The Beauty of Hiddenness

At The Prayer Room, anyone who can play a few chords and is willing pretty quickly becomes a worship leader. That’s the nature of a small house of prayer. Many of us are in that boat, including me. Others… WOW. One guy in particular is crazy talented. Like, dang. He’s basically TPR’s Matt Gilman. I would confidently throw him up on a Onething conference stage in front of 30,000 people and he would rock the house no problem.

And yet, day after day he’s playing and singing in an empty room in a rented church in Arlington, Texas.

One day while I was in his set (I was literally ushering an empty room) I was blown away by this picture of hiddenness. He wasn’t holding back or singing halfheartedly because his audience was lacking. He wasn’t singing for any audience but One. As God started showing me what He sees in this moment, I almost felt like I was intruding on something private and sacred.

The great heavenly chorus of “HOLY HOLY HOLY” pales in comparison to the way one human voice lifted in an empty room captivates Jesus’ heart.

There really is such a beauty in hiddenness. There’s a purity in undistracted worship–in secret faithfulness.

“And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
(Matthew 6:4, 6, 18)

It reminds me of David’s years of preparation, singing to the Lord alone while watching his father’s sheep. I think God cherished those songs even more than He did the songs that came out of David’s amply-staffed 24/7 tabernacle later on.

And of course, it reminds me even more of Jesus–who was in the very form of God yet emptied Himself to take the form of a servant. (Philippians 2:5-11) He hid his own glory so thoroughly for 33 years–and especially for the first 30 before His ministry began. Even today, He hides Himself. He who will one day split the sky and appear in the clouds like lightning flashing from the east to the west (Isaiah 64:1, Matthew 24:27-30) goes unnoticed and unconsidered by billions of people every single day.

Many of us feel hidden right now. Many of us feel like we have something to offer, and we’re stuck in a back corner somewhere, because it’s not our season yet.

Guess what. If you love Jesus well in the corner, He’ll treasure it forever. He may have been the one who put you there. Maybe He wants your undistracted gaze just a little while longer. It’s a beautiful thing to be alone in an empty room singing to Jesus. All the best leaders in history did their time in obscurity… and many of the most faithful ones, whose names we’ll never know until heaven, spent their whole lives in hiddenness. What kind of glory are they swimming in now?

Holy hiddenness is a beautiful thing, because you can lock your heart fully on Jesus and know He’s the one who hears your song. He’s the one who counts your secret faithfulness as a personal offering of love. It doesn’t matter whether anyone else ever sees you. He sees, and He loves every moment.

Lauren worship leading the 7-9pm set on a Thursday night.
“It’s the joy of being lovesick…” Lauren worship leading the 7-9pm set on a Thursday night.

Updates and Testimonies and $50,000… what?!

It’s been quite an exciting few weeks in Dallas on my externship with The Prayer Room! Here are a few highlights:

TPR collage w captions
(Oops… that little princess’ name is spelled Madilynn!)

1528707_597173963695449_443930012_nI do want to especially highlight that last happening. Jake Hamilton, a worship leader from my hometown whose music and ministry have been impacting me since high school, came to Dallas to play at a coffee shop as a benefit for Unlikely Heroes, a nonprofit for the restoration of human trafficking victims. It was a joy to catch up with him briefly, and it was an honour to support their efforts to house and restore these girls. I’d encourage you to check out Unlikely Heroes at unlikelyheroes.com and help however you can!

Okay, MAJOR testimony and prayer request…

Something very exciting has been happening in the life of The Prayer Room as a whole. A few months ago, God started talking to the community about moving to a new building, and He had a particular place in mind. He did a miracle to get them the building, but then the real struggle began. Remodelling has been a little bit like the Cary Grant movie “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House” – nothing has gone to plan and everything is expensive.

Original artist's rendering of the new building
Artist’s original rendering of the new building

God has broken in in major ways for us already. A few months ago, this happened: (Seriously, no excuses, you need to watch the video.)

God gave us $50,000 in cash as a surprise, anonymous donation!!

Our director, Brad, found a basket of cash in the prayer room one morning. That allowed us to get the remodel project off the ground.

Soon enough, we hit another series of roadblocks that made it impossible for us to continue paying our contractors. Work was at a virtual standstill, until…

God gave us $50,000 in cash as a surprise, anonymous donation!!

Yep, you read that right; there’s not a glitch in the Matrix. Brad and his wife found a gift bag of cash on the back porch of their home just a couple of weeks ago. God did it again and now we have enough money to get a certificate of occupancy and be in the building by early October!!

However… we still need another $50,000 to pay off our debt and get the basic furnishings we need to make the new building fully functional. As a community, we’re all daily pressing in in prayer for God to break in again. We’re also asking Him to bring us more monthly partners so we can be financially stable on a monthly basis.

Please pray with us for continued financial breakthrough. God has spoken and done so much to make it so clear that He really, really wants to place us in this building. Only He can do it!

This will be the lobby of the new building.
This will be the lobby of the new building.
This will be the prayer room of the new building. The stage will be in that right corner.
This will be the prayer room of the new building. The stage will be in that right corner.

Hellooooo, Dallas!

…Or Rather, Arlington!

(… but I’m still gonna sometimes say I’m in Dallas, since Arlington is in the Dallas area. Therefore, “Hellooooo, Stonehenge!” … er, Dallas.)

On Wednesday night, the day before I left, my family, including cousins and significant others, had dinner together and helped me pack my car. They even laid hands on me and prayed for me to send me off with a blessing. My family is so wonderful.

Road trippin'.
Road trippin’.

Bright and early on Thursday morning, I drove off toward Texas. It was an eleven hour drive, and I didn’t want to actually take the time to stop for meals, so I munched on fruit and crackers (and maybe some chocolate) and arrived in El Paso around 8:30 pm. I spent the night with a friend named Lauren who was a leader in my One Thing Internship in 2012, and then a classmate and friend in IHOPU. She did her externship in Dallas last year, and in the next few weeks will be returning to join staff at The Prayer Room! It’s so much fun to get to still be with her after all this time. (And she’s a Whovian, so she’s gonna be my Doctor Who series 9 buddy when it premiers!)

I left El Paso early Friday morning and drove nine hours to Arlington, where I met the couple I’ll be living with: Andrew and Lauren, and their seven-month-old (as of today!) daughter Madilynn, who is the cutest baby one could ever dream of. I have a bedroom, bathroom, and even a fridge to myself, and the family is super sweet. Brad Stroup, the director of The Prayer Room, came over with his wife and two daughters, so I got to meet three adorable younglings in one day! Brad was crazy excited to see me (when is that man not crazy excited about something?) and the following Instagram picture ensued:

I promise I’m normally a bit more photogenic. But it’s okay, because Brad and I are both SUPEREXCITEDERMAHGERSH!!!!1!

Brad also told me that the house I’m living in is the very one that they bought to first house The Prayer Room when they graduated from prayer meetings in Brad’s living room years ago. They’ve remodeled since then, but I am so honoured to be literally sleeping in the place that was once the house of prayer. I feel like that means Jesus’ eyes are on this building in a very special way. 😉 I think He’s definitely nostalgic about the building just like we as humans are, because I know He remembers those early days with great fondness.

I just ran around town and did some grocery and Target shopping, and tonight I’m having my first official externship thing in the form of a meeting with Lisa, my externship supervisor here on the base, and then I’m going to TPR’s Saturday night Encounter service!

I’m so excited I get to spend four months with these people serving in their prayer room and learning everything I can from them. This is a beautiful, beautiful community like a city set on a hill, and I am expecting God to do great things this semester. For more information, check out my The Prayer Room FAQ page.

Keeping the Fire on the Altar in DFW

Over the weekend of November 7-9, I drove down to Arlington, TX (Dallas-Ft. Worth area) to visit a ministry called The Prayer Room (TPR)TPR is a small house of prayer compared to IHOPKC, but reportedly it’s the fourth largest in the US. They operate with mostly volunteer staff, though some are full-time missionary staff, and have live worship and prayer 18 hours a day (5 am – 11 pm) 7 days a week. Like IHOPKC, they have a vision for the prayer movement being strategic in God’s plan of global preparation for Jesus’ return.TPR DFW
I first encountered TPR in the spring when their director Brad Stroup and a few of their staff came to IHOPU to speak at our externship expo. I fell in love with their heart immediately. As Brad was sharing their vision, he passionately emphasised the fact that Jesus is worthy of night and day adoration, and shared the story of a word he received from God a number of years ago: “Start a daily prayer meeting tomorrow morning at 5:00 a.m. and don’t stop until I come back.” And thus daily 5:00 a.m. prayer meetings began, and hours have only ever increased since.

They came back in the fall for our next externship expo, and this time I was able to have a late meeting with them after Friday evening EGS service. We planned to go to a coffee shop, but it closed at nine so we met instead at a Burger King! We had a great talk getting to know each other over milkshakes and it seemed they connected with me as strongly as I connected with them.

TPR offers preview weekends to groups of IHOPU students who want to come down and experience their ministry for a few days. I went with eight other IHOPU students and they hosted us splendidly! The entire community was so gracious. They paid for most of our gas, put us up in host homes, fed us deliciously, took us hiking, and really expended effort to know us and to allow us to know them.

TPR externs and staff with visiting IHOPU students on a giant Texas-shaped Texas flag. (I'm fourth from the left.)
TPR externs and staff with visiting IHOPU students on a giant Texas-shaped Texas flag. (I’m fourth from the left.)
The Prayer Room
Saturday morning in the prayer room

Since I am used to the 2000+ community of IHOPKC, TPR felt small indeed. Most of their worship sets have just one person playing and singing, and often there are only a few people in the room. On Saturday morning, I was sitting in the room while one girl played and sang to Jesus on piano, and it was forcing me to ask whether I really believe in this enough to do it when I don’t have the full support structure of IHOPKC around me.

As I sat in the orange pews, I watched the small candle suspended over the altar in the front of the room. The flame was small, but it was steady and it was real. I felt God saying to me, “Yes, it’s small, but they’re doing it. They’re keeping the fire on the altar. (Leviticus 6:13) My heart is so moved by this.”

The answer is YES. I believe in this. I didn’t say yes to the prayer movement for IHOPKC; I said yes for Jesus. This is real, whether it’s in a huge globally broadcast 24/7 prayer room in Kansas City, or in a small rented sanctuary with just a faithful few in orange pews in Arlington, Texas.

I decided that weekend that this is where I’m going to spend my fall semester next year serving on my externship. I even told Brad that I’m hoping to be able to lead worship! (Gulp.) I felt so at home there, and I can’t imagine a better place to spend three months learning how to take ownership of a small house of prayer and even how to plant one in the future! God is doing big things in Texas, and I want to be part of the story God is telling there.

If you’re an IHOPU student interested in visiting The Prayer Room DFW for a preview weekend, please talk to me, or contact TPR directly via their website: theprayerroomdfw.com