When a crippling pandemic strikes the world and your entire ministry schedule is suddenly cleared, what do you do? Tony Suarez, Chief Operating Officer of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, says when that happens, it’s time to go back to the basics of the kingdom.
You see, Suarez and his wife, Jina, had already faced major life challenges. Tony’s first wife died five years ago, while Jina lost her first husband to cancer 11 years ago, so neither is a stranger to heartache, pain and adversity.
As Tony Suarez told me on a recent episode of the Strang Report on the Charisma Podcast Network, the couple, through prayer, knew exactly what they had to do. His idea affected thousands on the internet through social media, which led to unexpected revival.
“We started talking, and we said, ‘You know what? We’ve been down this road before,'” Tony says. “We’ve been in a difficult situation where we didn’t know what tomorrow would hold. So we said we were going to go back to doing what we did back then. And one of the things I did back then was to have Communion every day.
“I felt from the Lord that if everyone was shut into their homes and they can’t get to churches, we would have a daily Communion service on Facebook,” he explains. “We did that every morning. It started with a few dozen, and it turned into a few thousand people who started tuning in to have Communion with us every morning for about 15 minutes. And then revival broke out.”
It happened in Tennessee, where Jina Suarez’s family owns a fireworks tent. As the couple sat and chatted with her family, the Lord began to speak to Tony about a kingdom mission—a command he knew he must obey.
“He said, ‘For as Pentecostal as you are, you’ve never set up one of these tent meetings for Me,'” Tony says. “I felt prompted from the Lord that I needed to have a tent revival. So, I put an invitation on Facebook, and I asked people to come.
“Last September, we had 4,000 people show up to our tent revival right outside Nissan Stadium in downtown Nashville,” Tony says. “We water-baptized 106 people, and over 400 people were baptized in the Holy Spirit and were healed and received a miracle. I was then invited to preach in Houston, where Tommy Tenney was also a guest evangelist.
“Bishop [Richard] Heard had invited me to come speak for him, understanding all of the protocols of COVID in that time,” he adds. “He said, ‘Come on in, and we’ll see what happens.’ Well, that launched a 21-week revival, where we had over 1,200 people that were baptized by either water or by the Holy Spirit. Every week, there was an increase in people coming back to church, and people were being healed.”
One included the supernatural healing of a blind woman. Listen to the podcast to hear about those miracles.
Who says God didn’t have a purpose through this unprecedented pandemic?
I know there are many more stories out there from around the country just like the ones Tony told me about. As I have before, I refer back to Romans 8:28 (MEV), which reads, “We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
They certainly have for Tony Suarez.
Please spread the word about my podcasts, the Strang Report and God and Cancel Culture, to your followers on social media. Be sure to subscribe to the Strang Report and God and Cancel Culture on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform for more podcasts to inspire you to experience the power of the Holy Spirit.
Also, I want to make sure to get a copy of my most important book yet, God and Cancel Culture. It releases Sept. 7, the day after Labor Day, wherever fine books are sold. Once again, you can pre-order it at stevestrangbooks.com or on Amazon. {eoa}
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