We went to the prayer room for our normal shift at 5:15 am. For the most part the whole morning’s intercession was focused on the morning services at Northwoods. The senior pastor was in the 6am meeting. We gathered around him and prayed for him for about 10 minutes. I really felt the Lord’s heart toward’s this man. I felt the Lord’s pleasure over Him. It takes a lot of courage to take a large successful church and begin to go in a radical new direction. I hope He felt the Lord’s delight. I could sense a little of the pressure that one in such a position of influence feels. There are so many eyes on you, and so many opportunities to fail, that we have no idea of the pressure that they face.
Eventually my friend Dan and I went to the main service that morning. During the service I really identified with my calling as an intercessor or a priest before the Lord. I never really liked the term intercessor, I prefer the term priestly ministry. Of which we are all called to, too a certain extent. Anyway, I felt myself praying for the people in the congregation. In front of us I saw a lady wiping a tear from her eye every few minutes or so. I told Dan to ask the Lord for a word, and to be ready to pray for them afterward. There isn’t any ministry time after the service, so I was just bold and introduced myself. I was not sure how they woud react. The man looked like a professional and was a really slick looking gentleman. We explained that we are part of a prayer ministry and would like to pray for them. They said that it would be o.k. We prayed a simple 5 minute prayer, and immediately they both began to cry. After we finished they both gave us big hugs and thanked us. Dan and I were struck by how good the Lord is, and how much hurting people in the church needs a personal touch from the Lord.
When we went back into the prayer room we saw a local woman praying for two people from the congregation who were laid out on the floor. It was like the Lord was showing us that we had imparted something and the church of Peoria was running with it.
I forgot to mention on Saturday during one of Bethany Peake’s team’s Worship With the Word sets, I was struck by a line that they began to develop that said “Why should I be as a veiled one, Why should I be as a veiled one, Take me in, Take me in” Based on Song of Solomon 1. I was so touched and was pacing and crying. So many times we approach the Lord as a veiled harlot, not feeling like we are worthy to come into His presence. In this passage they just developed the process of us coming to the revelation that we do not have to be liked a veiled one, and that we ask the Lord to usher us into His presence.
By the way Song of Solomon is probably my favorite book of the Bible!
The next day (Saturday) we met many people filtering in and out of the prophecy and healing rooms. I played on two worship sets that day. While eating dinner we met a worship leader from Northwoods. He wasn’t aware of our team being there, (I don’t know how) and had not heard of IHOP. He thought that 24-7 worship sounded really great. During one of sets I saw him sitting in the prayer chair with people surrounding him, praying for him. Once Jordan (our worship leader) broke into the line by Misty Edwards “He’s not a baby in a manger anymore, He’s not a broken man on a cross, He didn’t stay in the grave, and He’s not staying in heaven forever.” The guy stood up with hands raised high, worshiping with all his heart. I believe that the Lord was really ministering to him by the way he looked.
Before we called it a night on Saturday, we had a briefing to recap the days events. We began praying for 4 people in our group who prayed for a 5 year old boy to be delivered from demons. They were pretty frazeled. THey had never dealt with anything like that before. They said that the boy would slither on the floor. The demon kept saying that he was guilty, and continually choked him. He was vomitting a lot as well. At one point Laurie grabbed him and hugged him. She would not let him go. She began vommiting as well. Finally this boy got freedom, and got saved! While we prayed for them, they began to get a dose of holy laughter. After about 5 minutes of them laughing hysterically, I prayed for them and simply asked for more, and we were all 3 on the floor laughing! I can’t remember ever really doing that before. It was such a good feeling! Ministry broke out amongst our group for the next hour. We thought the day was over, but the Lord had other plans.
This day went from 5:15am to after 9:30pm. I have never worked 2 16 hour days in a row!
On Friday morning our day began at 5:15am with a short prayer time, and briefing on the day ahead. For the most part I was assigned to the prayer room. I was scheduled to play bass on 2 worship sets. The 10 am Intercession, and the 6 pm Worship With The Word. I spent much of the time that morning interceding for Peoria, that the Lord would break in with power!
The “blessing rooms” or prophecy rooms as the Bible would call them. Were open in the morning, and pretty much all day. My friend Yvette was in there ministering during the first 2 hour shift. She said that the first four people in the room were healed! One from carpal tunnel sndrome. They were not even in the healing rooms! This gives a picture of what the rest of the weekend would be like.
Our first set as a worship team was the 10am Intercession set. It was the first time that we really ever played together. We had about an hour practice a few days before that just to meet each other and go over a few songs that we might do. I thought the set went really well. It was a little rough, but we made it through.
During our 6pm Worship With The Word set things started to get a little crazy. During the briefing prior to the set. Our worship leader shared with us that we really needed to rely on the Holy Spirit and not our own talent. He confessed that he was leading with his own abilities and that we need to just let God take over and worship Him. As simple as that sounds, we never seem to actually practice it. That night the Lord gave grace to the whole prayer room to truly enter into His presence! From the beginning of the set, God’s presence was so thick. It just kept growing and growing. At about 7:15 one of the leaders of the prayer room team got on the microphone and announced that God was going to release healings. From this point on the atmosphere was so thick that it was like a tangible cloud of glory was in the room. I have never felt anything like it. I have been to the Brownsville Revival in Pensacola, and I live with the annointing here at IHOP, and it was not even close to what I experienced this night. People were gathered in groups praying for the sick and maimed. Many were filled with the joy of the Lord and were dancing throughout the room. Typically the way you are suppose to transition from one worship team to the other is to tone down the music until just the worship leader is playing while the next worship leader is getting ready to take over, then the next worship leader begins to play and the next team begins to filter in. This night the annointing was so heavy that We kept going hard at it. We just switched while the beats kept going. As soon as one person got off the stage they would immediately either begin to pray for people or dance! It was so glorious. There were numerous healings that night. We got a text message from a group at another sight that healing had broken out there as well.
There was a rapid fire prayer time, (a cycle in the harp and bowl worship model when 10 or 15 intercessors pray 10 to 15 second prayers one right after another) that went on for about 30 minutes asking God for more. I could have sworn that Jesus was going to come back right then! My prayer room team (about 25 of us) was scheduled to leave at 8:30pm, but most stayed for another hour, and one guy stayed all night getting one hour of sleep! A little over 16 hours in the prayer room for me that day. WHAT A JOB I HAVE!!! THANKS TO ALL OF OUR PARTNERS, WE COULD NOT DO THIS WITHOUT YOUR SUPPORT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
part 3 in a few days
We shared last week about a girl from the IHOP family getting healed at the Lakeland Revival. She went to the doctors and all of the tests came back normal. She has been completely healed. This is such an astounding miracle. She shared the testimony at all the FCF services on Sunday. Healing broke out. We went to the 8:30am service, and a deaf ear opened up, also arthritis left a woman. I am sure that there were more healings, and things got a little crazy.
Praise God for healing! There is healing in the air!
This week we are trying to catch up on household chores, and finally unpacking the rest of the boxes in the garage. Since we moved here we have been going non-stop (for the most part). Holli began Intro to IHOP 3 days after we moved in. Anyway, we discovered a leak in the master bedroom toilet and shower. I tore out some sheetrock in the garage under the bathroom. It is a bad deal. The floor is sinking in a little bit. The toilet is tilted. A plumber is coming on Thursday to look at it.
It looks like we will need to tear off the shingles and install a new roof. We knew it would have to be done, but thought it might be a few years down the road. We are having some roofers look at it and see if it needs to be done now.
Lastly, we have a huge tree growing into the neighbors electric line, and we will need to have it cut down. We are geting estimates right now. This all happened at the same time (same day) I came close to stressing out. O.K I stressed out for a couple of hours. Holli helped ground me and brought me back to reality.
We went to the Malachi 4:6 prayer meeting today. We take the whole family. It is targeted for kids 12 and under. For the most kids do the worship and lead the prayer meeting. It is a full on IHOP harp and bowl prayer meeting. A friend of Rachel Hood (Allen Hood’s wife) called her and was desperate for prayer. Their 8 year old daughter went into cardiac arrest and had no brain activity. We interceded earnestly for her.
It was a real revelation! Even with all the temporal problems that we had that day, they were really nothing. That 8 year old had a problem, we have no problems. God is so good to remind us that eternity truly is reality.
Here is the final results from the Peoria trip outreach. I had an absolutely amazing time. God is moving in peoples hearts with an intense hunger and passion. I believe that revival is just around the corner. Just to recap. About 200 students from our ministry school went to Peoria, Illinois. We split into groups and ministered in 5 different locations. Our teams set up prophecy rooms (termed blessing rooms for this trip) healing rooms, and prayer rooms with harp and bowl worship. My group ministered at a former seeker friendly church. Others went to Bradley University, a Methodist church, and a Mennonite church.
Some groups broke into teams and had evangelism treasure hunts. Based on the model coming out of Redding, CA and Bill Johnson. You begin by asking the Lord where to go, who to minister to, and what to say. There was an amazing amount of testimonies from this event. One group got the Word from the Lord to go to Target, wait in a certain aisle, and a woman named (i think) Peggy would be there with a sore knee. They arrived, went to the aisle, waited a few seconds and what do you know…a lady named Peggy walked by with a sore knee. They shared what they were doing, at first she did not believe them and then they showed her the paper that they had written before hand and she was amazed.
At every location the prophecy room testimonies came from each group that they have never opperated in such an accurate annointing. Even people who had never prophesied before were giving amazingly accurate words. People would break down crying and lives were definately changed. If you are interested in hearing more testimonies from Rob Parker’s location I can forward you an e-mail from him that gives a lot more testimonies.
Our group went to Northwoods Community Church. It was a huge former seeker friendly church. I have never seen a building so nice. I believe that their attendence is 3500-4000 per week. Or something like that. When we first arrived, we were welcomed with open arms. Myself and 2 friends ran into a man from the church and prayed with him. We spoke the word of the Lord to him, and he in turn prayed for us. He prayed that the fire in my heart would never go out, and that I would impart the house of prayer to the nations. He had no idea that Holli and I have dedicated our lives to raising up the house of prayer!
All of the pastors who were involved in the outreach came together to bless us and pray for the weekend. I felt the Holy Spirit from the beginning. I was crying during the whole worship and prayer time. I think that one of the pastors’ prayer set the tone for the weekend. He released us to be who we were, and not to tone down a thing. The hunger for the Lord from these men was so evident.
This is such a long post that I will break it into segments.
I have so much to write about. I will try to post like crazy in the next few days.
First I want to brag about my kids. Maycee is turning into quite an evangelist. Holli takes our kids to the local library every couple of weeks. Last week she asked everyone in the library if they knew Jesus. A couple of weeks ago she had a little girl cornered and urgently told her that she needs to have Jesus come into her heart. The mother came over, and with disdain in her voice said “I feel like I am in church!” Another girl got into the conversation and come to find out the people were Mormon.
We have a Muslim school behind our house, and when we are in the back yard Maycee earnestly asks if we can go over and tell them about Jesus.
During the Halloween season our neighbors went all out in decorating their home for Halloween. They went so far as to having 2 fifteen foot demonic looking creatures in their trees. Maycee wanted to go tell Judy and Brian (our neighbors) that God doesn’t like Halloween and that they need to ask Jesus into their heart. One day they were only about 15 or 20 feet away when she asked to tell them that God doesn’t like Halloween, so I am sure that they heard it. She continually wants to tell them about the Lord. She has a specific burden concerning Halloween. She does not understand how Christians can celebrate Halloween and still be saved. Frankly we have bought into so many lies that we have no grid for truth anymore. We have deceived ourselves into thinking that a lot of activities are harmless. It takes a four year old to speak the truth!
We have made the commitment not to stifle them in their expression of Christianity, and to be blantantly honest with them. In their childlike faith (Biblical Faith) they have more compassion for the lost than we do. To them it is inconceivable that someone would not want to be with Jesus for eternity. They do not want anyone to go to hell for eternity. Many times we are uncomfortable when she talks like this to strangers. We have been so tamed by society that we have reduced witnessing to being a silent witness, and let our acitons speak for themselves. This has it’s place, but for the most part it has given us a false security, that we will answer for someday! It is pretty pathetic, but we are going to let our 4 year old lead the family in evangelism.
“LET THE CHILDREN COME!”
There is a healing revival going on in Lakeland Florida. An evangelist by the name of Todd Bentley started having meetings there about a month ago. (I think) He was only scheduled to go for a few days, but the Lord had different ideas. God has began to move in a dramatic way. So many are attending the meetings, and getting healed they had to move the revival to a nearby stadium. Services were in the local church.
A 14 year old girl from IHOP named Kelsey Hayes, was healed down there. She had an auto immune deficiancy disease. The doctors could not figure out how to treat her. She was in excruciating pain, I believe that she was actually dying. Holli and Maycee visited her in the hospital to pray for her, but only stayed for a few minutes because Kelsey was crying out in pain. She was complely healed at the meeting!
You can watch it each night on GODTV.com. You just register, and it is free! The prayer room is broadcast over night, and there is a daily devotional filmed here at IHOP.