Tag: Holy Spirit

I Am a Worship Leader, But Not Like That.

On By CaitlynIn Prayer and Worship4 Comments

When we say “worship leader,” we usually mean the person on the platform behind the mic playing guitar or keys, leading the room in verses and choruses to sing to the Lord. Of course, that is a perfectly legitimate picture, but I submit that that is not the only way to be a worship leader.

I am a worship leader. No, I don’t lead music from the platform, but one of the primary goals of my life is to lead others into worship. I can do that during a music worship set from wherever I am in the room, and in fact I’ve had people tell me for years that the way I worship draws them deeper into worship. When I let loose and let worship explode out of every inch of my body, not only do I encounter God in a very free and dynamic way, but I release an atmosphere of freedom and encouragement for others to let loose as well. If I’m fully engaging I will provoke others and bring them along with me.

You know what I mean. Sometimes when you’re in a distracted funk, just seeing someone else locked in and worshiping with abandon will stir something in your heart and spur you to press in harder. And another day you will do the same for them. That’s the beauty of corporate worship. We all get to lead each other by example.

Of course, this must never be from a “look at me, follow me!” mentality. Leading others into worship is truly serving them, because we were all made to be worshipers. For the rest of eternity, our primary occupation will be worship. John Piper has famously said, “Missions exists because worship doesn’t.” Worship is always the goal of everything else we do in our Christian lives (which, by the way, is your ENTIRE life). And as friends of the bridegroom, it is our mission to point to Jesus above all else, that He would increase and we would decrease. (John 3:29-30)

Leading others into worship is also such a beautiful gift to bring to Jesus. As an individual, I can give no more than my all, and usually even that is a struggle. But if I can play a part in others giving Him all their all as well, then I’m actually giving Him more than I could on my own! This is one way I can multiply my incense.

Of course, this means so much more than in a music worship set. I want my entire life to draw people into worship That’s the primary reason I write this blog. I pray my words will draw you deeper into fascination with this beautiful God, leading you into a life of worship poured out.

Why? Because Jesus is worthy. He actually deserves our highest praises. His inheritance from His Father is the eternal love and worship of the nations. He deserves it, and I want to play the biggest part He’ll let me in bringing Him His inheritance.

Tweet
Share
Pin
Share
0 Shares

HOLY SPIRIT

On By CaitlynIn Bible Stuff1 Comment

Put your hand on your belly.

In John 7:38 Jesus said that whoever believes in Him, “out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” The next verse explains that He’s talking about the Holy Spirit. The word “belly” is from the King James Version, and most of your translations probably say heart, but the Greek word koilias actually means “belly.” In the Hebrew way of thinking, your belly represented the seat of your emotions and your deepest inner parts, the way we talk about the heart.

No, it’s not actually literal; of course the Holy Spirit is not squeezed inside of you next to your large intestine, but it does kind of make a lot of sense. We know that the belly is often the emotional centre of the body. Sure, we feel things in our heart, but we also feel them in our stomach. Your stomach’s tied up in knots. You have butterflies in your stomach.

Actors and singers know this too. If you’ve ever taken an acting or voice class, you’ve been told to “breathe from your diaphragm.” The diaphragm is the muscle in your abdomen that makes your lungs expand. I was always told, “feel your stomach expanding like a balloon.” I spent a lot of time in all my acting years concentrating on my belly as the centre of my breath.

That very breath in your lungs that fills your belly—what is it? Where does it come from? Genesis 2:7—it’s the breath of life. The Spirit of God.

“Out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.”

Right now, if you have believed in Jesus and given your life over to Him, you have that living water inside of you. Historically, “living water” referred to a river that was clean and flowing. Pure and moving. This is true of the Holy Spirit, but it’s also more than that. He is actually the LIVING. WATER.

You have right now the Spirit of God living inside of your body. You are His temple. You are the building that He lives in.

The Holy Spirit is not a force. I love to watch Star Wars and think about God, but the Holy Spirit is not the Force. He’s a Person. He has a personality. He has a mind. He has emotions. And He is the Eternal Living God.

And He lives inside of you.

1 Corinthians 2 says that no one knows a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit. Only you really know what you’re thinking at any given time unless you tell someone, right? Because you live inside of you. So only the Spirit of God can know the thoughts of God, right? BUT GOD put His Spirit inside of you. We have the mind of Christ. The Holy Spirit searches the deep things of God, and then He reveals them to us. It’s His favourite thing to do.

Put your hand on your belly. Close your eyes and picture the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of you.

The Bible uses several different images to talk about the Holy Spirit. It says that He’s like wind. (John 3:8, Acts 2:2)  The very word “Spirit” in Hebrew (ruach) and Greek (pneuma) means “breath” or “wind.” Wind can be a cool, gentle breeze, or a mighty rushing hurricane. He loves like a hurricane.

He’s like water. (John 7:37-39, Isaiah 44:3) He’s like rain (Hosea 6:3), or like the ocean. When you go to the beach, you can choose how much you get in the water. You can get your toes wet, or you can go in up to your knees, or up to your waist, or even in over your head where you can feel the waves rhythmically pounding around you and the salt and sand and water rushing through your hair. (cf. Ezekiel 47) But even then, you’re still at the beach. You can never go to the bottom of the ocean floor, and you can never touch every drop of the ocean. You can never reach the end of God’s Spirit.

He’s like fire. The fire of God rested on the disciples at Pentecost. (Acts 2:3) The fire of God burns before the throne of God. (Revelation 4:5) God is a consuming fire. (Hebrews 12:29) When we pray for fire to come, that’s not just cool revival language. We’re asking for a Person.

So as you have your hand on your belly, pick one of those images of the Holy Spirit. Imagine that fire or that river living inside your belly. He’s here because He wants to be. He actually chose to live inside of you forever. This is the climax of the story of this age, not that God became a perfect Man, but that GOD. LIVES. IN. BROKEN. HUMAN. VESSELS.

Jesus said, “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” (John 16 7 ESV)

Having the Holy Spirit living inside of you is better than having Jesus in the flesh sitting in the chair next to you. Because if Jesus were all you had, you still couldn’t get inside Him and He couldn’t get inside you. You would have to talk the old-fashioned slow way, with mouths and words.

But the Holy Spirit, the very Spirit—the essence—of Jesus, lives inside you.

Talk to Him.

Tweet
Share
Pin6
Share
6 Shares

A New Semester and the Harp and Bowl Model

On By CaitlynIn IHOPKC Life, Prayer and Worship7 Comments

My second semester at IHOPU began on Monday. This quarter I’m taking Foundations of Biblical Eschatology, New Testament Survey, and Forerunner Messenger Practicum. The Practicum is broken up into three rotations, one of which is Harp and Bowl (the model for combining prayer and worship that we use in the prayer room). For my other two rotations I chose Preaching and Teaching, and Writing, out of options including Social Media, Creative Media, and Drama. I know, I know, Drama would be right up my alley, but I already spent four years developing my personal philosophy of Christians in the arts. I would not be able to come into that class with an open mind. Besides, drama is already something I know I have. Preaching and teaching is almost completely new to me, and both that and writing are things I’m feeling called to step into more.

Also, as part of the practicum, I’ll be placed as a singer on a student harp and bowl team. I was on an intern worship team for about three weeks during my internship, but other than that (and one Sunday morning singing at The Refuge) I’ve never been on a worship team before. I am SO excited for this!

For those not familiar with the harp and bowl model, it’s drawn from Revelation 5:8.

“And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.”
(Revelation 5:8)

Anything that combines prayer and worship (specifically of the musical variety) can be considered “harp and bowl,” but the way we do harp and bowl is a whole structure that is designed to provide an atmosphere for maximum engagement in the room. Singing brings unity, and singing the Word and singing prayers from the Word–WOW!!

At IHOPKC, we mostly do two kinds of harp and bowl sets: worship with the Word, and intercession. Both are structured essentially the same, with times of corporate worship interspersed with times of spoken prayer developed by spontaneous singing. Here’s what your standard two-hour harp and bowl intercession set looks like:

Intercession set several years ago (old stage design). See that far right seat in the front row? That’s my seat. Every time.
  • The worship team consists of a worship leader on (usually) guitar or keys, at least three prophetic singers, musicians, and a prayer leader. At the start of the set, the worship leader will begin leading a familiar worship song as the rest of the team is transitioning onto the stage. We’ll have a time of corporate worship for 20-40 minutes, mostly consisting of worship songs that everyone already knows with maybe a bit of spontaneous singing sprinkled in as the Spirit leads.
  • When it’s time to transition into the prayer time, the worship leader will initiate several minutes of singing in the Spirit. (“What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.” 1 Corinthians 14:15) At this time, everyone will sing at the same time, either in tongues or with whatever words of praise are on their hearts.
  • Then, the prayer leader will start leading intercession from the podium just off stage right. The musicians will usually start playing something with a more driving beat, and many people in the room will stand up if they’re not already to help themselves engage more fully. The prayer leader will choose a verse, preferably an apostolic prayer, and pray from that for 2-3 minutes. It may go something like this:
    • “Praying for the ending of sex trafficking in Thailand from Ephesians 1:17-19. ‘That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power.’ So God, I pray that You would break into Thailand with the spirit of wisdom and revelation. Open up their eyes to see You rightly. Let the traffickers see who You are and be transformed, and let those trafficked see You and be filled with hope…”
  • After the prayer leader finishes “in the name of Jesus,” the singers will one by one sing spontaneous phrases inspired by the verse and the prayer. The prayer leader may interject phrases of spoken prayers to help guide the singers. It may sound like this:
    • “Oh, God, bring wisdom and revelation to Thailand…”
      “Wisdom and revelation…”
      — “Open up their eyes!”
      “Open up their eyes and let them see You…”
      — “Bring deliverance!”
      “Great Deliverer, bring deliverance…”
  • After a minute or two, the chorus leader (the first singer) will launch a short, simple chorus that the whole room can jump in on, and then will end with a name of God. Maybe something like:
    • “You are the God of justice
      You are the God of deliverance
      Open up their eyes
      Open up their eyes
      [repeat]
      Open up their eyes, oh God”
      [Note: I just made up all of these prayers and choruses off the top of my head, so what you’d actually hear in the prayer room may be quite a bit better.]
  • After the chorus, the prayer leader will either pray again, or another person will come up to pray, and the process will repeat.
  • At some point during the intercession cycle, the prayer leader will invite a time of rapid fire prayer. At this time, anyone in the room can come line up behind the podium to pray a short 5-10 second prayer on the chosen topic. Every ten or so people, the chorus leader will interrupt with a chorus the whole room can sing together for a minute, then the prayer line will continue.
  • After the line ends, the worship team may continue with a chorus, someone may feel inspired to sing a solo prophetic oracle for a few minutes on the intercession topic, or the worship leader may take the room back into corporate worship.
  • After another 20 minutes or so of worship, another intercession cycle will commence.

A worship with the Word set is essentially the same, except that instead of a prayer leader leading intercession, there will be a prayer leader guiding the team through meditation on a short passage of the Bible. Phrase by phrase, the singers will develop the verse (paraphrase, interpret, and expand it). One person’s insight will spark another’s, and as a corporate body we will go somewhere in the Spirit we couldn’t go alone. Singing the Word, whether in intercession or meditation, is the best way I know of to make it a part of you. You may forget the verse you heard in a sermon, or even the verse you read in your own Bible, but you’ll find it difficult to forget the verse you sang. The centrality of the Word is of primary importance in every harp and bowl set.

This model is incredibly flexible and is easily adapted to any culture or context. It fosters unity and an atmosphere of enjoyable prayer–and enjoyable prayer is sustainable prayer.

“These I will bring to my holy mountain,
and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
for all peoples.”
(Isaiah 56:7)

Tweet
Share
Pin
Share
0 Shares

Just “Jesus Being Jesus”?

On By CaitlynIn Bible Stuff

 (One of my IHOPU classes, Basic Christian Beliefs, is giving the assignment of blogging on certain questions from the lessons every week. This week, I’m choosing the question “Did Jesus perform any miracles before His public ministry?”)

There’s a tension in the Church related to how we envision Jesus during His time on Earth. Do we see Him as so completely ordinary that we confine Him to the context of history and miss the surging reality of His divinity? Or do we see Him as an ethereal, unreachable Being who is constantly gazing vaguely into the clouds with open palms while the Hallelujah chorus echoes around Him?

Both mindsets carry unique dangers and errors. However, for much of traditional church culture (although in emerging culture it’s somewhat the opposite), the latter seems to be more prevalent. We’ve put Jesus in a halo and told Him to stay there.

Part of the result of this over-sacredizing of Jesus is that we get this idea of Him practically sneezing out miracles like it’s nothing. I’ve heard people joke about Jesus as a kid multiplying food whenever he was hungry, or healing animals, etc… you know, just “Jesus being Jesus.” The trouble is that this is not what the Bible says. John 2:11 describes turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana as the “first of his signs.” That only happened after the Holy Spirit came upon Him at His baptism. (John 1:32-34)

When we get this idea of “Well, that’s just Jesus being Jesus. He’s God, so He just does stuff like that,” we miss the entire point of what Jesus was trying to demonstrate.

“So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise…. I can do nothing on my own.'”
(John 5: 19, 30)

Do you see the implications of this? All of Jesus’ miracles weren’t done by the power of His own divinity. They were done as a human in full submission to and partnership with the Holy Spirit.

So what does that mean for us? Jesus said it this way:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. …It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper [Holy Spirit] will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”
(John 14:12; 16:7)

If Jesus was our example, and He actually did all that He did as a human empowered by the Holy Spirit, and He really has given me this same Holy Spirit, that means the exact same resources that were available to Jesus are available to me. I can heal the sick. I can raise the dead. I can cast out demons. All of it is my inheritance.

It’s not just “Jesus being Jesus.” The same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead lives in me. (Romans 8:11)

Hallelujah. God, help me live in that.

Tweet
Share
Pin
Share
0 Shares

Weekend Ambush

On By CaitlynIn Personal Updates1 Comment

Last weekend was absolutely splendidly NOT what I had planned. I was planning to go camping in Joshua Tree on Saturday with a few of my co-workers. From the start I wasn’t sure if I wanted to, because although I love these people and I could use a change of scenery, “roughing it” is rarely my cup of tea. I determined to go and enjoy it, though, so even when the plan fell through, I was proud of myself for at least refusing to be scared off.

Instead I spent my Saturday working the rock wall for the Christian camp. I’ve never properly worked ropes with the rec staff before, and I ended up loving it! By dinner time I was already thanking God that he had a better day planned for me than I had planned for myself, but he hadn’t even begun to surprise me. I let myself be talked into going to chapel in the evening when I heard that Tommy Green, the lead singer of Sleeping Giant who has a powerful ministry, would be speaking. I went with my roommate and sat through an hour of a student talent show. There was a definite amount of talent, and also a definite amount of… well. It was well worth it, though, because when Tommy came to the front, the first thing he did was pray for people in pain to be healed and the second thing he did was prophesy over some of the performers.

WHAT?!!! This might be pretty standard ministry in my usual circles, but at this camp? In the three years I’ve worked here, I have NEVER seen a single healing take place in that chapel, or a single prophecy be released (though granted I can’t claim to be there every time the doors are open). Not that God doesn’t move here or that the camp and its guests don’t believe in the gifts, we just don’t… tend to practice them very often.

I’ve spent so many hours over the past few years pacing the camp prayer chapel -and plenty of hours elsewhere too- praying for Holy Spirit to do crazy things in that chapel. I’ve tasted revival, and I am desperate for this camp, my home, to taste it too. Seeing what Tommy brought on Saturday was a beautiful down payment of the revival that I believe is coming.

But the night got better. Tommy’s message was about worship as warfare, and this generation releasing a new sound that literally shifts atmospheres, and the seven Hebrew words of praise, especially “tehila” spontaneous singing and “shabach” shouting, and how powerful dance is as an expression of worship… I could have closed my eyes and heard Jake Hamilton’s voice. (I actually just found out that Tommy has actually worked with Jake on the Voices conference Jake put on last year. So yeah.) I have never felt so completely in unity with what’s going on in that chapel as I did that night. Especially because after talking about free and powerful worship, the band came on stage and we DID IT for an hour and a half! My roommate and I ended up pushing back the chairs in the back of the room and dancing and worshiping and crying until we were completely overwhelmed. I haven’t worshipped that freely since… well, since the week I left IHOP. The two of us helped clean up the chapel and watched as the campers settled into small groups, then went back home and prayed together until we fell asleep. My heart was full to bursting with the sheer excitement of loving God and watching him move.

Sunday was quite amazing as well. I went with a friend to her church for my second visit. The church is called Tithemi and is actually led by Eric Gregson, a close friend of Tommy who is (was?) also in Sleeping Giant! Bam. Small world. This little church is a beautiful, grungy, passionate band of young tattooed believers who worship with full hearts and pray with abandon. That Sunday night I kicked off my sandals and started dancing during the song Divine Romance, and by the time we’d sung the chorus about ten times the worship leader asked anyone who wanted to dance to come do it on stage. So I went. And we all danced for several more minutes before Eric invited us all to return to our seats.

As I was sitting down, he started talking about how powerful worship is, and how powerful dance is, and how that first person to dance serves the community by providing a “covering” for everyone else’s awkwardness… in other words, that person sets the tone for how free the group is allowed to be. It was a huge blessing and confirmation for me, because I knew that I was the first person to start dancing that night, and because I have so often been told about how my dancing creates an atmosphere of freedom and worship for others.

Even when I know something, I love it so much when God remembers and tells me again. He sees me, he knows me, he enjoys me. And he’s using me through my simply enjoying him. I’m just being who I was created to be, and he’s encountering me and using it to bless people.

Also, I’m so grateful for the community I’m surrounded by. From the people I worked rec with, to the people I was in chapel with, to the people at Tithemi, I am so deeply blessed to get to be around like-minded people who love me and are going after the same things. I love them all, and I love my Father for giving them to me.

Oh… one more thing. On Wednesday at camp, I went into the prayer chapel to spend my break. The first thing I did was unwrap a Dove dark chocolate square.

And what did my wrapper say?

Be the first to hit the dance floor.

DSC00824
Prophetic Dove wrapper (torn and taped)
Tweet
Share
Pin
Share
0 Shares

Testimony Saturday: Art Museum and the Edge of Hell

On By CaitlynIn IHOPKC Life1 Comment

Sorry this is a bit late to be a proper Testimony Thursday, but I decided I wanted to wait and put the testimonies from Thursday and Friday up together.

On Thursday I went on outreach for the first time in three weeks. (Two weeks ago we all had to be at a conference, and one week ago we were all on midterm break.) We decided to visit the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art to evangelise. It wasn’t exactly the ideal spot, but we did have a few awesome divine appointments. I wandered around with two other interns. We ended up spending forty minutes talking to an 80-year-old Catholic security guard. We gave him a few prophetic words and he was very encouraged and amazed that we could actually hear God speak to us! In his theology only the saints could do that. We talked to him for about 45 minutes and he was so blessed and encouraged. He is a gem, so faithful to God in his workplace and in his family.

Last night we were at the EGS service at FCF before our outreach to the Edge of Hell haunted house district in Kansas City. I have to start with what happened at FCF because it was freaking incredible. During worship, one of the leaders got a prophetic word that God wanted to break the spirit of oppression off of people. People started speaking out to get free from stuff, because the power of life and death is in the tongue, and spiritual warfare isn’t done quietly in “receiving” mode. I prayed for the girl next to me and prophesied over her (which is something I don’t often do during services, but I was getting all fired up for outreach later and I decided I might as well jump into partnership with Holy Spirit a little early!). Then we all started singing in tongues for a good 30 minutes or so. Praying in the Spirit is powerful, guys. Heaven was coming into that auditorium.

I believe God ambushed that service just for the 60 or so of us who were going to Edge of Hell. He empowered us and prepared us in a very unique way, and the other thousand or so in the room got to reap the side benefits of God having his eye on us. We all got SO stirred up and filled and ready to rock when we had to leave towards the end of worship to jump on our bus. And then we proceeded to loudly pray and sing all the way there.

IHOP has been going for several years to this area to do outreach, and for several weeks this year alone. Last night was a bit more complicated than usual because there was a mix-up with where our bus was supposed to take us, so instead of assembling at the missions base to brief and then going to Edge of Hell inconspicuously, we showed up in the parking lot downtown in our big school bus. The police of course noticed us immediately and told us we had to stay outside the blocked off areas where the actual haunted houses were. This cramped our style a bit, but God wasn’t the least bit shocked or intimidated, so we spread out and started talking to people.

I was with one of the IHOP evangelism staff, Josh MacDonald and a couple of other interns. We considered breaking the rules and going beyond the barrier anyway, but eventually decided that wasn’t our direction, so we started walking along the street and ran into a free hot chocolate station a local church had set up! We talked to them for maybe ten minutes, prayed for them, and healed a guy’s ankle. His foot had been cut OFF in an accident some time ago and reattached at the hospital, then divinely healed so there was no pain, but the pain had been creeping back in. Josh prayed and commanded that thing to be healed, and ten seconds later, the guy was jumping up and down with a big smile on his face. Hallelujah. That same guy actually prophesied over me before we left. He had the name “Caitlyn” in his head before I even introduced myself, and the words he gave me were totally dead on and really encouraging.

A while later, we went into a vintage shop several of us really felt drawn to. It was an cool little place, very artsy and unique, but also quite covered in intense Halloween freakiness and we definitely sensed some very dark spirits. We wandered around checking out the antiques and praying for a couple people, but still not sure what God had for us. One of the interns suddenly remembered that God had given him a dream of this very shop two years ago. Eventually we met a woman who worked there and it soon became clear that she was why we were there. She was a Christian and she had been hit by a car a number of years ago, and the entire lower half of her body was still out of whack. We prayed a couple times and the pain wasn’t leaving, then Josh got a word of knowledge that one of her legs was shorter than the other. She readily acknowledged this to be true, so we sat her down and commanded the right leg to grow. It did–too far! (This is a fairly common occurrence when legs grow out, by the way. God likes to play.) So we then commanded the left leg to grow to match it. (I have to say that even though I’ve seen legs grow out a good dozen times or so, I can’t always actually clearly see the difference. This time was CLEAR.)

The woman was very encouraged and we prayed for her again. My roommate and I prophesied over her, and the woman started crying and sharing her story. She’s been through so much, but she’s not bitter and she’s a powerful light in dark places. She amazes me. It was past closing time when we left and we were the only ones in the store, but before letting us out she sang us a beautiful song about loving sacrificially like Jesus. Heaven touched earth, I tell you. Here in this dark shop where hell had a stronghold, light was shining brightly.

Our group wasn’t the only one that saw God move. There were a lot of healings and several people really considering giving their life to Jesus. [EDIT: Actually, from what I later heard, at least 7 people actually DID get saved that weekend!!] This is a Facebook status from an intern:

Went to the Edge of Hell Haunted Houses tonight and met a woman who had a headache and stomach pain and both were completely healed. Then she looked up at me and told me she was 100% blind and after I prayed she was seeing light and movement for the first time ever and she said the pressure and pain behind her eyes was completely gone! Come on!!!!! Hallelujah!

Amen. God is good! He uses ordinary people to touch a desperate world with power and love.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
(John 1:5)

Tweet
Share
Pin
Share
0 Shares

Testimony Thursday: Faithful in Little

On By CaitlynIn IHOPKC Life

I went on outreach again today to Oak Park Mall! It was awesome. I admit, last week I was a bit disappointed because I felt like I was on the sidelines a bit, but I shook it off and today was much better. My partner and I talked to at least ten people and prayed with over half of them. I really feel like God set up some divine appointments for us.

We prayed for a couple of women who were working a lotion store. They were both the sweetest, most joyful people ever, both Christians, and we loved getting to encourage them, because they encouraged us so much too!

We prayed for a teen girl in Macy’s who had a swollen pinkie toe. She wasn’t healed, but she was definitely touched, and as we were walking away we encountered a woman who had been interested in our conversation. We asked to pray for her, and she said her life was a mess and she had actually been praying right before she came around the corner and saw us. We encouraged her a bit, and although she didn’t want us to pray right there with her, we prayed together for her after she walked away.

Those were my favourite encounters today. Our other groups came back with stories of a leg growing out, a Methodist couple getting healed and then radically baptised in the Holy Spirit, a couple of atheists agreeing to come to church tomorrow, and a guy coming to the brink of giving his life to Christ.

I realise, I’m not at the place some of the others are. I’m not super prophetic or dramatically anointed for healing. But I do have the Holy Spirit inside me–I know the truth, I hear his voice, and my voice carries power. And he is stretching my faith and teaching me to partner with him more.

As we were briefing and praying before going in the mall, our leader said, “Jesus isn’t here [in the flesh] today–you are.” That started me thinking… what would it be like to go evangelise with Jesus, if he was the partner I was strolling through the mall with? I imagined holding his hand and walking through the stores as he waited to see what the Father wanted to do, then watching as he healed the sick, spoke truth, and brought hope to many.

Then after I watched him with several people, he would say, “The next one’s yours. Go talk to that woman right there.”

“I don’t know about that, Jesus–I mean, I’m not you,” I would probably say (or at least think, which would basically be the exact same thing.)

“What are you talking about?” he would say. “You can do this. I’m right here. I’ve got your back.”

And I would go and do it. Jesus would be right there, giving me the words, silently encouraging me, healing when I asked him to. Not everyone would be receptive, but Jesus and I would be faithful together, to at least offer what’s available.

How painful is it for him when he asks me to go and I don’t because I don’t really trust him?

I know he enjoys me even in my immaturity and is so proud when I step out as far as I can, but sometimes I know I let him down. I’m not always a faithful steward of what I’ve been given. But as I push my faith to the limits now, he’ll give me more faith and more insight, and one day I really will consistently see the lame walk under the touch of my hand. I would love to suddenly be blasted with a massive gift of healing and prophecy, and I am constantly praying for more faith and more anointing, but in the meantime I want to be faithful with what I have. My light might not yet be a full bonfire, but I refuse to hide it.

“His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.'”
(Matthew 25:21)

Tweet
Share
Pin
Share
0 Shares

Testimony Thursday: Rose Garden Encounters

On By CaitlynIn IHOPKC Life

Good news! I finally got to go on outreach again today. As soon as we got in the shuttle to head out, the leader said he felt God wanted us to break out of our routine a little bit. We prayed about where to go and two people felt God was saying “park,” so we went to this huge gorgeous park in Kansas City that I’d never been to before. Not many people were there since it was a Thursday afternoon, but we walked around for about an hour and a half and had some excellent conversations with people.

As we were entering a nice little rose garden area of the park, my group first met a woman who was tending a flower bed. She was a Christian, and we just got to encourage her in her walk with God and pray for her niece, who was going through a difficult situation with her parents. The woman was really blessed. Next, towards the back of the garden, we met another woman who had a back injury from work. We prayed for healing, and she was so touched that even though she wasn’t healed, she started crying as she opened up about all the struggles this injury had caused. We got to pray and speak prophetic words of love and hope into her life. God definitely touched her in a powerful way. We also talked to three other people and prayed with two of them, and definitely planted some good seeds in the third guy.

I heard snippets of stories from the other groups that showed God was definitely doing powerful things among all of us. One of our groups talked to an agnostic couple, and got to share the full gospel with them before getting shut down. Another group saw two legs grow out. According to our tally sheet, someone even got saved, but I didn’t hear the story on how that happened.

Last Friday at the FCF church service some of us were praying for one of the interns who was sick. She had had a fever all afternoon and evening and felt horrible, but was determined to stay for the service. We prayed, and within a minute or two it completely cleared up and she was fully healthy from then on out. I loved that, even though I think I was struggling with expecting God to actually heal her. As soon as she said she felt completely better, the first words out of my mouth were, “Are you serious?” But it really happened, and we were all so excited and turned it right around into praise.

God’s been talking to me a lot about building my faith. I’ve come to the realisation that faith is a gift, it’s not something I can work up for myself. I can’t do anything at all without God, not even have faith! My faith is small and weak, but all I have to do is keep stepping out and risking, and one of these days God’s going to break through and use me and my little weak prayers in a big way. It’s his job to use me and keep giving me those fresh baptisms; it’s just my job to keep making myself available whether or not I feel it. It’s a partnership, but as has always been the case with God and his people, his faithfulness more than covers my weakness. And he loves to partner with me whenever I step out! It’s not about me; it’s all about his Kingdom anyway. All he asks is willingness and that little mustard seed.

“So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands.”
(Acts 14:3)

Tweet
Share
Pin
Share
0 Shares

Testimony Thursday: Dreams, Revival, and Restoration

On By CaitlynIn IHOPKC Life

Hello, all! I’m writing this from a cute little coffee spot called Cafe Main, right next to the Exodus Cry office in Kansas City. It’s a beautifully rainy day off and I’m starting to believe fall is almost here. 🙂

I was looking forward to sharing some more outreach testimonies today, but the group left later than I expected them to and therefore I missed them. 🙁 Next week hopefully, then.

A lot has been happening just among the interns, though, and some of it relates to the IHOPU Awakening that happened here in 2009. There was a period in 2009 during which God visited particularly the IHOPU students in a dramatic way. There was crazy joy breaking out, tons of manifestations of the Spirit, lots of healings, and mostly lots of revelation of tangible love. God’s presence rested so thickly for a while, and then it lifted and the “normal” rhythm returned. Recently many of the interns have been feeling that God is getting ready to release another wave of his Spirit on us in a big way, and many of us have begun fasting and crying out for this revival. There have been a number of confirmations, and even some of the IHOPKC leadership team are getting very excited for what God’s about to do. I’m just praying it will come before I leave in December!

Many of us have also felt an increased burden for sex trafficking in the world, too. Yesterday three students shared dreams they recently had about God’s heart for these girls. Here’s the main message of them all: God’s heart is breaking, and our prayers REALLY DO change things. As we pray, God is releasing comfort and hope to specific girls who desperately need him. One day soon Jesus is coming back to set every captive free, and in the meantime he is raising up intercessors and deliverers to bring a partial fulfillment of that promise now.

In some ways it’s scary to be brought into God’s heart for these ones, because the pain he feels is so crushing. But at the same time it’s powerful to realise that he wants friends to weep with him, and partners to help bring justice. It’s a huge honour to get to stand in intercession and partner with his heart in this way.
We’re seeing answers to our prayers in other ways, too. A number of the interns have been praying for struggling family members, and God has been responding in big ways. One girl has been praying for her dad, who has been homeless and on and off of drugs for years. As she was praying, he got off the streets and started living with his mom, and he’s been clean for several months, which is longer than he’s stayed clean in a long time!!

Another girl shared that her parents, who are divorced, experienced a crisis which made them realise they still loved each other, they started dating, and they are now RE-ENGAGED!! God is the Father of restoration!!!

As for me, I’ve been enjoying tons of mini-breakthroughs in my personal relationship with God. Fasting is much easier now than it was at the beginning, and God’s been teaching and revealing a lot to me through it. I’ve also been working on spending my time more wisely, which has been a pretty foreign concept to me most of my life. But I only have three months left here (yikes!) and I really do not want to waste them. And I’ve been finding so many amazing things in the Bible as well!! Here’s something that blew my mind recently:

“Go out, O daughters of Zion, and look upon King Solomon, with the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding, on the day of the gladness of his heart.”
(Song of Songs 3:11)

In the spiritual interpretation of Song of Songs, the beloved, the king, is Jesus. So what is this crown that Jesus gets crowned with on his wedding day?

“An excellent wife is the crown of her husband.”
(Proverbs 12:4)

It’s us! The Bride is Jesus’ crown! So who, then, is the mother who crowns him? Here’s what I think:

“And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars… She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne.”
(Revelation 12:1, 5)

I think maybe she’s the woman of Revelation 12, who represents Israel and is portrayed as Jesus’ mother.

Isn’t that awesome? Guys, this is how the Bible was meant to be read, where you’re in the whole thing so you can actually use Scripture to interpret Scripture. We gotta have the whole counsel, guys. It’s so much more fun that way. 😀

Tweet
Share
Pin
Share
0 Shares

The Kingdom Belongs to Such as These

On By CaitlynIn IHOPKC Life

Saturday night was my second night serving in the Children’s Equipping Center (CEC), the children’s ministry center at FCF. I help lead the 8- to 12-year-old girls every 5th service on either Friday or Saturday. This Saturday was amazing. I’d been told that these kids are crazy Spirit-filled and watch out because they will prophesy your socks off, but this was the first time I’d actually seen what went on that night. At least half a dozen kids got slain in the Spirit as their peers prayed for them and were on the floor through most of worship. I was skeptical at first (these are IHOP kids; they’ve grown up with this stuff) but they got up telling me all these stories of visions they’d had that sounded like something straight out of Revelation. They asked if they could pray for me, but they first had to make sure I was standing in a place that if I fell down, I wouldn’t hit my head on the stage. I was so blessed by their prayers. I’m sure I’ll be telling more stories of them throughout the internship.

I love the way the CEC leaders teach the kids–they put biblical realities in kid-friendly language so they can have clarity on it, but they don’t boil anything down. They’ve been going through Jesus’ parables the past few weeks, and I love to sit under the teaching and glean stuff I’d never thought about before. The leaders really listen to and respect the kids, and the kids really have some profound insight on these passages. I feel like I’m learning so much about children’s ministry, leading kids in general, and even the heart of God in general. CEC is an incredible ministry.

Also, I wanted to share with you an insight I got the other day in the prayer room. I was meditating on the Trinity and trying to wrap my mind around this”one yet three, three yet one, together yet separate” thing. I asked Jesus why he never told a parable of the Trinity, because we sure do need one, and what he brought to mind was a cartoon I’d seen years ago as a child. It’s about a whale that has three uvulae and therefore literally sings with three voices at the same time. His voices fill the ocean with beautiful three-part operatic harmony. Each voice has its own unique place in the harmony and interacts with the others in such a way as to create a complex, dynamic song. One song, one person, three voices. He is his own harmony.

So God is like a whale that sings with three voices? “Yes. No! But if it helps, yes.”* It’s at least a close enough picture to move me to awe. And I think that’s all he was really after.

How amazing that God hid this little revelation inside a Disney short from 1946! I imagine him giving that little nugget of the Divine Story to some animator who may or may not have even known him, but God just wanted to hide this little secret for the children and the childlike who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

“At that time Jesus declared, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.'”
(Matthew 11:25)

“But Jesus called them to him, saying, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.'”
(Luke 18:16-17)

* The Doctor, Doctor Who series 6 episode 4, “The Doctor’s Wife.” And yes, Doctor Who does apply to every situation.

Tweet
Share
Pin
Share
0 Shares