CHARISMA MAGAZINE did an article on 5 of the Fastest Growing Churches Youve Never Heard of and my church, Redemption Point, is among them. Read the following excerpt: Redemption Point Pastor Kevin Wallace has a vision to pastor the most loving church in America—not to mention one of the more miraculous. As pastor of a church in Ooltewah, Tennessee, that has grown from 34 attendees at its first meeting in 2000 to more than 1,200 today, Wallace seems to be well on his way to fulfilling that calling. However, the early years werent easy. In fact, the pastor of Redemption Point Church says it was hell on earth. This is the part people dont usually hear about, Wallace says. My 1-year-old son Jeremiah had seven kidney stones in his right kidney. My newborn son and my wife in the first six months both got spinal meningitis within the same week. I almost had a nervous breakdown. But what catapulted our church into the first wave of explosive, quick growth was that God healed my son of kidney stones, and he healed my wife and newborn son of spinal meningitis.Our agnostic doctor confessed that although she didnt believe in miracles, something had to have happened because the kidney stones disappeared. It was definitely after the church had prayed. And when those miracles happened, the church went from 34 people to about 200 people in nine months. We went into a major revival mode.During this time, a number of miracles occurred among members of this Church of God congregation, including a mother with a walker who threw off that walker and took off trotting around the church without a walker, Wallace says. The church was rather dead, to be honest, when Kevin got here, says Ron Phillips, the senior pastor at Abbas House in Hixson, Tennessee and host of the Ron Phillips From Abbas House television program. He began in his joyful and enthusiastic way to preach the Bible and grew the campus in Ooltewah. Ive never seen a church advance as rapidly as his church. It hasnt happened because he embraced some modern or contemporary model. Its advanced because there is a strong presence of God on this young mans life. Its obvious hes gifted by the Holy Spirit, in addition to his own natural talents as a preacher. Hes a great people person and a great man in the pulpit. He seems to attract resources as well that have brought great favor to him. Wallace, who received a word of prophecy from Phillips as a youth that he would become a voice in your generation, says church growth experts are often shocked by his churchs success because so many times we do the opposite of what we are supposed to do to grow. We broke all the rules, Wallace says. Instead of giving a 25-minute sermon, Wallace often preaches for 45-50 minutes, and worship services can last for hours. Its almost old-fashioned with a fresh, prophetic sort of focus, Wallace says. I dont like weirdness, but at the same time I think that our churches have gotten so normal that anytime we get back to the Bible everyone thinks were abnormal. When people come to our church, they may see people fall out on the floors, speak in tongues and there is an interpretation and healings occur. That is shocking to even some Spirit-filled people who come to church, but that is the paradigm that the New Testament church is called to operate in. While some people think thats abnormal, we think its normal. In the past, ministers have been told that if they allow the gifts of the Spirit to flourish that their congregations wont grow, Wallace says. But in the Book of Acts every explosive growth season in the church was tied to supernatural and miraculous sorts of activity where God broke in and just did things that only He can do. When He did that, and the people allowed Him to and entire cities and communities were transformed. Wallace says the church needs to refocus on the things of God and let the Spirit of the Lord do what only the Holy Spirit can. We have seen the limits of what mans gifts and mans abilities can produce in the church, Wallace says. Whatever we see now is as good as it can get without God restoring true apostolic power and authority. The only thing that I think will revive the church in America is an authentic demonstration of the presence of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 00:23:58 +0000
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