Bosman Says No More Cold Oven and Dry Crumbs

People streamed down the aisles to seek God as Louisiana Pastor John Bosman called them to hunger for God and brokenness in Wednesday night's rally of the 48th General Council. Bosman told the crowd, "Our prayers must ignite the fires in the oven again, and our worship must produce fresh bread indicating the manifest presence of God."

Taking Isaiah 64:1-7 as his text, Bosman declared his prayer and purpose that God would come down and the congregation would move into His Presence. Bosman, who also serves as Louisiana District assistant superintendent and a Southwestern Assemblies of God University regent, said, "God wants to ignite the church with fresh fire."

The crowd of nearly 8,000 broke into applause as Bosman preached, "We must pray that God will renew in us His vision for the world: to reach the nations, serve our generation and reap the harvest from the four corners of the earth."

He said God has called the Assemblies of God as a missions church, an outreach church, and a church of power. "We must pray for a new hunger for God's presence so that we will never again be satisfied with the things that please man."

Bosman called the congregation to repeat his cry for "Fresh fire!" and, again, "We desperately need a great awakening!" He described a modern church that has forsaken Christ's original pattern and modeled itself after previous generations to create what we have now. "And to be very honest," he said, "It's not working!...We need to get back to what God wants the Church to be!"

Stopping to call the congregation to a time of worship, Bosman said he sensed an awesome presence of God and a cry rising from the church now hungry, desperate for God. He asked the congregation to pray again in unison, "Spirit of the living God, fall fresh on me tonight!

Answering his own question why we must have a move of God, the preacher cited a desperate cry for help in the world. The church can be the organism used of God to bring deliverance.

Bosman presented a list of reasons for urgency. Overall lukewarmness has invaded the Church. A binding traditionalism keeps the Body of Christ from the God-honoring, culture-changing, sin-revealing, devil-confronting Church it is called to be. Our nation has turned away from God and social problems are staggering.

Overhead projections let the congregation follow as Bosman cited crime and weapons in schools, dramatic increase in divorce, and millions of children growing up in single-parent or no-parent homes. Decrying "a nation" of people aborted, 34 million in America, he asked, "Dare we continue to do what we are doing?" and answered, "The Church has to be the Church again!"

Bosman looked to the Old Testament Book of Ruth to bolster his picture of the modern Church. Naomi and her family left Bethlehem, the "house of bread," because of famine.

"Could it be that the Church has lost the bread and people are leaving?" He identified bread as an indicator of God's presence. Bosman reported declining numbers of people filled with the Spirit in Assemblies of God "ovens" since 1979. "Could it be that the Assemblies of God can become a Fellowship with a Pentecostal doctrine without a Pentecostal experience? The numbers are going the wrong direction." He insisted, "We need to get people filled with the Holy Ghost..." He called for the Assemblies of God to heat up the ovens and dispense the "Bread of Heaven."

Nearing a close, Bosman declared, "I feel in the Spirit the heat of the glow of the oven again. I smell fresh bread!" Returning to Ruth and Naomi's return after hearing the Lord had visited His people, he said, "There's bread in the house again!"