Erfahrungsberichte von Erweckungen (#1)

Dies ist der Erfahrungsbericht, den auch Tommy Tenney in seinem Buch (The God Chasers/Die Gott nachjagen) erwähnt. Das markante an dieser Erweckung ist, dass hier deutlich wird, was die manifeste Gegenwart Gottes alles anrichten kann. Mir wird immer deutlicher, wie sehr wir das in unseren Gemeinden notwendig haben. Jesus sagt: “Wo zwei oder drei in meinem Namen versammelt sind, da werde ich mitten unter ihnen sein”. Das ist genauso gemeint, wie es auch geschrieben steht, das ist nicht irgend ein theologisches, theoretisches “unter uns sein”, sondern Jesus ist durch den Heiligen Geist anwesend und tut die Dinge, die er sonst auch getan hat, als er leiblich anwesend war. In den Psalmen steht geschrieben, dass wir Gott durch Lobpreis einen “Thron” bauen und dass er “in den Lobgesängen” seines Volkes wohnt. Wenn man die Bibel wörtlich nimmt und an das Wort Gottes glaubt, dann bleibt nur ein Schluss: Das ist so gemeint, wie es da geschrieben steht. Die manifeste Gegenwart Gottes ist nicht etwas alttestamentliches, sondern etwas was ganz natürlich im Leben eines Christen – wenn er denn frei von Sünde und Schuld ist. Gott sehnt sich seit der Schöpfung nach einem Wohnort, einem Platz, an dem er wohnen kann. Früher war es das Zelt der Begegnung oder der Tempel, jetzt ist es Leib Christi und jeder Einzelne. Wisst ihr nicht, dass euer Körper eine Wohnung des Heiligen Geistes ist?

Das interessante an Erweckungsberichten ist, dass in JEDER Erweckung die manifeste Gegenwart Gottes eine große Rolle spielt. Deswegen werde ich hier ab und an bemerkenswerte Erweckungsberichte veröffentlichen. Der erste ist in englischer Sprache und ich habe leider keine Zeit, um es ins Deutsche zu übersetzen.

Sunday, October 20, 1996
Houston, Texas (Richard Heard)

Richard Heard led the Christian Tabernacle in Houston in growth from 250 to 3,000 members. On Sunday October 20, 1996, a move of God exploded in the church.

During the previous year the church had a strong emphasis on knowing Christ intimately. That August of 1996 Hector Giminez from Argentina ministered there with great power and many significant healings. Awareness of the presence and glory of the Lord increased during October, especially with the ministry of an evangelist friend of Richard, Tommy Tenny, who was to speak that morning. Richard was preparing to welcome him and had just read about God’s promise of revival from 2 Chronicles 7:14 when God’s power hit the place even splitting the plexiglas pulpit.

He spoke about it by telephone in November 1996 with Norman Pope of New Wine Ministries in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, who put the transcript of the discussion on the Awakening E-mail. The following account is an edited selection of Richard Heard’s comments:

I felt the presence of the Lord come on me so powerfully I grabbed the podium, the pulpit, to keep from falling, and that was a mistake. Instantly I was hurled a number of feet in a different direction, and the people said it was like someone just threw me across the platform. The pulpit fell over that I had been holding for support, and I was out for an hour and a half. … I could not move. And I saw a manifestation of the glory of God. … There were thick clouds, dark clouds, edged in golden white and the clouds would ‑ there would be bursts of light that would come through that, that would just go through me absolutely like electricity. … There was literally a pulsating feeling of ‑ as though I was being fanned by the presence of the glory of God. … There were angelic manifestations that surrounded the glory and I didn’t know how long I was out. They said later that I was there for an hour and a half.

In the meanwhile, all across the building people, they tell me, were falling under the presence of God. That’s not something that has happened much in our church, but people were stretched out everywhere, and at the altar. We have three services on Sunday and people would enter the hallways that lead to the foyer and then into the auditorium and they would enter the hallways and begin to weep. There was such a glory of God and they would come into the foyer and not stop ‑ they would just go straight to the altar ‑ people stretched out everywhere. … There were all kinds of angelic visitations that people had experienced. And we’ve got professional people in our church ‑ doctors, professors, their bodies were strewn everywhere.

When I felt the glory of God lift, I tried to get up and couldn’t. It was as though every electrical mechanism in my body had short‑circuited. I couldn’t make my hands or my feet respond to what I was trying to tell them to do. It was as though I was paralysed. … And we had one service that day, and the service literally never ended ‑ it went all the way through the day until 2:00 that morning. It had started at 8:30, and we decided to have church the next night, and I didn’t want to be presumptuous, but we went on a nightly basis on that order, just announcing one night at a time, and as we got deeper into the week I could begin to see that God was doing something that was probably going to be more extended. …

There have been numerous healings. The evangelist didn’t speak at all that Sunday. In fact, the entire week he spoke maybe twenty minutes. There’s been a really deep call of God to repentance. People come in and they just fall on their faces. …

We had a great choir. We’re a multi‑ethnic congregation. A Brooklyn Tabernacle kind of sound, if you’re familiar with that. Great worship and praise. Sunday morning there wasn’t a choir member standing on the platform. They were all scattered like logs all over the platform. And we go in ‑ [musicians] begin to play, to lead us into the presence of the Lord, and they play very softly. Because of our background, usually our worship is very strong, very dynamic, a lot of energy. Not any more. It’s like you’re afraid to even lift your voice. …

We’ve cancelled everything that we had planned. We have a lot of outside activities. We have 122 ministries within the church that have helped our church to grow, and these ministries were primarily either for getting people here or holding people once they’ve converted. … I was telling our staff ‑ they were asking, “Are we going to have Christmas musicals and children’s pageants ever?” And we do a big passion play every year that brings in thousands and thousands of people. And I asked them, “Why do we do all of this?” and they said, “Well, we want people to come here so they can encounter God.” I said, “Look at what’s happening. We’ve got people storming in here that we’ve never seen, never heard of, never talked to. And God’s doing it in a way that is so far superior to what we could do that whatever we’ve got going on, we’re cancelling everything.” And that’s literally what we’ve done. … And there hasn’t been a single objection. That’s what amazes me.

I think that this is probably going to end up ‑ whatever this season is that the Holy Spirit is bringing us through in terms of our commitment to Him and the deep searching of our own hearts, it has the feeling at this point like it’s going to ‑ like it’s building toward even a greater evangelistic outpouring. …

There’s a big difference in renewal and revival. I had the same scepticism of the laughter. I was raised in a classical Pentecostal background. I saw that from time to time, but the latest thing ‑ I just ‑ something inside of me just had a difficult time with it. And there are people that are laughing like crazy now, and, I mean, all of this stuff I said that I had reservations about and didn’t particularly care to see ‑ I mean it’s just as though God has said, “This is My Church. It’s not yours.” And I see the reality of it now. I think it’s going to end up turning strongly evangelistic. It has that feeling and a lot of people are coming and being saved each night. There are many being saved, and there’s not even really an altar call made that distinguishes between people that are already saved ‑ that just need renewal and those that need conversion [because] it’s just so intense right now (Waugh 1998, 144-147).

A year later people were still being converted, often 30-40 a week. Richard Heard commented that everywhere in the church the carpet is stained with the tears of people touched by God and repenting.

Quelle: http://www.pastornet.net.au/renewal/journal14/14d Waugh.htm (Flashpoints of Revival