Percy, Tn - Patrick Treadwell remembers what happened like it was yesterday. That's perhaps because it was yesterday. According to Treadwell, who lives in the tiny town of Percy, Tennessee, all he wanted to do was drive to the store for a six pack of Budwiser, but along the way something happened that has changed his life."I was sitting there at the stoplight waiting for it to change when I glanced over and saw this vision of glory," said Treadwell during an interview. "There, before my eyes, was this thing of beauty covered all over with scripture verses, bumper stickers and stick-on lettering telling me to 'repent' and 'turn' from my wicked ways. Well, right then I was convinced by the majesty and wonder of God displayed on this glorious van. I turned around and went home. I never got my beer. Since 4:30PM yesterday, my life has been different."
And Treadwell is not the only one who can testify these days. As it turns out the "Van of Glory," as it has come to be known around the town of Percy, is stirring somewhat of a revival in the town. No one is quite certain who the owner of the van is, but its presence is changing the town of Percy one soul at a time.
"This is what did it for me," said Jill Coleman, a long-time resident of Percy. "I've been going to church all my life down there at the First Baptist Church. Brother Albert, our pastor has been trying to tell me for years how to get saved, but I just never really understood. Then the other day when I saw the Van of Glory parked outside the Sunflower grocery store, it was as if a lightening bolt from heaven just shot down on me. I felt this tingling feeling all over and like warm sun rays was basking my head. When I saw them words just covering that van I finally understood that old song when it says 'how beautiful heaven must be.' That van is preaching to this town."
Despite the waves of repentance that are hitting the small southern town and the fact that the van has been seen all over, its owner remains a mystery. Several churches have sought desperately to use the van for revival services but to no avail.
"We're trying to find out who this person is," said pastor Bobby Twine of Blessed Living Waters Pentecostal Holiness Redeeming Fire Church of the End Times. "This van is doing more preaching than any preacher in this town has ever done. We want to hold services and have this van out in the parking lot. It truly displays the glory of God when you see it!"
10 comments:
What? No magic prayer anywhere? That van is worthless, lol.
And Family Radio, no less...
Well, it is a conversion van, after all.
This is off to the side--but family radio website's is interesting. Their view of the local church is similar to what A.W. Pink practiced in his later years. From familyradio.com:
"Therefore, now that we have learned from the Bible that God’s judgment is upon the house of God, which are the local congregations, we are now compelled to teach the Biblical truth that God has shifted the final task of world evangelism to individual Christians who are outside of a local congregation. In obedience to these Biblical teachings, Family Radio, which is completely outside of any church institution, and which is supported and administered by individual believers, does teach that today, as we are heading for the end of this world’s existence, we should not be a part of a local church."
Their proof texts are 1 Peter 4:17 and Hebrews 10:30, but I do not what they do with Hebrews 10:23-25?
That was off to the side, but anyway, what a funny satire!
I especially love the name of the Pentecostal Church. Makes me laugh.
Blessed Living Waters Pentecostal Holiness Redeeming Fire Church of the End Times.
Worth the price of admission, that one is.
Pink actually seems to have been more like Abraham Lincoln. Because he found the churches too narrow in their terms of fellowship, he had no fellowship with any of them. Well, it makes sense to some people.
Additionally Pink lived in Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis, where at the time most of the churches had their main services in Gaelic, which he did not understand. In addition, he may have had an experience we once had in a Gaelic-speaking Free Church, where the preacher in the English service made a point in Gaelic, thus losing all three people there who did not speak Gaelic.
Oh, another thought. Family Radio's method of coming to this conclusion reminds me of a book I got the other day. For a pound. To keep it away from the gullible. It was Immanuel Swedenborg's 'Heaven and Hell'. Swedenborg was the master of gnostic-allegorically eisegesis. Meaning that he could make a Bible passage mean just what he wanted it to mean by the simple expedient of 'the Arcana', revealed to him in his many trips into the spirit world (not that kind of trip. I think...). This meant that practically every word in the Bible actually meant something other than what it appears to mean, so that when the Bible says that salvation is by grace, it means that it is by works... and so on. Enough to make your brain itch. Excuse me while I scratch it.
"conversion van"....[snork]
The back bumper has a sticker:
If this van's a rockin', revival's come a knockin'.
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