There is one major detail that I need to include about the launch of Sharpsburg Family Worship Center. So often we think that God's work begins and ends with us. The reality is that God is at work long before us, and in ways far beyond our understanding.
I got involved in the Sharpsburg launch in 1999. God was involved long before that.
Back in 1985, when I was still in Bible College, God was moving on the heart of the then pastor of St. Johns United Church Of Christ (the church from which we bought the building). His name was Pastor Oberkirker.
Pastor Oberkirker was hungry for a move of God in his city, but his church was not responding to his leadership. To fill that void in his heart, Pastor Oberkirker would travel out to APC for the Sunday night services during the mid-eighties. Pastor Ron Bailey was then the Senior Pastor of APC. It was during those Sunday night services that Oberkirker was filled with the Holy Spirit, and I am pretty sure was also baptized in water.
He went back to his church in Sharpsburg and prayed passionately, walking up and down the aisles of that church building, believing for a revival. But it was a revival that he would never see with his own eyes.
By the early nineties, Pastor Oberkirker had retired. The St. Johns Church was still in gradual decline. But God was not deaf to this man's prayers!
When we stepped in to purchase the facility from the St. Johns Church, at such a miraculous price, we were walking on the prayers of a godly leader from a decade past. When Pastor Russ stepped into the pulpit and began to explain the message of Christ, he was walking on the faithfulness of a pastor who had sown good seed for many years in the soil of that city.
Now we reap the harvest. But we don't forget that prior to our reaping, there was a man that sowed in tears. And God has now brought forth the increase! One plants. Another waters. But God gives the increase in his time.



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