Matt Fry is the man! Wednesday January 30 I sat in the huge dome on Liberty University campus to hear Pastor Matt Fry speak at the convocation to 10,000
Liberty U. students. He stirred the crowd with a message on vision and
living out your destiny in God.
Later that evening we attended Campus Church at Thomas Road Baptist Church.
Walking in to the auditorium it felt like a rock concert...really cool
stuff. Smoke filled the huge 5500 seat room with red, blue, yellow and green
strobe lights flashing everywhere. The worship set was wonderful and the
5000 students really entered in with many dancing raising their hands in
intense worship. I thought I was as Bethany World Prayer Center for a few
minutes! Great time.
Ed Stetzer did a great job teaching on the ministry of reconciliation out of
2Corinthians 5. Dozens of students responded to the call to be church
planters. It was a moving experience.
Thursday morning I had the opportunity to teach a class lead by Dr. Elmer
Towns on church planting. I was honored to get the opportunity to speak at
Liberty U. and share all that God is doing in ARC.
At lunch 16 leaders convened for a Church Planters Roundtable with many
great leaders from around the US. Jonathan Falwell, Senior Pastor at Thomas
Road Baptist Church led the meeting and shared his vision with us to plant
500 churches in 5 years in the USA. His passion for reaching the lost is
incredible. Each one in the room had an opportunity to share what they were
doing and give input into the direction of this initiative. ARC will have a
part.
It was decided that one of the means for planting 500 churches would be for
Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty University to partner with existing
church planting organizations in the effort to do this. It was decided that
ARC would be a part of this and that students that identified with the ARC
style and model would be encouraged to plant with ARC. What an honor to be
able to partner with such a great church, university and a leader like
Jonathan Falwell.
At the end of the meeting Pastor Falwell prayed specifically for Charlene's
healing and for peace and strength for us both during the challenging time
we are facing with Charlene's battle with cancer. I was deeply moved by
this.
Please pray with us that God will give direction and wisdom to all involved
to be able to carry out this initiative.
It was an incredible two days in Lynchburg and I was humbled by the
reception and hospitality of the Liberty U. staff and leadership.
it was a blast to have you join me at Liberty. thanks for sharing the vision of the ARC. i'm excited to see all that God is going to do as we network together for the kingdom!
Posted by: Matt Fry | February 01, 2008 at 12:50 PM
Billy...thank you for constantly searching for ways to plant life-giving churches! This is certainly great news...and Matt is the man for sure! Great job!
Posted by: Shane Frazier | February 01, 2008 at 02:38 PM