Nathan Cranson

28 Oct

MONTROSE OUTREACH MEETINGS BEGIN WITH 49 COMMUNITY MEMBERS

In

RMCNews with Nathan Cranson – Montrose, Colorado … The Montrose church has been praying continuously over the last month for God to shine a light on the Montrose community and bring the seeking to their seminar on the messages of the three angels.

The prayers were answered when the series opened, and 85 were in attendance, 49 from the community.

Based on Mark Finley’s “Three Cosmic Messages” seminar, the series began on a date that will live in infamy for Adventists–October 22. The young pioneers of the soon-to-be Adventist church spent the day 177 years ago waiting expectantly for Jesus to roll back the curtain of the heavens and appear with glory and trumpet blasts. A day of great anticipation turned into a day of despair as the sun began to set in the West.

“It felt significant [to be] preaching the first night of a series called “Signs of the Second Coming,” on this very day. The amazing thing is that this great hope still burns in our hearts many generations later! Some of our pioneers dusted themselves off and opened up the Scriptures again to understand where they had gone astray,” Nathan Cranson, Montrose church district pastor and seminar speaker explained.

He adds that through much prayer and many tears, God opened the minds of the disappointed to His great plan of salvation. “It reminds us that the righteous man falls seven times, but he gets back up. It is easy to get discouraged when the community doesn’t seem to be responding to our mailings or showing up to our meetings, but we need to remember that we find our power through prayer.”

One guest who has attended every night so far shared that she just got out of a 90-day rehab program. As part of the program, they asked her if she believed in a higher power. She responded, “Yes, I believe in a higher power, but I don’t know anything about it.” After coming to our meetings, though, she exclaimed, “I now know Who the higher power is! I am so excited to know who God is!” She and her significant other are planning on coming to church with their daughter. “We want to get involved with the church,” they said.

Cranson, who has been part of evangelistic outreaches before, tributes the dedicated individuals who never gave up on prayer for the initial success of the gathering. “I have preached several evangelistic series, and I can unequivocally say that the meetings where prayer has been the focus have always been filled with a special power. I am reminded of the texts that tell us that we can of ourselves do nothing. It is His work. We are His humble servants.”

The church is in the middle of the series with ten more gatherings planned and asks for prayer for this outreach.

If you want to view this series, it is being live-streamed on the Montrose church YouTube channel: Montrose Christian Media.

–RMCNews with Nathan Cranson, pastor of the Montrose district; photo supplied

20 Aug

WHAT IS YOUR CALLING?

In

By Nathan Cranson …The Coronavirus has brought with it so many challenges and difficulties, but it has also offered us so many valuable lessons.

How do we deal with inactivity, isolation and silence? How do we face ourselves, our families, and our kids? How do we remain spiritually strong without our regular Christian fellowship? We have had to face fear and uncertainty and I think many of us have begun to really examine our worship services and our relationships with God and His church. What are the essentials and what can we live without?

I have certainly been asking a lot of questions this summer. On August 1, I marked my fifth year in pastoral ministry and only in the last couple of weeks do I feel like I have grasped my calling.

My calling is “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,” (Ephesians 4:12 ESV).

You see, for years I worked to minister to the saints not realizing that every saint is a minister. Anyone connected to the Head has something to contribute to the body. So, my job as a pastor is to lead people to Christ so that Christ can lead His people.

So, how do I do that? How do I connect people to Christ? This is where it starts getting exciting. It turns out that every single individual on planet earth has direct access to the throne of God, thanks to the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which has purchased every soul back from slavery to sin. Thanks to the gift of the Holy Spirit every one of us can know Jesus personally and powerfully. What we often don’t realize is that the presence of the Holy Spirit is just as real as the presence of Jesus Christ some two thousand years ago. Jesus healed, taught, comforted and discipled His people. The Holy Spirit is doing all of these things today, but on a much larger scale. That’s why Jesus said that it was to our advantage that He go away, because if He goes away, He will send us the Helper, and when the Spirit of truth would come, He would lead us into all truth.

Have you ever wished that you could have been discipled by Jesus? Well, you can! Right now the Spirit of Christ is willing to disciple anyone that will give Him the time of day. Notice what Ellen White says:

All who are under the training of God need the quiet hour for communion with their own hearts, with nature, and with God. In them is to be revealed a life that is not in harmony with the world, its customs, or its practices; and they need to have a personal experience in obtaining a knowledge of the will of God. We must individually hear Him speaking to the heart. When every other voice is hushed, and in quietness we wait before Him, the silence of the soul makes more distinct the voice of God. He bids us, “Be still, and know that I am God.” This is the effectual preparation for all labor for God. Amidst the hurrying throng, and the strain of life’s intense activities, he who is thus refreshed, will be surrounded with an atmosphere of light and peace. He will receive a new endowment of both physical and mental strength. His life will breathe out a fragrance and will reveal a divine power that will reach men’s hearts. (Ellen G. White, The Ministry of Healing, p. 58)

So, as a minister of the gospel, what is my job? To encourage every one of the members to spend a quiet hour with the Spirit of God every day. This is how we are connected to the Head. This is how we are equipped for ministry. This is how God will finish His work.

And the good news is, no number of masks or government mandates can separate us from communion with our Father, which art in heaven.

—Nathan Cranson is pastor of the Montrose, Colorado District.