Gold Harbor

Ministry - What’s the urgency?

Did that catch your attention? All of us who are involved in the ministry whether it is preaching, teaching, singing or working with the youth, it is a ministry. As a Christian, even if you feel you don’t have a “ministry”, you do, whether you are a caring neighbor, a friend, or a prayer warrior, we all have a special gift that God has given us. What’s the urgency - you ask? For Gold Harbor, the urgency is telling people who don’t know Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior about His soon return. As a daughter of a Baptist minister and having gone to church all my life - I have heard the phrase “God is coming back again someday”. I know you have heard that many, many times as well. I think we have heard it so often that we no longer pay attention to the fact that it is TRUE. But in today’s world that we are living in - I am now hearing it phrased this way - “GOD IS COMING SOON”. That is a fact, and in that statement comes the “URGENCY”. In saying that, we feel we can’t sing enough, testify enough, witness enough and spread the word of Jesus Christ enough in order to prepare people for the soon coming of the Lord. We all should feel that same urgency and desire to go out and tell everyone that we know about salvation and what a gift God has given to us and all we have to do is accept it.

Gold Harbor has been having some wonderful services and we feel like maybe we are having a revival ourselves. We see in every service and concert that we are in that the world is hurting. So many families are jobless and losing their homes, children are going to bed at night hungry, people are distraught and uncertain about how they are going to provide for their families. Our story is of HOPE, ENCOURAGEMENT, and FAITH. We love to share this story wherever we go.

A wealthy man found himself shipwrecked on a deserted island all alone with nothing to eat, no clothes to wear, and no comforts of life as he had known before. After weeks of realizing he was going to have to make the best of life as it was now - he would get up every morning, go out and search for food and anything of value that he thought he could use. After months of searching, he had accumulated several things and decided to build himself a hut to store his items in for safe keeping. After his hut was completed - he got up one morning as he always did, to search again and scan the horizon to look for a ship or any sign of life hoping and praying to one day be rescued. Upon his arrival back at his hut that day - he found nothing but a pile of smoke and ashes - his hut had caught fire and burned to the ground. In despair, he fell down on his knees and asked God “Why have you taken everything from me AGAIN? All my life I have served you - I have been faithful to you and you have let this happen to me again and I don’t understand why.” After the exhaustion of the events that day - he finally fell asleep but was awaken by the sound of what he thought was a ship. Am I dreaming he asked himself? He looked out across the vast sea and saw a boat headed his way. He stands up and waves his hands and screams please help me. As the boat approaches and gets closer, the shipwrecked man asked the boat captain, are you here to rescue me and how did you ever find me way out here on this deserted island? The captain simply replied, “We just followed your smoke signal”.

What a message and one for all of us to learn from. Even when we feel hopeless and helpless, and feel there is NO way out, God is working on our behalf. All we have to do is trust and have faith. When you feel that you are all alone and nobody else cares - God does. He will always be there and He will never leave nor forsake you. When God does something - he does it in an unordinary way - in a way so that HE will receive the glory. Then when God does something miraculous, we say “isn’t that strange the way that happened”? That’s just like us isn’t it?

The URGENCY? It’s what Gold Harbor feels and has such a passion about. We want to share the story of God’s love. I pray we all have the same urgency and desire to do what we can to tell people about the greatest friend that you will ever have BEFORE God‘s SOON returning.

URGENCY? Don’t you think it is time we all felt it?

DARLENE CHAPMAN/GOLD HARBOR
http://www.goldharbormusic.com