Gospel Mission and the 3 P's

In one of his sermons on Living Truth, Charles Price talked about the three items in the Ark of the Covenant: the stone tablets containing God's Law, a jar of manna and Aaron's staff. Each represents a different aspect of our relationship with God. The tablets represent God's purpose, the manna represents His provision; Aaron's staff represents His power: this is the staff that blossomed and bore almonds while the staves of the representatives of the other 11 tribes of Israel remained sticks; Aaron's staff manifested God's power and life through Him.

Does that not apply to Gospel Mission? God's purpose has been playing out pretty much since the Mission was founded in 1929, in the Mission's principle of "God's food first" and its emphasis on being a place of Worship, ministry of the Gospel and demonstration of the love of Christ.

God's provision is represented in numerous ways, particularly in The Lord's Rain. It provides a place to meet a Basic Human Need, which is to be clean; but the fact that the facility has always met its rent and utility bills, often through miracles (OK: consistently through miracles), shows how God has made sure the ministry's worldly needs are being met.

And now we come to God's power. From what I've been hearing and reading on the Gospel Mission Society Facebook page, that has been descending, big-time, on the Mission. I'm getting reports of healings, people receiving the Holy Spirit, and other demonstrations of God's love and grace. It bruises my ego to say it, but it's happened since I was moved out (by God, I should point out) and Wesley Chadwick was moved in. (God has His way of moving us around like chess pieces: we usually have no idea what He's doing at the time, but He eventually shows us when we need to know it.)

This is exactly what God has shown me the Mission would be doing, and exactly what the Downtown East Side needs. It doesn`t need more money, more programs or more handouts: it needs a dose of the Holy Spirit and the Gospel, straight-no-chaser, to bring the hope people need to keep moving forward and turn their lives around -- for His name's sake.

Gospel Mission is an Ark in another way: like Noah's Ark. Years ago, God showed me that there would be Revival on the Downtown East Side with the Holy Spirit coming in like a flood, rising up and catching people unawares in its tide. The Cross would be the Ark for people to grab onto to avoid being swept away and drowned, and so long as Gospel Mission puts the Cross and all It represents first -- God, Jesus, Redemption, Forgiveness, Grace -- people will find the refuge and the hope they need there. With the manifestation now of God's power, going with His provision and purpose, we're seeing the two types of "ark" melding into one.

From The Lord's Rain: The Wedding Miracle

On the face of it, this miracle has nothing to do with water and wine, and everything to do with the fact that the wedding happened at all. This past Saturday (May 9), Janet Klassen, the Assistant Pastor at Gospel Mission with responsibility for The Lord’s Rain, married Kim Mogenson, who has been around the Mission in one way or another for at least as long as I’ve been there – 8 years, now.

I’ve written about Janet before, the struggles she’s gone through and her victories. Just before Barry Babcook passed away unexpectedly, we learned that she and Kim had become an “item”. General reaction: "al-RIGHT!" (and various other cheers and unbroken Hallelujahs).

Yes: what did happen to that guy?

Kim has often asked the rhetorical question, “Whatever happened to the man who used to wait outside and then come in between ‘Amen’ and ‘Pass the food’?” 

Actually, it’s a pretty good question. I first met Kim in 2004 at Rainbow Mission: drunk, sometimes spaced-out on something else, obnoxious – the kind that would make you cringe. And indeed, because we didn’t lock the door at Rainbow once the service started, people would arrive just in time to miss the message and get to the “important part”.

But a few weeks after John, Danilo, Amelia and I moved to Gospel Mission, Kim showed up, flashed a grin, and said, “You tried to get away from me, eh?” And something was different. He started bringing a Bible to the Saturday night services. He started asking questions about the Bible before, after – and sometimes, during – the sermon. One night, he stood in the doorway of the kitchen and told Amelia, “I’m going to turn my life around.”

We learned that he had been a chef, working at a restaurant in Port Renfrew. For whatever reason – and they are usually legion – his life fell apart: chronic health issues, drugs, booze, all lined up against him and he wound up on the Downtown East Side.

Pastor David Brown, Kim and best man Justin, awaiting the grand entrance

As I write this, I’m hearing Brian Houston of Hillsong Church, telling us that God has a special purpose for every one of us. I get the feeling that Kim was able to regain that sense, not quite sure how it would manifest itself, but it was there, and would become apparent, so long as he kept turning towards the Lord.

Kim would sometimes get up and share something he’d read or observed. One day, he came up to me before a service and said, “I think I’m ready to give the sermon.” The next Saturday night, he took the mike and spoke about the need for us to be salt and light in the world, illustrating it with his own experience as a chef.

While this was going on, he took courses at FreeGeek, which provides IT training for people on the Downtown East Side; he joined a guitar class at the Carnegie Centre; he got more and more involved with the Mission. When Janet was shattered by Barry’s unexpected passing, Kim became her support and also her buffer, the initial point of contact when the rest of us had questions about the running of the Ministry. Others, like Pastor David Brown and Liane Hyatt, the Mission’s treasurer, took on a lot of the load, and Kim was the rock Janet needed to lean on.

So this past Saturday, there was a sense of the climactic ending to one chapter and the bright, hopeful beginning of a promising new one. Watching Janet walk down the aisle on her dad’s arm, in her magnificent white dress, it suddenly struck a lot of us how huge this occasion was. She read her personalized vow to Kim, and there was not a dry eye in the house. Tears, laughter, love, and you knew that God was watching over it all, seeing this raw, obvious example of how He had made it all happen.

In fact, you don't have to stretch too far to see that this is a "water-into-wine" miracle, do you?

**

The seventh anniversary of the opening of The Lord’s Rain came and went with little fanfare, but it’s important to note that we have now passed the 8500-mark in the number of showers taken since we opened. On Tuesday, 25 people came in to get cleaned up, and one has to wonder where they would have gone and what they would have done if The Lord’s Rain hadn't been there. I've been reviewing the history of the building of The Lord’s Rain, and have a hard time believing that we took the dilapidated, rat-infested space and, beginning with a vision but no money, built this facility that meets a basic, and vital, human need.

But we did -- and not by any strength of our own. The people, the finances, the supplies, all came together exactly as and when they were needed, as God made it clear that the project was going to go ahead, no matter what the worldly evidence might say. If you ever want a “wow!” experience, consider the fact that you've been involved with this in one way or another. There are more people than I could count, who are grateful for your support.

(If you would like to contribute to The Lord's Rain, you can send your cheque or money order to Gospel Mission Society, PO Box 98802, The W PO, Vancouver, BC V6B 0G0. The Lord's Rain can always use more volunteer help, too: please contact me through the "contact/comment" box for more information.)