Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

I welcomed the New Year in last night at the Prayer Bowl at the Fairview Church. Dr. Reed and Fairview have hosted this event for the past 33 years. It remains one of the key events for believers in the Oklahoma City area. While the name suggests a prayer meeting similar to watch meetings of the past, this is an event of complete worship. Several churches and their pastors and choirs from around the area come together for a night of prayer, praise and preaching and fellowship. It is offered as an alternative to the many more secular events that people attend to celebrate the New Year. I think there is no better way to celebrate the new than in praise and worship.

I have attended the Prayer Bowl most years, and have always been excited and impressed with the preaching. I love good preaching, and the prayer bowl has always offered a smorgasbord of great preachers preaching greatly. I remember some of the pastors of the past and the great preaching moments that they were a part of. Over the years, I have been privileged to know personally some of these greats of the pulpit. There are those who have been part of the event for years like Reverend Kelly Booker, Reverend Lee Cooper, Reverend Levi Lenley, Dr. Major Jemison, Reverend Teron Gaddis, who are all great preachers and pastors who are still making an impact for the kingdom in there respective venues where the Lord has placed them.

I am honored and overwhelmed to have been invited to preach in this event for the second straight year. To be in the same pulpit, on the same flyer and to be mentioned in the same conversation as these giants makes me humble and glad. Last night was a good night for me. God blessed my preaching effort, provided great support for me in the way of the Mount Olive Church, especially the Senior Choir. I always hate to call out individuals participating in combined efforts, but Sister Mary Bonner can “sho ‘nuff sang!” And she did it last night.

However, last night made me nostalgic of Prayer Bowls past. I remember my friend Reverend Ron Carter, who may have been one of the most gifted preachers I have known. Prayer Bowl was a time that he would show up, and allowed the Lord to use him to show out! Ron was the complete preaching package. I thought about him last night. I remember my pastor the late Dr. A. Glenn Woodberry. Pastor Woodberry would close the service out each year, and preach us out of one year and into the next. One year, he literally preached the lights out! The lights went out, but the preacher stayed on. He didn’t miss a beat.

I said all of that because the more things change; the more they remain the same. Last night, I heard some new friends preach like preaching is going out of style! For the second year, Pastor Michael McDaniel blessed the city, and this year Dr. J. Weldon Gilbert came up from Lawton, OK and closed out the year in Prayer Bowl tradition.

We were blessed going out of 2013, and we were blessed coming into 2014!