God Pours Out His Spirit

Soon after our arrival in Sydney we hired a cheap hall in Turramurra. Our desire was to see people who didn't know the Lord come to know Him, so we printed some invitations to a Sunday afternoon gathering. Remembering how God had moved so supernaturally in New Zealand (see our post of July 31st, 2006), we assumed that would be the way He would do it again. So we focused it on people who needed healing, encouraging them to come and experience God's power to heal, and distributed the invitations in the surrounding letter boxes.

Sunday afternoon arrived and we went to the meeting hall with a sense of great anticipation. We had no idea who, if any, would come. We were surprised to find about 20 people there. No-one had responded to the invitations but these were believers. They told us they had been travelling to church all the way from the northside of Sydney to the southside every Sunday, and had been praying for a fellowship on the north. They had somehow found out we were in town, heard about the meeting, and there they were.

Among them was an elderly lady whom I had heard of. I knew she played the piano and I asked if she would like to start us in worship. There was just an old piano in the hall. She began to play and lead in some songs. What happened then was wonderful. The Spirit of God fell upon us all and the presence of God was so awesome we worshipped non-stop for two hours. I didn't get to preach at all. Going home, I said to Bunty...

"That was a wonderful meeting. But next week we'll get down to business and I'll preach the Word."

My desire was to see unbelievers there and see them coming to the Lord.

The Lord, however, had other ideas. The next week we met again and there were 40 people there - all believers - and the same thing happened. The Spirit of God came upon us and we sang and worshipped the Lord for the whole meeting. The next week it doubled again and the same thing happened. It now had become evident to us that worship was the key to what the Lord was desiring to do. The meetings began to multiply. We were able to get an old Anglican church hall in Kissing Pt Road in Turramurra and we moved the meetings there. The blessing continued and people came from far and wide. People were saved, healed, filled with the Holy Spirit. The worship was wonderful and there was great anointing on the ministry of the Word. The hall comfortably sat about 120 people but at one time we counted 238. They were crammed in and hanging over the open windows from the outside. Even the animals were blessed by the presence of the Lord. A family of possums would come, with their faces and paws over the open rafters at the top of the wall, and sit watching through every meeting. A house further up the road had a large number of white doves. As soon as we moved to the hall, and the worship began, the doves flew to the hall's roof and that became their new home.

The meetings grew so we moved to St Ives...then Pymble...then Lane Cove...and finally St Leonards. About 500 became the core group and thousands were baptised in the Holy Spirit. People hungry for more of God would freely flow in and out. We made no attempt to gather them but they went back to their churches. Because of this, various ministers kept sending their people to the Sunday afternoon meeting knowing they would receive them back as staunch, Spirit-filled members. The sense of unity was wonderful. People came from every denomination but nobody asked which group they belonged to. Nobody cared. We were all one in Christ.