Message: “My Secret” series based on Isa. 44:22; Ps. 139:1-24; Prov. 12:22, 28:13; John 8:4; Rom. 3:23; James 5:16; and 1 John 1:9

Illustration:

“Everybody who has never told a lie since birth, wave at me,” Senior Pastor Pierre du Plessis challenged his congregation one morning. Noting that lies are the camouflage we use to keep our secrets hidden, he read Prov. 28:13 aloud, saying, “People who conceal their sin will not prosper.”

            The South African born du Plessis launched his “My Secret” series at The Father’s House with the idea of helping people unburden themselves from hidden sins weighing them down. Complete with dramatic monologues depicting those hiding bulimia, abortion, addictions and more, du Plessis’ series hung not only on the powerful Scriptures he taught, but on visual and physical illustrations of confession, eradication of sin and the freedom that follows.

            Blackboard paint and white chalk turned one of the church’s indoor walls into a graffiti confessional, while a large wooden container served as a receptacle for items symbolic of people’s sins or directly related to them, including pornography and drug paraphernalia. The response to the series was remarkable, du Plessis says, as the wall and crate, available throughout the week for more private unburdening, quickly filled with sins and secrets.

“Through the love of Christ, we can live without secrets,” a dramatic voiceover declared before the first sermon, and, in the fifth and final week of the series, du Plessis invited everyone to see the larger chalkboard wall dramatically washed clean and the crate destroyed outside in a fierce bon fire.

Impact:

Du Plessis received many comments from attendees testifying to the messages’ personal impact. “This series has helped me,” one woman told du Plessis, saying that years ago, she had an abortion and had hung on to the crippling guilt for decades. “God remembers my abortion no more, and I am free.”

—From Outreach Magazine, March/April 2009