2005 Missions Conference - Session 1 — Carter Conlon

Conference Welcome and the Call to Encounter God

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I want to welcome everybody that's made the effort to come out tonight and be part of the first night of a seven-day missions conference here at Times Square Church, which if you make the effort to attend these meetings, not just this evening, but all the way through to right through to next Tuesday evening, you're going to agree with us when it's all over.

These are not this is not a conference. This is an encounter with God. I believe that your hearts are going to be challenged like mine is. The Lord is going to speak to us. He has promised us in our leaders meeting as we began to pray about this particular time of gathering together that he's going to speak to us.

He's going to take the borders of our hearts and where we live and dwell as a people individually and corporately as a church. And he's going to expand us and give us a larger heart than he's already given us.

And I thank God for that with everything that's in me. Every missionary on this platform and those that will be joining with us in the subsequent days have been prayed over and not selected by any committee here at Times Square Church, but called by the Holy Spirit to be here.

We have every assurance we've not invited. There are many that we could have invited and we'd be delighted to have them on the platform with us throughout this week. But those that are here have been selected by God.

And so we believe that the stories and the life testimonies, not stories that we're about to hear are going to challenge us very, very deeply.

A Single Mother's Testimony of God's Faithfulness

Good evening. I always feel so honored to stand before you as a representative of the single moms here in the church, the Sparrows Ministry, and I know that they would want me to tell the pastors of this church how very grateful we are for how much you support the single moms and the environment that you've given us to raise our children in.

Single moms, we appreciate it. I raised my children in this church and it was just an awesome support system we had here. However, when I was a child, growing up to lead a single moms ministry was not exactly something that I had a dream to do.

I grew up in a pastor's home, the youngest of big old Walton's type of family. I had six sisters and we slept three in a bed. And we had a ritual every night before we went to bed. If you watch that series, you know they always said, good night, John boy, good night, Mary Ellen.

Well, in our family, I slept in the middle because Faith was afraid in the middle of the night she'd wake up and touch me to see if I was still there because if I was gone, she knew the Lord had come and she'd been left behind.

And that's the truth. And so there I was in the middle of that bed and this was the most sacred ritual to me as a child. I would turn to the sister on the left of me and I would say, I'm sorry for all the bad things I've done.

And Barbara would look back at me and say, you're forgiven and I'm sorry. And I would say, you're forgiven. And I would turn to Faith and I would say, I'm sorry for all the bad things I've done. She would say, you're forgiven and I'm sorry.

And I would say, you're forgiven. We could all go to sleep in that sweet comfort that all was well with the family so we were all fine with the Lord. But my sister Faith had a little bit of irreverence in her.

And she saw how really important and how much weight I put on this. So one night she turned to me and I said so sweetly, being the sweet child that I was, I'm sorry for all the bad things I've done. And she said, I'm forgiven and you're sorry.

And I burst into tears. And if that is one of the most traumatic events of your childhood, you know you've had a pretty good life. And I had an extraordinarily good life. I was raised by really godly families.

It wasn't just a functional family. It was a family that thrived. And I had great expectations of growing up and continuing that tradition of marrying a Christian man and having those adored children and serving the Lord together and ministering to those less fortunate than ourselves.

And of course the step one of this was to find the right man to marry. And that really wasn't that hard. It didn't seem right out of college. I married a young Christian man, raised in a Christian home, just recently saved after having been vaccinated since he was a teenager.

And that was step one of the dream. And then we had our two adored children. And then the dream crashed and the marriage crashed. And I found myself, I was raised in a small town, Colorado, alone in Brooklyn with two small children to raise.

And I don't think there could have been a woman in the world who ever fought harder for a marriage to work, because this was not my destiny. And I just couldn't believe that this was what had become of my life.

I thought I was so easy to get along with. I knew what it took to make a good, happy family. And I was so ready to do it. The only problem was I no longer had a husband. And that was when God began preparing me to have a burden for single moms.

When my marriage broke up, I had a newborn son and a two-year-old daughter. And just the logistics of raising children by yourself are overwhelming. You're called all the time to do the absolutely impossible, and yet somehow you have to find a way to do it.

And raising my children was really my wake-up call to the Lord. It had all been pretty easy up to then. But now self-sufficiency just wasn't sufficient anymore. And I came to that place where I knew I needed the Lord like I had never needed him before.

And now you need to fast forward 20 years. During all this time, I had been involved in support staff of some kind, starting in Teen Challenge, teaching preschool, answering the phones, stamping the mail, Roger Yonker's secretary.

I did a lot of support staff there, and then I was on staff here at the church in a support way. And Teresa Conlin said, We're going to be starting a Bible school. And I'd like to have a class for single moms.

Would you teach that? And I thought, Sure. I've been a single mom. I've been there, done that. I can do that. And so we started the Bible school class, and that first night was the worst experience in any kind of teaching or ministry of my whole life.

I walked in, and I don't know if it was just God had specifically chosen. I've never had this experience since. But I saw the most angry, resentful, antagonistic eyes looking at me as though they expected me to say something interesting and give them some kind of hope but doubt if this little girl who seemed to have nothing in common with them had anything to say.

And many of these women had not only endured the heartbreak of a broken relationship or a divorce, but many had grown up abused all their life and had never been mothered properly themselves and had really no clue what being a godly mother then meant to their children.

And the trauma of my childhood was that my sister said I was sorry and she was forgiven, and I just didn't think they would relate to my pain. And so I looked at them and got one of the biggest lessons of my life, and that was God did not call me to speak to these women because we shared pain that you can find anywhere in the world.

He called me because I could testify that when I was weak, he was strong, and that when I had no faith, he was faithful, and that when I didn't know what to hope for my children, he fulfilled the role of father in their lives beyond anything I could ever hope or imagine.

And I could look into these desperate faces and declare the faithfulness of God because I'd lived on that faithfulness for the last 20 years. And once that God began to open my eyes to the real needs of these women and what he desired that they know about him, the rest of it just began to flow.

These angry-looking women who so intimidated me and scared me and I thought I was instantly rejected, I said, I mean, I remember having a plan for how this class was going to go, and I said, you're supposed to do these warm-ups.

So I said, if any of you could invite anyone in the whole world home with you for dinner, who would it be? And I expected to hear Billy Graham, David Wilkerson, Gwen Wilkerson. And I heard Madonna, Oprah, and I was like, oh, you know, that's not in my lesson plan.

But they were the most honest, refreshing women I have ever come to know. I count it such a privilege to be one of the single moms of Times Square Church because you are so dear to the heart of God. You are so responsive to the things of God, and God works so powerfully on your behalf that I just felt like I'm along for the ride, and I love it.

These women were beaten down and disappointed with so much of life, and they wanted to check me out and see if I was real. But once God began to flow and the hope began to build in them and they began to go home and see that God's word worked, that he actually had a plan for them as how to raise their children, I was so consumed.

I could not wait for the next class because it's so compelling to see people who are hopeless and have no clue how to get their home back in order come back the next week and say, well, you will not believe it.

I did this the way the word of God says that my children are coming under authority. Things are changing. And so I got such a sweet enjoyment from these women. Now, just last two weeks ago, I read an editorial in the Daily News.

It was entitled A Vicious Cycle of Single Moms in Crime. And the statistics were so grim regarding my children, your children, if you're a single mom, the highest rate of school dropouts, teenage pregnancies and kids in jail.

God says these statistics do not apply to the children of single moms who know the Lord because you are raising your child as a single mom, but your children are not fatherless. They have a father who steps in.

Amen. I remember when I sent my son off to college and I went to Pastor Neal and I said, Pastor Neal, I'm a little worried about Jordan because I'm the kind of mother who always listens and reasons with him and hears him out and I'm afraid he won't know what it's like to deal with authority that absolutely says, well, I don't really care what you think.

This is the way it is. And he said, did you raise your children by the word of God? And I said, yes. And he says, did you tell them that when the scriptures said things that they could go either way? I said, no, the Bible is the authority.

He says, the Bible is what God used to father your children. You don't worry about your son. He's going to be fine. He's been well fathered. And you know what? It's had. He's never had an issue with an authority at all since he's been an adult.

God says that the ministry to single moms is so vital because when our mothers begin to realize their children are gifts from the Lord to be treasured and trained to be the next generation of godly leaders, every generational curse is broken.

That's why our youth choir is composed primarily of children as single moms. Our children's ministry being raised up by single moms who've embraced the role that God has given them to raise these children to be the next generation of leaders in this church and the cry of the single mother.

And I've had this cry. David expresses in the psalm so well in Psalms 25, 15. He says, my eyes are ever looking to the Lord for help, for he alone can rescue me. Come, Lord, show me your mercy. I'm helpless, overwhelmed and in deep distress.

My problems go from bad to worse. So save me from them all. See my sorrows. Feel my pain. Forgive my sins. And God's response in Psalms 34, 17 through 19 is the righteous cry out and the Lord hears them.

He delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. A righteous woman may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers her out of them all.

And the Lord further reassures us in Psalm 68 for that he's a father to the fatherless. He gives justice to the widows, for he is holy. He gives families to the lonely. In Times Square Church, we're the family for the sparrows.

God does what only he can do. He saves. He comforts the broken hearted and delivers them from their trouble. But his desire for us as a body is that we find out individually how he would have us reach out to single mothers.

And also as a corporate church, which is why the Sparrows Ministry was born. And the Sparrows Ministry does this. It's a very simple ministry. We have monthly prayer meetings. We have Friday night Bible studies on a regular basis where we just talk about the things that most concern us.

Our children, living singly, finances, very practical teaching, which is just supplemental to the most important word that comes out from this church. But we need the fellowship. We need the support of one another.

And then God has given us opportunity to share the testimony of how he's comforted us with other people this year. We got to go to a woman's shelter here in the city with mothers and children and share there about the comfort God's comforted us with.

We got to go to Detroit to Tim Delina's church and participate in an outreach he had there to single moms. And in conjunction with the Sparrows Ministry, God placed a burden on Pastor Dave's heart to come alongside to be that father in the home when there was a crisis need financially.

And he just mentioned it in his newsletter once. And people began earmarking funds to be used for the mothers in this congregation who need crisis financial aid for housing or when they need food or whatever that might be on a basis where they have no other resource.

And the two ministries, Times Square Church and the World Challenge Widows Fund, just work hand in hand. And these mothers are so moved by God's miraculous Jehovah Jireh provision that so many have been drawn close to him as they realize he really does care.

His thoughts toward me are more than I could ever count. It's been one of the primary means for many that God has used to draw them to himself. The true religion scripture is not fulfilled in this church just because we have a regular ministry to single moms as wonderful and as rare as that is.

Every one of us is called to practice true religion, hearing God's heart and expressing it to the widows and the fatherless. The Sparrows are named the Sparrows from a verse in the Psalms which I want to read to you.

Even the Sparrows find a home there, and the swallow builds her nest and raises her young at a place near your altar, O Lord. In this case, in the altars at Times Square Church. When they walk through the valley of weeping, it will become a place of refreshing springs where pools of blessing collect after the rains.

They will continue to grow stronger, and each of them will appear before the throne of God. Now the fruits of this ministry are the backbone of this church. And I have with me tonight Eleanor Reed who is a young widow from this church who's walked through the valley of weeping and has found a pool of blessing.

And I want to share a little of her testimony with you tonight. Thank you.

A Widow's Testimony: Learning to Love and Raise Children

As Gail said, I'm a single mother. I have a son. I have a son and a daughter. And I became a widow in 1999. And at that time, my son was seven and my daughter was not even two yet. And, you know, that's not something you plan growing up.

You plan to get married and live happily ever after. You don't intend to be a widow. You don't intend to be a single mother necessarily. But that's where I found myself. And I became very angry. I was angry at my situation.

I was angry at myself because in my mind I allowed this to happen. And what could I have done to change this? And I had a lot of fear in my heart because I didn't want my son to die an untimely death like his father.

And so I became very worried. And everything I did for them was rooted out of this fear that they were going to die or they were going to turn out this way. They were going to go on drugs. They were going to do this.

And so in my mind I just wanted them to be saved and obedient. Saved and obedient. And it just drew me, it just drew them farther away from me and farther away from Jesus. And to a point where I couldn't even reach my son and he didn't even want to live.

I mean he'd be on his bed saying, I don't care if I die. I don't care if I go to hell. I just don't want to be here anymore. And as a parent that's crushing because you can't change that in their hearts.

And I just recall crying all the time in the hallway in my apartment like, God, what is this about? And the more he hated living, the more I was angry at him. And it was just a cycle of anger and anger and not knowing what to do.

And at the time I was involved in a church and I would, you know, ask the pastor, would you please say something to my son? Somebody say something to him. But he was too young to enter the mentor program then.

So three years later, God in his mercy, he sent me here. And I went straight to single moms. And it's been such a difference and a blessing in my life. And just another expression of how much God loves me and my children.

And the first thing we learned was that God was going to be my children's father. Straight, and that was it. And he promised to be their father and he promised to be my husband. And once I started to believe that, and from the teachings through Gail, it changed in my house.

And I realized that God was the head of the house. And his standard of love in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, what that truly meant. In my life, that's always been for my parents. But I didn't know how to show that love to my children who were so emotionally hungry.

And I never addressed this loss that they had for their father. And I was just about saved in obedience, saved in obedience. And I was just so neglectful for all these other things that they needed. But thanks to Gail and this ministry, it showed us practically how to love our children.

That they have emotional love languages. My daughter loved to be hugged. She loved to sit on my lap, but I used to hate it. And I used to resent it. I was like, would you leave me alone? Leave me tired coming home from work.

But I didn't know that every time I did that, I learned that I was hurting her and it was crushing her. And for my son, every time he did something wrong, I would harp on it, harp on it. And I realized that was crushing his spirit.

And then I was learning through the word, we can't crush our children. We have to build them up in the Lord, raise them up in the way they should go. And not point out all these bad, you know, what we think are bad.

And just struggling as I am. And she just taught me what God's standard of love was in the house. And every Friday, I just recall rushing to get home to say I'm sorry to my kids. Because God was showing me through the class what I said that day that could have hurt them.

What I did and all the things that I was doing. And just at one point calling them, can't even wait until I get home. Because God, if something happened to me on the way home, I want them to know that I'm really sorry for what I've done to them.

And it's just three years later, I'll fast forward. Now, a year later, my son came to me in the kitchen after coming here and being received in the church. He asked me to pray with him that God would change his heart.

And my daughter last year, she asked God, she asked Jesus to be the Lord of her life. And these are children who my daughter was rebellious in kindergarten. She tormented her teachers. They had no control over her.

My son, again, if I said left, he said right. If I said up, he said down. He would never listen. But now that God is the authority and I'm learning to talk to them and explain to them why certain things are not good for them.

Why watching television, explaining to them, giving them understanding. Opening the scripture, looking at what God requires and just praying with them that God would help them. Instead of me harping on them and, you know, beating them on the head with it.

Now my son listens when I tell him to do something. He struggles, but he says, Mom, I may struggle, but I do eventually do what you asked me to do, right? So why? So he's making me see that he's learning to be obedient.

He ultimately does what I ask him to do. And I just want to give thanks to this church for this ministry. It's changed my life 100 percent. When my son says something out of whack, I know what the scripture says.

Thanks to Gail. Just opening the book. And I said, you know, you have a purpose. You know, sometimes you say I haven't changed. Yes, you have changed. And God, you know, will complete the work he started in you.

And it's not being angry at him for not knowing the truth, but it's telling him the truth. And I'm just trusting the Lord to continue to be his father and to cover him and watch him as he goes to school and just grow up.

Thank you.

Times Square Church Foundations and Pure Religion

Before I get started, let me just say how much I love Times Square Church. One of the reasons I love Times Square Church is that it's built on a rock. It's built on a solid foundation. There's several foundational principles, spiritual principles that this church is founded on.

And some of these, all of you are aware of this, is that prayer and fasting has always been emphasized here at Times Square Church. An uncompromising preaching of the word of God. I know when our pastors get in their secret closets and they ask God to give them a message for this church, they hear from God.

And they're not afraid to deliver a message that they've heard. They don't water it down. So it's an uncompromising word of God. Another main foundation stone that I love about Times Square Church is that Jesus Christ is lifted up.

The name of Jesus Christ. It's not Dave Wilkerson. It's not Pastor Carter. It's not Times Square Church. It's Jesus Christ is always lifted up in this church. An intimate relationship with Jesus Christ is always encouraged, not just for the leadership of this church, but for every one of us.

It's always been encouraged that we develop our own intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. And last but not least, and what we're going to be sharing about, my wife and I are going to be sharing about, is reaching out to others.

From the very onset of Times Square Church, there's always been an upper room ministry. There's been a Hannah House ministry. There's been a raving ministry. Isaiah House. Prison ministry. And the list goes on and on.

Our ministry was birthed while we were on staff here at Times Square Church. But a month and a half ago, or maybe two months ago, Pastor Carter gave me a call. And after we got finished discussing the business matters that we're discussing, he started to share with me his heart's cry.

And if you've ever been around Pastor Carter for any length of time, when God begins to stir his heart, it's hard for him to contain the excitement. And he kept sharing about his vision for Times Square Church.

And he kept sharing about his desire for Times Square Church is to reach out to the neediest of the neediest, to the poorest of the poor. And I don't know about you, but that excites me. I know it excites each one of you.

Our goal in sharing today, I mentioned to you some of these scriptural principles, and our goal in sharing today is really just to challenge you to personalize these principles. These principles are for all of us.

All these principles should be evident in our life. In fact, the theme of this conference was pure religion. When I heard that, I got really excited. I love the theme, pure religion. And the reason for that, it's derived straight from the Word of God.

As Pastor Carter had mentioned, and as you saw it in the video, James 1 .27 says, A pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their distress.

This is God's definition of pure religion. This is God's definition of undefiled religion. It's not something that originated from Pastor Carter. It wasn't something that originated from the missions department, but it was actually God's definition of pure religion.

This verse in particular inspired, probably more than any other verse, inspired Debbie and I to start Father's Love. In fact, we almost called our ministry James 1 .27 instead of Father's Love. Father's Love was more expressive, I guess, of what we're trying to convey to the people that we're trying to minister to.

At some time, I got thinking about this when I was coming up here to Times Square Church. At some time, all of us are going to stand before our Heavenly Father and give an account of what we've done with our lives.

And I don't know about you, but I want to be able to please my Heavenly Father. I want to be able to stand before my Heavenly Father when it's my time and give an account and have God say to me, Well done, Roger, my good and faithful servant.

Or when Jesus was baptized, remember when he got baptized, he came out of the water. And a voice from heaven said, This is my beloved son, who I'm well pleased. If you're practicing pure religion, I can't help but believe that God's going to be pleased with what you're doing.

Before I go any further, I'm going to ask God just to anoint my lips and Debbie's lips and just be with us as we share what God's placed on our hearts to share about the ministry of Father's love. Heavenly Father, I just want to, again, thank you for this opportunity.

I thank you, Lord, for Times Square Church. Times Square Church has had such a major part in my life. Lord, it was instrumental in my faith and the work that you've called us to do, and I thank you. Lord, I'm also very humbled to even be behind this pulpit.

Lord, I know the type of people that stand behind you and share the gospel message. Lord, I know the caliber. I know the anointing on them, and we're humbled. And Lord, I just pray that you'll just anoint our lips now as we just share and try to convey that which you've placed on our hearts.

Father's Love Ministry and Children Without Present Fathers

In Jesus' name, amen. James 1 .27 says that pure religion and undefiled is visiting the orphans and the widows. Now, we do not minister to orphans in the technical sense of the word orphan. When I think of an orphan, I think of a child without a mother or a father.

Most of our kids that we work with do have mothers. They either live with their mothers. One or two of them may have their fathers living with them. But for the most part, they live with their mothers or their grandmothers.

But I sometimes wonder if an orphan who lost his mom and dad are maybe slightly better off than someone whose father has actually walked out of their lives, who intentionally just said, hey, I don't want you.

I don't love you. I don't want to care for you. I don't want to provide for you. It's been our observation. We started Father's Love Ministry about eight years ago. In fact, back in 1997, for the first three years, we had a farm in Pennsylvania in the children's department.

In fact, I saw Esther Dietrich, who was the children's church director at the time, would recommend kids from Times Square Church to come out to the farm for a weekend of ministry. And after three years, we moved to Charlottesville, Virginia.

We've been there for the last five years. But it's been our observation, working with these kids, that kids really do desire to have a father in their lives. In fact, our kids that we work with, they hang on to the idea.

They hang on to that hope that at some time their fathers will have a change of heart, that once again they'll reenter into their lives. And that repeats itself child after child after child. They want to have a father.

They want the situation to be changed. What we're going to do tonight is I'm going to go ahead and share with you about four different kids. And we're going to just really give you kind of a flavor or an idea of what our ministry is all about.

We're going to we decided Debbie and I were discussing this. We couldn't decide whether or not to share their real names or come up with some kind of fictitious name. But we decided to go ahead and use their real names.

And the reason for that is we cherish your prayers. We asked that you would pray for these kids, not only for these kids, but for all the kids that we're working with. But the first one I'm going to be talking about, I'm going to be talking about three boys that we've worked with very closely.

And Debbie's going to come and share about a young girl by the name of Jackie. But the first boy that I want to talk about is a boy by the name of Stephen. Stephen's about nine years of age now. His mother's been in prison for the last five years.

So since he was four until currently, his mom's been in prison. His father at one time was in the military, comes by used to call him up two or three times and come by around Christmas time. For the last two or three years, he comes by at Christmas time, and I was talking to the grandmother.

And I was asking the grandmother, I said, you know, when he comes, does he spend the entire day? Does he spend the weekend? You know, he comes, and he comes for 45 minutes. And then he leaves and doesn't see him again for another year.

But I know when you talk to this young boy and you see this young boy, you see the toll that has taken place over the years. He wishes in fact, he gets excited when he knows that his father's going to come.

Even though it may be the same thing as last year, maybe 45 minutes of just visiting with him, but he's hoping that maybe this time will be different. Maybe this time his father will have a change of heart.

Maybe this time his father will, you know, stay for the entire day. Maybe spend the weekend. Maybe take him home. And he hangs on to that, and his father just gets up and leaves, you know, after 45 minutes.

There's another boy by the name of Mike. He's 14 years old. Precious young man. Mike, if he had his choice, he would be living with our staff members 24 -7. Anything to get out of his home environment, you know, he'll want to stay with us.

And if you're visiting us, you know, he'll walk right up to you almost like he knows you, ask if he could stay with you, and, you know, just wants to stay away from home as much as he can. His father, his mother came up to us one day and was really, you could tell she was really upset and said, you need to pray for Mike.

Mike's going through a really tough time, and we, you know, asked her, you know, what's the problem? He has known his father for the last seven or eight, well, he's known his father all of his life. He knew that he had a father, knew who his father was, and would visit him from time to time.

But when he hit 14 years of age, his mother decided to press for child support. And when he found out that she was going to press for child support and had a pretty good case against him, he told Mike that he had to go and get DNA testing.

He told Mike, you know, Mike, I don't believe I'm your father. You're going to have to prove it to me. And that was a crushing blow to Mike, and the mother was very upset and knew that Mike was going to handle that pretty bad and just asked us for prayer.

Another one was Tim. Tim is another 14-year-old young man that we've been working with for about the last two or three years. His father, in a drunken state, poured gasoline all over his body and took a cigarette lighter and threatened.

Tim had a little two-year-old sister, and they watched their father pour the gasoline on him and threatened to light it with a cigarette lighter. Fortunately, someone called 911. They saw their father got arrested.

That happened on a Friday. Friday night we have our youth service. Tim was at our youth service. He was, after the message was given, he was, we dismissed the kids. We have basically two rooms. We have like a classroom and we have a gymnasium, and we dismissed the kids after the message, and they went into the gymnasium for a time of fellowship.

Tim was still sitting there with his head down just crying, and we went up to him. I asked my son to go up and see what was wrong with Tim, and Tim was saying, Hey, I love my father. I really love him, but I wish he would give up the drinking.