From Portland’s Living Room.. ..@ Pioneer Courthouse Square … Winter 2018

[Ron McGatlin]

From Portland’s Living Room.. ..@ Pioneer Courthouse Square …

Winter 2018

Dearly Beloved of Our Lord:

Greetings in the mighty name of our Lord, Savior, and King – Jesus Christ!

We have not sent out email newsletters throughout most of this year so we thought to end the year with a bit of history as recorded forty years ago on the first day of winter in 1978. After a few years of various adventures in ministry in Portland, Oregon, the Holy Spirit led us to purchase a house in SE Portland within walking distance of downtown Portland. Our fifth, sixth, and seventh children were born in this house and we still live there today after forty-two years have gone by – and 52 years of marriage. Now we seldom walk all the way downtown but instead we use the TriMet bus system with its inexpensive senior citizen fares. In the early 1970s we used the corner of SE 5^th & Morrison streets, in front of the old Pioneer Federal Courthouse, as a place of ministry where we preached open-air and prayed with all who came by asking for prayer. After Pioneer Courthouse Square, Portland’s Living Room, was constructed in April of 1984 we began to use this public square as our main place of ministry. Over the following years we returned to this corner in front of the Courthouse from time-to-time. People would come downtown looking for us there and, often on Friday afternoons, a group of musicians and singers would show up to sing and worship together in the 70s & 80s.

Back in 1978, on the day before the photo was published, Ron was preaching at the corner in front of the Federal courthouse using a hand-made sign.   Karen sowed the sign out of canvas and Ron lettered it with a black permanent ink marking pen. The wording came to Ron in a dream as well as the place to use it – on the corner by the courthouse. Each day during the work week Ron would walk downtown from our house and return carrying the sign – rain or shine. Later a downtown restaurant owner gave Ron a place to store the sign in a corner of their office so he did not always have to carry it. As the photo shows, something unusual happened in downtown Portland on the day before winter – it snowed! The Oregonian photographer who was out taking photos, stopped, and took the photo while lying down on the sidewalk on the corner by the curb in the snow. When he was done he asked Ron who he was and what ministry he was associated with.   Little did we know that the photo would end up on the front page of the Oregonian home edition paper the next day.

When this photo was taken we had just begun a new season of ministry as co-pastors in the Prince of Peace Fellowship which is a ministry birthed during the years of the Jesus People revival and harvest. When we were on the street corner in the 1970s people would come up to us asking for prayer and sometimes they would ask how they could become Christians or receive Jesus as their Lord. Those times were quite different than they are now and people were wanting answers in the early 1970s. The hostility we see so much of today was not as commonly displayed as it is now.

We are hoping and praying for the soon return of times where people hunger for the Lord and His kingdom – especially among the young. We are also praying that we will be ready and that many brethren will be available to reach out to this hurting and disoriented generation.   We are praying and ministering with the hope of an awakening in the churches, among the brethren, and with Gen Z (Born after the mid-1990s) which makes up about 25% of the US population.   This group grew up with the Internet always available, with the invention of several different forms of social media, and the wide-spread use of what are often called “smart phones”. Please pray for us to be very fruitful and available.

Thank you for the many years of your support, encouragement, and prayers! We hold you in our hearts with love and thanksgiving as we send out this email newsletter to you as another winter season begins. So today, on the first day of winter in 2018, forty years later, we send out a copy of a scan from the Oregonian which was made many years ago.   We send this to you as we wish you a very blessed Christmas and a joyful, prosperous, and fruitful New Year!!

~Ron & Karen

~~ “Desiring fully awakened hearts that we may walk humbly with our Lord, loving mercy, and doing justly.”   ~ (Ephesians 5: 14-21; Micah 6:8)

If you would like to contact us you may send us a note, or a prayer request using the address below or through email at: awakening1s@comcast.net

Prince of Peace Ministries

Attn: church @ 24/7

PO Box 508

FAIRVIEW OR   97024

church @ 24/7 is a ministry of The Prince of Peace Fellowship which meets on Sunday Mornings at 10:30 AM at The Fellowship House, SE 19^th & Madison in Southeast Portland, Oregon. Website: princeofpeaceministries.org

Divine Appointment Prayer
“Father, give me a divine appointment today with someone who is hungry for God, or sick, or in need. Give me sensitivity to know when that divine appointment happens, and give me grace to minister the love of Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Prayer For Laborers in His Harvest
“Father, send more laborers into your harvest in which you have called me to serve and grant us boldness to speak your word. And please stretch forth your hand to heal that signs and wonders be done in the name of Jesus.”
~~   We are members of a community sharing the Love of our Father, through the Life of the Son Jesus, in the Presence and Power of the Holy Spirit. ~~

 

[Author]

Posts