Here is the first draft of my magazine article.
Reflection:
I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed writing this article. A lot of the story is based off of the true story of Pastor Roennfeldt. However, I did have to add some minor changes to the story as I could not remember some of the little details off the top of my head. That's all I found to be difficult really. It was quite easy to read, write, and understand the article that I had written. I would like to have it proof read by a friend and see if he can spot any errors that I missed. In the words of Pastor Roennfeldt, "you can never proof read your own work". I found there to be no errors in grammar or spelling, but I will continue to look over it and update it.
It took me a while to sort out the paragraphs into subsections and then think of subheadings for them. I may go over this again and change some of the subheadings. I learnt that it is actually quite easy to think of ideas and turn them into an interesting little article.
Upon further reflection, I don't think my article is good enough to be a feature article in a magazine. My teacher also provided me with some feedback saying that it is a bit too much like a biography. So I found it easier to write a whole new article instead of trying to fix this one since I believe that it would be far too difficult to fix this one. Upon writing the new one, I took a lot of inspiration from the Trumpet magazines published by my church which led me to call it "Victory in Bali" which has made it a whole lot easier for me to write it since I have been with the church during its development period. I also did not include subheadings since it does not conform with the genre conventions of my magazine.
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| Pastor Roennfeldt praying during a Wednesday night revival meeting in October 2023 |
Pastor Brian Roennfeldt
Greetings from Bali!
My name is Brian, and I’ve been pastoring in Bali for three years. This is my story about how I was touched by the hand of God in my youth.
My Background
I was born and raised in the city of Perth, Western Australia. My father was an old Second World War digger who served in Papua New Guinea, fighting the Japanese. His experience in the army turned him into a strict disciplinarian. We didn’t have much and we were actually quite poor.
Though my father was a mean old brute, he really did care about me, but as a teenager I didn’t see it like that. I would rebel against him all the time and disobey his orders anytime I was asked to do anything. I never knew this at the time, but after having five children of my own, I realise now that he only wanted the best for me.
During my early years, my father and I were what we might now call ‘nominal Christians’. Him and I would always attend our local Church of England every Sunday. I had so many questions for the Priest but he never could answer my questions.
I was curious about the Gospel and salvation, but my questions were never answered.
My Early Years
When I was 13 years old, I developed a severe case of depression. My father and I would always get into arguments over my rebellion and it never really felt like I had a normal relationship with him. I hated seeing him and would always push him aside like he was an annoying fly buzzing around my ear. By this time, I had already stopped going to church with him.
A couple of years later, I started experimenting with drugs and alcohol. Every night after school, my friends and I would go out and get high on marijuana while ingesting all sorts of toxic alcohols. I used this as a means to escape the severe depression that I had, but it never truly made me happy. By this time, I had made several unsuccessful attempts to take my life.
When I turned 18, I started to go out to nightclubs in and around Perth. Within six months, I had been to every nightclub in Perth and Fremantle. I was engaged in a lot of sexual immorality as well as a whole lot of other things that I don’t think I should mention here. None of this made me happy either.
An Unexpected Encounter
On a late Wednesday night in 1981, I was sitting on a bench at the Perth Central Railway Station, not waiting for a train, but contemplating life. I had reached my absolute rock bottom and I was even thinking about jumping in front of a moving train. Something that could’ve happened, if it wasn’t for what happened next.
A guy sat down next to me and told me that Jesus loves me. I was confused and so I asked him, “What do you mean?”. He started to speak to me about the sacrifice that God made to save me, by giving His only son, Jesus Christ, that he died on the cross for sinners such as I, that we may live. He even told me his testimony about how he got saved. I broke down in tears as I felt that this was no coincident.
The night I was most likely going to take my life, God sent a man to tell me that Jesus loves me.
He asked if I would like to pray with him, and I said yes. He led me through the sinner’s prayer and invited me out to the Potter’s House church in the suburb of Beechboro where I would eventually meet my wife a year later! I felt God had touched me and spoke to me through this man.
God’s Hand at Work
I attended the next service on Thursday night which was completely full up! It was a conference week and the pastor speaking was Pastor Wayman Mitchell, the founder and leader of our fellowship. That sermon felt like it was tailor-made just for me. It was certainly God speaking to me through Pastor Mitchell.
I felt God’s presence the whole time that night which led me to respond to the altar call to give my life to Christ. After that, I started to attend every service. My life changed forever. I quit smoking and drinking, I stopped hanging out with friends who would tempt me, I gave the nightclub a miss, and I started to attend every church service.
Not long after that, I got baptised and filled with the Holy Spirit! I found true happiness in Jesus Christ. My relationship with my father improved greatly and after a while, I saw every member of my family get saved, including my father!
Fulfilling the Will of the Father
In 1983, I became the Outreach Director of the Beechboro church and did that for two years until 1985, when I felt a calling to preach and was sent out in the 1985 conference as a pastor to take over the church in a small fishing town called Geraldton, some 400 kilometres north of Perth.
Fast forward to the present, I’ve since pastored eight churches in five different countries, and I am so pleased to say that since being saved, I’ve never looked back at my past life again. I use it as a testimony as to the goodness of God and how he can change people like me, and I know that he can change you too!
Victory in Bali!
Pastor Brian Roennfeldt
Greetings from Bali!
I’m Pastor Brian and I’m currently pastoring in the pearl of Asia, the beautiful paradise island of Bali. My wife Angie and I were sent out of the Perth conference in 2020 just before COVID-19 hit.
Over the past four years, we’ve been able to host 11 revivals, five impact teams, as well as almost 100 visitors from our other churches across the world.
We’ve also seen massive breakthroughs with regard to finding a building, places to preach, and even being able to use a public park for our concert outreaches, which is something our brothers and sisters in Jakarta are finding very difficult to do.
We see about 20 to 100 people respond to our altar calls at the park, with people coming out to church the next day, seeking more of God.
By the grace of God, we’ve been blessed with a congregation of on fire labourers rising up and taking essential positions within the church such as ushering, singing, and sound engineering. From a congregation of about 20 in January 2023, to an army of 50 disciples in just 12 months.
I am forever grateful for the miracles and doors opened by God throughout the past four years, and the massive spike in disciples and labourers just last year. We have more people evangelising than ever before, with more people becoming disciples seeking to fulfil the will of God.
In September 2022, we had popular singer, pastor, and now evangelist Steve Stephan come out which saw us have the largest number of people in our church in just one night of revival, reaching almost 100 people! We had been praying long and hard for this kind of victory. We were so optimistic that we even knocked down the back wall in the building so we could increase the seating capacity. With very minimal evangelising and advertising, we were able to have a result such as this one. God is good!
In May last year, we hosted our first impact team from our mother church in Beechboro, Perth. Pastor Glenn Plummer came out with a small team of only eight people. That team had the greatest impact on our disciples. However, the impact team with the best overall effect has to be the Clarkson (suburb of Perth) impact team which Pastor Jack Hobbs led with another team of eight disciples, bringing a top of 66 people to our church in just one night of revival, that’s including disciples, regulars, and new visitors.
During Christmas time, we were given the rare opportunity to take our modest choir to the largest shopping centre in Bali to sing Christmas songs. It allowed us an opportunity to get our name out there and to spread the good news of Jesus Christ to a mostly Hindu and Muslim population. We were very well received by the general population, with hundreds of people stopping to hear our singing.
My wife and I have been very blessed to be given this chance in our later years to pastor the greatest place in Asia, and to watch our church grow from a small picnic meeting on the beach to a moderate sized congregation of 50 disciples eager to grow in the word of God.
Please don’t stop praying, fasting, and giving to our church. God is going to take Bali for Christ!
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