By: Emma Seay
Thursday nights in Arkadelphia are typically nights consisted of students from both Ouachita Baptist University and Henderson State University, praising God through song and through studying God’s Word together at Second Baptist Church, also known as Refuge.
However, this week was different. Not only was Refuge held at the Jones Performing Art Center on Ouachita’s campus, but to go along with the theme of Christian Focus Week, Grant Harrison, worship leader and co-pastor of Epoch Church in Little Rock, Arkansas lead worship. He was followed by Cole Penick, campus minister and leader of the Baptist Collegiate Ministry at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
During this hour, students like Jacob Sorrow, freshman worship arts major from Little Rock, Arkansas, observed the unique similarity between the corporate worship music and the message given.
“I think that the music before and after stood out especially because it went with the sermon so well,” said Sorrow. “It was also pretty cool because earlier that day we had talked about how important it is that the corporate worship should go along with the sermon.”
Since this week was centered around the theme of taking a Bold Approach to our faith, sometimes as Christians, encouragement comes through just being reminded of how mighty and how great our Lord really is.
Persecution of our beliefs is something that has become more common nowadays. Even though persecution of Christians is different in Arkadelphia, Arkansas in comparison to Egypt, where the country is number 22 on the Open Doors World Watch List of countries where the persecution of Christians is most severe, the realization that our religion is quickly approaching the minority.
“Sometimes we forget about or get too used to hearing all that God does and don’t realize how amazing he truly is,” said Sorrow.
However, God is doing great things still even through these hard times and he always has a plan for radical changes to be made to follow him.
