Building A Cathedral

My first full-time pastorate was in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin in the early 80’s.   The church was down to about 18 people.   After teaching on the power of prayer and intercession for approximately five months, the church had more than doubled in size and I felt led to schedule a week-long revival.   I would be preaching it myself.   A week before the revival was to start,  we set up 24 hour prayer slots – for seven days.  A person could sign up for as many slots as they wanted, but the goal was to fill every slot for every day.  That was 168 prayer slots.  It was done.  The praise music never shut down on our sound system and each prayer block was filled… sometimes with more than one person.

Revival broke out!!!  From night one,  people could sense the immense moving of the Holy Ghost and by April of 1985 – the place was packed every night.  The fire was fueled by the prayer.  6 AM prayer meeting for the men,  Aunt Bea’s prayer meeting at noon – and of course,  the hour of prayer before service started.   We had a small little block building and the prayer room was in the basement. 

We called it “The Potter’s House” and we would go down to it every night.

The glory of God fell like leaded rain and services were full of healing and miracles, signs and wonders.   So many documented healings and miracles… so many lives changed.  The revival ended up lasting 24 weeks…. every night… and some nights we didn’t get out of the sanctuary until the wee hours of the new day.    Think of it…. a week for every prayer block we seeded before the revival started.

We had grown to the point that we needed to look for another church.  The possibilities were endless…  but the enemy was relentless in trying to capture our attentions with the natural things.   About halfway through the revival I became inundated with perk testers, Real Estate investors,  carpet salesmen and contractors.   Before you know it…  I was having a hard time keeping my mind in prayer on those early spring mornings.

Now I also was a very young preacher and was scrambling to find something to preach… but God was always faithful.  I can remember preaching on the faith of Wigglesworth, Etter and Finney.  I was especially overtaken by the Spirit of God one night as I preached about “Finney’s orange crate”.   The man would drag it from town to town and stand on it as a pulpit,  and then would drag it into the country and turn it sideways and bury himself in it to intercede and to cry out to God.

I was stunned… and amazed… and in awe, because I was about to enter into a building program!!  He took my hand, and in the Spirit we walked and talked about the revival.  Questions I had, etc.   As I looked around it seemed like we were in the midst of a city – a modern city with lots of activity.   I wondered if He was going to take me to PTL or the Praying Hands Sculpture at ORU…   or perhaps we would go back in time to Solomon’s temple. 

THE GREATEST CATHEDRAL!!!

Our walk continued and I noticed that we went from the city to the suburbs to the farmlands where there weren’t many buildings at all.   Where were we going????  About 45 minutes into our walk we ended up in the middle of NOWHERE.   A dirt road crossed what looked to be a stone or gravel road.  There were forests in the distance and farmland and overgrown ditches that framed the fields.

“There”  He said.   Now… I looked around and quipped… “Oh, you mean… in nature… under the sun and the stars…”   But He stopped me and said,  “No.” and pointed to the ditch.   

There was a broken and abandoned old orange crate.

It was the crate had been preaching about.  Finney’s orange crate.  I was numb.  He started to speak… “That is the greatest cathedral that has ever been built for me… and what can YOU do that hasn’t already been accomplished by man?”    He continued.  “That is where my son came and cried out to me,  it was where we laughed and cried and where the heart was poured out – and remains one of the greatest cathedrals ever built.   Listen… if you build THAT,  I will take care of the rest.  Every need.  Every desire.  Every moment. Every problem.”

I wept until I had no more power to weep as I realized that moment in time,  the most important thing in my life had to be.  It was prayer.  Not a work – but  a journey with Him.  Each Day… building…  crying, laughing, talking, listening.   I wish I could tell you that I have prayed every day since then,  but I haven’t.   I wish I could tell you that I was in lots of revivals, but I wasn’t.    But I return tonight to tell you that I have been kicking along the cobblestones and came upon a broken orange crate tonight.    I stopped and asked the Lord… is it Finney’s…  He said, “No, it’s yours and it’s in need of repair”.