During the week of February 25-March 2, Fervent Faith Seventh-day Adventist Fellowship, a church plant in Foley, AL, hosted a week of evangelistic meetings aimed at sharing prophetic messages, Bible knowledge and hope for the last days with their local community.
Presented by guest speaker, Pr Robert Meneses, pastor of University Parkway Seventh-day Adventist Church in Pensacola, FL, the series, The Three Angels’ Message Decoded, had the church members excited about attending and sharing the series.
According to Fervent Faith’s pastor, Edwin Quijada, the week-long evangelistic event was a follow-on to various friendship evangelism activities, such as health outreach, sharing an Adventist film and building relationships. The church has been carrying out such activities over the past few months, stating, “after feeling that we have been building a relationship with our community…now we felt that it was time to start presenting something spiritual to the community and following that path.”
In order to prepare for this event, the members of Fervent Faith engaged in training to learn how to invite people to attend the evangelistic series. Members Brian and Jamal Thomas shared that the lead up was challenging, saying, “we had to learn how to knock on doors, talk to people and invite them to our meetings. It’s not something we’re familiar or comfortable with. So, it did challenge us to go outside of our comfort zone. In that way it was good –and a lot of prayer.”
Speaker Pr Robert Meneses praised the work of Fervent Faith Church saying, “It’s important to have these evangelistic meetings because we're living in the last days, and God has given us a special message to proclaim to all the world because He loves them. He wants them to know the truth. He wants them to know that He's coming soon. He wants them to be ready. And we are living in a great controversy that Satan is deceiving the world. So, God has raised us up at this time in our history to proclaim this beautiful message – that three angels’ messages – to a world so they can get ready. It’s a great opportunity not just for visitors, but for the church family to be revived and to get to know Him better in their lives.
And the impact was evident with the visitors. Pr Edwin Quijada, shared that he was “talking with one of [the attendees] and [the attendee] already decided that he wants to get baptized. The interesting thing is that he now wants to bring his wife tomorrow. So, that was exciting. Just hearing that story. We're so excited about what is happening and what God is doing!”
The impact was also felt by the members. Church member Tina Staff described Pr Meneses’ preaching as powerful. “Pr Meneses covered a lot of biblical history…in a short period of time. I think it's so important, especially in our world today as it is broken. So many people are confused. They're so wrapped up in what they see on TV and the news. To know what's playing out in these last days, you've got to go back to history, which is the Bible. That's the best history book there is and you have to go back to it. So many people in this day and age don't know. They don't even have a Bible in their home."
Understanding the everlasting impact of these meetings and in speaking about how the church will continue to minister to the community, Pr Quijada said, “We will continue doing the same thing again – going back to serve the community, showing love, showing them that we need to serve them and then giving them an experiential activity like this one.”