TERRY MCALMON

At the age of three, MacAlmon's mother began sitting him on the piano bench to occupy him, while she looked after his brothers. Quickly he began to discover the notes of "Jesus Loves Me", a song he had learned in Sunday school. A steady progression took place. By the time he was five, he played his first solo in church.

MacAlmon became the church pianist at the age of 11. Winning state and national talent awards in his denomination became a regular event during his teenage years.

In mid-1973 MacAlmon claims to have had an unusual visitation from God, after an evening service at a youth retreat. He recalls, "It was as if God's presence was sitting on me like a cloud. His presence was so heavy that I physically could not even lift my head. I just knelt and trembled while His Spirit dealt with me. I knew that He was placing His mantle of worship upon me. I have never been the same since that special August night."^[6]

Ministry startup

In the following 17 years, MacAlmon served in music ministry positions for several churches and traveled in concert work across America. After moving his family to Colorado Springs, in December 1990, MacAlmon started a church and soon fell upon hard times. Instead of a successful ministry venture, it became much less than that. It was the start of what MacAlmon calls 'a long season of wilderness'. Despite his efforts to start a church and to organize worship meetings, nobody showed up.

After eight years of trying and waiting on what MacAlmon calls 'the Lord's promotion', he claims to have heard God speaking to him again, in August 1998. He recalls, "God said to gather the worshipers, for He wanted to bring an open heaven to Colorado Springs." However, after so many years of seeing nothing happen, he was reluctant to step out again. Finally, he did launch a weekly noon worship hour on Wednesday's, which became known as "Lunch with the Lord". That turned out to be a success and the meetings were visited by several hundred people each week.^[7]

Worldwide publicity

In 2001 MacAlmon was contacted by tele-evangelist Benny Hinn, who invited him for one of his crusades in Shreveport, Louisiana. Hinn believed that God had raised MacAlmon to lead the church into a season of worship, or as he called it, 'a new era of worship'. During the event Hinn said that MacAlmon's songs were affecting his life, his ministry and his staff, claiming that each of his staff members had MacAlmon's albums.^[8]

In the days following, the event was broadcast on Hinn's TV show, This is Your Day, which reached a worldwide audience. From that moment on, MacAlmon's album sales went up drastically and he started to receive invitations from all over the world.