We began pastoring in Ashland, Kentucky in September, 2003. We had eleven voting members that elected us as pastor at that time. We knew that God had called us to Ashland and that He wanted to give us great revival. God had given my wife Iva a dream and she had seen herself leading a mass of people down the street and into our church!
The first four and half years we laboured, and God did give us growth. We did everything that we knew to do. We started a strong childrens church and had several children get the Holy Ghost. We won some young couples and had raised our attendance to around 45- 50. We were having good church. We had baptized 38 people in Jesus name and had around 40 get the Holy Ghost. We were thankful for what God but knew deep down in our hearts we knew that God had called us to Ashland for more than that. Ashland is a town of 27,000 people and we knew that God wanted more than 45 people in His church! I felt the Lord talk to me at the end of 2006 to start preaching that 2007 would be the best year that the church had ever seen!
I preached about revival and souls.I had heard about Bro. Maddix and what the Lord was doing in St Petersburg and through the Soul Winners Bootcamps. A fire began to burn within my soul. I began to preach faith and miracles. Then just like the devil, January 2007 started off terrible! We had a little precious nine year old child pass away in our church. Problem after problem, everything that could go wrong went wrong. We lost a few people. I knew what the Lord had told me but at this point my faith was waivering.
I heard that Bro. Maddix was going to be in Columbus, Ohio at the Awakenings Conference in August 07. My wife and I and another family from our church drove up to here him. Bro.Maddix preached on "It's In My Blood". After that wonderful message my wife and I wept and cried out to God. I really believe that the Lord baptized us with Soulwinners Fire that day. Bro.Maddix had Bro. Tim Downs come up front with him that day and made a statement that Bro. Downs was the greatest soul winner that he had ever known. The Lord laid it on my heart to have Bro. Downs come to Ashland. I put it off wondering if it was really the Lord or not.
At General Conference in Tampa, the Lord began dealing with me again about Bro Downs. Bro. Maddix invited me to go to Ybor city after service one night to do some radical soul winning with him. That night changed my life forever. We marched down the streets and began to sing and shout and worship Jesus!! You would not believe what we saw that night in Ybor city. The sin, perversion, and party scene was everywhere. Surely nobody would want God in that atmosphere would they?
Let me tell you as we sang and worshipped God, people began coming out of the bars and praying right there in the streets! We baptized 2 men that night and one received the Holy Ghost in the baptismal horse trough!! God began dealing with me that we had soul winning all wrong. We were programmed to think that the sinner would come to us. WE ARE SUPPOSED TO GO TO THEM!! Thank you Bro. Maddix for inviting me to go with you.
We scheduled a revival with Bro. Downs in November of 2007. He came and showed us how to take the church out of the building and into the streets just like the Book of Acts Church. He showed us how to Bless our Community Through Giving. He showed us how to pull up to people in the streets and ask the if they want to go to Heaven or Hell. We baptized 21 people that week and broke an attendance record with 175 people in church 126 being first time guests. IT HAS CHANGED OUR CHURCH FOREVER!! We are now aggressive soul winners.
Since then we have baptized 99 people in Jesus name. We have had over 500 first time guests. Most have received the baptism of the Holy Ghost. We were averaging 31 people when Bro Downs came and now we have tripled with an average attendance of over 100! We pass out over 1200 flyers every week and do Outreach every Thursday evening and Saturday afternoon.
When I look at all the wonderful people that are now a part of our church. With tears running down my cheeks I have to be ashamed to think of myself as a preacher and our church as the church that God intended for it to be, the way we used to be. We would have never met these wonderful people by sitting in our beautiful church and singing the songs by heart and preaching a nice little message. We met these people by getting into the streets where they are. We met these wonderful people by loving like Jesus loves. Folks we need to wake up. Doing it like we have always done it just don't work! We need to be radical. We need to be extreme. Whatever it costs. We have to reach our world!!
We have spent thousands of dollars since we bagan reaching out. But let me tell you, our bank account is just as strong as it was when we started. We started with one van, now we have three and they are all paid for with none of them being financed. Every week we Bless Our Communty with giveaways of bicycles, walmart cards, pizzas. mp3 players, and gasoline cards. We do Block Parties every month. This week alone we baptized one ladies after a Ladies Banquet of FRIDAY night and a man at he Block Party on SATURDAY. We dream about souls.
You start winning souls every week and watch what it does with your people. It is addictive!! We will never be the same. I refuse to go back to the way it used to be. Thank you saints of Christian Faith Outreach, Ashland, Ky, for being a soul winning church!
Thanks to men like Bro. Matt Maddix and Bro Tim Downs for listening to the voice of God and showing us what God wants to do, AND THAT IS WIN SOULS.
Gene Easterling
Ashland, Ky.
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