Earlier this month, I boarded a bus in Kansas City with 100 other IHOPU students (well, we had two buses) and drove 32 hours straight to Los Angeles, CA to participate in The Call: Azusa Now on April 9, and then re-boarded the bus again the next morning to drive 32 hours straight back to Kansas City. Talk about a whirlwind weekend!
Azusa Now is a massive prayer gathering organised by Lou Engle to rally this generation to cry out for revival like the Azusa Street revival of 1906. This was my first experience at one of The Call events, and I was blown away by the power and presence of God.
Racial reconciliation and church unity was a huge theme. Leaders from Native American, Hispanic, African American, Messianic, and Catholic communities were onstage publicly honouring each other and repenting for lack of unity.
Bethel, IHOPKC, Circuit Riders, and many others led worship.
So many leaders in the church and missions were on stage with Lou Engle – Heidi Baker, Bill Johnson, Loren Cunningham, Daniel Kolenda, Todd White, and many more, including my very own home pastor Danny Carroll from Water of Life!!
Gloria Engle and Andy Byrd both gave powerful calls to say “yes” to the call for missions.
People stood up from wheelchairs, hearing loss was restored, brain cancer was healed, and much more!
Shawn Bolz called out accurate prophetic words of knowledge from the stage to specific people in the stadium. Watch the video HERE.
We were all so stirred up on the way home. Tired as we were, we still evangelised at every gas station and held impromptu Bible studies, worship sessions, and prophetic ministry to each other in our vans. We touched God’s desire to sweep this nation with revival, and we actually started to believe it was possible.
Beyond the public move of God that we all experienced that day, the event touched me very personally. Some of these leaders and ministry styles were ones I first connected with years before I came to Kansas City, in my early days of learning to move with the Holy Spirit. I even got to see some of the California friends and leaders in my life who used to run with me in those days. In that stadium, I found myself stirred again to embrace a lifestyle of prayer for revival along with boldness in healing, prophecy, and evangelism. That passion is a precious gift that I cannot afford to let fade.
The first 12 hours of the 15 hour event are available to watch on Youtube if you missed the live stream:
We got special passes down onto the field. (Credit: Luke18)IHOPU students crying out in the rain. (Credit: John DeBeeld)IHOPU students ministering to an attendee. (Credit: John DeBeeld)Todd White releasing faith and fire! (Credit: John DeBeeld)Native American believers prophetically playing traditional drums. (Credit: John DeBeeld)National and global ministry leaders uniting around the cross. (Credit: AzusaNow2016)My home pastor Danny Carroll (white shirt) praying on stage with Jack Hayford and Lou Engle. (Credit: Me!)Testimony from my new friend Rebekah.
The climax of our trip was putting on a Onething regional conference with PIHOP. What is a Onething regional conference? It’s basically a mini version of the big year-end conference that IHOPKC puts on in Kansas City every year. The purpose of these conferences is to call this generation to passionate love for Jesus. This year, some 300 IHOPU students, joined by key speakers and worship leaders from IHOPKC, headed out in teams to seven cities across the country to partner with local ministries to put on seven simultaneous regional conferences.
Laura Hackett Park leading us in worship.Dave Sliker leading a ministry time – yes, that’s Lou Engle standing front and centre of the crowd, on the floor in the corner of the stage.
https://instagram.com/p/1n6K5arZ7K
The conference was held Friday and Saturday, April 17-18. As students, we were assigned to various service teams to help run the event. I served several shifts as an usher as well as a shift on a prophecy team. I loved ushering. To me, ushering is being the “doorkeeper in the house of my God” that Psalm 84:10 speaks of. I get to help keep the room organised and free of distractions so that guests can encounter God–and I also get to be roaming prayer support! Often while I’m ushering, God will put a specific person on my heart, and I will stare at the back of their head and pray that God would do the work in their heart that needs to be done. Sometimes as I’m praying I’ll watch teens go from squirrely to locked in to weeping under the touch of God.
While serving on a prophecy team, I prophesied over a few dozen people who came in turn to sit on chairs in front of me and my two teammates. We would greet them, explain that we prophesy in the spirit of 1 Corinthians 14:3 “edification and exhortation and comfort,” then spend a few moments in prayer asking God what He would have to say. When we’re ready, we speak into a recording device if the person has one, sharing the words or pictures or verses that God has given us to encourage them. It’s intense and scary the first few times, but the fact is that God loves to speak to and encourage His bride. He knows each of us so individually, and He loves to blow our minds with specific words made just for us. We all had many accurate and encouraging words that God used to build up the people in front of us. Some I saw again months later, and they told me they still had my voice on their phones and those words were still a source of encouragement!
Serving on a prophecy team- yes, my “listening to God” face looks super intense!
Our speakers included Cheryl Allen, the director of PIHOP, and Dave Sliker, one of the senior leaders at IHOPKC and one of my favourite IHOPU teachers. They both spoke about God’s heart for California and the call to pursue Him wholeheartedly. Several of my teammates were invited to share personal testimonies of how God has transformed their lives, and God moved powerfully during every session.
One of the most profound occurrences of the conference came Saturday evening. Seb, our student leader, had been feeling a burden to pray for the pure and simple gospel to be preached from the platform, since most of the messages had been directed toward believers. I remember feeling the same thing. On Saturday evening, Dave Sliker spontaneously invited Seb up to pray for the message. Seb came up to pray, but in the middle of his prayer he stopped and began preaching the gospel, calling for the prodigals who had wandered away from God to return home to the Father.
You could have heard a pin drop. No one had that moment planned, but God’s heart was yearning for His children, and His voice broke through as Seb spoke.
After Seb said, “Amen,” Dave Sliker said, “I want us to respond to that call right now. If you feel like that was for you, go to the back right now and meet Seb — Seb, go to the back — and he’s going to pray for you.”
Several people came to the back of the room for salvation as Dave went forward with preaching his message. Seb later described it as “less of an altar call and more of an ‘awkward call,'” but he prayed with them and, as he had with the guy who got saved and baptised earlier that week, started figuring out a way to make a baptism happen. Mott Auditorium where we were meeting has no baptismal or pool of any kind, but with a bit of frantic creativity they got hose and some sort of trough set up and at the end of the night over THIRTY PEOPLE received baptism!
Seb praying/preaching, while another teammate stands ready to share a dream God gave her.Spontaneous baptisms after the conference!
That was the climax of our trip. I feel like I saw the Gospel in action that week. We came back with so many testimonies of outrageous salvations– and let me tell you, that’s not necessarily normal, even for an IHOPU ministry trip. What was different? I don’t know, but we certainly had a large handful of fiery bold evangelists on our team who constantly provoked the rest of us to step out and share the gospel. Our team developed a habit of seizing every opportunity to invite Jesus to break in and set captives free.
Also, we had a very strong team of intercessors praying for us in the prayer room back home in Kansas City. All of the seven teams reported later that they felt unusually covered in prayer, and that prayer covering seemed to produce a unique grace for ministry. We were so grateful for those who chose to stay and pray for us as we went out. Missions does not happen without prayer. We need the goers and the senders– and the senders must do more than open their pocketbooks, but open their mouths in intercession that “the Lord of the harvest [would] send out laborers into His harvest” and that “the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified.” (Luke 10:2, 2 Thessalonians 3:1)
We left for our drive home to Kansas City late Saturday night after the conference ended. It was a hard drive through the night, but in the morning we arrived at the Grand Canyon and got to bask in the glory of creation while singing worship together. It was such a holy, beautiful, and intimate way to wrap up our week-long ministry adventure together as a family.
Family worship at the Grand Canyon.I could not love these people more.
The continuing saga of my IHOPU ministry trip to Pasadena, April 10-20.
I promised there was more of the story to tell… we’re almost done!
On Thursday my team took a “fun day” at the beach in Santa Monica. First, we swarmed an In-N-Out and chowed down on one of California’s greatest treasures: double-doubles, animal style fries, and milkshakes. We crammed around tables outside by the drive through. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.
The rest of the day was spent frolicking in the sand and surf, soaking up the heat of the California sun… I’m not normally a true beach lover, but with the right group of people, the shoreline is to me a little slice of heaven. Picnic dinner under the palms. Santa Monica pier I LOVE THIS TEAM with every fiber of my soul.
My sister even drove out from Riverside to see me and hang out with my people for a while. It was absolutely delightful to see her, and we enjoyed much sisterly frolicking and girl-talking in the shallow waves. Later that evening, my cousin Carly and her boyfriend Mason came to see me as well, and I spent the last couple of hours exploring the shops and catching up with them. Left to right: Elise, me, and Carly. Three silly faces and one mildly bemused Mason face. Nothing like a beach sunset. God bless California.
While I was cruising around with Carly and Mason, a few others on my team had the incredible opportunity to baptise two people in the Pacific ocean! On the first night we were in Pasadena, the brother of one of my teammates came to visit her at the missions base. Our student leader Seb had a prophetic word for him, and hearing God’s voice speak so clearly and personally to him rocked him to the point that they ended up having a lengthy conversation about Jesus. He had known God but his life had kind of become a mess, and that night he clearly heard the Father’s invitation to come home. He surrendered his heart to Jesus, and asked what was next. “You need to be baptised!” Seb boldly explained. “Meet us Thursday at the beach and we’ll baptise you.”
So a few days later, he was baptised in the Pacific ocean. That would be incredible enough, but while they were doing that a random guy on the beach asked what they were doing and asked to be baptised also! Two for the price of on
Just to cap off our beautiful day, my van decided to make a quick detour past Azusa Street in LA on our way back to PIHOP. Azusa Street was the site of a dramatic move of God in 1906 that continued until around 1915 and is credited with the birth of the pentacostal movement. It was incredibly precious to us to be able to stand on the site where God’s presence visited the earth in such a dramatic and tangible way and pray for another outpouring in our own generation. Do it again, Lord.
The continuing saga of my IHOPU ministry trip to Pasadena, April 10-20.
Two months later and there’s still so much more of the story to tell! Wednesday was primarily a prayer room day for us. We started our day with the entire morning in the prayer room at PIHOP, then in the afternoon some of us chose to stay and some chose to go evangelise at Pasadena City College. PCC is the 10th largest community college in the United States. We connected with a Christian campus ministry and split into groups to go talk to students.
Often when I evangelise I waste so much time playing the “I don’t know, what are you feeling?” game. It’s like I think I need direct direction or permission from the Holy Spirit before I can talk to someone about Jesus. However, a while ago I finally decided to get over that and just… talk to people. It’s as simple as that. Just start a conversation, be friendly and casual, don’t be afraid to ask if you can pray, and trust the Holy Spirit to lead it.
My partner and I first talked to a couple of girls waiting for a friend to get out of class. One girl told me that her aunt had died suddenly only a month ago. It was her mom’s only sister. I told her that I could relate, because my aunt, my mom’s only sister, died suddenly a few years ago. I was able to pray with her for peace in her family.
When their friend showed up, we explained we were just visiting the campus, and one of the girls suggested we check out the new art building. Since we had no better direction to follow, plus the fact that I wanted to refill my water bottle (it was HOT!), we decided to take her advice. We wandered through the art building admiring the displays but not engaging with any conversations, but as we came out the other side we saw a girl sitting by herself studying in a courtyard. After discussing whether or not we should interrupt her, we decided to just go for it. We didn’t feel like she was being supernaturally highlighted in a dramatic way, but we both wanted to talk to her, so we decided to just see what would happen.
I asked if we could sit with her, and she was wary at first, then opened up when I explained that we were visiting the campus and just checking things out and talking to students. We chatted for a few minutes about the various programs and opportunities on campus, then my partner asked her what she was reading. Turns out it was a book called Lamb by Christopher Moore, an irreverent satire about Jesus’ childhood. For all its biblical liberties and crass humour, it was provoking some real questions in her. I was able to use that as an on-ramp share with her what the Bible says about the significance of Jesus’ life. I had preached the humility of Christ out of Philippians 2 just a few weeks ago in a class, and so that was the version of the story that came out of me. I talked about God’s desire for and reach for humanity, even though He is so high above the heavens that He has to humble Himself to even look at the created universe (Psalm 113:6), and Jesus’ lowering Himself from that exalted glory to become the lowest of the low, and therefore being worthy of the highest exaltation. I admit, I got a bit overexcited and long-winded, but my partner did a great job of following up by asking questions. The girl admitted she had never heard the gospel shared that way before. She wasn’t comfortable with allowing us to pray for her, but I know God is after her heart and won’t stop pursuing her.
Finally, we met a girl who was already a believer, and was very excited to talk with us about what God was doing on the campus and in the city. We prayed for her, and then she asked to pray for us! She said it was such a huge blessing to run into us. God sure does love to bless His kids!
That night we gathered in the PIHOP prayer room to have an epic prayer rumble for California with their community. When these people do intercession, they don’t mess around. Luckily, IHOPU students can pray as hard as anyone any day of the week. My buddy Joash is a hardcore intercessor with a spirit of prophecy. “God, we cry out for revival in California!”
That night felt very significant for me. The reason you don’t see me in line with the others in the above picture is that I was on the floor sobbing. It’s not often that I cry in intercession, but that night, it hit me hard. When I finally managed to catch my breath well enough to stand up mostly straight and get out several words in a row, I did grab the mic and managed to shout/sob/squeak out a prayer for Christian college campuses in California– APU, Biola, CBU, Pepperdine, Life Pacific, SDCC, Point Loma, etc.
I spent an hour pacing in the prayer room alone after that prayer meeting. “God, what the crap just happened?” I asked over and over. “What does this mean? Are You calling me to California?” God was mostly silent, but it felt like silence with a cheeky little grin. “Spoilers,” I could almost hear Him saying. I didn’t get any of the details I wanted, but I did come face to face with the fact that I do, in fact, have a larger-than-anticipated burden for my home state.
Hmm.
I wonder what that could mean?
The continuing saga of my IHOPU ministry trip to Pasadena, April 10-20.
Life has been very busy since I last wrote. I finished finals for my junior year at IHOPU, left my job at Bed Bath and Beyond, and moved home to California for the summer. I will certainly continue to keep you posted about summer life in Cali, but for now, I want to continue telling the stories of the Pasadena trip. In my last post I told the stories of Tuesday afternoon, when our team did ministry in the city of Azusa. On Tuesday evening, we invaded downtown Hollywood.
First we gathered at the metro station to take the train downtown. We didn’t want to waste even our train ride as an opportunity for evangelism! We partnered with a guy named Chris Evans (not the Captain America actor!) who is a pastor at a church called Expression 58. He works with a ministry called Love L.A. and regularly does an outreach called “Church on the Metro.” This is how we bring church to the metro!
We split into several teams, each including a worship leader on guitar and a speaker. When each group boarded their train, the worship leader started playing and singing loudly and the rest of us joyfully joined in. It was a bit like a church service flash mob! After a while, the speaker would come forward and say, “Welcome to Church on the Metro! You’re to busy to go to church, so we’re bringing church to you! We just want you to know that Jesus loves you and He died to make away for you to live with God…” Most people were either amused or ignored us, but we had some good conversations and got to pray with several people.
As a matter of fact, God orchestrated that train ride to give us as much ministry time as possible. First of all, the train was unusually and inexplicably crowded, and it wasn’t just because we were there. Then, the train stopped underground! We talked to a metro staff member who told us that’s only happened once or twice in his 15 years’ experience. We thank God for our captive audience and made use of the time talking to as many of the locals as we could.
Once we got off the metro into downtown Hollywood, we hit the streets with a bit of travelling intercessory worship. Our goal was simply to bring JOY to the streets. We walked about two miles, singing the most joyful worship songs we could think of as loudly as we could. Worship walking through downtown Hollywood
Our goal wasn’t specifically to evangelise, but God had divine appointments lined up for us all along our path that evening. We met two separate guys, individually, who had just gotten out of jail and had nowhere else to go, so we invited them to join us! We met a number of homeless people and other individuals who were in need of a touch from God. We got to pray for several of the costumed characters walking around downtown, including Tinker Bell, Spider-Man, and Batman (who insisted on being referred to as Bruce Wayne even as we were praying!). We got to talk with several members of a Scientology church, and at least one was deeply touched by some prophetic insight one of our guys was given into her life that showed her the love of the Father.
Most precious to my heart was an encounter several of my teammates had with a particular young woman.
Them: Do you believe in Jesus?
Her: Yes!
Them: Do you believe in the Bible?
Her: Yes!
Them: So you’re a Christian?
Her: No.
Them: …wait, what?
It turns out she was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints – a Mormon – and as they talked to her God began revealing to them some of the secrets of her heart. To her, the church meant constantly striving to be “good enough” to earn His pleasure. This made sense to her because of the relationship she had with her dad, and in her mind, God was no different. The LDS church wasn’t teaching her the true grace available freely in Jesus Christ. She was amazed that our team could prophetically know things about her life, just like Jesus did to the woman at the well (John 4) and Paul talked about (1 Corinthians 14:24-25). She was so touched by the love of God that she surrendered her life to the true Jesus that night!!
The climax of the evening came when we arrived at the historic Grauman’s Chinese Theater. As we were waiting for our vans to pick us up, a guy dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow asked one of our worship leaders to play a song on his guitar. Lance started playing and singing “To Worship You I Live”. We all huddled in a circle and sang, and Captain Jack got very quiet and respectful as he listened.
A moment later, a character dressed (as near as we could figure) as Osama bin Laden pushed his way into our circle and began mocking us, singing loudly, raising his hands, bowing on the ground… and he had an entire crew of professional cameramen with him. (We figured out later that he was part of a popular youtube prank show.)
Our other worship leader Olivia took control of the moment by starting to play and sing “Jesus Paid It All.” Our team quickly joined in. Defeated, Osama bin Laden wandered away to consult his producer and regroup– then came back a moment later and mooned us!! I was so proud of our team in that moment. We all either closed our eyes or looked away, and sang louder.
Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.
You cannot shut us up, Satan. No weapon formed against us will prosper. (Isaiah 54:17)
Osama bin Laden eventually left with his camera crew. We launched into singing the chorus that Olivia had begun that afternoon at one of the Buddhist temples in Azusa, with a fresh Los Angeles twist.
All authority belongs to You, Jesus
You reign in L.A.
You reign in L.A.
As we sang and proclaimed the victory of Jesus over Hollywood, a lot was happening around us. Captain Jack and a number of passersby stopped to apologise for Osama bin Laden’s behaviour and encourage us that we were doing a positive thing that deserved respect. At one point I turned around and saw a man talking with two of my teammates, then hugging both of them tightly and sobbing. I found out later that he had run away from God and was at that moment surrendering his life to Jesus.
The end of that evening was so powerful and completely unplanned. God dropped a bomb on Hollywood that night through the victorious worship of His saints. What the enemy meant for evil, God used for good. (Genesis 50:20)
Jesus loves Hollywood so, so much. It’s a crazy place, and there’s a lot of darkness, but His eye is on that city, and He will not rest until He sets every captive free. We love L.A.! The guy on the left is one of our new friends who joined us, and Chris Evans is behind him.
The continuing saga of my IHOPU ministry trip to Pasadena, April 10-20. Tuesday was probably my favourite day of the entire trip. That was the day we went to Azusa, a town about 20 minutes east of Pasadena. It features lots of Buddhist temples, a small but fiery house of prayer, and the private Christian college I graduated from in 2010… Azusa Pacific University.
“God First Since 1899”
During my time at APU, I spent an hour or so almost every morning in the little campus prayer chapel, praying for revival at the school. I very quickly learned that just because it’s a Christian school doesn’t mean that every student is actually in love with Jesus and committed to walking in the Spirit. I loved so much of what I saw in the heart of APU’s leadership and student body, but I also saw plenty of confusion and darkness and brokenness. I ached for the Holy Spirit to set my campus on fire with fearless love for Jesus and pursuit of genuine holiness.
To give you more insight into the culture of the school I remember, APU students are passionate about authentic community and social justice issues, and they generally excel at listening to and respecting one another’s stories. Micah 6:8 (“To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”) is a life verse for many. The school also has a surprisingly large population of professing non-Christians on campus, as well as a fair number of students who profess to be both LGBT and Christian. (Follow the links for the APU student magazine articles on those situations.) I think of APU as a big, loud, passionate, apathetic, divided, united, servant-hearted, dysfunctional, striving, broken, beautiful, authentic community.
During my final semester, I wrote a song of prophetic intercession for APU. It was originally just a little verse and chorus I used to sing alone in my car, but I dreamed of one day coming back as a worship leader and singing it over the campus, and getting students to join in crying out for their own campus.
When I heard our team would be doing ministry in Azusa, I thoroughly freaked out. I saw the potential for that dream to become a reality, and there was nothing I wanted more than to pray over my school with my IHOPU family. As the trip drew closer and plans started to solidify, I was able to get permission from the alumni office to bring a small team to do some prayer and worship on campus. That in itself was a miracle, and I do not use the word lightly. APU is very careful about which outside ministries they allow on campus, but as an alumnus I was able to get approval without a problem.
Worshipping together at AZHOP
That Tuesday, we spent the morning in the PIHOP prayer room, then travelled in the afternoon to the Azusa House of Prayer. We met the leadership, some of whom I remembered as classmates from years ago, and prayed together for our outreaches that day. One of the AZHOP staff encouraged us to ask God freely for what we wanted to see. Immediately, I knew in my heart that all I wanted to see was APU students encountering the overwhelming love of God. As I prayed that, the tears began to well up and spill out. It was as if every fiery, verbose prayer I had scribbled in my journal during those four years on campus coalesced into one burning desire: I want them to be undone by the love of God.
The 52 of us split up into four teams. One team went to APU, one went to evangelise at a nearby strip mall, one went to pray over several Buddhist temples, and one stayed at AZHOP to intercede for us. All of these teams came back with powerful testimonies about the power of God. The temple team went to four temples and a mosque and prayed at them all. They were able to get into places the AZHOP team had never been able to go, and they worshipped and declared Jesus’ authority in some of the darkest places in Azusa. They even laid hands on and prayed for at least one of the monks, who was very friendly and receptive.
Inside one of those temples, one of our worship leaders sang a spontaneous chorus which would become a theme for us the rest of the week.
All authority belongs to You, Jesus
You reign, You reign
You reign, You reign
Probably the first time worship to Jesus has ever arisen from this room.
At APU, my team and I went to check in at the alumni office, but when we arrived it was closed. Hoping they’d be back from lunch soon, we went to the prayer chapel to brief. I shared my heart for the school and the plan for the afternoon. Out of respect for what APU would welcome on their grounds, we chose not to actively seek out people to pray for in the same way we did at USC. Our goal was simply to bring the kingdom through worship and talk to as many students as God would bring to us.
When we went back to the alumni office, the receptionist had apparently not gotten the memo and didn’t know who we were. I started praying frantically in my heart, and when the director of the alumni office came to greet us, he immediately remembered my phone call and welcomed us warmly: “Please, PRAY. Would you like t-shirts?” So I got a free alumni t-shirt out of it! I wear it proudly as a memento of God’s favour in opening that door for us.
We went out to Cougar Walk, a central eating and study area outdoors on campus, and sat down with a guitar to sing worship over the campus. We kept steady worship going for over two hours, and during that time we also had the opportunity to talk with and pray with several students who came over to meet us. President John Wallace walked by, but he was with someone, or else I would have loved to go introduce myself and pray with him.
Worship on Cougar Walk
The most precious part of the time for me was having the opportunity to sing my song! Since I don’t play guitar, I had taught it to one of our worship leaders that morning, and with his help we released it as a prayer over the campus. We actually ended up singing it twice, because one of the girls with us who is involved with AZHOP asked to hear it again. They may end up using it as part of their intercession times for APU! Before I left, I gave my handwritten chord chart to a student I met who was a worship major and a friend of AZHOP. “Do something good with this,” I told him. And thus was the torch passed. APU will always be my school, but revival will have to start with the current students on campus.
I believe that the spiritual atmosphere over Azusa shifted that day. Our simple songs and words to God are more powerful than we imagine, and I believe we only saw the edges of the impact of our prayers.
Song for APU (Heaven Open Up) We live under the banner of “God First” Teach us to live that life With Christ as our chief cornerstone Let us learn to love Him first No matter the cost So we pray Heaven open up on Your children in Azusa Heaven open up on us From Smith to Trinity and the Shire to U.P. Heaven open up on us Have Your resting place here
The original journal page on which the song was birthed, October 15, 2010
For this year’s spring ministry trips with IHOPU, I had the privilege of going to Pasadena, CA with a team of 52 students and staff! As I wrote previously, it was a ten day trip partnered with the Pasadena House of Prayer that culminated in a Onething Regional conference at the end of the week!
But first, we had to get there.
1668 miles, approximately 30 hours.
We left IHOPU at noon on Friday, April 10, crammed into four 15-passenger vans and towing a U-Haul trailer. We passed the time by filming music videos in our vans and posting them on Facebook. Other trips were posting videos too from their own vans on the road to places like Atlanta and New York, so we all enjoyed challenging each other!
We arrived late that night in Amarillo, TX, where two of our girls are from. Their church and families were gracious enough to host us that night and feed us breakfast the next morning. We were on the road again around 8:00 the next morning.
We drove all day Saturday and were hosted that night by an Assemblies of God church in Needles, CA. Needles is a small town of about 4800 people in the desert on the California-Arizona border. Reportedly it is the second poorest city in California. We had never had any previous contact with this church at all, but we needed a place to stay and just started making phone calls. This church was the first one we talked to and they immediately welcomed us! They let us sleep on the floor in their classrooms and fed us a massive breakfast of bacon and eggs the next day.
We were all amazed at how generouly this church welcomed us. They had never met us, but we were brothers and sisters in Christ and they welcomed us warmly as family. Before we left, we all prayed for them, and then they all prayed for us. God definitely knit our hearts together.
“Love one another with brotherly affection… Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.”
(Romans 12:10a, 13)
Our team Saturday morning with our Needles host church!
On Sunday, we finished our drive and arrived in Pasadena mid-afternoon! We stayed in beautiful dorms at the Venture Center, formerly known as the U.S. Center for World Missions. This 17-acre campus is home to 12 separate ministries living in community together, including the Pasadena House of Prayer. The campus was beautiful, and had plenty of palm trees to feed my palm-starved CaliGirl soul.
Suffering for Jesus in sunny SoCal.
That night we did a bit of exploring on foot downtown on Colorado Blvd and shopped at Forever 21 and Target. I hugged a palm tree, because I wasn’t kidding about the palm-starved soul thing.
For real. This CaliGirl needs her fronds.
We also had a team meeting and shared what our individual goals were for the week. One thing that I shared with the team is that I was so excited to be back in my home region with my IHOPU family. Pasadena is about 40 minutes from my hometown; in fact, we drove directly past MY exit on MY freeway and were less than a mile from my front door. To be able to bring all of them to see and serve my Southern California was a dream come true. I told them that my goal for this week was to recruit them all as intercessors. They won’t all be called to move to California (though some of them may be!) but I hope they all catch God’s heart for the Golden State and continue in prayer for it for a very long time.
Jesus loves Southern California. He really, really does. As Dave Sliker pointed out at the conference later in the week, God has repeatedly visited Southern California in a unique way, from the Jesus Movement to the Azusa Street Revival. I am convinced that He has unique plans in His heart for my home state, and I am so honoured and excited to be a part of it.
Journal prayer Friday, April 3, at our last ministry team intercession set in the prayer room. Song lyrics by Jake Hamilton.
Today, I showed up for my 10:00 am IHOPU class just like usual on a Monday morning with the rest of my junior classmates. Generally at this time the sophomore 8:00 am class would just be getting out, but as I approached the room, I heard music playing and what sounded like someone crying on the mic. I was told that the Spirit was moving and we were welcome to come in, but normal class plans were on hold for the time being.
When I walked into the room, one student was playing softly on piano, and another student was on the mic sharing a tearful testimony. It was really more of a confession of some deep spiritual struggles; he was being incredibly courageous and vulnerable. The whole room was silent aside from quiet weeping. I found myself tearing up as well as this student whom I’ve never even met shared his heart– and I almost NEVER cry.
Today was special. There was something different in the room.
For the next three hours, through all the time our class was supposed to take and then some, one student after another came to the mic to confess and repent of various struggles and sins. It truly was a holy moment. (God bless our teachers for completely setting aside their lessons plans and letting the Holy Spirit have His way!)
There was something so freeing and cleansing about opening up to each other in that way. I had a chance to see my classmates as people- with their own struggles, weaknesses, and fears. I’ve been in class and in the prayer room with all of these people for years, and to hear them get up and say, “For years I’ve struggled with…” really made me realise afresh that we’re all broken. None of us belongs on a pedestal.
We are all so broken and in need of grace.
After each person shared, a group of us gathered around them to pray for them and speak truth over them. We covered each other in the love of the Father who was so tenderly embracing us, individually and corporately.
His nearness was so sweet.
As I left the class-that-wasn’t-a-class and went about my day, I felt deeply cleansed and freed from the pressure of holding myself together. I don’t have to hold myself together. I don’t have to hide the shame of my struggles. I can bring them into the light and let them get washed away by the healing presence of God expressed through His people.
The sophomore class in which this movement was sparked was a class on revival history. They had been studying how every great revival of history had corporate repentance of sin as a key element.
When we pray for revival, usually we mean the healings, the dramatic salvations, the “fire.” YES and amen to all of that!
But that isn’t where it starts.
God is after the heart. He is after people broken in humility and dependence before Him, clinging to the cross with full realisation that it’s their only hope. And it doesn’t start with those we’re trying to reach. It starts with us.
“If my people who are called by my name
humble themselves,
and pray and seek my face
and turn from their wicked ways, then
I will hear from heaven
and will forgive their sin
and heal their land.”
(2 Chronicles 7:14)
The big point that I felt God hitting amongst us was pride. As one of my classmates said today, if God gives us powerful revival, but we’re still stuck in our pride, it will actually draw us away from God rather than to Him. We’ve got to get ourselves out of the way. He’s the only one who belongs on the throne.
Pride robs Jesus of His rightful glory. Jesus’ mercy can’t be glorified if we insist on acting like we’ve got it all together. His power is made perfect in weakness, but we’re often too busy saying “What weakness? I’m awesome!” and then we crash and burn when we realise we’re not.
Repentance is a chance to throw ourselves again on God’s mercy and receive His lavish love. It’s not about us trying harder to fix ourselves. As another classmate shared, God says to us, “I died so that this conversation wouldn’t be about you.” When we come to Him to confess, we’ve simply got to get our eyes off of us and onto the cross, where the blood of Jesus really does cover us completely. He really does see us as holy. He really does delight in us!
None of us expected what happened this morning, but the Holy Spirit moved so strongly on our hearts. We wept, we confessed, we embraced, we covered each other, and we renewed our desire to press on in loving Jesus together.
In less than two weeks, we go out on our ministry trips. We all felt strongly that God is refining and purifying us so that He can use us on these trips.
Please pray for us, that God would continue the good work that He started, that we would be sensitive to the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and that God would strengthen us together as a family to carry His kingdom in humility wherever He leads.
“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”
(James 5:16)
“Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.”
(Acts 3:19)
As part of our House of Prayer Leadership practicum, my class (some 50-80 of us) is leading two hours of prayer and worship on campus at the University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC) several Friday mornings this semester, taking turns by our small groups. We prayed for the “word of the Lord to run swiftly” (1 Thessalonians 3:1) through the campus, for strengthening for believers, and for salvation for unbelievers. We’re partnering with Luke18 Project, a nationwide campus ministry that seeks to establish a culture of prayer and worship on every college campus.
During the second hour of our prayer meeting, a number of students went out to evangelise on campus. I later heard one of the testimonies… my friend Elijah sat down with a UMKC student from India studying computer science. Over a 40 minute conversation, “what are you studying?” led to “what is the purpose of your life?” to which the student had no answer. Elijah shared his own testimony of purpose and transformation, and this student was intrigued by the claims of Jesus. He wants to give his life to Christ, but doesn’t want to make a commitment without giving it some serious thought first. They are going to continue to meet to discuss Christianity. Please pray that the Holy Spirit settles every fear and draws him into the love of Jesus unto salvation!
I’ve really felt an increased burden among IHOPU students this year for praying for revival on college campuses. Our generation of young adults is thirsty for truth, purpose, and love. We’ve been disillusioned by some of the things in our past, whatever they might be, and we’re ready to throw our lives into something bigger than ourselves. History testifies that every major social movement has begun in this age bracket. The harvest is ripe on college campuses across our nation.Are we willing to labour with the Lord in prayer and outreach to see them brought into their rightful place in the Kingdom? (Read more on “Why College Campuses?” from Luke18.)
This Friday, it’s my group’s turn to lead the meeting. It’s such a joy and honour to proclaim the glory of Jesus over this school, and to cry out that He would have His inheritance. I’m looking forward to what God will do!
Hi, all! I meant to get this blog up much earlier this week, but I came home to a book to finish reading and an accompanying 500 words to write on it, an outline of Acts to write, discussion posts online to complete, shifts to work, classes to attend, my country’s 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder and Guilder to frame for it.* I was swamped.
I’ve done mission trips before, but they’ve always been very service oriented. Never before have I been on a trip specifically focussed on prayer and strengthening the church. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I loved discovering the power of simply coming to encourage. Even when I felt like I had nothing to give, just being in the room praying with my Chicago brothers and sisters was powerful, and they were touched and strengthened to keep doing what they are called to.
We left KC around 6:00 a.m. on Sunday, April 6, and arrived in Chicago in time to join some students of Moody Bible Institute for their Sunday night prayer meeting. Though we were exhausted, it was an honour to join with them to cry out for revival on their campus and in their city. I met two girls named Jessica and Jung who were my prayer partners throughout the rest of the week, and we’re still in touch and praying for each other.
On Monday we spent our morning as we did every day, spending “family time” together in the mansion that hosted us most of the time. (Half our team stayed there, and the rest of us were spread out over a few other host homes, also very large and hospitable.) And when I say “mansion,” that’s no exaggeration, y’all. It’s in Hinsdale, a very affluent suburb of Chicago, and is owned by a former NFL legend. The Von Trapp mansion came to mind more than once. I lost count of the number of rooms and staircases in this place. The family wasn’t there, but the people who took care of us were exceptionally hospitable. (And in Chicago, hospitality apparently equals FOOD. We ate so much on this trip…)
That night we went to Northwestern University to pray and worship with them at the Rock, a campus landmark that according to tradition students may guard for 24 hours for the privilege of painting it to promote any cause or event they choose. These students were guarding it in order to paint it for the Veritas Forum, at which a Christian, a Jew, and an atheist discussed the role of faith on a secular campus. (Read Northwestern’s report of the event HERE.)
On Tuesday morning during our family time we had a very special opportunity to minister to some leaders of Young Life. Some of the main leaders of the campus youth ministry organisation allowed us to pray and prophesy over them, and the Holy Spirit really moved and touched them.
That night most of us went to lead a prayer and worship night at a church, but I and three others went to a prayer meeting held by some Loyola students in a small living room downtown. It was casual, intimate, honest, and passionate. These students had a deep desire to see the Holy Spirit move in their community, and they prayed for many by name to be saved.
Wednesday was our day to see the city. We walked from Moody to the Bean in downtown Chicago, and from there we scattered to explore and sightsee. We finished up the night with ice cream and games to one of our host homes. I love my team. I don’t know when I last laughed that hard.
Downtown with my new friend Jung (with others from our team posing in the background!)
Thursday evening after stuffing our bellies with real deep dish Chicago pizza from Giordano’s, we hosted an intercollegiate prayer meeting at a church. I had the privilege of singing with the worship team as we led worship and prayer for two hours with the harp and bowl model.
Intercollegiate prayer meeting
Friday and Saturday were our 24-hour prayer “burn” from 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.. This was an event called Illuminate Chicago put on by the Chicago Prayer Network, a coalition of local churches dedicated to prayer and unity, and we were only there to support them. I was on the night watch for the burn, so I was at the church from 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. (plus our set up time). I slept till about 1:00 p.m., and came back for the closing of the burn from 4:00 to 8:00.
This was such a beautiful event to watch because it wasn’t about IHOPKC coming in and taking over and leading. It was the local churches — the Body of Christ in that city — that were taking the tools we had given them in years past, making them their own, and running with them. Around 20 churches came together for this, and many churches provided worship teams and prayer leaders to carry the torch two hours at a time, just like we do in the prayer room in Kansas City. IHOPU only led three sets out of the whole 24 hours.
Over and over, I kept looking at the room, breaking out in a huge grin, and whispering to Jesus, “CHICAGO IS PRAYING!”
IHOPU team leading the final set
It was such a privilege to be in the room keeping the fire on the altar (Leviticus 6:13) with and for Chicago for those 10 hours overnight. I was praying for strength simply to stay awake, and God more than came through. At first I was praying and singing and pacing almost the entire time, and I was recruited to sing on the 4:00 a.m. worship set, which the leader decided to make a worship with the word set instead of an intercession set like most of the other teams were doing. I spent 4:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. singing through Psalm 84.
“How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God… For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.”
(Psalm 84:1-2, 10a)
As I was leaving this trip and coming home, my heart was overwhelmed with the goodness of God and the vastness of His purposes. My heart has been knit to the city of Chicago, and I know I will be praying for Moody, Northwestern, Loyola, and the churches of the Chicago Prayer Network for a long time. So often it’s easy for me to get into my little Kansas City bubble and miss what God’s doing all in different cities all over the world. He is stirring up His people to pray. He is putting a burning desire for revival in them. Jesus is building His church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18)
*These last four items may or may not be facetious. Just in case anyone was confused.
Today, I showed up for my 10:00 am IHOPU class just like usual on a Monday morning with the rest of my junior classmates. Generally at this time the sophomore 8:00 am class would just be getting out, but as I approached the room, I heard music playing and what sounded like someone crying on the mic. I was told that the Spirit was moving and we were welcome to come in, but normal class plans were on hold for the time being.
