Ecclesiastes 3 says " For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven:" I have had many seasons in life and it was difficult to give up each "season" because I didn't know yet what the new "season" was going to be about.
Season 1: I went through college and seminary and started my first full time pastorate in Pinckneyville, Illinois. Many young people in the area were on drugs and I couldn't help them. My teachers and I were raised back in the day of "Leave it to Beaver" and "Andy Griffith" on TV.
TIMES THEY WERE A CHANGING: I started studying men like David Wilkerson and how he was seeing drug kids change and I studied his methods and began using them with the kids in Pinckneyville and then on to Carbondale with college kids and then on to Miami to witness to radicals at the National Political Conventions and then to Communist Festivals in East Germany and Cuba. Sammy Tippit and I were hidden out by some Nuns in Bratislava and escaped into Austria. I had used Ezekiel 47 as my game plan starting out where I was and continuing to go out "up to my "knees and the loins and then it becoming a river."
TIMES THEY WERE A CHANGING: I got home from the trip to Czechoslovakia and felt the Lord saying that I was going to die. I thought that I had finished my Ezekiel 47 journey and this was to be the end. I picked out my grave. Then one day as I was walking in the cemetery I heard that voice again and this time the word was that, yes, I was going to die, but not a physical death, but a death to myself. I heard the verse, "Except a grain of wheat fall in the ground and die, it can never reproduce." I was to die to myself and begin to "put the gospel in the hands of faithful men."
So NO GREATER LOVE MINISTRIES WAS "BORN" IN 1975. I took Bud Hall with me on my first trip to Mardi Gras. The ministry continued to grow and this next Mardi Gras will be my 40th trip taking faithful men there. Many men have been touched, changed into better men, husbands, fathers and church members and others called into ministries. Our son, Shane, was called at Mardi Gras years ago and the church he pastors now runs about 1800 a weekend.
I started going to Honduras in 1980 taking one man, Mike Rice, with me. I was studying under a man who had a great work there and my heart bore witness with his work. I went partly because I wanted to stay in touch with "doing the stuff" as well as leading a group of men and watching them as they "did the stuff." The ministry in Honduras grew through the years and I have led many people as we watched the Lord do a might work there in a revival like none I have ever seen before. There came a day when I realized that I was no longer "doing the stuff." I was leading a tour group. I heard the Lord say to "RELEASE IT" and see who was being called out to start their own ministries. There are now about 11 ministries working in Honduras now that came out of that mission outreach.
After these 40 years of ministry at Mardi Gras, I heard the Lord say to "RELEASE IT" like I did Honduras and that He would raise up different ministries that will do more than was being done up to now. “When the Word increased, the DISCIPLES MULTIPLIED." I feel very sure of this RELEASE OF THE NGL MISSION TRIPS and this frees me to take NGL in whatever direction that He shows. I am excited about that and I am beginning to sense the "juices" flowing again. I will go down to Honduras in October to visit the Honduran men that I have invested in years past. So I am excited to see who will rise up to start their own "work" at Mardi Gras and I am so looking forward to being a "Mentor" to men I have worked with here over the years and the Honduran men I have worked with over the years and the Philippine Alumni I have maintained relations with after teaching those years at Antioch Bible Training Center in Angles City. Yes, I am excited about the future and as the "load" of the EVENTS" is lifted I will be able to enter the next phase of NGL. The ministry will continue and Abby Emling will still work for NGL part time like she does now as this is her calling from the Lord.
My heartfelt thanks to everyone who has been with us through the years and this Men's Retreat we will be laying hands on men to go forth under the anointing of the Lord. I believe there will be a "double portion" for many men as surely as Elisha got a DOUBLE PORTION from Elijah. Let's face it, I had about 150 people in my church when I was pastoring years ago. Now, my son, Shane's church is now pushing toward having 2,000 each weekend and will go over it in the coming year. I love to walk with my son each morning as we dream together on what God is doing in his life and church. That ministry of the "Mentor" to men, is what I want to do for this next phase of life.
Love ya's LOTS!
Fred
John 3:30
Warning: Attending the NGL Men's Retreat could be GREAT for your Spiritual Life!
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