The blog of Sterling Franklin (DJ Sterf), servant of Jesus Christ.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Pulse Outreach - Day Three Clips & Performance



After-Show Tuesday, Preparing for The Fire on Wednesday

On Tuesday night late, we stayed with a family that cooked a little too well. I mean, really, it was better than Wildfire, so it qualifies as the best food I've ever had. Everything they cooked was absolutely and insanely delicious.

I told them about my expertise as a cook, aka that I'm the worst cook in existence ever. I've cooked sardines surrounded in swiss cheese this semester. It was really nasty. All the fish juice was on the plate, and the swiss cheese was soggy, and the taste didn't go together at all. What the heck was I thinking?!

Anyway, more on my cooking faux pas later. The family was really nice. I stayed overnight with the guys from Sonstruck, and we crashed fairly soon after getting there. I stayed up each night reading Scripture for a while, but I got some decent sleep after.

Wednesday

On Wednesday morning, we woke up to some more inappropriately-good food. Nick gave a devotion for the morning from a Charles Spurgeon book, and he asked if anyone wanted to prepare a devotional message for the evening before the show. I volunteered gladly. Nick then asked if anyone wanted to prepare a devotional message for Thursday at lunch. Nobody raised their hands, so I volunteered gladly again.

We drove to Bismarck, North Dakota, a city of 65,000 people. The trip was a good 90-minute drive. The city had a fairly big youth conference called The Fire, which usually had around 200 people. We were expecting about 800 to come out, but we found out later that there was a big high school football game going on, so we weren't sure what exactly would happen.

Evening Sterf-Devotional

My devotional for the evening was from Acts 3 and 4. In Acts 3, there was a beggar at the Temple Gate (the gate called 'Beautiful') asking for money. Peter and John went in, and Peter said in Acts 3:6, "Silver and gold have I none, but what I have give I thee -- in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." That's one of my favorite verses. Peter then grabbed the beggar by the hand, lifted him up, and the beggar could fully walk, dance, jump around, etc.

Even more, the priests did not want Peter and John to speak in the name of Jesus, even though a miraculous healing had just occurred! Peter and John said that they couldn't help but to speak about the things which they have seen and heard. They went back to pray about the situation, and praised God for His miraculous attributes in Acts 4.

In Acts 4, the Holy Spirit came as a result of their passionate prayer to Him, and there was an earthquake. The Holy Spirit empowered the Disciples to preach boldly, and there was a spirit of unity among them.

Three things I wanted to emphasize --
(1) Let's be united in one mind and spirit -- glorifying the Lord!
(2) Let's speak the Lord's words with boldness!
(3) Let's be expectant of the Holy Spirit to do amazing things, even miracles!

The Show - Wednesday Night

The show was amazing. The Holy Spirit was really present, and the results were very encouraging. We had at least 500 out, 10 or 11 of which accepted Christ for the first time, and somewhere around 80 who recommitted their lives to Christ.

Sonstruck opened with a worship set, and Hybrid Soul closed with their concert. The Fire usually lasts from 7-9 pm. This lasted until 10 pm, so many left after I played for that reason.

My brief message was on Grief, Life Circumstances, and Comfort. It was heavily rooted in 2 Corinthians 1, Job 1, Jonah 1 and 4, Psalm 37, etc. Where do you run when grief comes? Do you run away from God like Jonah, or do you run to our God of comfort like Job? See the video for more details on that.

The Lord is good. The entire week was a massive blessing to the people we spoke to as well as to ourselves. I really am kinda bummed that I'm back at school, because I really want to get out and tour more.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the video! More updates later.





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