Mark Medley: So I get the wonderful opportunity to introduce to you a dear friend, and to me and to probably most of you here as well.
Mark Medley: And you served Jesus so well, you served this church so well, so just welcome, neil Silverberg.
Neil Silverberg: Thank you, mark, I'm a little overwhelmed.
Neil Silverberg: Give me a second.
Neil Silverberg: Was that powerful?
Neil Silverberg: Wow.
Neil Silverberg: Every time that song was sung, I think of Melissa, it was her song.
Neil Silverberg: I want to just take a second and acknowledge a special guest, but you have to promise me not to get up and hug his neck yet.
Neil Silverberg: But Paul Queen is in the house.
Neil Silverberg: Praise God, paul.
Neil Silverberg: So glad to have you here, brother.
Neil Silverberg: Well, mark mentioned that the ban has been lifted on my jokes, so I'm struggling with whether I should take the opportunity or not.
Neil Silverberg: For those of you who don't know, I've had a joke that is so old that the elders came to my house one day and posted on my refrigerator that I was under a ban.
Neil Silverberg: That joke could not be repeated at any Trinity Chapel, trinity Community Church outing or meeting, but Tyler graciously lifted it, told me, even though I promised I did it.
Neil Silverberg: In Israel I took 34 people to Israel, patty remembers and we I heard it, I'm so old.
Neil Silverberg: When I was young the Dead Sea was just sick.
Neil Silverberg: Okay, there it is.
Neil Silverberg: Good night, praise God.
Neil Silverberg: Shelly and I have had the privilege of being partners at Trinity Community Church for almost 30 years, with a five-year break to Florida, and we love this church.
Neil Silverberg: We love the community we've been part of.
Neil Silverberg: We love the fact that our kids grew up here.
Neil Silverberg: We love working with the elder team.
Neil Silverberg: It's just been an incredible blessing and privilege.
Neil Silverberg: Mark did a brilliant flyover of the last 50 years 50 years amazing that we've been a local church and I hope tonight, if you are new, you're one of the newer people to Trinity that this history was helpful in providing you some context about Trinity and how it got started.
Neil Silverberg: I've been brooding on this all week and it's blessed my soul.
Neil Silverberg: You know the average church plant lasts four years or less.
Neil Silverberg: So we're celebrating 50 years is no small matter is no small matter and you know we.
Neil Silverberg: Mark mentioned briefly our background.
Neil Silverberg: Steve and I met each other in Miami.
Neil Silverberg: Actually, I didn't know Steve.
Neil Silverberg: My brother, perry, was friends with Steve and introduced me to Steve for the first time.
Neil Silverberg: Steve says I was very unkind and unfriendly in that meeting.
Neil Silverberg: I had long hair and I was probably on dope and didn't realize the man of God in my house.
Neil Silverberg: I didn't realize it, but I grew up in Philadelphia and I got.
Neil Silverberg: My brother was a drug addict and my parents kicked him out of the house in 1970.
Neil Silverberg: And my father looked at me and said, neil, we don't want you turning out like your brother, we want you free from drugs.
Neil Silverberg: We're moving to Miami.
Neil Silverberg: That's exactly what he said Drug-free Miami.
Neil Silverberg: But you know what was happening in the movie Jesus Revolution?
Neil Silverberg: What was happening in California was happening in South Florida in the 60s and 70s as well.
Neil Silverberg: It was a major outpouring of the spirit and the charismatic movement was powerful in those days.
Neil Silverberg: God was touching many drug addicts and setting them free.
Neil Silverberg: Sandy was a heroin addict who got set free by the gospel.
Neil Silverberg: The night I got saved, november 9th 1971, at Bayfront Auditorium, sandy Simons was singing in the choir that night.
Neil Silverberg: I didn't know her that night, but I got to know her in the future and it's wonderful to know her.
Neil Silverberg: We're trying to get Sandy out of her shell a little bit.
Neil Silverberg: But Mark mentioned how Steve's life and my life was touched by the gospel.
Neil Silverberg: I met the Lord in November of 1971, and Steve had gotten saved, I think in 70 or 69, 70.
Neil Silverberg: So that was a period of time when the Spirit of God was poured out powerfully throughout the nation and later Steve and Sandy left Florida and moved to Alabama and pastored in Alabama, in Florence, alabama, where they pastored Calvary Temple.
Neil Silverberg: We had breakfast yesterday, mark and I and Steve, and we were reviewing, renewing some of our memories about that time.
Neil Silverberg: It was amazing and you know it was really a tailor made for Steve and I were reviewing, renewing some of our memories about that time.
Neil Silverberg: It was amazing and you know it was really a tailor made for Steve and I being Jewish, because we were in pastoring in Florence, which was right down the road from Tuscumbia, alabama, which at the time was the headquarters for the Ku Klux Klan, so it was perfect setting for two Jewish guys from South Florida.
Neil Silverberg: You know it really was.
Neil Silverberg: But in 1984, when Steve and Sandy got the call to come to Knoxville and serve as senior pastor, we stayed, shelley and I, in Florence for another seven years and then, in 1991, we moved here to join the pastoral staff and work with Steve and Sandy.
Neil Silverberg: By the way, steve served as senior pastor for almost 30 years.
Neil Silverberg: We wouldn't be here tonight if it wasn't for their faithfulness.
Neil Silverberg: In 2006, shelley and I left Knoxville and went to Cape Coral, florida, to work with a church there.
Neil Silverberg: And then, in 2010, steve called me and asked me to prayerfully consider returning to Knoxville and taking the lead role, which we did in 2011.
Neil Silverberg: We were accompanied by Tyler and Amy, who actually came down before we got here, and for Tyler it was like going home, because his father had planted a church in Cape Coral and Tyler actually graduated high school in Fort Myers, so it was like going home for him.
Neil Silverberg: We were asked on this first night of our special Jubilee service to start to speak about what God did in establishing Trinity.
Neil Silverberg: I want to take a few minutes and just give you a broad overview of what I believe he did when he established this church.
Neil Silverberg: Tomorrow, we're going to focus in the morning on what God is presently doing and then tomorrow night we'll be praying for people prophetically and we will be talking about what God's going to do in the future.
Neil Silverberg: We call this thanking God for a firm foundation.
Neil Silverberg: I believe that Trinity has existed for 50 years because it's been planted on a firm foundation.
Neil Silverberg: Can you agree with that?
Neil Silverberg: And we could describe that foundation in many different ways.
Neil Silverberg: We could talk about the worship, the fact that this church has been characterized by dynamic worship, and we saw some of it tonight Aaron Jones, mark Medley, jack Wright, others who've been part of the worship team.
Neil Silverberg: It's always been an important part of Trinity, but I believe that the best way to describe the foundation upon which Trinity was founded is that God called Trinity, from the beginning, to be both a word and power church.
Neil Silverberg: A word and power church.
Neil Silverberg: We may not have been that to the best of our ability.
Neil Silverberg: We may not be that to the best of our ability right now, but from our inception we've striven to be balanced in both of those areas of word and spirit.
Neil Silverberg: What do I mean by word and power church?
Neil Silverberg: If you go to the Gospels Matthew, mark and Luke, they all tell the story of Jesus running with the Sadducees.
Neil Silverberg: Remember, he had confronted the Pharisees and they couldn't confound him.
Neil Silverberg: And now the Sadducees came.
Neil Silverberg: It was their turn.
Neil Silverberg: They were the political power in the day.
Neil Silverberg: They were, you know, and they were mainly described by the fact that they denied any of the supernatural in the Old Testament.
Neil Silverberg: They were sad, you see.
Neil Silverberg: That was worth listening to the sermon up to now just for that little bit, right.
Neil Silverberg: They were sad, you see, and they disbelieved in angels or spirits, and that included.
Neil Silverberg: They disbelieved in the core issue of the Old Testament, the resurrection of the body.
Neil Silverberg: On that basis, they come to Jesus with a fictitious story.
Neil Silverberg: Remember that there was a man who died and his brother married his wife and seven men married her and they had the question in the resurrection, whose wife will she be?
Neil Silverberg: And Jesus, as he often does, knowing their deception, answers by going right to the heart of the issue.
Neil Silverberg: He says you are in error because you are deficient in knowing the scriptures and the power of God.
Neil Silverberg: You err because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God.
Neil Silverberg: If they knew the scriptures, they would have had no problem believing the resurrection, because the Bible teaches it very clearly.
Neil Silverberg: And if they knew the power of God, they would know that in the resurrection, men and women are transformed and brought into a realm similar to angels.
Neil Silverberg: By the way, I encourage the pastors in the room to use this for pastoral counsel for marriage.
Neil Silverberg: Just tell the couple if you can hang on to the resurrection, then you won't be married.
Neil Silverberg: It's really helpful.
Neil Silverberg: I've used it many times.
Neil Silverberg: It works well.
Neil Silverberg: But Jesus expected them to know both the scriptures and the power of God.
Neil Silverberg: Because they didn't, they erred.
Neil Silverberg: And there's a warning in Jesus' words for us.
Neil Silverberg: I believe if any church wants to ensure that it qualifies as an apostolic company, they need to know both of these, the scriptures and the power of God.
Neil Silverberg: And guess what?
Neil Silverberg: We don't have to compromise and choose one above the other of God.
Neil Silverberg: And guess what?
Neil Silverberg: We don't have to compromise and choose one above the other.
Neil Silverberg: Both are our heritage.
Neil Silverberg: It's important to recognize that, as far as Jesus is concerned, both of these belong together if error is to be avoided.
Neil Silverberg: It should be immediately recognized, though, that for many people, for many churches, this is rarely the case.
Neil Silverberg: We don't see a church, many churches, that are balanced with both of these word and power.
Neil Silverberg: In fact, two distinct camps have emerged today, each stressing one of these to the other, each camp viewing the other with antagonism.
Neil Silverberg: The two camps are evangelicalism, which has put its focus on knowing the scriptures so that we're pursuing a biblically based religion, and the charismatic church, which has emphasized, rightly, our need of the power of the spirit and the gifts of the spirit in operation.
Neil Silverberg: Unfortunately, these two camps in the past have remained antagonistic, but we're coming into good news that we're coming into a day when something is going on causing both camps to recognize their need of the other.
Neil Silverberg: Praise God, evangelicals can continue to insist on the importance of biblical knowledge and scholarship.
Neil Silverberg: In the past, they've rejected the charismatic emphasis on the power of the Spirit.
Neil Silverberg: The danger for them is, things can become only cerebral, the idea that they can embrace the idea that God wrote a book and disappeared off the scene.
Neil Silverberg: You know, they easily become like many evangelicals which you know, jesus, many of the Pharisees.
Neil Silverberg: Jesus said to them you diligently study the scriptures because you think that in them you possess eternal life.
Neil Silverberg: These are the scriptures that testify about me, and yet you do not come to me to have life.
Neil Silverberg: Charismatic saw this tendency and reacted against it.
Neil Silverberg: But in their reaction they forgot that God's power is not a substitute for a knowledge of truth.
Neil Silverberg: Are you with me?
Neil Silverberg: Even the spirit is called the spirit of truth.
Neil Silverberg: One of the problems in this entire scenario is that we have accepted the notion that it has to be either or or both, and there's a man who did some brilliant work.
Neil Silverberg: His name was Jim Collins.
Neil Silverberg: He spent six years researching great companies, trying to find out what makes companies great and better than others.
Neil Silverberg: He grouped them into bronze and gold and metal companies, gold being those who performed well over time, and he found that these companies were those who eliminated the notion of either or and discovered the power of both and power of both, and he cites as an example a pharmaceutical company that found out how to make both a profit and serve the needs of humanity.
Neil Silverberg: I believe the church should be the ultimate example of the both and paradigm, and I believe God has called Trinity from its inception to exemplify that.
Neil Silverberg: We don't have to choose between a word-based church and power-based.
Neil Silverberg: We can and must have both.
Neil Silverberg: If we want to recapture the genius of the apostolic church, we have to embrace both these camps.
Neil Silverberg: First, we must ensure that we're building biblically-based churches, churches that take the Scripture seriously.
Neil Silverberg: We will not shun serious biblical study.
Neil Silverberg: We will see the importance of theology in our ministry.
Neil Silverberg: But secondly, we must recognize that the New Testament church is a supernatural church and we must be comfortable in the supernatural even when we embrace Scripture.
Neil Silverberg: The man who wrote Romans raised the dead, and we have an example of this in the Old Testament.
Neil Silverberg: Two men who worked together in the Hebrew Bible, their one book, the book of Ezra and Nehemiah.
Neil Silverberg: You know what Nehemiah's name is in Hebrew?
Neil Silverberg: It's comforter.
Neil Silverberg: And you know what Ezra was, the scribe who studied the law to teach it in Israel.
Neil Silverberg: And both of those work together, exemplifying the word and power paradigm.
Neil Silverberg: I myself owe a great debt from both camps.
Neil Silverberg: I've gained so much.
Neil Silverberg: So if we want to ensure that our people are growing in knowledge of both the scriptures and the power of God, we must make sure that our ministry as leaders exhibits both.
Neil Silverberg: Are you breathing?
Neil Silverberg: We must model what knowledge of both means for our people.
Neil Silverberg: The following should be demonstrated in our lives and ministries as part of our evangelical heritage we must first and foremost be students of Scripture, can't just give lip service to it.
Neil Silverberg: We have to make sure that what we preach and what we pursue is biblical, and that can't be faked.
Neil Silverberg: It must be the result of living constantly in the book and grappling with its message.
Neil Silverberg: You know, in the past few years the church has been inundated with new techniques and emphasis that are not biblical.
Neil Silverberg: People don't notice because there hasn't been a waning of authority of the scriptures.
Neil Silverberg: We still quote the Bible occasionally, but we really look elsewhere for answers.
Neil Silverberg: We need to desperately return to the authority of scripture.
Neil Silverberg: If we don't, we will make experiences authoritative.
Neil Silverberg: It's like Luke 16.
Neil Silverberg: Remember the parable of the rich man and Lazarus?
Neil Silverberg: Many believe it's not a parable because Lazarus is named by name.
Neil Silverberg: But you remember, man and Lazarus.
Neil Silverberg: Many believe it's not a parable because Lazarus is named by name.
Neil Silverberg: But you remember, lazarus the rich man rather said send me back to my brothers.
Neil Silverberg: If someone rises from the dead, they'll believe.
Neil Silverberg: And they said and Father Abraham said, if they have Moses and the prophets, if they don't believe them, they won't believe that someone rises from the dead.
Neil Silverberg: Our public ministry must expound scripture.
Neil Silverberg: Leaders need to return to preaching the word of God.
Neil Silverberg: Not only do we study the Bible when we preach it from our messages.
Neil Silverberg: We must expound it.
Neil Silverberg: We've got to be delivered from what I call state your text and depart you from it.
Neil Silverberg: You know, listening to many preachers, you get the idea that the Bible is just a springboard for their own thoughts, because the message isn't drawn from Scripture.
Neil Silverberg: The Scripture is used to bolster their own thoughts.
Neil Silverberg: But besides the Scriptures, the following should be demonstrated clearly in our lives and ministry as part of our charismatic heritage we need our churches and ministries to live in and minister from the presence of God.
Neil Silverberg: You know we have settled for a Christianity which is a little more than a commitment to propositions.
Neil Silverberg: It's obvious from Acts that the success of the apostles was that their ministries were committed to both word and power.
Neil Silverberg: The power of the Holy Spirit and the presence of God was evident, and we needed it, especially in an hour like ours.
Neil Silverberg: Acts 5,.
Neil Silverberg: With great power, the apostles were giving witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all.
Neil Silverberg: Nothing, nothing, nothing can substitute for the power of the Holy Spirit in our ministries.
Neil Silverberg: Without it, we're like the man in the story of Elisha Remember the man with the axe head who lost his axe head?
Neil Silverberg: We're like him beating the tree with no axe head.
Neil Silverberg: Spurgeon said it best.
Neil Silverberg: He said to us as ministers the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.
Neil Silverberg: Without him, our office is a mere name.
Neil Silverberg: We claim no priesthood over and above that which belongs to every child of God, but we are the successors of those who, in olden times, were moved of God to declare his word, to testify against transgression and to lead his cause.
Neil Silverberg: Unless we have the spirit of the prophets resting upon us, the mantle which we wear is nothing but a rough garment to deceive.
Neil Silverberg: We ought to be driven forth with abhorrence from the society of honest men for daring to speak in the name of the Lord.
Neil Silverberg: If the spirit of God rests upon us.
Neil Silverberg: We continue his witness upon earth, but upon him and his testimony the spirit always rested, and if it does not rest upon us, we are evidently not sent forth into the world as he was.
Neil Silverberg: Wow.
Neil Silverberg: In this regard, we should desire earnestly the spiritual gifts in our ministries and our churches.
Neil Silverberg: You know, we may not be doctrinal secessionists but we can end up being functional secessionists.
Neil Silverberg: Doctrinally we believe in the gifts, but functionally, you know, it's forbid not but seek not is the motto.
Neil Silverberg: We need to return to the simplicity of what charismatic means.
Neil Silverberg: It means pertaining to the gifts.
Neil Silverberg: They have been abused but we still desperately need them today.
Neil Silverberg: So I believe God has established Trinity on the foundation of being a word and power church, and may we become more and more.
Neil Silverberg: May that characterize us more and more in the days ahead.
Neil Silverberg: Mark's going to introduce Steve, thanks.
Mark Medley: All right.
Mark Medley: So before you heard Derek give his little testimony about how he came to Trinity, we're going to be doing that this weekend.
Mark Medley: We're going to be talking about how each of the elders are going to be talking about how God brought us to Trinity and what we see happening in the future.
Mark Medley: I just want to tell you one story about my coming to Trinity.
Mark Medley: Okay, as I'm introducing Steve, because the first night I ever came to Trinity I was invited by some friends.
Mark Medley: I had some friends who went here.
Mark Medley: It was at Dedrick Avenue.
Mark Medley: I don't know if you know the story or not, steve.
Mark Medley: So Steve used to prophesy over people during services.
Mark Medley: Dedrick Avenue building was a long building, right, and so we had.
Mark Medley: There was no wireless microphones.
Mark Medley: Steve had a little lapel mic and he had like seven microphone cables.
Mark Medley: It's the truth and all the so it would reach all the way to the back of the building and he would go back and he would pull people out and prophesy over people.
Mark Medley: Okay, first time I ever came to Trinity I've never.
Mark Medley: I was hungry for the Lord and for the spirit, but I'd never been prophesied over.
Mark Medley: So he's like doing that and I'm going oh, what's going on around here?
Mark Medley: And, like you know, you've probably done the same things, like maybe, if I don't make eye contact, whatever you do.
Mark Medley: So Steve pulled me out.
Mark Medley: I was out in the aisle and my first prophecy I ever got and he said God is joining you with those who are around you and God is going to use you with them and God is going to send you out and you will go out and come back, and go out and come back.
Mark Medley: Okay, I don't know exact words, but that's what it was.
Mark Medley: Okay, I had no idea that meant join me with Trinity.
Mark Medley: You know, I didn't know that's what it meant.
Mark Medley: I couldn't imagine that because I was pretty young.
Mark Medley: But that's exactly what's happened.
Mark Medley: And now part of what I do, I'm here, part of the pastoral staff, six months out of the year, but the other six months of the year I'm going out, I'm in other nations and I'm coming back and other nations coming back, and it's the word of the Lord.
Mark Medley: I mean the word of the Lord is strong and powerful and we need that right.
Mark Medley: So very interesting.
Mark Medley: So anyway, I just want you to welcome Steve.
Steve Fatow: He's such a wonderful father in the Lord.
Steve Fatow: Thanks, mark, great to be here.
Steve Fatow: Hey, great food, thank you so much.
Steve Fatow: Great fellowship, wow.
Steve Fatow: I'm not going to share long, but I do have a little five-minute capsule of something that Holy Spirit has prophetically given.
Steve Fatow: I've shared it with Clem so he released me to give it.
Steve Fatow: But you know, when I came here, it was 1984.
Steve Fatow: When I came, I first preached here.
Steve Fatow: I think it was 1982 or 1983.
Steve Fatow: And the first time I preached here was a Sunday night and that morning whoever the pastor was I don't know, he had only been here for about five or six months he had resigned that morning and I was the guest speaker that Sunday night.
Steve Fatow: And I was trying not to connect the dots, honestly, because Neil and I were working together in Florence and we had just, I felt had taken the church to another level, where we were finally something was happening and I certainly didn't want to go anywhere.
Steve Fatow: I was feeling very comfortable.
Steve Fatow: So I came back to Alabama and told Neil.
Steve Fatow: I said, neil, one of us have to go there, and I think it's you.
Steve Fatow: And I told him I said, please pray about you know they don't have a pastor there.
Steve Fatow: Of course, him and I being best friends.
Steve Fatow: I didn't want him to go, but at the same time I felt this like needed to go.
Steve Fatow: So anyway, he said he'd pray about it.
Steve Fatow: And he was praying about it and the elders here were praying about it and while everybody's praying, the Lord spoke to me and to my wife, sandy and doesn't Sandy look so beautiful here?
Steve Fatow: Hallelujah, yeah, she's doing great.
Steve Fatow: And we felt that we were supposed to go.
Steve Fatow: And then we said, well, gee, we're supposed to go.
Steve Fatow: How are we going to break the news to Neil, because it looks like he's wanting to go?
Steve Fatow: At the same time, the Lord downloaded to him that I was supposed to go and he was supposed to stay in Alabama.
Steve Fatow: So that's how it worked out by me coming in 1984.
Steve Fatow: I'm just going to share a few things.
Steve Fatow: You know we got so many things that happened during my little tenure here.
Steve Fatow: A little.
Steve Fatow: It was almost 30 years, 29 years.
Steve Fatow: In one of our services we actually had the glory cloud.
Steve Fatow: We actually had the glory cloud.
Steve Fatow: Shekinah glory of God actually came into the building and we had a balcony.
Steve Fatow: And it's kind of a funny story because Tim Ashley, who started another church and he wasn't able to be here, started Harvest Church.
Steve Fatow: He happened to come for the first time as a visitor to Trinity Chapel and he was sitting next to Bobby Ewing how many remember Bobby Ewing, anybody remember?
Steve Fatow: And Bobby was sitting there and all of a sudden this cloud comes in.
Steve Fatow: Okay, and Tim is sitting next to Bobby, he doesn't even know Bobby, he just happens to come in as a guest and turns around to Bobby.
Steve Fatow: He goes, what is that?
Steve Fatow: And Bobby like nonchalantly goes oh, that's the glory cloud, as if it comes every Sunday or something.
Steve Fatow: I mean he did it like every day.
Steve Fatow: Oh, that's the glory cloud.
Steve Fatow: Tim goes.
Steve Fatow: Glory cloud Because Tim was going to a Baptist church.
Steve Fatow: He was going.
Steve Fatow: We don't have that in our church.
Steve Fatow: So Tim left his church and came to Trinity and later was sent out to some things that are kind of in my memory.
Steve Fatow: I remember having this dream and in this dream all the cars in the Trinity parking lot were all driving around without anybody in the car.
Steve Fatow: There was nobody in the car, just cars driving around the parking lot car.
Steve Fatow: There was nobody in the car, just cars driving around the parking lot.
Steve Fatow: So I woke up and I said Lord, what is that?
Steve Fatow: And he said I'm about to do something in which you have no control over.
Steve Fatow: You know, to a pastor that's like the most fearful thing you could hear, because pastoring it's like we have to have a little bit of something.
Steve Fatow: You know, like you're, I'm about to do something you have absolutely no control over.
Steve Fatow: So we had a whole crew that went to Toronto and I know Sandy, patty and a bunch of others.
Steve Fatow: They all went to Toronto, all got blasted.
Steve Fatow: I know Russ went to Toronto, really got blasted.
Steve Fatow: So church really got blasted, anyway.
Steve Fatow: So they came back and one of them was Dee Durfee, and I don't think she's here tonight but she's not here.
Steve Fatow: But anyway it's a Sunday night and Sunday night Dee Durfee gets to the microphone and this is what she says.
Steve Fatow: She says would you like to see a move of God?
Steve Fatow: That's what she, you know in a very low voice, because d had a very soft voice.
Steve Fatow: Would you like to see a move of god?
Steve Fatow: And I still remember, jim greer, what she said.
Steve Fatow: Arms were folded like, yeah, you're going to do something like you.
Steve Fatow: A move of God.
Steve Fatow: That's all she said, and I'm not kidding.
Steve Fatow: The heavens opened and we had this outpouring of the spirit.
Steve Fatow: Nobody left the building till one o'clock in the morning.
Steve Fatow: Everybody was out in the spirit and laughing hysterically.
Steve Fatow: I'm not exaggerating.
Steve Fatow: I never got it.
Steve Fatow: Honestly.
Steve Fatow: I never got the laughing.
Steve Fatow: Everybody was asking me to help them to stop laughing.
Steve Fatow: Neil was there.
Steve Fatow: I mean, we could not stop it and we could not start it.
Steve Fatow: And I remember all the teenagers were piled up in a pile like a haystack.
Steve Fatow: I couldn't figure out how they did that.
Steve Fatow: And we didn't get out till, you know, one o'clock in the morning and this went on and we had to go every night and this happened.
Steve Fatow: This is the truth.
Steve Fatow: We would have months where no one could preach on Sunday night.
Steve Fatow: Every time you were ready to preach, you couldn't speak.
Steve Fatow: Is Ed Rosen here?
Steve Fatow: Great, now I can tell what happened.
Steve Fatow: So, ed Rosen, he was one of our elders and he had a teaching and he didn't care.
Steve Fatow: Man, I'm going to give forth this teaching and you're going to hear it.
Steve Fatow: I've got something I believe you're supposed to hear and I remember.
Steve Fatow: So he gets up to the pulpit.
Steve Fatow: Like I told you, every week no one could speak.
Steve Fatow: On Sunday night, the power of God was so strong, the glory, the presence.
Steve Fatow: You could not.
Steve Fatow: All we could do was worship.
Steve Fatow: That's all we could do was worship.
Steve Fatow: So, anyway, ed gets up to the pulpit.
Steve Fatow: God bless him.
Steve Fatow: He's standing there and we're waiting for him to speak.
Steve Fatow: He's just standing there and this weird look comes over his face.
Steve Fatow: And we're all waiting over his face and we're all waiting.
Steve Fatow: He's just standing there.
Steve Fatow: Then he finally goes.
Steve Fatow: I'm absolutely drunk in the Holy Spirit and I think he falls over and the whole church just exploded.
Steve Fatow: That's what we had meetings like that.
Steve Fatow: They were insane.
Steve Fatow: They really were.
Steve Fatow: I mean, there was no way to and the worship was incredible and Aaron would play the most famous song on Sunday night.
Steve Fatow: Here he comes.
Steve Fatow: Here he comes We'd be jumping and dancing.
Steve Fatow: I mean it was no way to stop it, it was unstoppable.
Steve Fatow: So we had a lot of that.
Steve Fatow: You know that took place.
Steve Fatow: But you know even before that we always had worship was kind of always something big and I think it was already mentioned.
Steve Fatow: You know people would sneak in.
Steve Fatow: Sunday night was our biggest meeting and on Dederick Avenue we just had something special, I hate to say it, beloved.
Steve Fatow: I appreciate Mark was so kind of how he shared about when we moved to Haines, turkey, sharing about all the good things, but I hate to say it, the cloud seemed like it never left Dederick, going over.
Steve Fatow: God bless that place.
Steve Fatow: But all I could tell you there was something special at Dederick.
Steve Fatow: I don't know if because it was in the ghetto.
Steve Fatow: In other words, if you went there you really took a chance in the ghetto.
Steve Fatow: In other words, if you went there you really took a chance.
Steve Fatow: I mean, we would have new cars would be stolen from the parking lot, people would come up to me crying my car's gone.
Steve Fatow: You know, I still remember Gene Wright was in the vestibule of the and I think it might've been with Joan too, and I remember they were crying.
Steve Fatow: I go.
Steve Fatow: What's the matter?
Steve Fatow: There was a gunfight going, bullets flying all over the place.
Steve Fatow: Maybe that's what made it special, I don't know.
Steve Fatow: We had bullet holes in our stained glass windows on Dead or Again, we had bullet holes in our stained glass windows.
Steve Fatow: And you know, I learned a lot since then, believe me, I used to have a saying, and one of my sayings was if you didn't like what I said, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Steve Fatow: I used to say it all the time.
Steve Fatow: I used to say you don't like what I'm preaching on, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Steve Fatow: And I remember Linda Wheeler that was her name, precious sister.
Steve Fatow: She came up to me one day and said Steve, I'm so sick of you saying If I don't like what you're saying, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Steve Fatow: Would you please not say it anymore?
Steve Fatow: So I repented and never said it again.
Steve Fatow: But I remember one of our worship services.
Steve Fatow: At one time we had four trumpets.
Steve Fatow: We had four trumpets and then one Sunday night I think we had five.
Steve Fatow: And I remember asking somebody does anybody know who that person is?
Steve Fatow: We didn't even know who he was.
Steve Fatow: It was like somebody can just get up on the stage and play.
Steve Fatow: I mean it was like, and then we used to have a tradition, it was called special song, special music, before the preaching, and every Sunday morning somebody would sing, and sometimes who absolutely could not sing.
Steve Fatow: And we had one dear sister who used to have a great, a great operatic voice.
Steve Fatow: Neil would call it the seventh seal.
Steve Fatow: She would get up and all she had left was falsetto.
Steve Fatow: All she had left was just falsetto, and we would let all the teenagers are under the that's when we had pews, they were under the pews and I'm pinching myself because I'm about to burst out laughing and we didn't have the heart to say to her you can't sing, to say to her you can't sing.
Steve Fatow: Anyway, that was some of the stuff that went on before Mark led worship and then Aaron, you know, jack Wright.
Steve Fatow: I think literally people would come to church just to see Jack smile.
Steve Fatow: I mean he had the biggest smile on his face when he led worship.
Steve Fatow: I mean he made everybody feel like $1,000 just coming in through the door, unbelievable.
Steve Fatow: I met Neil back down in Miami, like I said he just mentioned.
Steve Fatow: He did have long hair and he was very.
Steve Fatow: He was not nice to me, let's put it that way, because he wasn't saved yet and his brother was.
Steve Fatow: I want you to meet a friend of mine.
Steve Fatow: Neil looked at me and go, hey, hey, you know.
Steve Fatow: So Neil and I came into that background.
Steve Fatow: We were part of the Jesus movement and one thing about the Jesus movement is we were totally abandoned to the Lord.
Steve Fatow: So it was kind of hard for us to actually fit in to organize church because of our background, of what we used to do.
Steve Fatow: I mean, we were every day.
Steve Fatow: We were just the passion that we had, not just for the loss but, you know, for Jesus.
Steve Fatow: Let me just share real quick just a very simple prophetic word that I feel like the Lord's given to me for Trinity.
Steve Fatow: We already mentioned the pioneers, which was Jack and Charlie, and you, brashear and Len, you were thrown kind of in that too, in that kind of mix, also even Russ, coming back later.
Steve Fatow: But I almost look at them.
Steve Fatow: They were like the Abraham realm.
Steve Fatow: That was like the Abraham realm.
Steve Fatow: You know it cost a lot Most of those got.
Steve Fatow: I remember one time somebody asked a survey how many came out of the Baptist church.
Steve Fatow: I couldn't believe almost the entire congregation had come out of the Baptist church.
Steve Fatow: Wow, had come out of the Baptist church.
Steve Fatow: Wow, that was a big deal to all of a sudden believe that in a Holy Spirit, in the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Steve Fatow: By the way, most of them were disfellowshipped.
Steve Fatow: It wasn't like they were sent out with laying on of hands.
Steve Fatow: I mean, there was just so many people that were in the churches.
Steve Fatow: So I look at Jack and Charlie, they were the Abraham you could call that particular section of Trinity.
Steve Fatow: Praise God for that pioneering spirit, praise God for the.
Steve Fatow: And, by the way, a little more background that perhaps you didn't know is that a lot of this started way back when, when many of them went to Frank Meredith's church yeah, I think I hit a note there and then he got into legalism of the shepherding movement and all that stuff, and so Trinity was kind of established to be a church that would again like Neil mentioned, that would really believe in the word of God and wouldn't be submitting just to man but would be submitting to God.
Steve Fatow: So they really made a stand and in a sense this was the real major charismatic church in the whole city.
Steve Fatow: It was like the start of the first charismatic church in the entire city.
Steve Fatow: So therefore people came.
Steve Fatow: They would sneak in in the balcony because we had a balcony.
Steve Fatow: They would sneak in, nobody knew who they were, to hear what we were doing and hopefully they would get baptized in the Holy Spirit.
Steve Fatow: Anyway, those guys were the pioneers.
Steve Fatow: That's the Abraham.
Steve Fatow: Now, when I came in 1984, and then later Neil would come I look upon myself in my little tenure with my wife and I.
Steve Fatow: I look at myself as simply being Isaac.
Steve Fatow: I was more of the Isaac.
Steve Fatow: This is something that's interesting about Isaac that most of us would know.
Steve Fatow: First of all, isaac, his name means laughter.
Steve Fatow: Come on, you know, having Neil and his one-liners.
Steve Fatow: How many know we're going to have a lot of laughter.
Steve Fatow: By the way, we had even a spirit of laughter that actually came into the place.
Steve Fatow: Interesting that Isaac actually moved into a city and I actually wrote it down somewhere and it was called Gerar G-E-R-A-R and it actually the word means excitement and we had a lot of excitement.
Steve Fatow: I mean it was good excitement.
Steve Fatow: We had some crazy things that happened.
Steve Fatow: I remember one Sunday morning, all of a sudden it was silence and all of a sudden I heard om, some far eastern guy was oming or something and of course me, in my nice, polite, gentle way, from the pulpit, I said shut up.
Steve Fatow: That's what I said.
Steve Fatow: I said shut up.
Steve Fatow: I remember my daughter later would say why weren't you kinder to that person?
Steve Fatow: I said because that was a spirit and we had to deal with it that way.
Steve Fatow: Perhaps I would deal with it in a different way now.
Steve Fatow: So we had a lot of excitement and we did.
Steve Fatow: We had a lot of excitement and, by the way, if we think of Isaac, what do we think of?
Steve Fatow: We think of him upon the altar right and all of a sudden a substitution comes.
Steve Fatow: There's a ram caught in the thicket and that represents all of us.
Steve Fatow: You know Jesus taking our place.
Steve Fatow: You know we all should be dead, but Jesus took our place.
Steve Fatow: Praise God for that.
Steve Fatow: And so we saw a lot of that at Trinity.
Steve Fatow: We saw a lot of people saved and this is the truth.
Steve Fatow: We had a time that we would have 50 visitors every weekend, every Sunday, 50 visitors, but they never stayed.
Steve Fatow: We never could figure out why I didn't want to stay.
Steve Fatow: We were always scratching our head.
Steve Fatow: I'd be signing 50 pages.
Steve Fatow: We used to send up something in the mail.
Steve Fatow: If you always scratching our head I'd be signing 50 pages.
Steve Fatow: We used to send up something in the mail.
Steve Fatow: If you came to our church my hands would get tired from signing, but they never would stay, maybe a few.
Steve Fatow: You know, it was like they would check us out.
Steve Fatow: I don't know.
Steve Fatow: I don't know where they went, but I was the Isaac part, but I was the Isaac part, I believe.
Steve Fatow: Now you're at the Jacob part and let me just share a little bit about the Jacob part.
Steve Fatow: You know, jacob experienced a lot of sorrow and a lot of pain and a lot of grief.
Steve Fatow: You've gone through a lot of sorrow and a lot of pain and a lot of grief.
Steve Fatow: But in the Jacob part, which I believe Trinity is in, he had 12 sons.
Steve Fatow: You see, isaac only had two and one was worthless.
Steve Fatow: I mean Esau, jacob.
Steve Fatow: I loved Esau, I hated, but Jacob had 12.
Steve Fatow: So I look at our Isaac tenure and Neil was with me during that time.
Steve Fatow: It was basically just Neil and myself doing most of the ministering, neil and myself doing most of the ministering, neil and myself going out.
Steve Fatow: But now, at Trinity, you're not just going to have one or two going out.
Steve Fatow: Jacob had 12 sons.
Steve Fatow: You're going to have many and many and many going out.
Steve Fatow: A matter of fact, more than all that we did, as Isaac and even Abraham had.
Steve Fatow: You will have now, from this Jacob, tenure and on that, by the way, I actually believe what I'm preaching.
Steve Fatow: So if you're thinking I just came so everybody would like me, I'm telling you, the Holy Spirit downloaded this word for you at Trinity.
Steve Fatow: You went through your sorrow, you've gone through your pain, you've gone through your grief, but not just two sons will you have.
Steve Fatow: Twelve ministries will come forth, more than that that will affect the whole earth.
Steve Fatow: So what I want to do and then I'm going to give it back to mark is I want to show you the prayer, the prayer that isaac prayed for jacob, because I believe it's prophetic also for us here, and it's found in Genesis, chapter 27.
Steve Fatow: It's actually two little prayers.
Steve Fatow: By the way, I brought my Bible with me.
Steve Fatow: You know, somebody introduced me.
Steve Fatow: I was preaching to some pastors just a couple of weeks ago and they introduced me by saying he still carries a Bible.
Steve Fatow: I couldn't help that.
Steve Fatow: I'm a rebel.
Steve Fatow: I'm never going to go through that phone.
Steve Fatow: A Bible is a Bible.
Steve Fatow: I don't care.
Steve Fatow: I'm just saying that doesn't matter to me.
Steve Fatow: I'm one way or the other.
Steve Fatow: Genesis 27.
Steve Fatow: Verse 29.
Steve Fatow: This is part of a prayer and a blessing that isaac gave jacob.
Steve Fatow: So I am representing isaac here, and so is neil.
Steve Fatow: I think in some ways he's kind of overlap we overlap.
Steve Fatow: But listen to this Let people serve you and nations bow down to you.
Steve Fatow: You're going to impact many nations In this tenure of the Jacob tenure.
Steve Fatow: You are going to affect many nations.
Steve Fatow: Be master over your brethren.
Steve Fatow: Let your mother's sons bow down to you.
Steve Fatow: Listen to affect many nations.
Steve Fatow: Be master over your brethren.
Steve Fatow: Let your mother's sons bow down to you.
Steve Fatow: Listen to this Cursed be everyone who curses you and blessed be those who bless you.
Steve Fatow: Gee, I think you need to receive that.
Steve Fatow: Come on, that sounds pretty good.
Steve Fatow: And then this last one is in Genesis 28, 3 and 4, but I'm just going to read verse 3, because that's the one that really.
Steve Fatow: May God Almighty I guess I'm saying this to you as like a prayer May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you.
Steve Fatow: That you may be in assemblies of people.
Steve Fatow: Father, in the name of Jesus, let it be done.
Steve Fatow: Hallelujah.