An Aldersgate Experience

After John Wesley returned from his disasterous trip to the colony of Georgia, he was invited to a meeting on Aldersgate Street. With a downcast spirit and a feeling of total abandonment and faithlessness, Wesley went, and experienced a move of God that would change his life forever. In his journal, Wesley wrote: "In the evening, I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."
While I have had several "heart-warming" experiences in my life, I would have to say that my fondest memory of one such experience was the first time I attended a Promise Keepers event. Just like Wesley, I was rather "unwilling" to go to this. At the time, Promise Keepers was a relatively new movement. It was receiving a lot of controversy and complaints from both those inside and outside the church. Christian talk shows expressed concerns over the founder's Catholic upbringing and encouraged avoidance because Promise Keepers was supporting non-biblical and Catholic teachings as part of their programs. Secular groups protested the men's-only aspect, citing that the group was designed to subjugate women and would lead to spousal abuse or worse. I listened to all of this and had no desire to go, but a friend of mine at work convinced me to go with him. "We've got a group from my church going. You'll have a good time." So, I reluctantly agreed.
The day before the Promise Keepers event, my friend had an emergency come up and said, "I'm not going." And, to make matters worse, because of his situation, he had been unable to hook me up with his church group. So, if I was to go, I had to go alone. "Unwillingly" was an understatement -- at least Wesley knew people at Aldersgate. After going back and forth on this all the next day, planning to go one moment and then deciding it was stupid the next, I finally decided to go. After all, I had already paid almost $100 to go, and, at the time, this was a considerable expense to our family. I felt I needed to go just to experience it and so I could honestly say that I had not wasted the money. My plan was to go for the Friday night event, and if it turned out as I expected, I just wouldn't go back on Saturday.
Driving to Knoxville, I was met with a deluge of biblical proportions. Severe thunderstorms. Torrential rain. But, I was committed at this point and pressed on, making my way into the stadium. And there, in a crowd of 40,000 strangers, in the midst of a driving rainstorm, my heart was strangely warmed as I heard and experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit. My doubts were washed away with the rain, as my voice joined with 40,000 brothers lifting up God in praise. I heard teachings that night and experienced worship that convicted me, that changed me, that convinced me that I was a child of God. No, it convinced me that I was a man of God, and I needed to quit playing at Christianity and start living it as a man. I left that Friday night event different, planning on being the first one back the next morning, because an amazing thing had happened -- I had met God again, and He knew me, and I knew I needed Him.