Fair Church Service 2023

Fair Church Service Overview

In this outdoor church service held at the Merrill Lincoln County Fair Festival Grounds on August 21, 2023, Pastor Paul Holman of New Testament Church delivers a heartfelt message on loving others as the central calling of every believer. Drawing from Mark 12:28-31, Romans 12:9-21, and 1 John 4:7-12, Pastor Paul unpacks the two greatest commandments and challenges listeners to move beyond emotion-driven reactions into a faith-driven love that transforms communities. He opens with a compelling illustration of a Chinese rice farmer who, rather than confronting a neighbor who was stealing his water, chose to rise early and fill that neighbor’s field first — an act of sacrificial love that ultimately led the unbelieving neighbor to Christ. Pastor Paul walks through practical scriptural guidance on how to bless those who persecute you, live peaceably with all people, and overcome evil with good. He emphasizes that love is a commitment before it is a feeling, and that the Holy Spirit is the source who empowers believers to love as Christ loved. The message closes with a call to salvation and a corporate prayer, inviting all present to open their hearts to the love of God and carry it into their community.

Fair Church Service Outline

• 00:00 – Welcome and Opening Prayer at the Fair: Pastor Paul Holman welcomes the congregation gathered at the Merrill Lincoln County Fair Festival Grounds and opens in prayer, inviting the presence of God and the Holy Spirit into the outdoor service.
• 05:30 – Worship and Corporate Praise: The congregation enters an extended time of worship, lifting voices in song and welcoming the Holy Spirit, drawing on Acts 2 and the promise of God’s presence wherever two or more are gathered.
• 18:00 – Announcements, Offering, and Community Ministry: Pastor Paul shares church announcements, including the regular Sunday service location and time, and takes up an offering directed toward His Hands Extended Food Pantry, which serves nearly a thousand people monthly in the community.
• 22:30 – The Rice Farmer Illustration: Pastor Paul shares a story of a Chinese Christian rice farmer whose unbelieving neighbor repeatedly stole his water. Rather than retaliating, the farmer prayed with his brothers and sisters in Christ, then rose early to fill his neighbor’s field first — leading the neighbor to salvation.
• 27:00 – Mark 12:28-31 — The Greatest Commandments: The message text is introduced: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Pastor Paul explains that total love for God is the only power that can rightly empower love for self and neighbor.
• 31:00 – Romans 12:9-21 — How Love Acts in Practice: Pastor Paul walks through Romans 12, outlining concrete expressions of love: brotherly affection, patience in tribulation, blessing those who persecute you, living peaceably, and overcoming evil with good rather than retaliating.
• 37:30 – Love Is a Commitment Before an Emotion: A key pastoral insight is developed: most people wait until they feel right to do right, but it is far easier to act your way into a feeling than to feel your way into action. Walking in love begins with a step of faith, not a change of emotion.
• 41:00 – 1 John 4:7-16 — God Is Love and Lives in Us: Pastor Paul reads from 1 John 4, affirming that God is love, that everyone who loves has been born of God, and that when believers love one another, God’s love is made complete in them — lacking nothing.
• 44:30 – John 15:13 and the Poem on Loving Others: The message concludes with John 15:13 on laying down one’s life for friends, followed by a poem titled ‘Love for Others’ that calls believers to live self-forgetfully, serving others as their guiding motto.
• 46:30 – Altar Call and Closing Prayer: Pastor Paul invites those who have never known the love of God to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. A salvation prayer is led aloud, followed by a blessing over the fair, Lincoln County, and the surrounding Northwoods community.

Scripture References

Mark 12:28-31, Romans 12:9-21, 1 John 4:7-12, 1 John 4:15-16, John 15:13, John 16:24, 1 Thessalonians 5:17-19, Hebrews 11:6, John 3:16

Key Takeaways

• The two greatest commandments — loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself — are the foundation of the entire Christian life.
• Love is a commitment before it is an emotion; waiting to feel right before doing right means you will never do right, but choosing to act in love by faith will bring the right feelings in its wake.
• The Holy Spirit is the source of genuine love, and believers can ask Him daily to manifest God’s love through them, especially toward those who are difficult or unkind.
• Overcoming evil with good, blessing those who persecute you, and refusing to repay evil for evil are not optional suggestions but direct scriptural commands for every follower of Christ.
• When believers show sacrificial, unconditional love to their neighbors — even at personal cost — they become the most powerful witness for the Gospel in their community.
• God’s love shed abroad in the heart of a believer is not meant to be held privately but to flow outward, making His love complete in us and visible to a watching world.
• No one is too far gone or too far down the wrong path to receive the love of God; one step toward Him brings you into the arms of His grace and mercy.

Fair Church Service Notes

Loving Others as the Church’s Mission

Pastor Paul frames this fair-ground service as more than an outdoor gathering — it is the Church fulfilling its call to be a beacon of hope at the center of community life. He observes that society is increasingly marked by animosity, anxiety, and built-up fears, all of which Satan uses to choke the flow of God’s love through believers. The Church, he insists, must rise above the emotional noise of the culture and position itself as a visible, active demonstration of the love of Christ to every neighbor, stranger, and even adversary it encounters.

The Rice Farmer and the Power of Sacrificial Love

One of the most memorable illustrations in the message is the story of a Chinese Christian rice farmer whose non-Christian neighbor repeatedly drained his fields by opening the dikes and redirecting the water downhill. Rather than confronting the neighbor in anger, the farmer brought the matter to his church community in prayer. Together they devised a response rooted in Romans 12:20 — the farmer began rising even earlier each morning to first fill his neighbor’s field before his own. The consistent, unexplained act of generosity eventually opened the neighbor’s eyes and led him to surrender his life to Christ.

Acting in Faith Before Feeling It

Pastor Paul draws on a teaching from senior pastor Dr. William Owens that resonates through the entire message: most people wait until they feel right to do right, but it is far easier to act yourself into a feeling than to feel yourself into action. This insight reframes Christian love not as a spontaneous emotion but as a deliberate, Spirit-empowered choice. When believers choose to bless, serve, and forgive before they feel like it, they position themselves for God to meet them in that act of obedience and to transform both their hearts and the hearts of those they serve.

Romans 12 as a Blueprint for Loving Community

Romans 12:9-21 serves as the practical framework of the sermon. Pastor Paul highlights the sustained, specific nature of Paul’s instructions: be kindly affectionate, prefer others in honor, be patient in tribulation, continue in prayer, distribute to the needs of the saints, show hospitality, bless those who persecute you, rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep, live peaceably with all men, and do not avenge yourself. Each of these, he notes, requires a daily surrender to God’s love rather than a reliance on personal emotional capacity.

God Is Love and Makes His Love Complete in Us

First John 4:7-12 and 4:15-16 form the theological climax of the message. Pastor Paul emphasizes that love does not originate in human emotion or culture — it originates in God Himself, for God is love. When believers acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God, God lives in them, and when they love one another, His love is made complete — lacking nothing — in and through their lives. This divine completeness is not a reward for spiritual achievement but the natural overflow of a life yielded to the love of the Father.

An Invitation to Receive the Love of God

Pastor Paul closes the message with a broad and personal altar call, reminding everyone present — including those passing through the fair grounds — that no one is too far from the love of God. He leads the congregation in a simple, sincere prayer of salvation: confessing Jesus as Lord, releasing the past, receiving forgiveness, and committing to love others the way God loves us. The benediction extends blessing over the entire Lincoln County community, the fair board, and all those in the surrounding Northwoods region, asking that God’s light would shine and draw all people to Himself.

Frequently Asked Questions