Around 15 years ago, Tommy Tenney wrote a book and called it The God Chasers. Since then, he’s sold over two million copies, written 40 other books and traveled the world with his message.
Tenney has been traveling and speaking for around 38 years now and includes going to around 20 to 30 countries each year. Several hundred people from the area and as far away as Edmonton and Tofield attended over the three nights.
“It’s about being passionate in your pursuit after God,” he said before his third evening of delivering his message to a large audience at Bethel Family Worship Centre in St. Paul.
“It’s sort of a challenge to the laissez-faire, the status quo attitude,” says Tenney. “I think its OK to be passionate about God.”
The title of the book refers to a scripture in the Bible, “my soul follows hard after thee.”
Bethel Family Worship Centre heard plans of the Cold Lake Community Church to bring in the speaker and arranged to have Tenney speak in St. Paul. A third pastor caught wind of the mini-Alberta tour for Tenney and succeeded in bringing Tenney to speak at Shaunavon.
Bethel brought Tenney to share his ministry, said Pastor Duane Grant. The offering collected at Bethel helps bring Tenney to parts of the world where they are not able to pay, noted Grant.
“He’s blessed us, we’re blessing him back with helping him to further his ministry throughout the world.”
Tenney plans to travel to both Indonesia and Turkey soon. In Turkey, he will meet with Iranian pastors who are not allowed to have church conferences in their home country.
“People are people … People want to know how to make life work and the Bible has a lot of answers for us,” said Tenney.
Tenney’s message is not always welcomed as it was in the Lakeland last week, as the speaker recalls bombing attempts at meetings he held in Indonesia. The incident did not stop Tenney from returning to the country or other hotspots in the world.
“If I feel like I need to go, I just pray God’s protection, and we go.”
The tensions in the Middle East are thousands of years old and resulted from a family feud, he said. Tenney visited Israel a couple months ago.
A lot of Christians live in Middle Eastern countries, added Grant, even though they are not often seen on the news. “The truth of the matter is there are huge amounts of Christians in all those nations, it’s just that they’re never referred to by the press.”
Christians in the Middle East have to keep a lower profile, noted Tenney.
“Western civilization has valued free and independent thinking, which is an outgrowth of Christianity. God never forces people to do anything. They have a choice. Because we value independent thinking, we allow for free speech.”
Tenney had doubts about The God Chasers when he wrote it and told publishers not to spend money marketing the book. Any doubts Tenney may have had did not stop word of mouth from spreading news of the book far and wide. The book has been translated into 40 languages.
