Getting Ready In Atwater

Here is Yesterday's post.

The last two days have mostly preparation for tent revival here in Atwater with a little rest thrown in for good measure. Today Bro. Jimmie and I will finish marking the stake line for the tent and then it will be a matter of waiting for Saturday morning to roll around. I am looking forward to getting the tent in the air.

Wednesday I walked around the park praying and picking up trash. They had a big event there over the weekend and it was mostly small stuff to be picked up. It was not bad at all. 

There are several benches around the park but one was interesting. Around that one bench was probably 30-60 water bottle caps and 15-20 plastic forks. A favorite lunch spot?

That did not take long and now we have a clean slate to work with.

Here is an interesting tree in the park.

Kelly prepared a pork roast in the crock pot for Wednesday! Delicious!!!

Later in the day Kelly Jo and I conquered some of our accumulated PA cord mess. Sometimes we need to get them all out, stretch them out and start all over again. While we had them out, we labeled several of them too since we have various types and length of cords. There were several other things that needed attention PA wise so we took care of that too.

Thursday I mowed the grass where the tent will go and established where the center pole will go. It will be simple to mark the stake positions today in between rain showers. I may mow a little more grass but that should be about it.

It is so good to have Bro. Jimmie Radcliffe back "home" with us. Bro. Jimmie pulled in Thursday afternoon and it sure was good to see him. He visited a couple of churches in California and worked a few days while we were preaching revival at Bethel Church in Phoenix. Welcome Home, Bro. Jimmie!

Davy and Bro. Jimmie under the tent in El Mirage.

Here he is backing into the parking lot at Amazing Grace.

Sis. Valerie Burris prepared a wonderful meal for us Thursday evening and we enjoyed the food and the fellowship with our dear friends very, very much. We will not get to do that much with the tent in the air so that made it especially nice.

The tent is going up at 8:00 AM Saturday by God's grace. Come and join in the fun if you are close enough. We would love to have you.

Thanks for reading.

Davy

Is City Reach Worth It?

I was searching online for something earlier this week and I ran across an interesting link on a Google search. The link said,

Is tent revival worth it?

I thought to myself, "That sounds interesting." As I was right clicking on the link to open it in a new tab, I realized it was a link from boggsblogs.com. Well, I thought, it may not be interesting but it should be familiar!

I wrote the post in March 2013 as we were gearing up for a big tent revival season. It was interesting to me and it was timely for me to read it now, over three years after I wrote it. I have hauled the tent tens of thousands of more miles, set it up dozens of times and preached under the tent a few hundred more services since March 2013. What do I think about it now? 

I still have the same opinion that I had back then and hold that opinion even more firmly.

I have pasted the pertinent paragraphs below and added a few lines relevant to City Reach at the end. I hope you enjoy.
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I thrive preaching revival. I love to see God reaching for folks and them reaching out to God. I love preaching the Word and watching hungry people grab hold of it. I am an evangelist and I love the whole process of revival. There have been several occasions that I have preached 25-30 weeks of revival in a row. Probably not the smartest thing in the world for our health's sake but people go to work in the factory, construction site and office week after week, why shouldn't I? I love and believe in revival.

But throw 8-10 tent revivals into the mix and it changes everything. The tent revivals add a whole new meaning to the word, work. The tent set up, tent tear down each week, PA set up and tear down each night most places, the logistics of setting the meetings in advance, coordinating with Pastors to make sure everything is ready, pulling the trailer, finding a place to park, the enormous financial pressure and the list goes on and on...

I have not even mentioned the spiritual part of the meetings which includes sermon preparation, prayer, the actual singing and preaching and carrying the burden for each meeting. It seems as if we face more spiritual opposition under the tent than we do in normal revival. I suppose this is because we are daring to reach for those under the oppression or possession of the enemy and reaching for them out there on his turf. All of this on top of our normal responsibilities with the bus, regular revivals and family time.

So, is tent revival worth all of that?

Read my lips. It is absolutely worth all of that and more. It is wonderful to see people saved under the tent that have refused to go into our churches. There is no doubt about it. Everything that goes into having tent revivals is worth it.

There may be years that we do less tent revivals than other years. There may come a time when I am not able to keep up with the physical demands of tent revivals. It may be that we walk through other doors of opportunity as God leads and we do less tent revivals as a result of that.

But for the foreseeable future we want to preach as many tent revivals as possible. I want to take the message of the Gospel to the world as long as I can and I want to do it as effectively as I can. IF we believe the Gospel message and IF we believe the world needs to hear it then we have a duty to proclaim that message as loud as we can and for as long as we can.
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When I wrote that in early 2013, the vision of City Reach was forming as a vague notion in my mind and had began to firmly materialize later in the year. Now, in May 2016 we are witnessing City Reach come to pass by the grace of God and the help of His people.

City Reach Tent Revival is more difficult than I ever imagined. It is more expensive than I anticipated. It has more challenges than I visualized. But it is better than I envisioned and we are more blessed than I predicted!

It is the most demanding and strenuous thing I have ever attempted both physically and emotionally but it is absolutely worth it! We are being blessed a thousand times over for any little irritation we encounter. We are super glad God called us to this task and we can not wait to see what the end is going to be!

Is City Reach Worth It? A thousand times YES!!!

Thank you for coming along for the ride. There are literally hundreds of you that are praying for us every day and that makes this worth it all by itself!

Thanks for reading.

Davy

A Travel Day With Louis L'Amour

Although I started getting ready to roll pretty early Monday morning, I had a bunch to do so it was after 10:00 before I pulled out. I needed to check the air pressure in all the tires, empty the holding tanks, fill the fresh water tank and unload the sound equipment from the car to the bus. Kelly Jo helped me with the equipment, but most of the time she was working inside.

Then we hooked up and rolled out!

Rather than skirt around the top of LA or even around the north east edge of LA and up to the Tehachapi Mountains like normal, we tried a different route. We took I-10 west to Quartzsite and then north through the desert, across the Colorado River at the California state line and up to I-40 at Needles.

While driving through that beautiful, desolate area we listened to one of our favorite Louis L'Amour dramatizations. The Strong Shall Live is set in the desert west of the Colorado River. Listening to Cavagan try to survive while we were driving through the land, made the hair stand up on the back of our necks. Not to mention we wanted to drink about 10 gallons of water by the time the story was half finished.

We first listened to The Strong Shall Live on XM radio several years ago and then downloaded it from iTunes when we were parked at Quartzsite several weeks ago and it gets better every time. 

Once we hit I-40 at Needles, we drove through Barstow and then over the Tehachapi Mountains and into Bakersfield. We always think of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard when we drive through Bakersfield and hum a line or two.

We drove about 530 miles Monday and finally gave up at a rest area north of Bakersfield. Tuesday morning we finished the drive to Atwater in about 2 1/2 hours, pulling into Amazing Grace in the early afternoon.

The picture below was taken from the church parking lot and is looking toward where the tent will be set up in Ralston Park.

This one was taken from the park and looking toward the church.

We had a Planning and Vision Service at Amazing Grace and I think everyone is pretty excited about Tent Revival beginning Sunday.

I know that we are very excited to get the tent back up in the air. We plan to put it up Saturday morning, by God's grace and then begin revival Sunday night. It is good to be here!

Thanks for reading.

Davy