Native Convocation

    In another testimony, I have already spoken of the year that I traveled from our ministry in Southeast Alaska up to Anchorage for my ordination.  That trip began with an hour float plane trip to Juneau, then an eight-hour ferry ride to Haines Alaska. From Haines I would join two other pastors from the Southeast to take the nearly thousand-mile drive northward through Canada before turning south into Alaska where we would eventually arrive in Anchorage. Although the purpose of that trip was to attend the denominations District Council, the true highlight came in participating in what was known as Native Convocation. 

Native Convocation was held each year on the two days preceding the District Council. Convocation was the yearly gathering of the native pastors from throughout the state, the majority of which served in small isolated communities far into the Alaskan bush. Each year it was held in the Native Assembly church in Anchorage, a church that also served as the Bible college to train these native brothers for ministry. One of my best friends and mentors, Michael Curtis, was a leader in the native ministry in Alaska. At that time, he was serving as pastor of the Anchorage church, which itself served as a hub for all the native ministry in the state.  

Convocation began that year as usual, two days before the District Council was to start. For those two evenings,  services would be held in the Native Assembly where the difficult but productive work these pastors were doing in the many very isolated native communities throughout the state would be recognized. After opening in worship on that first night, a district official came up to help “kick off” the Convocation by recognizing the many native pastors and missionaries, calling each of them by name and inviting them to the podium. In order for the denomination to recognize a ministry as being what they called “home missions”, they required that the community they ministered in be at least a fifty percent native population. Most of these villages were made up of entirely native populations.  

At that time, I had been ministering for almost three years in the village of Pelican in Southeast Alaska. However, the native population of Pelican was only officially"forty-nine" percent native, so we were not recognized by the district as being “home missions”.  This meant that we were did not qualify for several of the benefits provided to home missions churches, such as financial help from the district. Although this did create some difficulties for us, it did not hinder in any way the ministry the Lord intended for Pelican.  

Michael Curtis, who was at that time the pasttor of Anchorag Native Assembly, was well aware of this situation.  After the district official opened the Convocation by naming the native pastors and missionaries and inviting them to the platform, it was Mike’s turn to take the podium.  He began by saying, I want to recognize one other missionary pastor, who although he is not native, he is ministering in a native community here in Alaska. Mike called my name and invited me up to the platform with the rest of the native pastors.  That was the beginning of two very wonderful and spiritual days of Convocation.  

The services over those next two days were comprised of prayer, worship, testimonies, great preaching, and times of praying for the needs of those who would come forward.  Unlike many of the non-native churches, these native pastors were accustomed to allowing church to continue as long as the Spirit of God was present.  During those two nights, many were healed, delivered, encouraged, and saved. Several even came forward to be delivered from demons.  Regardless of the reason they came forward, it was evident that the Holy Spirit was at work and lives were being changed. 

On the second night of the convocation, one particular native young man came up seeking prayer. In the past, he had made several attempts at yielding his life to Christ, but always seemed to fall back into his same dark lifestyle. When he came forward that night for prayer, I joined a group of eight to ten other native brothers to pray over him. After praying for some time, we all agreed that there was something in this young man that was hindering his full deliverance.  In lite of this, we all began to fervently ask the Lord to reveal what this hinderance was. 

As we prayed, the voice of the Lord spoke.  He had some very specific information to guide our prayers.  I stepped through the group of praying men surrounding this young man, kneeling next to him. I simply asked him one question. That question was “What was in the box under his bed?”. This had been the Lord’s word to me, that he had something in a box under his bed, and the contents of that box was hindering any spiritual growth. When I asked him this question, the young man’s eyes grew wide. He looked around the group of praying men as if he had been accused. However, I believe he then recognized that no one could have revealed the existence of that box but God.  He looked up and openly confessed, “it is full of pornography”.  Both the presence of this pornography and his previous unwillingness to confess it had been hindering his deliverance.   

We prayed with this young man that night as he confessed his sin and vowed to remove that box from his room and his life. We all sensed the hinderance was no longer there. Other native brothers in our praying group that night committed to working with this young man and holding him accountable for his commitment.  All of us knew however, with the Lord so powerfully revealing the particular sins in this young man’s life that the Holy Spirit was truly at work in him.

This was only one of the many great works of the Holy Spirit that occurred during that “Native Convocation”.  As was the custom each night during the convocation, the services would extend late into the night.  It was on that same night that the Lord revealed “the box under the bed” that we finally found ourselves downstairs in the fellowship area well after eleven P.M.  Most of the native pastors and many of the native believers who had attended were still with us as we fellowshipped and laughed together, rejoicing over the souls saved and rehearsing the many miraculous things we had seen the Lord do that very night.  

Our fellowship however was suddenly interrupted by a young man who had was serving as youth pastor for the Native Assembly.  He came into the room almost running, excitedly motioning for all of us to follow him.  Together we dropped what we were doing to follow him up the stairs that led to the main floor and the sanctuary. Native Assembly was a large church, seating what I would guess to be four or five hundred people. Two swinging doors opened the way from the foyer into the sanctuary.   

As we followed this excited young man through those swinging doors and into the sanctuary, all of us topped in amazement. There on the steps surrounding the platform we could see over a dozen children, ranging from ages three up to about twelve. They were all either prostrate or on their knees with heads pressed to the floor. They were all weeping and praying, many praying in tongues. What we would eventually learn was that after the adults went downstairs to fellowship, many of the children had gone up near the platform area “playing church”. As they played, the Holy Spirit fell upon them. Many fell to the floor, others began praying in tongues, while others just wept before God.

All of us “adults” were so moved and humbled by what was clearly another move of the Holy Spirit that we rushed up to the altars and joined them in prayer and rejoicing for another hour or more. There was no need for any of us to “minister” to them, it was clear that the Holy Spirit had already assumed that role.  The Holy Spirit was in no way limited by our “times of service” or even by the youth and naivety of those who came to worship the Lord. As Psalms chapter eight says “From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise”.