======================================================================== GARETH EVANS INTERVIEW by Gareth Evans ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon shares the journey of Gareth Evans, a retired pastor, and his deep passion for revival, especially inspired by the stories of the Welsh revivals. It highlights his experiences in ministry, mentoring young leaders like Greg Gordon, and the unexpected paths God led him on, emphasizing the importance of being open to God's calling and guidance. Duration: 5:17 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon shares the journey of Gareth Evans, a retired pastor, and his deep passion for revival, especially inspired by the stories of the Welsh revivals. It highlights his experiences in ministry, mentoring young leaders like Greg Gordon, and the unexpected paths God led him on, emphasizing the importance of being open to God's calling and guidance. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I'm Gareth Evans from beautiful British Columbia, Canada. I am a retired pastor from the Christian Mission Alliance, but my original home where I was born is Wales. I grew up in Wales and obtained an honours degree in physics, and I became a physics teacher for 18 years. I married a girl from Lougher, which is the very village that Evan Roberts lived in. Her mother actually was a child in the church where Evan Roberts began his ministry. So I grew up and at the age of 17, I came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as my saviour. I immediately became passionately interested in the stories I was being told about the revival of 1904 and 1905. So when I married a girl from that village, of course, that interest was intensified, and I began to hear the stories and my heart was set on fire, to seek God and to know God in a passionate experience of himself. I went into teaching. I began to teach with the British forces in Germany and in Hong Kong, travelled overseas. Then in 1975, my wife and I emigrated to Canada with our three daughters. I came to teach physics, but four years later, I had a call into the ministry with the Christian Mission Alliance, and in 1979, I became a pastor in Kitchener, Ontario. After four years from there, I went to beautiful British Columbia, where I've lived ever since. In 1990, I left the church where I was, as I'd been invited to serve as the pastor on board the Anastasis, a medical ship operated by Youth of the Mission in West Africa. For the next four years, I had the privilege of pastoring on that ship with many, many young people, 300 or so at a time. As such, I had opportunity to minister in some of the largest churches in Europe and in Africa and was just thrilled with the mountaintop experiences I had of God, amazed to see the many things he was doing in my life. In 1995, I left that ship and went to Australia to see my daughter. At that time, we didn't know what the future would be except to go back into the pastoral ministry, but God called me to travel into an itinerant ministry, and since 1995, I've been an itinerant, a pastor teacher, traveling to many countries, speaking to Youth of the Mission schools, to pastors at pastors' conferences, and in local churches. Just two years ago, actually, in 2006, I came in contact with Greg Gordon at sermonindex.net. About four years ago, I was invited to a home with some university students, the four of them, who were there for prayer. They were passionate in their prayer, and I asked them why they were so passionate. It was such an excitement for me to see them so passionate. They told me about a webpage that they went on to sermonindex.net. So when I got home that night, of course, I went on to sermonindex.net and was amazed to find the material that I could download about the Welsh revival, about the Hebrides revival, all these things that I had read about and heard about for a number of years as a Christian. I recommended that webpage to many of my friends over the next years, but as it grew larger and larger, I found myself getting lost in the forest. So one day, I decided to write a letter, an email to this webpage. I wrote saying I was a retired pastor, I'd grown up in Wales, I knew the stories of the Welsh revival, I had a passion for revival, but I was getting lost among the speakers on this webpage because as I clicked on them and listened to messages, I'd often be saying, well, that's not really what I'm looking for. I'm looking for something about the Holy Spirit and about revival. So I wrote an email asking if they could index these speakers so that I would know. I get a reply from Kelowna, British Columbia saying, I live in Kelowna, I'm moving to Victoria at the end of the month, will you please mentor me? That was the delight of my heart to mentor young people. And so I said, I'd be pleased to. One month later, I knock on my front door, I went to the door and there was this six foot seven giant of a man who introduced himself as Greg Gordon. And I've had the privilege for the past two years of mentoring him. And I'm just so excited to see what God is doing in and through this young man. Just over a year ago, Greg said that he'd like to see a conference of men coming together, men and women coming together who had a passion for the Lord Jesus Christ and for revival. He was invited to come to Canton, Ohio. So my wife nudges me and said, I think you should go with Greg. You need to go, you're mentoring him. So I said to Greg, Greg, I think I'd like to come with you. She said, please, will you speak? And that wasn't my intention. My intention was just to mentor him. And so I was one of those who came to speak in Canton. And as we came there, we were wet behind the ears. We'd never done this before. And so we didn't know what to do. We didn't know how to do it. And I soon found myself as the point man having to lead the prayer sessions and introduce the speakers because nobody had been arranged to do those things. And so I fell into this position as a moderator. And I'm just so thrilled and privileged to be a moderator here again at Atlanta for this, the second conference. Shortly after my conversion, I went to university in Swansea to study physics. While I was there, I fell in love with a young lady who lived in the village of Lougher. Now, Lougher, I already knew was the birthplace of Evan Roberts and the place where the Welsh revival was ministered to in Mariah Chapel. I discovered that my girlfriend's mother was an actual young child. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/BkvLmc0hSMA.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/gareth-evans/gareth-evans-interview/ ========================================================================