Revival breaks out in Jena, Louisiana

Jena, Louisiana was in the news last September for the civil rights protests regarding the "Jena Six," black students whom many said were unfairly prosecuted for their role in beating up a white student. News reports of whites not allowing blacks to sit under their tree at Jena High School and reports of hangman's nooses hung as a threat, raised tensions to a feverish pitch.
Now a new spirit is reigning in Jena. Make that "Spirit" with a capital "S," for the Holy Spirit is sweeping through the town with revival, according to reports in Baptist Press.
When the predominantly white Midway Baptist Church began a "normal" spring revival, it broke out into a time of repentance, racial reconciliation and forgiveness. Jimmy Young, the pastor of the African-American congregation, L and A Baptist Church, attended and was asked to preach. Crowds grew from 200 to 300. So the revival continued, and the crowds grew to 400. Every night, people were accepting Christ, and 22 were baptized in one service. As the crowds grew to 700, they moved the revival to East Jena Baptist Church. Now as the revival is entering its fourth week, the services are moving to the 1,100-seat gymnasium at Jena High School, the very school where all the racial tension began.
Reports are that the invitations last an hour long, and nobody wants to go home, as the Holy Spirit is sweeping through the town.
Of course, the national news media is not reporting on Jena now. But Somebody more important is watching it all with joy.

Church on fire

Our church has literally been "on fire" this week as the athletes from Team Impact have crushed concrete blocks on fire, broken baseball bats, and dealt the Devil a body blow with their gospel presentations. The crusade is still going on, but after the first three nights, we have counseled 95 people who said they were accepting Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord!
UPDATE: In five nights, we counseled over 250 people, 177 of whom made professions of faith in Jesus Christ. We are now very busy following up on these individuals with personal contacts. We sent references to 71 different churches for them to follow up, and we are following up on about 100 people who live in our area and have no church home, or already attend our church.

Words of wisdom from Kenny Grant

What a great revival we had this past week with Rev. Kenny Grant.

As promised, I have collected some of the one-liners that Brother Kenny shared with us this week.

Here are a few quotations:

"I want to be brief tonight, but I probably won't be."

"If you can't say 'Amen,' say 'Oh, me.'"

"We're fooling ourselves if we say we worship God and we live like common yard dogs."

"We make a big deal out of building God a house because we don't want Him in our own house."

Talking about men being under Christ's headship before being head of the home: "You gotta be under what you're supposed to be under before you can be over what you're supposed to be over."

"Missing men produce broken boys."

"A wife's job is to complete her husband, not to finish him off."

"The church is like Noah's ark; there might be a stench on the inside but there's a storm on the outside."

"Sin takes you further than you planned on staying and costs you more than you planned on paying."

Regarding the prodigal son and the elder brother: "The one who started out out, ended up in, and the one who started out in ended up out."

"Love isn't a fall. Love is a climb."

"Love isn't blind. Love just knows how to overlook the junk it can see."

"Safe sex is a myth. You can't do an unsafe thing in a safe way."

"The only safe sex is sacred sex. And the only sacred sex is married sex."

"Girls will play at sex because they really want love, and boys will play at love because they really want sex."

"I know we're not perfect people and this isn't a perfect world, but this Bible is a perfect book and we cannot dumb it down."

"Failure doesn't have to be final."