October 23, 2020 | St. John’s, Antigua | Clara Heskey-Jarvis
The Antigua and Barbuda Lay Preachers/Lay Bible Workers’ Federation, keeping in line with its mission statement, “To mobilize and equip Christ’s disciples to preach, teach and unleash God’s word in preparation for Christ’s return”, started its plans and objectives for the second half of the year. As God’s representatives among men, and co-labourers with Christ, the Federation met and decided that it is time to get to work.
The major thrust coming out of the plans and objectives of the Federation is a five-week virtual evangelistic series to begin Sunday, October 25, 2020, on the South Leeward Conference’s Platforms, (Youtube, Facebook) and Second Advent Radio. Leading up to this campaign, a number of initiatives were organized. These initiatives include the Let’s Talk About Him Sunday night evangelistic meetings; the Six-One-Six (6-1-6) prayer focus; the Twenty-one Days of Prayer and Fasting; and a Bible workers’ Training workshop.
The Let’s Talk About Him evangelistic meetings, featuring lay preachers, commenced on August 23, 2020, and continued every Sunday night on the SLC platforms. Recognizing the need for prayer, the prayer initiative, 6-1-6 was launched. The laity was encouraged to pray at 6 a.m., 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. The book in use for the 6-1-6 devotion is Acts of the Apostles, an in-depth study on the life and times of the disciples. Twenty-one days of prayer and fasting started on October 3, to culminate on Friday, October 23, with a half-night prayer meeting.
To create a network of lay preachers and Bible workers who can be rightly trained to conduct effective service, training was done on Sabbath, October 17, by Dr. Samuel Telemaque, Sabbath School director of the Inter-American Division. Persons were taught various concepts and methods on how to reach the different people groups.
All the activities led to the main event, the Christ for the Crisis Gospel Expo on October 25. Five fiery lay evangelists were handpicked by God from the various Zones. These preachers are Kem Tonge and Edson Joseph, West Zone; Ken Armstrong, East Zone; Vaughn Joseph, Central Zone and Easton O’Garro, North Zone. The Christ for the Crisis Gospel Expo is positioned to use these preachers in the service of God, to deplete the kingdom of darkness and to increase the population of heaven.