The Lord loves all people and desires that “all men be saved and come to the full knowledge of the truth.” Therefore, for some time there has been a feeling shared by a number of saints and co-workers in the Lord’s recovery is that the current number of saints of African descent meeting in the churches in the Lord’s recovery in North America is low, when compared to the number in the general population. This is not a matter of race, but of ratio. There has been a burden to find a way to contact, labor among, and gain people from the African-American community on the college campuses, including those universities which have been historically Black (HBCU’s) or African-American in composition. Ultimately, the goal of the labor is to present every man full-grown in Christ as functioning members of the Body of Christ and as parts of the one new man, “where there cannot be Jew or Greek, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian Scythian, slave, free man but Christ is all and in all” (Col. 3:11).
In order to begin to carry out this burden, a three day conference was held in Houston, TX over the Labor Day weekend, Sept. 4-6, 2015. The general subject of the conference was “The Organic Unity of the Body of Christ for the Producing of the One New Man.” There were 271 saints, including many new ones that attended the meetings on Friday and Saturday at Yates High School in Houston’s Third Ward. Friday night’s message was, The Highest Gospel— The Gospel of the One New Man. Continuing on Saturday were two messages on The One New Man with group times and an overflow time after dinner together. The final meeting of the conference was held on the Lord’s Day (9/6) at the meeting hall of the Church in Houston where 762 saints gathered. Following a love feast, the saints enjoyed the Lord’s table together.
After the last meeting concluded, the prayers and testimonies of the saints were full of thanks to the Lord. The Lord had confirmed through the messages and saints’ responses that His heart is toward all men, and especially toward the Africans. Brother Benson Phillips shared that his feeling toward having more Africans and African-Americans in the church is based on three places in the Word: Col. 3:10-11, Acts 8:26-39 and Acts 13:1. A sister shared how she had been praying since 2008 for this burden. An African-American brother that had contacted the ministry 4 years ago said that he and his wife had been praying for years for “God to break down the walls of segregation and denominationalism in His church.” He said, “To see this happening in my lifetime is amazing to me.” Many, many of the African-American saints shared similarly how encouraged they were at this beginning the Lord was taking.
Many testified of the family atmosphere and the intimate and individual care that they experienced. A sister shared that she had never been to a conference where everything and everyone seemed so cherishing, personal, and intimate. A new brother from Cameroon testified that after 6 years of searching, he finally had found Christians who loved the Lord. There were over 100 saints that came from out of town, most of whom received hospitality from the local saints.
