sparks met the Lord in his youth. Right after his conversion, he was zealous for preaching the gospel and pursuit of the Lord. Then, he showed a gift of preaching and became a pastor of a church. He also became a coworker of G. Campbell Morgan and Mrs. Jessie Penn-Lewis.

When he was the pastor of Honor Oak Baptist Church in Britain, God enlightened him and he saw the eternal purpose of God. Once he saw that, the direction of his life and ministry changed greatly. Seeing the light of truth, he could no longer serve in Baptist Church. He quited his pastorate and met at the other place on the same road. The new meeting place was named Honor Oak Christian Fellowship Centre and he started an influential global ministry both orally and literally. They published a free periodical called A Witness and A Testimony and Brother Sparks was the editor. Most of the messages in this periodical were delivered by Brother Sparks.

Hoseah Wu also shared about the influence of the ministry of T Austin-Sparks to the saints in USA and how he was invited to speak in the conferences in the States in the sixties of last century. The coworkers with T A Sparks in the conferences include Stephen Kaung and DeVern Fromke. There are many messages of T A Sparks, including those delivered in USA, available for free downloading at the website of Christian Testimony Ministry (http://www.christiantapeministry.com/).

Frank Viola, an influential brother in the house church movement in the States, is the author of the books Rethinking the Wineskin, Pagan Christianity?, Reimagining Church, From Eternity to Here, Finding Organic Churchetc. He uses the term “organic church”, as contrast to organizational church or institutional church, to describe the church life out of the life received from God. As he said in his blog, he adopted this term with the insight from the ministry of T A Sparks. He said the ministry of T A Sparks had the greatest influence on his life and ministry. It is reported that about 9% of christians in the States are now meeting at homes, learning to lead an organic church life or a simple church life.

From the biography of Brother Bakht Singh, Bakht Singh of India, we know that the ministry of T A Sparks also helped Bakht Singh very much, especailly on the revealation about the church. Among the coworkers of Bakht Singh, some of them was sent by Honor Oak Christian Fellowship Centre, including Fred Flack and Raymond Golsworthy. Lady Daisy Ogle, who supported T A Sparks' ministry, also supported Bakht Singh's ministry.

The Life and Ministry of T. Austin Sparks

2009-06-26T10:13:00.000-07:00

Here you can find 4 messages on the Life and Ministry of T. Austin-Sparks shared by Brother Hoseah Wu, who knew Brother Sparks personally:

http://www.hgsf.net/special_meeting.cfm

Very inspiring!

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