LIGHTHOUSE MINISTRY has been celebrating its seventh anniversary working with the City communities of Emmerton and New Orleans.
Pastor Edwin Jordan said during an anniversary service yesterday that the small church had won a number of converts for Christ over the years, but thought the results might not have been dramatic enough to catch headlines.
He told the DAILY NATION that people from both districts now had greater respect for the institution and its work. He is hoping the church will have a much bigger impact on problems such as violence and drug use affecting those communities.
One of the converts attending the anniversary service at the Emmerton Community Centre was Peter Smart, who said the church had encouraged him to seek treatment for his alcohol problem.
“I have gotten over that problem of hard drinking. I went to rehab and my life has changed completely,” the former guitarist with The Escorts and Chapter Six said.
The pastor said of him: “He used to have a lot of anger and a lot of hostility. He had a really negative attitude. But now he is a different person.”
Evangelist Danny Grant was the main speaker at the church service. He lamented that people were always asking God for a big bank account, a car and a house, which were not the most important things in life.
“How many people ever ask for the things of the Spirit?” he said. He urged the congregation to call for “a triple portion of Jesus’ anointing”.
He also said that people were seeking miracles and some church leaders were promising them but there was “not one pastor who can tell me they can do miracles on their own”.
His view was that God, rather than the pastor, should get credit for any miracles.
Grant, who quoted extensively from the Bible, said it was ironic that while many people did not know or acknowledge Jesus, the demonic forces both recognised Him and acknowledged His power, as shown on a number of occasions when He went to cast them out of people. (TY)
