An Oklahoma church is bearing the fruits of obedience after it decided to do two weekends of its Christmas program instead of one. First Baptist Church of Lawton’s worship pastor, Xavier Abraham, approached Senior Pastor Mike Keahbone with the idea of adding another weekend. It was a request that seemed impossible. “[Abraham] approached us with the idea of doing it two weekends in a row, and our immediate reaction was, ‘No way.’ Because it just takes so much to pull this thing together. I mean, you’re talking about a 39-foot tree, over a hundred thousand lights, and just the manpower it takes to assemble the tree, the manpower it takes to just perform the performance,” Keahbone told CBN News. Speaking to The Baptist Press, after some prayer, Keahbone said he felt “the Lord was in it.”

 The second weekend was added over December 1 to 3. Expanding the weekend also enabled the church to offer an exclusive showing for soldiers from the local Fort Sill in the area. Normally, the soldier would not have been able to attend the next weekend’s showing, the usual time scheduled for the event. The exclusive event saw 700 soldiers attend, with 116 of them making professions of faith. “We obviously shared the Gospel that night, and it turns out we had 116 professions of faith, several others that want to know more, and then a whole bunch that already knew the Lord,” Keahbone told Baptist Press. He said the event has now opened the door for more ways to serve the people of Fort Sill. “This was a bridgebuilding opportunity with them,” he said. Soldiers who made decisions or had questions were given cards to fill out. The church will share those cards with the chaplains at Fort Sill, who will follow up with their assigned soldiers. Attendees were also given challenge coins by the church to commemorate the event and the decisions those soldiers made. “We wanted all of our soldiers here to know that they’re a part of our family, and that they can always count on First Baptist Lawton to pray for them, and support them and to have their family’s back,” said Keahbone. 

Keahbone gives credit to God for the incredible outcome. “That moment would not have been an option had we not done this extra week. It was just amazing,” he told CBN. “It shows the faithfulness of God … to be able to trust Him when he’s leading us. Anybody can say, ‘Well, God told me this,’ or ‘God told me that.’ … And, really, the evidence is … what happens after that?” More important than the impact on the church, Keahbone noted the impact on those who gave their lives to Christ. “Their eternity was changed forever. And … not only their eternal destination, but the impact of these young families. These are young, basic trainees, and most of them haven’t even started a family yet, but they’re gonna be able to start their family off on the right foundation, in the right way, with the Lord as that anchor piece in their heart,” he said.