THE HOLY SPIRIT’S PROMPTINGS - Carter Conlon

Years ago the Lord impressed upon my heart to start a Bible study in a little country church in a very small town called Pendleton. This was an area of Canada with no Christian testimony for about forty square miles that we were aware of.

I went to the board of the church and told them who I was and the reason I wanted to rent their church. They ended up allowing us to use the building free of charge, and they even provided a caretaker to turn on the heat and shovel the snow in winter.

I immediately put together flyers advertising the Bible study and sent them out. The very first night, there was a snowstorm and nobody came! I ended up at the church with my six-year-old son, Jason, and my brother-in-law, who was the worship leader. My brother-in-law asked, “Should we just go home?”

“No,” I replied. “The Lord has called me to do this, so we are going to have a service tonight!” And we did. We worshiped God, my son shared his testimony, and we all had a great time!

I continued to hold the Bible study week after week. Sometimes there were six people in attendance, sometimes only four. But eventually, over the course of a couple of years, the Bible study grew into a church. One church grew into two, plus a Christian school and a food bank — a testimony that still exists today.

What would have happened if I had just gone home on that first night of the Bible study? I could have said, “This is pointless — it’s not worth the effort.”

How sad it will be for some people when they arrive at the throne of God and realize that the Lord’s promptings were there to do something that would have brought honor to His name, yet they did not obey.

Carter Conlon joined the pastoral staff of Times Square Church in 1994 at the invitation of the founding pastor, David Wilkerson, and was appointed Senior Pastor in 2001.