One by one they came, and very quickly too…and soon they numbered 134 souls in all. Great rejoicing must have taken place in Heaven, as the scripture says, as they all surrendered their lives to Christ on Good Friday – April 2, 2010.
Many came to experience the music ministry of UK-based Vinesong, Harvest Gospel Choir, Ohemaa Mercy, the drama ministry of Harvest Theatre and the word-cum-music of Andrae Crouch – the father of contemporary gospel music, at Harvest Praise 2010.
But somewhere in the middle of these, God called these 134 to be part of more than a concert, when Pastor Fitzgerald Odonkor, President of Harvest International Ministries, preached a twenty-minute message one can summarize as follows – “the essence of Easter is that Christ is calling us to salvation” – and the people responded!
Before Pastor Fitz, Vinesong had set the atmosphere in the packed four-thousand-seater dome with some all-time favorite worship songs, including, ‘Come Holy Spirit; Let Your Fire Fall’ and ‘Let Your Living Water Flow Over My Soul’.
Many stood to their feet and bounced along when the Harvest Gospel Choir (HGC) took the stage and ministered songs such as the classic ‘Favorite Song of All’ (Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir), Cindy Thompson’s ‘Anwanwa do’, and the recent hits by Deitrick Haddon/Darwin Hobbs and Tye Tribette – ‘He’s able’ and ‘Son of Man (Bless the Lord)’, respectively. The choir also treated the teaming crowd to compositions by Yaw Antwi-Dadzie and Elder Bethel Donkor – “You reign in power” and “Womba” respectively.
When Ohemaa Mercy (artist-of-the-year-nominee) started out, the concert crowd seemed to have been, for the next thirty or so minutes, transformed into a church congregation, as they wound their handkerchiefs and gave God a massive praise to the hit songs ‘Eyè w’adwen n’eye wo se asei’, ‘Obeye’, among others.
One would have thought that church was over when the offering had been taken and the souls had been ushered. But church was just about to begin, as the 68-year-old Pastor Andrae Crouch patiently walked the audience through the many things God has brought him through.
Every minute counted at this point…he would start a song, and his worship leader Su and her team would respond, literally taking us back to the days when he was accused of tampering the ‘pure’ gospel with ‘secular’ musical styles. But for the audience who sang along ‘Nobody Else Like You’, ‘The Blood Will Never Lose its Power’ and ‘Bless His Holy Name’, it was the power that was inherent in, and the many testimonies that these songs had brought them through, that they remembered.
Oh, one could not possibly forget the response of Bishop Dag Heward-Mills of Lighthouse Chapel International (LCI) when Andrae ministered ‘Living this kind of life’ – a song which happens to be one of the Bishop’s favorite gospel songs ever, and which he’s used as the sig-tune to many messages he has preached over the years; He swung, and moved and danced along with his wife. So did Reverend Fred Degbey of the Christian Council of Ghana , Bishop Bernard Owusu-Ansah of Praise Valley Temple in Holland
What an experience the 12th edition of Harvest Praise was!, as the crowning moment was marked by 70 more voices from the Harvest Gospel Choir joining to echo Andrae’s ‘Mighty Wind’ – a song that represents the cry of the four-thousand member ‘congregation’ and the many other thousands participating through the radio, TV and on the internet, to let God’s presence “overflow”…and overflow, it did!, wow…
What are you expecting to happen on Good Friday, 2011? Look up what the number 13 signifies according to the Messianic perspective and expect it to overflow on Good Friday, next year, at Harvest Praise 2011!
Written by HB
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