Today was a special day for me.? It was my 7-year anniversary being married to my wonderful wife, Patricia.? I’m having a blast with my family and am thankful for the 7 wonderful years we’ve had together.? I can’t wait to see what God has in store for us.

Beverly Ingle was back on the piano for the meetings tonight.? The choir did great tonight then The Shelton Family sang for us again.? I got to play for them again, which is always a treat.? God has really used this family’s ministry and tonight they were great.?

Bro. Ralph then preached a great message concerning your spiritual walk with Christ.? He posed a question that really made me search myself.? He asked, “If the economy got so bad that you could only afford to go to church only once every other week, would you stay alive spiritually? or would you fall by the wayside?”.? It’s hard for my to imagine times getting that hard, but it’s happened in our country before back when gasoline was rationed and it could certainly happen again.? Our country is really in a mess and we need to stay strong spiritually so that when hard times come (and they will), then we’ll be ready to trust God and make it through those hard times.? Again, the altar was filled during the invitation.

A video presentation in honor of Memorial Day was shown after the service.? The video was set to The Old Time Gospel Hour Quartet’s song, “The Soldier”.? The video was created by the staff at Trinity Baptist in Asheville and it was an awesome tribute to our military and veterans.?

Keep praying for the meetings this week.? I don’t know if the services will continue on next week, so we need to get all we can this week.?

Friday? was a beautiful, sunny evening and the weather was perfect.? After the choir sang, The Phillips Family from Gaffney, SC sang? a few? songs.? I had heard of this family group, but never heard them before.? They did awesome, which wasn’t surprising.?

My mother-in-law was asked to come up and give her testimony before the preaching began and she did amazing.? The Holy Spirit was all over her as she spoke.? Bro. Ralph Sexton Jr. then preached a great message and people filled the altar once again.? During the altar call, the same trumpet player from Thursday evening played “How Great Thou Art” which was fitting for this time in the service.?

The Phillips Family then came back up and sang 2 more songs.? It seemed the entire tent went up in a shout while they were singing and people started praising the Lord.? Preacher James Beaver, an 82 year-old saint of God, was called on to close the service and God got all over him too.? The more he prayed, the more he got excited.? He then started testifying and praising God and the tent went up in a shout once again.?

It was a truly special evening and God really passed by.? We’re looking forward to the extended meetings next week.

Thursday night was simply gorgeous.? You couldn’t have planned for better weather.? Our usual pianist for the meetings had to be out of town for the rest of the week, so the pianist from my church filled in and didn’t miss a beat.? Beverly Mitchell is one of the smoothest piano players in our county and she did a great job tonight.

Special singing was by a local group.? Bro. Ralph then got up to preach.? His crew had set up a projector so that he could use a visual presentation for the sermon, but he said that God had led him in a different direction so the equipment wasn’t used.? I have deep respect for a preacher that will follow God’s plan and get everything else out of the way.

He preached what I considered a continuation of the previous nights message.? He gave examples of people on their death beds reaching for Jesus or trying to put their feet in ‘the river’.? The point of the sermon was that this ‘religion’ we have is REAL.? We serve a real God and we have a real Savior.? It was a powerful message!

At the altar call, a trumpet player played “Midnight Cry” along with a soundtrack and it was beautiful.? Then the congregation sang “What? A Day That Will Be”.? People keep filling the altar and there were a few more saved last night.?

Pray that many souls will be reached on Friday night.? The local high school has allowed the youth ministry of the meetings to go into the school and preach.? There should be a huge number of young people for the meeting.? They will be treated with pizza and doughnuts after the service, but most importantly, they will be fed with the truth of God’s word.? If you have a youth group, load ’em up and bring on out to the big tent.?

Wednesday evening was simply way too busy for me.? It seems that I rushed everywhere I went and the tent was? no exception.? I had to leave for work as soon as the choir was finished singing, but I caught the rest of the service over the internet feed.?

Brothers4Him, an up and coming local bluegrass gospel group, sang 3 songs before the preaching.? This is a group that formed 2 years ago during the first Cane River Revival in 2006.

Bro. Ralph then preached on the Truth of the Tomb.? He also talked about the ‘tense’ of the tomb.? He spoke of how Jesus ‘was’ buried and where he ‘lay’ in the tomb.? I wish I could have been there in person because there were people shouting and filling the altar.?

It was announced tonight that the revival meetings will continue for a third week.? Please continue to pray for these meetings.? You can feel that God is wanting to do something for our little community.

Seven of Southern Gospel’s most prominent bloggers announce the joint effort, www.SouthernGospelAlbums.com.? This website features joint reviews from various combinations of bloggers, as well as summaries and links to the bloggers’ reviews on their individual sites.? The site is intended as a primary resource for fans of Southern Gospel music to find reviews of their favorite artists’ recording projects.?

Participating bloggers are:

• Wes Burke (Burke’s Brainwork)
• Brandon Coomer (Coomer Cove)
• David Bruce Murray (Musicscribe)
• Daniel J. Mount (Southern Gospel Blog)
• Adam Edwards (Southern Gospel Critique)
• Kyle Boreing (Southern Gospel View)
• Aaron Swain (Swain’s Musings)

?

For more information on the site, check out www.SouthernGospelAlbums.com.

For more information on review submissions, send an email to contact@southerngospelalbums.com

Meetings tonight have been cancelled due to high winds, high water, and lightning.? It’s probably not a great idea to be under a? giant tent with? tall metal poles while? sitting in metal chairs in a wicked? electrical storm.

We’ll try again tomorrow night…

Monday night was much warmer than the previous nights, at least at the beginning of the service.? My good friend, Aaron Willis,? from Marion, NC came up tonight which was a treat.? The choir started the service with the anthem, “My, My My”.? The choir sure sounded good tonight.? Bro. Greg Lentz sure does a great job with the choir.

A group from Indian Creek Baptist Church sang a couple of songs tonight.? They used 2 guitars for their music and I helped them out with my bass (I’ve played for every group that’s sang so far).? They did really good.? There has been some great, spiritual singing every night from the special singers.

Bro. Ralph preached an awesome message.? It was about God’s light saber (aka, Flaming Sword).? It was a convicting message to both the lost and Christian alike.? His message came from Job 36:17,18:

17 But thou hast fulfilled the judgment of the wicked: judgment and justice take hold on thee.
18 Because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke:

He talked about Christians mocking God.? Do you have those little things that you do, then you repent & ask forgiveness but then turnaround a few days later and commit those same sins again?? Bro. Ralph talked of how this is mocking God when we constantly ask for forgiveness and then really make no permanent change to our daily lives.? He talked how God will use his light saber to cut you off spiritually, or even physically (meaning, “You’re Dead!”), when He’s had enough of the mocking.?

He mentioned that if we wanted revival in 2008, that we have to stop living on the memory of the great revival that happened in 2006.? I think that really hit home for a lot of people.? God is still God, but every revival meeting has it’s own characteristics and you can’t compare what God is doing this year to how God blessed 2 years ago.?

There has really been an unusual stirring of the Spirit during the meetings.? I think God is working to clean up the lives of His people before revival can really break out.? There have been people saved every night.? They’ve not announced the number of conversions, but I’m guesstimating that it’s somewhere between 40-50 so far.? There were 22 alone last Friday night, so maybe my guess is low.? To God be the glory for it all!

Pray for my family tonight because we got scheduled to sing kind of last minute due to a death in the family of the singers that were scheduled.? Come out and see us if you can or tune in to the webcast here at 7:30:

http://www.christiannetcast.com/watch/dynamicasx.asp?station=glm