AND CHURCH BROKE OUT!
[Report from the Fellowship of the Marketplace: 11/2011]
I came back to Brooksville this time with a very specific purpose in mind, as on
Saturday, November 10, a crowd of about 50 gathered [a packed house for a small café]
to view the long anticipated premiers of the first drafts [drafts because of the additional
video work I needed to do down here to complete them] of the “In Search of God’s
Remnant” trailer and “The Fellowship of the Marketplace” documentary featuring the
incredible work the Spirit is doing with these people in this quaint café. The evening was,
I believe, a success [“let another praise you, and not yourself”], and I received a lot of
good feedback that I will carefully consider as I complete the final products.
Afterward I met a local network marketing/web site specialist, and supporter of
the ministry, who came to see the films. She said she was excited about the prospects,
and would like to help me market them. While certainly excited about the any help this
IT challenged guy can get, I explained to her this had been a labor of love for all
involved. I had no money to pay her, and that any work she did would have to be seen as
a donation to the ministry. She said not to worry, and that we could talk about it when the
videos were done and ready to launch.
Monday:
And church broke out! This is one of my favorite sayings of John Callea, pastor of
The Fellowship of the Marketplace. Church breaks out whenever you're hanging out at
the Rising Sun, nothing is planned, no one is contacted for a meeting, and all of a sudden
you find yourself ministering to, and being ministered to by any number of people that
God just causes to wander in.
Got to the cafe at 6:30 for my early morning fix of the best Hawaiian Hazelnut on
the planet, joined Lisa Callea [John’s wife, and the machine that makes all of this work]
and the staff for their morning prayer time, talked with Lisa for 30 minutes [if you know
her you know that's virtually impossible, but she needed to unload and I was it], then
local prophetess and employee Gail walks up to me and tells me God wants her to share a
passage with me. She hands me her Bible open to John 15, which just happens to be the
cornerstone scripture of Reconnections, and the passages to which I devote three chapters
in my book, Running the Race Already Won. We talk about that for a moment, she leaves,
and Loretta [the new bookkeeper they just hired who came to the video premier on
Saturday night] walks in and says, "I thought I was just coming to work at a new place. I
had no idea what God was doing in this place. Man, was I glad I came to the premier!"
She goes to work and Tony [a quiet and thoughtful man, and one of the disciples of
the FMP I refer to as Mr. EF Hutton because when he speaks people listen], and I talk
about our mutual struggles with the system we call Christianity today. While Tony's
sitting there pastor John and Peter [a new, on fire disciple of the FMP] show up and we
all begin debating the Word together. Then Tony leaves and Eric [a learned and respected
disciple of the FMP, and local business man] shows up and joins the fray.
It's about 9:00, and when that group breaks up Little Joe [the healing
pastor/prayer warrior of the FMP] shows up. John and I begin talking to LJ, and our
hearts are all convicted to pray for Bill [fictitious name], a local pastor who is being
broken beyond recognition due to the stress of pastoring a local church and recent relapse
into alcohol addiction, who said he would come in that morning. Bill was late, and so we
begin to pray for him. As God is my witness, not five seconds after we finish guess who
walks in? We minister to him for a short while, pleading with him to just sit a pray with
us, and trust the Lord for the outcomes of his situation, but all for naught. He sits with us
for barely a minute or two, madly texting on his phone, and then is off in a frazzled hurry
to try vainly to save his marriage and his ministry. The enemy has Bill, along with one
other of the disciples of the FMP, in black holes right now. They won’t submit
themselves to fellowship, cannot see beyond their own dilemma, and continue their
prodigal experiences regardless of any efforts to help. It is so hard being like the father in
that story: knowing you must wait at the gate, eyes scanning the horizon for their return,
but aware that until they “come to their senses” and return the sandals, ring, and robe will
have to wait. “When one member of the body suffers, the whole body suffers with it.”
No, all is not perfect even in even this most perfect of Christian fellowships, for there is
evil in the world. It claims its victims everywhere, but we must use that to gather us,
reaffirm our trust in God, understand that it is a necessary part of our pruning, and press
on.
Then John and I are off for a visit with Harry at his orange stand [I stayed at
Harry’s house my first three days here]. We have a great time with him, and pray a
blessing over him. We both feel led to go Grant’s [fictitious name] home not far from
Harry’s stand to try to see him. Grant is that other disciple just mentioned, who has
terrible health problems that I thank God I don’t have to deal with. They keep him
confined to his home a lot of the time, and make him depressed. We stop out front, pray
in the car, and go to the door. Grant, who in prior years would have rejoiced to see me
come down and been one of the first at the café to greet me, opens the door. Where I used
to sense light I now sensed only darkness. We ask if we can come in to talk and to pray
with him, but it’s easy to tell he is very uncomfortable with our presence, and politely lets
us know that’s not going to happen. John reassures Grant he is welcome back in to the
fellowship any time, and we leave with heavy hearts.
We get back to the Rising Sun and there is Loretta still working at the books. I
comment to her, "You're still here." She says, "Yes, but now it's on my dime." I say,
"Now you're catching the vision." She smiles and says, "Yep!" Then she comments about
all she has seen since getting in that morning and asks, "Is this the way it is every day?" I
say, "Welcome to the Fellowship of the Marketplace. This is the way Jesus did it. He
didn't gather His disciples to preach at them for an hour a week and then go off and do
His thing. He lived with them as a living example of His words. Welcome to the
Fellowship of the Marketplace, Loretta." She smiled. Now that’s what I call "church
breaking out!" Gotta love this place, and this God we serve!
The Love Your Neighbor dinner went very well that afternoon, and I got a lot of good
video for it that I needed to complete the documentary. Tuesday John, Lisa, their
daughter Jessica and I all took a day off and went to Downtown Disney in Orlando for a
little R&R.
Last day in heaven on earth: Wednesday
“It would have been enough.” Last night, as the Callea family and I were driving
back from Orlando [where we spent Tuesday], I turned to John and said, “Y’know bro,
after spending today vacationing I’m not sure I want to spend my last day [as was our
plan] away from the café going to the gulf coast. May want to rethink that. The Lord may
want me to be at church.” As it turned out I didn’t need to wonder, because He answered
the question the next morning as I awoke to overcast skies and light rain. Well, amen. So
much for sun and fun on the coast. “Go to the café, Mike. Not done with you yet.” So I
went in to the Rising Sun and took up my customary place in the library/prayer corner,
waiting expectantly again to see what He would have me do. I am reminded of how John
says he starts every day as the pastor of the FMP, “I wake up, ask God for divine
appointments, and sit back and watch what He does.”
The first to walk in was Peter, the new disciple of the FMP who comes in every
day before work knowing this is where he needs to start his days. We talked for a while,
and then Tony also comes in. This was a surprise since I had gotten a text from him only
hours before saying, “Good to have seen you again. Hope you have a nice trip.” A few of
the other guys in the FMP had told me they were getting concerned for Tony because he
hadn’t been in much lately, but while I was there he came in almost every day. Tony and
I spent the entire morning together, and the usually quiet brother spoke more this week
than I ever heard him speak in all the times I had been down here before combined. The
brothers said Tony was obviously here because I had come down. Tony ministered with,
and to, me for 6 hours that day. Well, amen. I said to myself, “If God kept me here today
just for Tony, it would have been reason enough.”
But as usual the fireworks had just begun. John and Joe came in and church
started breaking out. While we were talking, Loretta came in and took her place back in
“the office” [a tiny slice of space between the bookshelves making up the prayer corner
and the back wall]. I was in the prayer corner trying to print up my boarding pass for my
flight the next day, but for some reason my laptop and the wireless printer weren’t
speaking. I went back into the office and she helped me get things set up so it would. I
jokingly said, “Thanks for helping me out. It’s a guy thing.” Then she said, “I’ve watched
and heard you [me…loud…really?] around here for the past few days. Perhaps you could
answer a question for me?” I replied, “Shoot.” Then she said, “I am a single mom with a
teenage son, have a boyfriend, and I really would like to think he’s the right guy. But I’m
not sure where he stands with the Lord. I want to submit to him, want to follow him, but I
don’t know if He’s going in a direction I trust.”
Those of you who know me are probably sitting there shaking your heads
thinking, “Poor girl, she has no idea the Pandora’s box she just opened.” We spent the
next 30 minutes talking about the curses of Adam and Eve and how men in society and
the church have lost their way, which has then caused women to lose theirs. We talked
about what to perhaps do about that, what she could say, do, and pray about to either help
him or help her figure out whether she needed to walk away. She said, “Oh, how I wish
he could talk to you and hear this stuff.” If God is willing. I told her I’d send her my book
and a CD recorded during a workshop I did at the Colorado Christian Writer’s conference
concerning these same issues. As I left her, her countenance had changed considerably.
Where I once sensed resignation, there was now some hope. All the glory to God, for He
put us together in the first place, and any wisdom that comes through man is from Him.
Then I said to myself, “If God kept me here today just for Loretta, it would have been
reason enough.”
Then, as Little Joe was leaving and John and I were about to go out and pick up
some food that was donated to LYN, another one of the brothers showed up. John is a
New Yorker, bald, got that “I’m bad” accent and look about him but is gentle as a lamb
and has a heart as big as all outdoors. I call him St. Pastrami because his last name is
Stramiello, and the brothers call him Strams. Just about an hour before he came in I was
telling the guys how much I’d miss seeing Pastrami that day, because they had said he
had gotten a new job and wouldn’t be able to make it. So, just like it was with Tony I
thought I’d missed out. Well, just like with Tony God had other plans. At a time we were
gathered in prayer [yes, a big group of us in the middle of a business in the middle of the
day…what a concept!] Lisa felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up, and there was St.
Pastrami! Turned out his new job was nearby and he came over on lunch break. Though
only there for a little while, I got one of his famous bear hugs, and got to hear his
infectious laugh. I said to myself, “If God kept me here just for one more hug from
Pastrami, it would have been reason enough.”
To finish out my last day in heaven on earth, Lisa asked me to testify during their
weekly devotional with the staff. I spent a few minutes recounting the wonders of this
trip, and the story of what brought me to do the films. When I was finished a young man
[one of three young ex-cons John and Lisa have hired recently] with a horrific story to
tell came up to me and asked to talk. He said, “Mike, there are times when I feel an
overwhelming presence of the Spirit. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does it’s very
clear. I didn’t know you when you first came in, but I’ve felt that presence here ever
since that day and I’ve been wanting to tell you.” We hugged and I said to the Lord, “If
You kept me here just for this, it would have been reason enough.”
Finally, and perhaps the most important reason God sent me here this time, was
what transpired between John, Lisa, and I. I so admire what He has done through this
couple [never spent a year doing a documentary on the lives of anyone else I can think
of] I tend to forget they’re human. Imagine two people living together, working together,
and running the same ministry together. Think it isn’t tough “to be in each other’s grilles
24/7,” as Little Joe calls it? Little did I know when I came down the pressures of all of
this were about to boil out all over my lap. Funny, I’m often heard lamenting how we put
our pastors on pedestals, expect them to be perfect, treat them like gods, and wonder why
their lives and marriages fall apart. Guilty as charged! Turned out our day in Orlando
with Jessica their daughter was just what the doctor ordered, although that almost didn’t
happen when it all hit the fan. But this day as we all sat and prayed for our broken pastor
friend Bill, prayers broke forth for John and Lisa, more healing took place, and I said to
myself, “Lord, if You brought me here just for them, it wouldn’t have been reason
enough. It would have been more than I could have ever hoped or imagined.”
I think I know now why the Lord has allowed me to be a part of this miracle in
Brooksville. I certainly don’t deserve to be, for I didn’t do any of it. When it comes to
faith, good works, and absolute trust in the provision of their savior, I am unworthy to
untie the sandals of these folks. I believe I am here and the film was made to simply
remind them of who they are, help them regain perspective, and encourage them to press
on when the relentless attacks of the enemy [and they are relentless] try to discourage
them. He doesn’t want to see this succeed, because as it does more and more people’s
eyes will be opened to what true Apostolic fellowship must have looked like and will
want it for themselves. It, like the God who inspires, creates, and anoints it is the most
infectious power on this earth. Thank you, Lord, for keeping me here today, for granting
me more divine appointments than I could have asked for, and for making me some small
part of your miraculous Fellowship of the Marketplace.