Fall Week of Prayer speaker, Vice President and Senior  Pastor of the University of the Southern Caribbean Pastor Terry Alva John

|O’Jay Cole

The tantalizing, energetic and spirit filled Fall Week of Prayer 2019 came to a close on Saturday 5, at the Northern Caribbean University’s (NCU) Gymnatorium with the sermon entitled wwww.jonah@cia.com.

The sermon revisited the popular story from the Bible ‘Jonah and the Whale’. The speaker, Vice President and Senior Pastor of the University of the Southern Caribbean Pastor Terry Alva John, took a very creative approach to his delivery.

With each letter from the abbreviation ‘wwww…’ he alluded to significant points in the story of Jonah to deliver to the receptive hearts of the listening congregation.

These words represented by the abbreviation he said, were Christ Intervening Agents (CIA) that helped in trajectory of Jonah’s spiritual journey from disobedience to the acceptance of God’s will for him. The story of Jonah surrounds his refusal to obey God’s command to go to the city of Nineveh and preach which further led to his demise: being swallowed by a whale.  “When God’s words come to you and you obey it can only benefit” said Pastor Terry John.

He urged the congregation to live a life that is in line with God’s precepts as this is beneficial to the believer “you should serve God on his terms and not yours” he also added that one’s preference over providence is rebellion and that was the case of Jonah he chose to rebel against God by disobeying  his order. His appeal was that we will live under the assured covering of God. “Outside of God’s covering, if you look any other covering worms will eat it” said Pastor Terry John.

Students of NCU took away messages of hope and encouragement from the sermon and the week of spiritual emphasis on a whole.  “The fall week of prayer motivated me to keep going. At the end it reminded me that if I have Jesus, I have everything” said Christal Pietersz, Education Major.

“Week of Prayer caused me to reflect on the Gospel message and the effect it can have on the youth of today. It seems to me, at least, that the preacher connected with the student population presenting the Gospel in a package that was attractive to them. This reminded me that as a minister in training, much attention is to be given in how to best package the message for my target audience” said Vice President of Spiritual Affairs, United Student Movement (USM), Harrone Guthrie .

The Fall Week of Prayer under the theme Metamorphosis “Religion to Relationship” started on Sequence 27 and ended on October 5.