Back around in 1970, we had worked real hard in our church and had built it up to about 125 people whom we loved dearly. After spending five years of hard physical labor, there wasn’t a part of the old building that didn’t have some piece of my hide nailed to it. I said, God I don’t mind doing this, but it’s time for a harvest, I’m hungry for a harvest. It was during that time that I got the vision of the great feast which I want to share with you today.
As Christians we have such a wonderful thing that is available, but there has to be people to enjoy it. Restaurants close because people don’t come. I mean there have been some very fine restaurants that have opened with great promise; they were going to be famous! Everything about them was good. They looked good, the sign looked good, the food was superb… they just had one problem, the people didn’t come. You see that will close down any steakhouse. Or close down any house.
So here I was preparing the house for a great feast, and I began to cry out, “God I will do anything that is right and I will do anything that works”. I never have examined the theology of that, it was just my heart crying out to God. It has got to be right and it has got to work. Some things are right, but they just don’t seem to work. Some things work but, unfortunately, they are not right and we must be people of integrity and people of honesty. I wanted Calvary Cathedral to always be subject to change, God’s way.
So what did God do in response to my prayer? He sent in a group of hippie young people! They didn’t look like I was accustomed to folks looking and they brought drums and guitars with them to worship. We had never had those in our church before because as you know, Jesus didn’t have drums in his church. But we have come a long way baby! So we started doing a lot of things differently but you know what, young people began to come, lives were being changed and we decided we would continue do some things differently.
Throughout that time we did not compromise the Word of God, but how many know that there are different baits that you put on the hook to catch different fish. We learned through that experience that the harvest is ready, the people are hungry and we stand ready to serve a great feast. The meal has not been altered. But in the presentation, if we want to see a harvest, we must be willing to change – God’s way.