It’s been our honor to have the Hanna family from the Eight Mile Rock church in Grand Bahama in our cabin/home this weekend. A special blessing was the presentation Brother Tavaro gave us on Thursday evening at our Family Bible Time about their work to build a church at Eight Mile Rock. They are creative in their methods of letting people know this church is there and they are sound in their teaching. They are determined this church they are building at Eight Mile Rock will be the church Jesus built on THE rock (Matthew 16).
I was encouraged as they described the seventeen people that are now part of this growing church. But I was especially amazed that ten of those seventeen are busy saving their funds and booking their flights to come to Polishing the Pulpit (www.polishingthepulpit.com). PTP is one month away. It is, in my judgment, the most encouraging event in our brotherhood. I can give personal witness over and over to women whose lives have been permanently changed for eternal good because of PTP attendance. I know families that have come back together when influenced by the gospel as it was proclaimed from this Spirit-filled gathering. The Spirit does fill our cups there through the teaching of that precious Word He breathed into the apostles and preserved for us in our Bibles. And at PTP, that teaching happens intensely, many times each day, and the Word is shared in so many venues that it is possible in any given hour of any day to find a room in which a topic that you very much need for spiritual growth is being discussed. It’s like a personal delivery of good news for every person there!
I know you can tell I hope you can go. Your life will never be the same. But I also wanted to point out that the Eight Mile Rock church will never be the same. I could be unaware of others, but this church is the only one I know about whose PTP attendance rate is over 50%. Over 50%! Imagine your congregation: What if over half of the people in your congregation could be suddenly renewed and recharged spiritually to work and study, evangelize and focus heavenward? What if every parent in that group of over 50% came home with one great tool to keep her children faithful? What if your congregation’s leaders learned how to better spread zeal while staying true to the blessed gospel? All the “what-ifs” here are mind-blowing. They are church-growing!
You may be thinking, “Well, that’s easy for Eight Mile Rock. They’re so teeny.” Let me just say that “easy” is not the descriptive word for this effort. They are traveling by boat or plane (or both) from a country outside the US. They are using their vacations and they had to start long ago to save up enough funding for this trip. Their pilgrimage takes focus and fortitude. I hope you are blessed by knowing about them and I hope someone is encouraged to go ahead and come to PTP for the very first of many years of making PTP a yearly goal. A trip to the Bahamas would be fun. But this spiritual trip from the Bahamas is maximally encouraging to me.
It makes me sad for so many Christians who are within an easy driving distance of Sevierville, Tennessee, where PTP happens each August, who have never given much thought to traveling to East Tennessee to get this powerful shot of spiritual immunity against the destructive work Satan is doing all around us; to get the power boost of encouragement, zeal and faith without which you will never leave Polishing the Pulpit.
Come on. There’s still time to register. Go look over the schedule and make a decision to experience inevitable spiritual growth. Bring your children! It’s a big start on the important preparation for the second coming of our Lord. That’s important in any Christian’s book!
Register here: https://polishingthepulpit.com/register
