World Impact Ministries / Peter Youngren

The Maritime Provinces of Canada have always held a special place for me. It was there that I spent much of first five years in ministry going from town to town holding “revival meetings”, mostly in church auditoriums, but also in hockey arenas, tents and community halls. It has been a number of years since I was back there for any length of time, but last week we held series of rallies in most of the major cities. I hope our meetings and the ministry time was a blessing to the people. I know it was to me. In every city I was approached by people who told a very similar story; “Peter, the first Gospel meeting I ever attended was when you were in our town thirty years ago”. Or - “I was saved because my brother got saved in your meeting and then he told me”. Several of those telling these stories were now pastoring churches. One pastor said; “When I attended your Gospel meeting I was stoned on drugs, and I don’t know how much of the sermon I heard but I remember a young boy standing beside me whose collarbone was healed and it made such a deep impression on me”.

It really did my heart good to meet so many people sharing these and similar sentiments, and seeing that the work we do in the name of the Lord brings lasting results. It reminded me of the admonition to not become weary in doing good. Two of the cities we visited were Moncton, New Brunswick and Truro, Nova Scotia. Both of these were breakthrough places for me. A pastor had booked me for five days of meetings in Moncton, New Brunswick. It was a rather large church at that time and here I was barely out of teens, so I don’t think anyone expected too much. From the first night people were being saved and the building was filled and I ended up preaching for five weeks straight. I went on to Truro, Nova Scotia and the same thing was repeated there. As a young preacher, I only had a few sermons and now suddenly the Lord was moving in such a way that I really had to rely on Him for fresh material every night. I learned so much by looking to Jesus and trusting in Him. These lessons have served me well in the years that followed. It is good to know where we have come from, where we have been and that the power that sustained us in the past is with us now for the challenges that lay just ahead. Your thoughts? - Peter