REWIND OF AN
OPENING NIGHT SPEECH…. JUNE 2007
“ALL OVER THE
WORLD”
In 2007, it
was the 40th Anniversary year and The Continentals had over 60
groups performing somewhere in the world.
In the U.S. there were 29 traveling groups, Europe had 28 which included
8 Continental Kids groups, with major tours in Hungary, Slovakia, Italy,
Romania and Holland. In South, Central,
and Latin America there were 5 tours including Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica,
Puerto Rico, and Chile (10 small teams and one large tour). There were 4 in Korea, one developing in
Kenya, and a school in Japan. There were
to be 750 concerts here in the U.S. and a similar number around the world. Here was the message to the “newbees” coming
to rehearsal camp that summer:
OUR
MISSION: is to expand the Kingdom of
God.
OUR
VISION: You represent the King, the
Lord, the O Most High. You need to be
great. You are going to learn to give everything
you’ve got…your all.
OUR
GOALS: Our number one is YOU as
it has been since the beginning, over 40 years ago. No matter how talented you are, or are not,
the reason there is The Continentals is to help you grow spiritually,
musically, socially and educationally as a Christian young person. We believe you have a special calling on your
life. God has His own purpose for you
being here tonight.
I want this
to be the most significant six weeks in your life.
I want your
time as a Continental to help you see that God’s plan for your life is much
bigger than your own dreams.
I am asking
God to keep His hand on you so that this experience will help you stay on the
path because He has something great for you to do for Him.
I am
believing the Lord is going to give you the power to be His ambassador every
night as you pray with people in your concerts who need Jesus.
And that is
our number two goal, people… OUR AUDIENCES.
We want to help them find Christ.
We want to tell them about His forgiveness, His love, His plan and
salvation for them. In Acts 1:8, the
Bible says we are to be his witnesses, and you will be. Your music will tell the story. Your words will tell the truth.
And last, of
course, we want our coming to be the best night their church will have all
year. We want to lift people’s spirits,
inspire, entertain, and bless them by leaving real joy in their hearts.
God created
music. He loves it. And wonderfully, He
uses it to communicate His love. In 2nd
Chronicles, King Jehosophat had his choir out in front of his army, singing
praise to God. We know that David danced
before the Lord, and Psalm 149 says, “let them praise His Name with dancing”. We Continentals join along with Psalm 150
that declares, “let everything that has breath praise the Lord”. That’s what we do! That’s who we are!
To whom much
is given, much is required, Jesus said.
We are going to give you much this week.
Big talent or little talent, it doesn’t matter. God can even use the smallest and the weakest
of us to make a difference for Him.
Together we can
change our world for Christ. We begin
tonight and what will happen here this week will absolutely reverberate and be
heard…
ALL OVER
THE WORLD
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