2005 Year-End Report

Wow! 2005 was a wild year! We saw a ton of miracles, healings and salvations and we also had the privilege of planting a bunch of churches and seeing many lives transformed by the power of the gospel. Looking over the year and what I’ve written in this blog, it reads almost like a novel. There are knives, threats, riots, tears, joy, miracles, healings and story after story of the impossible made possible and heaven coming to earth.

Here are a few of the highlights:

“But when John heard in the prison of the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples. And they said to Him, Are You he who should come, or do we look for another? Jesus answered and said to them, Go and tell John again those things which you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear; the dead are raised, and the poor have the gospel proclaimed to them.” Matthew 11:2-5


THE BLIND RECEIVE THEIR SIGHT
We saw more than a few blind eyes opened this year. This was new to us. We had seen one here or there, but many people with severe eye injuries, cataracts, macular degeneration and chronic blindness were healed this year. They all went on their way testifying to the power of God.


THE LAME WALK
Crutches, casts, canes and wheelchairs became unnecessary this year as the lame walked! Several times this year, we had the privilege of seeing a formerly lame person walk away, pushing their own wheelchair! There was a special anointing for broken bones, severe sprains, muscle diseases and tendon/ligament problems this year. It seems like almost everyone we prayed for with a broken bone or severe sprain was instantly healed! We captured a couple of “trophies” (casts, canes and crutches) and our goal is to decorate our church sanctuary with tons of miracle paraphernalia.


THE LEPERS ARE CLEANSED
We didn’t actually run into anyone with leprosy this year, but we did see many STD’s, liver diseases and chronic ailments disappear by the power of God this year. Many with Hepatitis C, Lupus and Cancer received miraculous healings. There is a peculiar anointing for cancers and liver diseases. While we didn’t see everyone we prayed for with cancer and liver diseases healed, there was a marked increase in our “hit rate” in these two areas. We are pressing in to have a “cancer free” anointing where 100% of everyone we pray for with cancer in instantly healed!


THE DEAF HEAR
God opened quite a few deaf ears this year. People with hearing loss, from 20% - 90% received their hearing back by the power of God. Many with tinnitus or ringing in the ear no longer have that pesky ringing. One, a Vietnam War vet, received hearing that he lost thirty years ago!


THE DEAD ARE RAISED!
This year was a landmark for us in that we saw our first “Dead Raising”; a little newborn baby that was stillborn came back to life as a young mommy in our church prayed. Also, we saw another miracle where a baby that was certified dead in the womb came back to life as someone who was in a meeting with Pastor Marc prayed for God to resurrect the child. The baby was recently delivered perfectly healthy!


THE POOR HAVE THE GOSPEL PROCLAIMED TO THEM
When we started this year, we had one neighborhood that we were meeting in regularly with new believers. At the end of this year, we are now in 14 neighborhoods in and around Woodstock, discipling new believers and growing house churches. These are primarily low income neighborhoods and the folks we are ministering to are the poor of our community. During the winter months, we will be pouring into these home fellowships, maturing these new believers to be a resource to their families and communities.

There is a special anointing on the Spanish speaking community around Woodstock, as dozens have given their lives to the Lord. It is our goal for 2006 to establish a Spanish speaking Apostolic Resource Center here in Woodstock, where Spanish speaking believers can be equipped and released into the harvest field of Woodstock and beyond!


2006, AND BEYOND…
We’re just getting started! Our team is growing as more believers from our church and our city realize that their lives aren’t to be lived unto themselves! They are discovering that the ultimate in living is in giving away what they possess in Jesus, namely, the power of God. Our goal for 2006 is to have 50 house churches in and around Woodstock and ultimately we want to have a house church in every neighborhood in our community.

The Lord recently spoke to us that we were to start equipping the willing remnant in the body of Christ. In 2006, we are planning a “Power School” type internship program where new recruits will come out with us on the streets for an extended period of time (8 – 20 weeks) planting churches, discipling believers, healing the sick and working miracles. It won’t be classroom teaching, but rather a real life, “live fire” experience. We’ll be starting the program with a mandatory “Boot Camp” in April. Stay tuned for more information.

Here’s to an amazing 2006! - Ryan

The “Bag of Miracles”

There has been a lot going on lately. We have been in the neighborhoods, building up new believers and working with our house churches. This last weekend we took a group down to Macon, Georgia for a few meetings and then some time out on the street. In the meetings, we saw about 20 instant miracles with people being healed from back pain, neck pain and long term injuries, most of them instantly. That’s always cool, when it works inside the building. Then, when we took a group out to a local mall and theater where we had several healings, lots of the prophetic flowing and even an encounter with a rowdy group of kids. We even got a “trophy”, a neck brace that a lady with a neck injury was wearing. She didn’t need it after she got instantly healed in the mall, so we asked her and she gave it to us! It was just like home!

A couple of months ago, we had a guy named Brad McClendon down with us from North Carolina. When he was here, he spoke about a “bag of miracles” that he had seen in the spirit. It was similar to the miracles and signs and wonders that followed the ministry of John Wimber. We prayed and received the “bag of miracles” that night he was here and the miracles that have been happening in the church and out on the road are just too good to keep to ourselves. Most of the time, I don’t even talk about the miracles and healings that have been happening in our meetings, but these are good!


SPIRIT OF DEATH STOPPED IN ITS’ TRACKS!
Here's a cool testimony from something that started 3 years ago… 3 years ago, Pastor Marc was ministering in a church in Gastonia, North Carolina. While visiting, he prayed over a prayer cloth for a lady who had suffered through 10+ miscarriages at that point and thought she could never get pregnant. Well, they did have one more miscarriage but got pregnant 9 months ago and had the baby this week and went home from the hospital yesterday. It was their 12th attempt! They had the pastor of the church call because they wanted Pastor Marc to know that they believe it was the anointed prayer cloth that stopped the spirit of death from operating and brought new life in their baby, who they finally brought home this week.


THE BLIND SEE AND THE DEAF HEAR!
These are a couple of testimonies from a recent ministry trip that Pastor Marc made to a church in LaGrande, Oregon.

A 58 year old Vietnam vet was at the meeting who had lost over 80% hearing in his right ear and 40% in his left ear and was nearly deaf. After prayer, the next week he received a phone call and instead of putting the phone to his working left ear, he put it to his non working right. He discovered he could hear perfectly in both ears!

An older lady was also in the meeting who had vision loss in both eyes but especially in one. Later that week she was to go to an eye doctor to see what they could do for her vision and the Ophthalmologist discovered her eyesight was perfectly normal and didn't understand how it could have changed so drastically! She can see fine!


DEAD BABY LIVES!
This is the testimony from a Pastor in LaGrande, Oregon, where Pastor Marc was just ministering:

I wanted to tell you about an amazing miracle that happened here recently. Tiffany (from youth group...shorter & fiery red hair) heard some rumors about a friend of hers being pregnant. When she asked her about it, the girl was very upset b/c she had just found out that she had many cysts on her ovaries and that they could not find the babies heartbeat and that the baby was dead. Tiffany talked to her and then prayed for her that cysts would be gone and the baby would live. When the girl when to a specialist so they could figure out how to flush the fetus out of her body they first did an ultrasound and found that not only were her ovaries just fine with no cysts but the baby was alive and well...well enough to not hold still for the ultrasound!

Jesus is alive!


You can always check out these and more miracles that are happening in our church by following this link.

Motivation

I have written before on “Why I Do What I Do”, but there is more to it than just the wonderful experience of changed lives and house churches. The truth is, we have had several memorable encounters on the streets that have changed us. These are the encounters I normally tell new folks coming out with us. It gives them an immediate sense of the seriousness and importance of what we are doing and encourages faithfulness. It’s also incredibly sobering.


ENCOUNTER #1
We had been in the neighborhoods a couple of months when we went by a little house on the main drag of our first neighborhood. When we knocked on the door, a couple kids came to the window. They were Hispanic and couldn’t speak great English so we told them, “El Reino De Dios, esta aqui!” (The Kingdom of God is at hand). They motioned for an older teenager to come to the door. He spoke good English and we began to talk. He told us that they were believers and they understood what we were saying. In a few minutes, the whole family (Five kids and a Mommy) were standing at the door, listening to what we said. We told them of the miracles and healings we were seeing in their neighborhood and asked them if there was anything we could pray for. The older teenager was translating this for us and all of a sudden, everyone in the family starts to tear up as he tells them about the miracles and healings. I ask what was wrong and he begins to tell me, “I wish you had come by just a few weeks ago, because our Dad died three weeks ago from a brain tumor.”

It turns out that their Dad was a Pastor, with five kids and a little wife and he had just died three weeks before, of a disease that we had the cure for! The worst part is, we were in his neighborhood and God was healing and performing miracles for his neighbors while he was on his deathbed! We went on to console them and prayed for the whole family and that was good, but the experience really stuck with me. What it showed me is that you never know what people are going through. All of the slammed doors in our face and the difficulties of preaching door to door don’t compare with that dying daddy on his deathbed, with his five kids gathered around. Every door we knock on is one closer to finding that impossible situation that Jesus can invade!


ENCOUNTER #2
We had been in the neighborhoods about six months and were in a new area close to the church. We came upon a house with a little boy who was about 4 years old, riding his bike up and down the driveway. His proud daddy was out there watching him go up and down, up and down the driveway. He had a ponytail and looked to be in his late thirties or early forties. We walked up to him, greeted him and shook his hand. I told him, “Listen, we’re here to tell you that Jesus is King and His Kingdom is on the earth!” He looked at us and said, “What’s that mean?” I told him, “Is there anyone in your house who is sick? We’ll show you what that means by bringing healing to this house.” Immediately his eyes started to water and his face got flushed. He looked at the ground and then back at us and said, “Not anymore”. I knew what he meant, and went straight to tears, but the couple others who were with me didn’t quite understand. So I asked him, “What happened?” He said, “My wife died this time last year of liver disease and left me without a wife and left my little boy without a mommy.” I looked over at the four year old and lost it. I couldn’t even imagine a little 3 year old kid having to get by without his mommy. My new friend and I just wept together. All I could do was say, “I am so sorry, Jesus could have healed your wife, but we didn’t get here in time”.

The back story is that for the last two and a half years, our church had been no more than half a mile from his doorstep. As he spoke to us, I was imagining the conferences, the meetings and the powerful worship and intercession that went on in our building. I was remembering all of the healings we had seen over the last couple of years in our church building, especially healings of liver disease. I was thinking about all of that power released in prayer and in worship. I was thinking about people having visions and seeing angels in our building. I was thinking about all of the powerful prophecy released in our meetings. I specifically thought about the prophecies about taking God outside of the church and about the coming street revival.

I then thought about how all of that power and all of that glory meant absolutely nothing to this man and his family. I thought about how the impact of our meetings hadn’t reached this family less than half a mile from our door. I thought about how the Lord told us to go and give away what we had freely received. I thought about how selfish it was to keep it to ourselves and I made a quality decision that day. I decided that as far as I was concerned, every bit of power, glory and the Presence of God that was released in our meetings would be distributed to our community. I decided that every touch from heaven would result in souls saved and the sick healed in the neighborhoods surrounding our church. I decided that I never, ever wanted to hear again, “Not anymore”.

“And as you go, proclaim, saying, The kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. You have received freely, freely give.” Matthew 10:7, 8

Blind Eyes Opened and Miracle Weight Loss!

Wow, what a long weekend! We just finished a conference here at our church. The whole theme of the conference was “God – Out of the Box”. And to illustrate the theme of the conference, this week we had a couple of wild miracles that were totally “out of the box”.

OUR “POOL OF BETHESDA”
My buddy Brian from Oklahoma City was in town to hang out with on the streets with us and attend the conference while he was in town. One of his (and our) favorite places is a local hospital where there is a big open courtyard where lots of poor and sick people hang out. To coin a Top Gun phrase, it’s a “target rich” environment for the Kingdom of God to invade. Anyway, we were down there praying for folks and prophesying and had a couple of cool God encounters.

One lady came out of the hospital, hobbling down the sidewalk, obviously in pain. We asked her what was wrong and she told us that she was in horrible pain and they had just diagnosed her with two slipped discs. We told her about the Kingdom of God and how the Lord would heal her and asked if we could pray. We prayed and then asked her how she felt. She noticed a big difference in the pain and mobility, but it wasn’t completely gone so we prayed again. In a couple of minutes, she went from being in pain, hunched over and hobbling to beaming with joy, without pain and walking normally! She walked away thrilled at what Jesus had done for her.

SURPRISE!
We walked by an elderly woman in a wheelchair, being pushed by a younger woman that we later found out to be her daughter. We asked the older lady why she was in the wheelchair and she told us that she had severe asthma that caused her to lose her breath when she would walk, thus confining her to the chair. We told her about the Kingdom of God and asked if we could pray for her. She agreed and while praying, my buddy Brian got a word of knowledge and asked her if she had diabetes. She nods yes. So we go to work, calling the fire and power of God to heal the asthma and drive out diabetes and suddenly her eyes opened up real wide. Right in front of our eyes, we watched her eyes go from a milky blue to a bright, clear blue. She started exclaiming, “I can see! I can see!” Brian and I looked at each other and asked her, “What’s going on with your eyes?” She starts saying, “The sky is blue! The sky, it’s so blue!” Come to find out, she had cataracts and couldn’t see, but as we prayed for the asthma and diabetes, the Lord opened her eyes! I guarantee you that we were as surprised as she was! We’re getting used to seeing God answer prayer, but it’s a new experience for God to heal someone of something we weren’t even asking for!

Pretty “Out of the Box”, but the next one really floored us.

MIRACLE WEIGHT LOSS
Before I tell this story, a little background might be appropriate. About a year ago, I was meditating on the scripture that tells us, “All things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). The Lord interrupted me and simply said, “Why don’t you seek me for the grace to re-grow hair and miracle weight loss?” I was surprised to say the least, but thought about what He said. I remembered stories from the ministry of A.A. Allen and how there were eyewitnesses to a woman losing 100lbs. in a prayer line! I also remembered the stories I had heard from the revival in Argentina of how the Lord was putting gold teeth in people in the middle of a bar! I decided that God was God and could do anything we asked Him to. I also decided that we were probably not seeing these kinds of things because we weren’t asking Him for them! (James 4:2)

So I started asking God to do anything He wanted to do, even crazy stuff like weight loss and hair growth! Think about it, if you had a proven track record of miracle hair growth and miracle weight loss, the world would be beating down your door and you could give them the Gospel! Remember, shrewd as serpents, innocent as doves? Since then, I have yet to see hair growth, but I have had two people tell me that after I prayed for them about other things, they had an unusual grace on them and started losing weight like mad! And I’m a fat guy!

Back to the story…

Earlier in the week, we went to visit some believers in a neighborhood we have been in several times before. We met up with a girl that we hadn’t seen for about a month and started asking how she was. Last month, we had the awesome privilege of leading her to Jesus. Her story was remarkable in that she had suffered a bunch of sexual abuse at the hands of her father and several other men. She was emotionally devastated and totally wrapped up in anger and unforgiveness. We spoke to her about the Lord’s forgiveness and she gave her life to Jesus and got powerfully delivered from the anger and bitterness. What we didn’t know and just found out is that after she met the Lord and we went home, she got on the phone and confronted all of the men that had raped and abused her, even her father. While she was on the phone, she released forgiveness, let go of her anger and told us that she felt 100lbs. lighter! That’s not unusual as we have seen many people after deliverance remark that they felt lighter.

What was unusual is what happened over the next thirty two days. We had not had the chance to meet up with her in a little over a month and finally got in touch with her. When we met with her, her voice was different, her countenance was different and she was beaming! We couldn’t quite place the dramatic change, but found out when her sister (who has yet to meet the Lord) told us what was going on. Get this, in thirty two days; she had lost over 50 pounds! That’s over one and a half pounds a day! We asked her about her diet and she told us that she was eating, just not as much as she used to, but the pounds were just falling off of her! This was a witness to the rest of the family and her sister was remarking about the power of God, even to lose weight! This opened the door for us to come back and have a house church with their family. Good fruit!

Miracle weight loss and the blind seeing…What’s next?

“The One”

What an interesting week. We had a trend this week that was very cool. It was like the Lord was revealing his heart for “the one”. I have heard Heidi Baker talk about this often. It’s the reality that the Lord would leave the 99 healthy sheep for the one lost sheep. This was illustrated powerfully this week as almost wherever we went, we saw “the one” have their encounter with the Lord. We have been getting used to groups and crowds meeting Jesus, getting healed and getting prophecies, but this week, it was all about that one person that desperately needed the Lord having their personal encounter. Granted, it’s definitely more exciting when crowds of people are giving their lives to Jesus, but nonetheless, it’s powerful to see the Lord orchestrate events for, “the one”.

HEALING FOR “THE ONE”
We went to what turned out to be the last football game of the season this Friday. Our group was large, so we had to split up into two different teams. One of the teams went to a game about thirty minutes from the church and I took the other team to a school that was over an hour from the church. We ended up getting stuck in traffic and were in the car for over an hour and a half. Needless to say, we were already worn out by the time we got to the game. I reminded myself that David Hogan and his team often will drive 4-6 hours, then get out and hike for 3-4 hours to get to a meeting of only a handful of people! That really put things into perspective for our little one and a half hour drive.

So we get to the game and almost instantly, we’re seeing that it’s going to be unlike the other games. It was a second round playoff game and it looked like most of the people were actually there to watch the game, unlike many of the other games we had gone to where most of the kids were there for a social gathering. There were only a handful of people walking around so we found what seemed to be a good place and just hung out, looking for an opportunity to bring the Kingdom of God.

Sure enough, a few minutes later a kid went hobbling by on crutches. A couple folks on our team ran over to see what was wrong. It turns out that the kid had been in a 4 wheeler accident a couple weeks before and dislocated his hip. Even after a couple of weeks, it was very painful and he could hardly put any weight on it. Our team prayed for him and asked him to check the injury. In an instant, Jesus took away all of the pain! I looked over and saw his friends carrying his crutches with him walking up and down the concession area, elated at his total healing! They went on to preach the Gospel to him and they asked where we were from. When he heard that we had come over and hour and a half, he exclaimed, “So, you came all this way for me?” “I guess we did!” was our reply.

SALVATION FOR “THE ONE”
The next Saturday morning, we spread out into a couple of groups and headed into some neighborhoods where we have been for a couple of months. Since the end of Daylight Savings Time and the loss of daylight during the weekdays, we have had a different strategy during the fall and winter months. Our primary goal is to strengthen the existing house churches and believers that we have already reached and our secondary goal is to get into new neighborhoods. So we headed out into a neighborhood where groups of Hispanic men have met the Lord all at one time. We go to the house of a couple of young people that have recently been born again and delivered of some major demonic junk. Their mother has, to this point, been very reserved and not really given us the time of day. We were sure that the changes in her children would be noticed and that she would eventually be touched by the Gospel. We were right.

The Mom answers the door and we find out that both kids are gone. They have a visitor over and we begin just talking about things that are going on. We had prayed very briefly for the mother a few weeks previous and I asked her if she had noticed a change in her conditions. She hadn’t noticed any difference, which gave me an opportunity to tell her what the Lord had shown me. The first time we had prayed for her, the Lord showed me that her many physical problems were caused by demonic oppression. I saw specifically anger and fear bringing torment and pain to her body. I told her this and as I called out fear and anger, her demeanor changed. The Lord spoke to me and showed me a well of unforgiveness and anger inside of her. I saw a man standing at the top of the well. So I tell her, “The Lord is showing me a deep reservoir of anger and unforgiveness and it was caused by something that a man did to you.” Her eyes got real big and she says, “I’ll never be able to forgive him”.

In a few minutes, we are sitting on her couch and she is pouring out her heart, speaking of being sexually abused by her father when she was a little girl and the resulting anger and unforgiveness. I giver her several scriptures about unforgiveness and the Lord’s forgiveness for us and she melts. The Holy Spirit is melting her anger with the fire of His awesome love. She is convinced of His love and convicted of her sin. She literally asks me, “What should I do?” I tell her simply that she needs to give her life to Jesus, repent of her sins and forgive her Father, since Jesus has forgiven her. She agrees and we get the distinct privilege of leading her to Jesus and getting her free from the anger and unforgiveness to her Dad. She lightens, looks different and thanks us profusely for coming to see her. We walk out of her house, thrilled at the mercy of God for “the one”.

“What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them strays, does he not leave the ninety and nine and go into the mountains and seek the straying one?” Matthew 18:22

God Attends House Meetings and Football Games!

I was trying to communicate what has been going on to our church this weekend and ended up getting tongue tied and overwhelmed. The truth is, there is so much cool stuff going on, we could take an entire service to just tell testimonies and we would still be missing the awesome reports of what God is doing at the neighborhoods and football games. But hey, that’s a better problem than having nothing going on. I’ve seen both and a dearth of God’s presence is MUCH worse than too much of God’s presence…

A HOUSE CHURCH MEETING FROM HEAVEN
This week, we had a house meeting with one of our neighborhood churches and as a couple of new believers come walking in the door, there are two awesome testimonies. The first was a lady who had severe sciatic pain in her lower back. We had prayed for her two or three times and nothing had worked. She was very discouraged and literally talked about ending her life, she was in so much pain. Now mind you, this was a lady that through her life has had multiple strokes, heart attacks, a brain tumor, blindness in one of her eyes and multiple brain surgeries. She told us that this pain in her back was the worst she had ever experienced and started drinking, just to dull the constant pain. On top of all that, she hadn’t slept more than an hour a night for about a month. Anyway, I brought my wife with me out to the neighborhoods on our date night (before I took her to dinner) and she got an opportunity to pray for this lady. Well, the first thing she says as she comes walking in the door to the house meeting (about two weeks later) is that God healed her and that she woke up the next morning after a full night’s sleep with NO PAIN! She has been feeling great ever since!

Another couple comes walking in with a miracle testimony. This lady had an abscess in her upper, front tooth and the pain was unbearable. She had been to a dentist three times and each time they would go digging for the infection, but couldn’t reach it (it was almost in her sinuses). After her third appointment, the dentist throws up his hands and tells her that she will have to see an oral surgeon to take care of the abscess. They prepare to take her back and get her an x-ray to see where exactly the infection is. While she is waiting, she calls her husband to tell him what’s going on and is lamenting over the phone how much pain she is in and they are discussing how they will come up with $4000 for the oral surgery. The hisband gets so fed up that he says, “In Jesus name, I command all infection to leave your body!” They finish talking, she hangs up the phone and notices that the pain is gone! They take her back to get her x-ray and the results come in: There is NO INFECTION, NO ABSCESS and the dentist sends her home without scheduling an appointment with the oral surgeon. Praise God!

Needless to say, the atmosphere in the house gets charged on the power of these two testimonies. We share a little scripture and start to worship Jesus, thanking Him for His great power. After a few minutes, the presence of God fills the room STRONGLY. Our team breaks up in the room and starts praying for everyone, addressing different strongholds and sicknesses. One of our new believers, who just weeks ago got delivered from a spirit of fear starts to pray for a lady in the group who has a very weird family curse. Every time she starts to press in to God and ge involved in a fellowship, someone in her family gets injured! He’s praying, just like he has seen us pray so many times and there a spiritual explosion! The lady jumps back in her chair, I almost fall to the ground and we both come up in tears! The power of God hit everyone on that side of the room like a frying pan to the side of your head! It was awesome! This lady jumps up from her chair, yelling that God healed her of all the upper back pain and leg pain that she had when she came into the room! Get that, we break a demonic curse and she gets healed! Cool, huh?

Bottom line, great meeting. The highlight for me was watching these new blievers mature and start to operate in the power of God.

OPEN HEAVENS AT ANOTHER FOOTBALL GAME
Another Friday night, another football game to invade. Two of them, actually. Word has spread about what God has been doing at these football games, so a bunch of people show up on Friday night, wanting to get in on the action. I don’t blame them, it’s been a blast! There are eighteen of us in the prayer room, soaking, praying, interceding and declaring a move of God among the youth in our community. I decide that since there are so many of us, we should break up into two teams, with one team going to a high school we have been to several times and another team going to a new school that's down the road a piece. There are nine people in each group and we are ready to see God move.

I take a team to the new school and when we drive up near the school we are amazed at the traffic! We had to park a good ways away and hoof it to the stadium. There are tons of kids and we are excited. We split up into three teams of three. Right off the bat, one of our teams goes up to a small group of kids and starts prophesying over one of them. This draws a quick crowd of mockers. They aren’t very receptive, but a stir has begun! Soon a gaggle of religious kids starts to gather and persecute our group. It’s the same tired argument, “God doesn’t move like this anymore!” Well, if God doesn’t move like this anymore, why is He moving? It’s like the kids who say that God doesn’t heal AFTER their friends get healed! What’s up with that? You are standing there, with verifiable proof that God heals and they try to argue theology with you! May God have mercy on the religious system that’s raising up a crop of kids that deny the power of God! So in spite of some religious persecution, God keeps moving as they pray for the sick and prophesy over kids.

ANGELIC HELP
My team is walking the stadium and we are passing by the concession area. There are a bunch of people all around and while we are navigating the crowd, a big feather appears right in front of my face and floats right in front of me! I turn around to Bryan, who’s with me and say, “Do you see that?” He gets a big grin and says, “Yup!” We hang there for a little while, move on and then a few minutes later we’re walking by the same general area. I hear a ladies voice yell my name, “RYAN!” I turn around and see no one, saying to Bryan and Elliot, who are directly behind me, “Did you hear that?” Bryan’s like, “hear what?” I said, “Some lady yelled out my name! I mean, surely you guys heard it, you are standing a foot behind me!” They are shaking their heads saying, “I didn’t hear anything!” Now the Lord has got my attention! I decide that we will camp out here in this location until God does something.

We hang out for a few minutes and get a word or two for a couple of kids hanging by the fence. As we start telling them what God is showing us, they freak out! One of the kids literally runs away, terrified at the words we got for him, they were so accurate. He comes back a few minutes later and gets on his cell phone, calling his friends elsewhere in the stadium, telling them to come and get prayed for by us! After this point, it’s all a blur. All I remember is looking up and we have a huge group of kids surrounding us on every side. They split the three of us from each other, forming lines in front of each of us, eagerly awaiting their turn to hear a word from God. A highlight in my group was seeing a group of juniors and seniors line up in front of one of our team members, a 13 year old kid! They were hanging on his every word because God was speaking through him! That’s as big of a miracle as I have ever seen! When High School Seniors line up in front of a 13 year old, God is MOVING! Another cool thing is having a junior come up to me, pull on my sleeves and ask my “Can you do what he is doing?” while pointing to Elliot, the 13 year old! I told him, “Probably not, but I’ll try!”

As always, we speak to them of the Kingdom and the King who demands their allegiance, telling them that God is getting their attention through the prophetic words. We just start speaking what God gives us; we are address the group, then an individual, then a group. We call it “automatic mouth” and we are getting used to it now. We aren’t thinking or planning our next move or word, God just takes over. We’re the vessel, but He is doing all of the work! Let me tell you, when He takes over, He can do more in a few minutes than we can in a lifetime of striving! We are leading people to Jesus, people are crying, people are sobbing. There is joy, there are tears, and there is excitement. It’s awesome!

Then it’s over.

A police officer taps me on the back of the shoulder. I was totally unaware of their presence and a group of cops sneak up on me. One of the cops looks at me and says, “Are you done?” I say, “I guess I am now, huh?” He nods in the affirmative. Actually, he was very nice, a lot nicer than most of the police that have escorted us from the other football games. He saw that God was doing something awesome and honestly didn’t want to break it up. He started apologizing and explaining why we had to go. We assure him that it’s all right. The game is nearly over and we have been working for nearly three hours already. In my team, 4 people give their lives to Jesus and a multitude hears the Good News, coupled with a demonstration of God’s power! The kids see the cops escorting us away and a group of guys that had been waiting for a while follows out of the stadium into the parking lot, desperate for a word. We give them what the Lord shows us and they get powerfully touched by God… while we’re walking!

It turns out that we were the last group of three to get ejected. The others had been booted a few minutes earlier. The Principal of the school came out, saw the crowds around our groups (a bunch of kids!) and broke it up, marshalling the authorities. But no problem, God had a chance to move and move He did. Before the night was over, at both football games, we had 9 people give their lives to Jesus, 6 instant miracles and scores of people heard the Gospel with a demonstration of God’s power.

Look out, it’s about to get out of control!

Touchdown!

Man, we love these football games! Last week, we had an explosion of God at a football game and this week we had another! We had healings, miracles, people shaking under the power of God and kids getting born again. We had a guy get baptized in the Holy Ghost, surrounded by a crowd of curious onlookers. I remind you that all of this happened in a middle class, suburban high school in the Bible belt of America. Just don’t tell me that God can’t move like that here, we have proof to the contrary!

We got to the church about 6pm, intent on seeking the Lord and soaking in the presence of God. We do this before every one of our outreaches. It reminds us that God is God and we are His people. It reminds us that the power we walk in flows out of intimacy with God. It’s a great time to get washed of the contamination of this world, clear our minds of all earthly garbage, focus on the Lord, tell Jesus how much we love Him and get filled with His glory. We also have been seeking the Lord about His purposes for the outreaches. Several times, we have been given words of knowledge and visions concerning what would happen on the outreach while in the prayer room!

We head out and arrive at a local high school game. This is a division championship game, so the place is packed out. There are ten of us, so we split into three groups of three with me as a floater, going between the groups. It took nearly an hour to get settled and find some people that weren’t running all over the place. Unlike last week, most of our groups had little excitement following the preaching and prophesying. We would walk up to a group of kids; tell them that they needed to repent for the Kingdom of God is on the earth and start prophesying over them. Last week, doing this would have drawn a crowd, but this week the response was, “Thank you very much” and they would turn away. But we kept going, hoping for a breakthrough.

At the football game, there were two crowds of people out of the stands, just hanging out. One was a group of high school kids and the other was a group of middle school kids. David, Erin and Sarah were over by the middle school kids. David, who is nearly thirty, felt out of place with such a younger crowd, so he sent the girls, ages 17 and 15 in there to bring heaven down. So check this out; A couple of girls on our team, Erin and Sarah, weren’t able to come out the week before and after hearing the stories of what happened, they felt like they really missed something. Well, Jesus made up what they missed in a just a few minutes.

They see a guy with a broken hand and go over to him, telling him that Jesus will heal his hand. Several of his friends are over there with him, just mocking away. They put up such resistance that the girls didn’t get a chance to pray for him and the group splits up in several different directions. A few minutes later, they find the kid with the broken hand again and get him to agree for them to pray. They have him check his mobility and pain and he shows them where it really hurts for anyone to touch it. His mocking friends gather again, but before they are able to break it up, they pray and God heals the hand instantly! All pain and 100% mobility return in a minute! Now, instead of mocking, the girls are besieged with people asking them to pray for hands, knees and arms. In just a few minutes of praying, six people are instantly healed!

They now command a small crowd of kids and start to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom. One of the kids is a rank heathen who doesn’t know anything about Jesus and after preaching the Gospel, the girls tell him, “You have got to give your life to Jesus!” He agrees, but is a bit embarrassed when the girls tell him to get down on his knees and make a public declaration. So what do they do? They get his whole “posse” to rededicate/give their lives to Jesus right then and there!

***Editors Note: This is where I came in, being with another group. This was towards the end of the night, as the football game was letting out. I and the rest of our group go looking for David, Erin and Sarah when I come across a big group of kids on their knees on the pavement! The highlight of the night for me had to be seeing a group of ten kids on their knees, in front of their friends, unashamedly giving their lives to Jesus. ***End Editors Note

After receiving Jesus as King and Lord, the girls tell them that they will need the Holy Ghost to walk with God. They tell them that they are going to pray with them and they will receive the Holy Spirit. The girls go around the group of 10-12 kids, grab them by the hands and say, “Holy Spirit, come.” The kids get blasted by the power of God and start falling over, shaking and manifesting all over the place! Erin was telling me that a couple of these kids had never been in church, so you knew they weren’t faking it. They had never seen this kind of thing before!

Of course, a religious demon manifests in a lady that comes up saying, “What are you guys doing?” David takes her to the side and neutralizes her effectively while Erin, Sarah and now Jordan continue to explain the Kingdom of God to them. We ended the night with six instant healings, a bunch of prophetic words given, another kid getting filled with the Holy Ghost and speaking in tongues and then the ten kids getting born again and filled with the Holy Spirit!

So, what did you do Friday night?

Revival at the Football Game!

You know the dreams you have about God moving in power? The ones where the sick are healed, demons are cast out and people are getting saved? I have been having them for years. Ever since I heard prophecies from people like Paul Cain, who prophesied of a stadium church, where thousands are meeting Jesus and getting healed. Or when I read Rick Joyner’s “The Harvest”, where he prophesied a coming move of God that would sweep millions into the Kingdom with an outpouring of signs, wonders and power evangelism. Just hearing those prophecies produced faith to see them (faith comes by hearing) and for years my dreams have been plagued with scenes and snippets of the coming revival. I say plagued because in the dreams and visions I have had, I can “feel” that revival atmosphere. That electric “anything could happen” atmosphere where God is moving with power. That feeling has stayed with me for years and when you get out there and just kind of slog through preaching, praying, believing and hoping for revival without the experience of revival, those dreams and visions can haunt you. But I believe that God gives dreams, visions and supernatural experiences so we can press through the dry or not very anointed times until we see the fullness of what He has promised.

So we press through. We pray, preach, prophesy and heal the sick with a fire of revival burning in our hearts, regardless of what we see on the outside. All with the hope of seeing, experiencing and being in on the next move of God.

This week, hope was manifested. The dreams and visions became reality. We saw, touched, tasted and felt what revival feels like. The weather was changed through a prophetic declaration, the sick were healed, demons were cast out, people were touched by the power of God, there was conviction of sin, there was powerful, heart rending prophecy and at least fifteen people made decisions for the Lord, although over a hundred people heard the gospel of the Kingdom. The preaching inspired religious persecution and civil authority threatened us with punishment. It was like a snapshot of the book of Acts, except in modern times

This is what happened.

CHANGING THE WEATHER
We arrived at a local football game right as the game was starting. There were seven of us (David, Jordan, Katie, Rebecca, Linda, Rachael and myself) and we were excited. It was Rachael's first time out with us and we were praying that God would show up. Last week we had seen God move at another high school football game and we were chomping at the bit. It was raining off and on and there didn’t seem to be nearly as many people in attendance as there was last week. We decided to take our time and not rush in. We looked for where the kids would gather and just hang out. After being there only a few minutes, the few people that were there were rained on pretty hard and took shelter under a covered porch. We waited a few minutes and prayed for the rain to stop, but it just rained harder. We decided to pull out the big guns and called Pastor Marc, who has changed the weather through proclamation dozens of times. If you struggle with that, sorry, but it’s true. Jesus changed the weather (Mark 4:39) and He said that if we believed, we could do what he did (John 14:12).

So my brother Jordan picked up a cell phone and asked my Dad to put a stop to the rain that was coming down pretty hard now. Pastor Marc prayed over the phone and commanded the rain to stop. We hung up the phone and looked at the sky expectantly. I checked my watch and noted the time that he prayed. Sure enough, four and a half minutes later, the rain stopped cold. To tell you the truth, we weren’t even surprised. We happily jumped into the fray with a feeling of God’s favor. I mean, He stopped the rain for us, surely God was with us!

ALL HEAVEN BROKE LOOSE
We broke off into groups of two and three and jumped in innocently enough, giving some low level prophetic words to a couple kids. But in a few minutes, there was a noticeable stir. Several of the kids that had received prophetic words from David, Linda and Jordan started bringing their friends over asking us to pray for them. Before we knew it, each one of our groups were surrounded by a group of hungry kids, each asking for prophetic words and healing. All over the area where we were, healing started breaking out as shoulders, knees, fingers, feet and backs were healed. Each healing raised the excitement level and more kids gathered. They started to get their friends from around the football stadium and they even started raiding the stands, bringing people away from the game and down to us! They would come over and ask us to “tell us their future”. Over and over, we were able to explain that we weren’t psychics and were simply revealing in part what God knew about them in full. We also preached the Gospel of the Kingdom to crowds of them with great boldness, holding nothing back. We spoke of sin, repentance and turning to God to serve Him whole heartedly and they gobbled it up, because of the demonstration of God’s power through the healing and prophetic.

Many times, I was able to prep them saying that if I asked the Lord to speak to me for them and if they received a word from God, then they would be responsible for what they heard (Luke 12:48). This caused them to receive the prophecies with a healthy dose of the fear of God and it’s also why so many of them got born again. We totaled about 15 who we KNOW gave their lives to the Lord, but it could just as easily be 60-100. Lots of them heard the Gospel and only time will tell how many heard and believed (Acts 2:41).

A CONFRONTATION
One angry young man came up to me, obviously critical as to what we were doing. He told me flat out that he thought we were full of crap and that there was no way that God would speak to people like this. I told him that he was free to move along but he stuck around, mocked while other kids were getting touched and eventually asked me to get something from God for him. I told him, “I thought you thought we were full of crap?!” He crossed his arms, told me that he had an open mind and waited. Several of his buddies were there and I asked him if he really wanted his buddies to hear what God would say. He arrogantly said, “It’s fine if they stay”.

So I asked the Lord to show me something for him and instantly had a vision of him eating out of a trash can. While he ate, it was making him sick, but he put on a happy face and just kept eating. I then saw him set up a restaurant around the trash can, complete with chairs and tables and a “we’re open” sign inviting guests to come and eat what he knew to be garbage. I saw him then recommend the garbage as a delicacy to those coming to eat. I told him this vision and he asked what it meant. I told him simply, “I believe that what you are eating spiritually is garbage; you know that it’s garbage, yet because of your hypocrisy and duplicity are recommending as a delicacy what you know to be garbage”. It made quite an impact. He turned red, called me a few names and some of his buddies were chuckling under their breath at him, nodding in agreement. He walked away extremely ticked off!

Meanwhile, I look up and each of one of our group is surrounded by 20-30 people, literally pulling on their clothing asking for healings, prophecies and words of knowledge. Jordan and I were preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom to a spellbound group, Linda and Rachael were prophesying and casting out demons, David was prophesying and Katie and Rebecca were healing the sick and prophesying. To say that the kids were hungry is an understatement. They were ravenous! To say that the harvest is ripe is an understatement. It is falling off the trees!

Our experience reminded me of a fishing trip I took with a buddy of mine up to the Northwest Territory of Canada last year. The deal up there is that the lakes are frozen 9-10 months out of the year and for the 2-3 months that the ice melts, the giant trophy fish have their opportunity to eat. And eat they do. They eat everything in sight! They are wild and will bite anything that falls into the water. They are so hungry in fact that from time to time; they will come out of the water, literally flying to hit your lure! At the football game, it was just like this. The kids were flying out of their seats, out of the stands to eat what we were feeding them. And they loved it. Each time someone got healed or a prophecy was given, the faith level increased. There were tears, there was conviction of sin and people were getting delivered of demons! Several folks got delivered of anger, depression, suicide and unforgiveness. Several of the kids were getting visibly touched by God, shaking under the power. A couple of the kids that got freedom from demons reported feeling drunk and lightheaded. We could have gone on all night…

That is, until the religious demons kicked up.

RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
As I am preaching to another group of hungry kids, I am suddenly aware that we are being eyed suspiciously by several older folks with their arms crossed. I also am aware of about 5-6 Sheriff’s Deputies amassing behind me. A lady who is on staff with the school and the school Administrator walks up and ask if they can speak with me privately. I agree and walk away from the group and the Deputies surround me. The lady starts off with, “So, you really seem to have a lot of kids around you”. I’m like, “Ok…” She continues by asking, “So, what exactly are you doing?” I tell her that we are preaching Jesus to the kids and having a great time. She tells me that they have had a complaint from someone (the religious kid who got the garbage can word) saying that we were touching people inappropriately! I tell her flatly that we have touched no one inappropriately and only have laid hands on shoulders and hands and only with permission. We also have witnesses to each of these facts.

She relents, knowing that the accusations are false and then proceeds to tell us that it is against the law to touch a minor. Ever. Anywhere. One of the Sheriff’s Deputies then gruffly tells me that he is watching me and our team and if we violate this rule, then they will eject us from the stadium. I assure them that we are there to help and not hurt. I remind them that we are simply telling people about Jesus. I go around the concession area and tell David, Jordan, Linda, Rebecca and Katie to not touch anyone, anywhere. They agree and continue to preach. But the plan to intimidate us backfires. The kids see the commotion with the police and they see them talking to me and they come running up to us. The crowd grows, both in numbers and in hunger. We continue preaching, praying and prophesying, all without touching anyone. But now it’s obvious that the kids are no longer interested in the game. There are more kids out of the stands that in the stands on the home team side. Only adults are left in the stands. This is more than they can take.

The principal of the school approaches David and interrogates him, asking what we are doing. He is told that we are preaching Jesus and he responds with, “Listen, I am a Christian, but this is the wrong venue for this”. David replies, “Life is the right venue to preach the Gospel”. His response is a threat, “If you preach or say anything about Jesus, I will have you removed. You are welcome to stay and watch the game, but you can’t say anything to the kids about God, even if they ask you”.

I get the story from the police officers and make a split second judgment call. Should we: Hold our ground, defy the authorities, get ejected and maybe even go to jail for breaking some suspect law? Or: Call it a night and let the godless civil authority win? If you have read any of our stories before, you may be surprised to hear that believe it or not, we chose the latter, choosing to go ahead and bow out while we were ahead. I felt that we were having a great night and had already been working hard for a couple of hours. We had made a HUGE statement to the kids, who at this point are about to revolt if we get ejected from the game and it’s obvious that the reason for the controversy was jealousy from the school faculty. We literally had to tear ourselves away from the kids who were very upset that we had to leave. I go up to the officers, who remind us that we are free to watch the game as long as we don’t say anything about God. I tell them that we have no intention to just “chit-chat” with the kids, but we have an agenda. That agenda is to preach the Gospel. I gather the group, we close our mouths, smile and walk out of the stadium in single file, thrilled at what we have just experienced.

We’ll be back. If we go to jail, we go to jail.

The Lame Walk, The Lost Return and The Demonized Are Set Free! - Part II

FRIDAY
Nothing really dramatic happened on Thursday so fast forward to Friday. Last week, our buds out in California gave us a hot tip on Football games. They had taken an outreach team to a football game and had a wild time. Dozens of healings and several people got born again as they invaded groups of kids with a simple message, “The Kingdom of God is on the earth”. They told us that if we can find a central area where kids are hanging out, we could have a blast.

So, we found a local high school football game, made our plans and invaded. There were six of us and when we arrived, we were excited. This was a homecoming game and there were literally thousands of kids, both in the stands and surrounding the concession stands. It was overwhelming at first and took us about 30-45 minutes to just get acclimated and get our heads in the game. But after finding a giant group of kids just standing around, we broke up into groups of two and jumped in. The response was fantastic. It would take many pages to describe in detail everything that happened, but basically, heaven came down. This is how it went.

For my crew, we would just walk into a group of kids and single one of them out, preferably the leader. See, in these situations, the popular kid has a lot of sway and very few people will approach them because they are “cool”. When we go right up to them and start telling them crazy stuff that the Lord is giving us, it gets the attention of a whole group. Here’s another thing: we may or may not have something from the Lord for them, but in faith tell them that God has something for them and do they want to hear it? If they agree, we tell them first that they must change the way they think (repent) for God’s Kingdom is right in front of them and they don’t recognize it (the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand). Normally at this point, the Lord will have given us something prophetically. It could be something intense, but most of the time it was a very simple prophetic word, a word of knowledge or simple discernment of spirits.

For example, there was a really big guy there; he stood out because he was about a foot taller than everyone. I look at him and ask the Lord for something and I hear two words in my spirit for him, “Leadership” and “Musical Gifting”. I ask the Lord to give me more understanding and I see picture of the guy playing the guitar and singing. So, I approach him, tell him that God has something for him and ask him if he wants to hear it. I then tell him that he has to change the way he thinks because God’s Kingdom is on the earth. He’s looking at me like I’m crazy. Then I tell him that I see leadership ability on him that’s a gift from the Lord and then tell him I believe that he has a musical gift and does he play and sing? He gets all bright eyed and is like, “Oh my God, how did you know that?” I go on to tell him to give his life to Jesus and stop doing the music thing for the girls and he is in rapt attention. He tells me that he is a lead singer for a band and writes his music on the guitar. He asks me how I knew that and tell him that I didn’t know it, but God knew it and wanted to reveal Himself to him. He turns out to be a religious guy, but is rocked to the core as God reads his mail.

In another group of ours, they just went looking for sick people as a way to demonstrate the power of the Gospel. They found a kid with a broken foot. When they asked him what was up, he told them that he was having a fair amount of pain and no mobility in his foot and ankle due to the injury. They asked him if they could pray for him and he agreed. As they prayed, he felt something happening in his foot. After prayer, they asked him to move it and see if there was a difference. He found that there was NO PAIN and 100% MOBILITY! He started to jump up and down on his now healed foot excited that Jesus healed him. Drawn by the commotion, this drew a crowd of about 30 kids all wanting to see what was going on. One of our guys got to stand up and preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of God to the whole group, with the healing being the proof of our message.

We went on for a couple hours, doing this again and again. As we would be prophesying over one kid, all of their friends would gather around and we would have an opportunity to preach the Gospel. The hardcore, repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand Gospel. In my group alone, we had 4 people give their lives to Jesus through tears and true repentance as God revealed the secrets of their hearts. I believe that we had at least ten people get born again that night alone. We will definitely be back at football games!

SATURDAY
On Saturday morning, we spread out into a couple of groups, heading off to a couple of different community events. These trips don’t have a strong agenda; just, be there and look for opportunities. Both groups got to pray for several sick people and some folks in wheelchairs. One of our teams went from booth to booth at a business fair prophesying over business owners and speaking destiny and purpose into folks. Like I said, low key, but important nonetheless. I want to be at everything our community does and have them say, “not them again!”

Saturday nights, we go out to invade the youth in parking lots near the mall, but this Saturday night we got skunked. The police were extra vigilant and ran the kids out of every single lot.

SUNDAY
On Sunday, we had an extra meeting on Sunday night with a special speaker. While I was walking to the back I was pulled aside by a lady that I vaguely remembered. She said, “Do you remember me?” I said that I did, but help me out with the details. It turns out, we had prayed for her husband almost a year ago. She had a story to tell me and I remembered that we had received a call last year from a lady whose husband was in the Alzheimer’s unit of a local hospital. They had to keep him heavily medicated and under restraints because he had become so violent and uncontrollable. She had asked us to come down there and pray for him and we agreed. Another brother in the church and I went down there, shocked at what we saw. He was totally uncontrollable, locked in a near fetal position and mumbling incoherently. I remember that when you touched him, his skin felt like granite. He was literally hard to the touch with demonic rage. We rebuked the devil and prayed for the fire of God to come on him. I remember that he went from a locked up fetal position to complete peace and his body loosened, falling asleep and snoring loudly as we prayed. While we were there, we prophesied that he would be home for Christmas (which was a few weeks away).

So, on Sunday night this lady walks up to me and says, “I had to stop you and tell you what happened after you prayed for my husband”. She pointed to a handsome gentleman sitting next to her in a suit as she told us that God had healed and delivered her husband after we prayed! Within a few days, they released him from the Alzheimer’s unit and into as assisted living retirement home. Within a couple weeks of that, they released him, healthy and stable as could be to go home. He was home for Christmas! She was so happy to introduce me to her husband, in his right mind and back at home.

All in all, a pretty good week.

The Lame Walk, The Lost Return and The Demonized Are Set Free! - Part I

Wow! What a wild week we just had! We had several reports come in this week that are just awesome. Sometimes in “doing the stuff” (that is, preaching the gospel, healing the sick and casting out demons) you don’t always see an instant result to your prayers. For example, you may pray for someone who is crippled and is in a wheelchair. If you don’t see an instant miracle, you can walk away feeling like nothing happened. This can be discouraging and I believe that this is why most American Christians don’t give themselves to the work of the Gospel. David Hogan told us that we Americans want an instant, microwave Burger King Gospel. You know, “Your Way, Right Away”. But sometimes, healings and miracles may take a little time, as we found out this week.

We had several answered prayers and prophecies this week that are quite spectacular. We also had a wild demonic manifestation, a couple of instant healings and a few people give their life to the Lord… I really don’t know where to begin, so I’ll start on Tuesday.

TUESDAY
Tuesday night, we head down to a little public park in Atlanta that the locals call “Big Head” park. It’s a place where lots of homeless, prostitutes and drug addicts gather. Two weeks before, we had been there and a couple guys with our group had prayed for a guy in a wheelchair. He had severe scoliosis and some other problems that had left him without the ability to walk. While praying for him, our guys tried several times to pull him out of his wheelchair and get him to stand, which he could not do. This week, we walk up and one of the first things we see is the guy in the wheelchair as he goes rolling past us. He rolls out to the center of the park and we see him stand up out of his wheelchair and start to walk! We hurry over to get the story and he tells us that the next day after we prayed, he had strength and was able to walk and has been walking perfectly fine ever since! We could hardly believe it. We thought that maybe he was lying when we first prayed for him and so we grilled him, wanting to hear the truth. Sure enough, he swore up and down that he could not walk before they prayed and since they prayed, he has been able to walk. I asked him for his wheelchair since he doesn’t need it anymore and he wouldn’t part with it, saying that it’s much easier to get around on wheels!

I saw a guy with crutches sitting on a little bench, so I walked up to him and asked him why he had the crutches. The first thing I noticed was that he smelled terrible. I mean, “wash your clothes after talking to him” terrible. He had human feces smeared on his leg and I saw a couple flies buzzing around him. He mumbled something incoherently and I could tell that I was dealing with someone who was totally possessed. I ask him again about the crutches and he starts telling me about having arthritis. He also tells me that he is from Africa. I tell him simply that Jesus will heal him and he tells me to @#$% off! So, I look him dead in the eyes tell him, “Jesus is King!” and he starts to mumble something at me. I say to him, “And His Kingdom is here on the earth!” When I say that, he comes unhinged. His eyes flash wildly and he lets loose a stream of profanity.

But then something very weird happens…

All of a sudden a swarm of flies appears out of nowhere! There were a couple, maybe two or three flies buzzing around him before, but the second I told him that the Kingdom of God is here on the earth, there appears at least 200 flies swarming around him! With the flies came an increased stench that suddenly was totally overpowering and some of the foulest language I had ever heard. I call a buddy over and we start calling on the blood of Jesus and rebuking the demon. The guy jumps up, starts cursing and tries to hobble away. I look at him again and say in Spanish, “Fuego De Dios!” (Fire of God) and he starts freaking out saying, “What are you saying to me?” My buddy, who spent a year in the Congo, walks up and says in Lingala, an African dialect, "Moto na NZambe" (Fire of God) and the guy loses is, starts cursing and walks away. We would rather have got the guy delivered, but having demons run away from us is acceptable.

WEDNESDAY
On Wednesday night, our group heads off in a couple different directions to visit believers in neighborhoods where we have already been. We meet a couple folks there, just hanging out on the front porch. One of the guys there is a guy that we had prayed for about two months before. He is kind of like the neighborhood drunk. Everyone loves him, but he’s always sauced. The last time we had seen him, God healed his shoulder instantly, which really got his attention, but he still wasn’t ready to give his life to Jesus. He had something that he really wanted us to pray for, a missing person that he knew. They had found this lady’s car wrecked off the side of a cliff in North Georgia and no one had seen her in several weeks. There was no record of her in any of the local hospitals or police stations either. He knew her personally and was very worried about her well being. He begged us to pray that she would return and be all right. We prayed for her and someone in our group prophesied that she would be back by the same time the next day.

Fast forward to Wednesday. He is sitting on the front porch and the first words out of his mouth are, “she came back, you know”. I was like, “huh?” and he had to remind me what he was talking about. He said, “Remember praying for that lady to come back who had been missing and who had wrecked her car?” I suddenly remembered, “Oh yeah! She came back?” “Sure did. She came back the day after you guys prayed for her”. He continued, “Actually, between my shoulder getting healed and having her come back like you said she would, well, you made a believer out of me!” This was awesome! This guy had given his life to the Lord and gotten born again as the result of a healing and an answered prayer. We had several others stop by as we told testimonies of what the Lord had been doing in the neighborhood. We ended up just having church right there on the front steps for almost an hour!

To be continued…

A Milestone in Our Work...

The work of the ministry continues. Our small but faithful team here in Woodstock continues to go into neighborhoods, apartment complexes, hospitals and on the streets preaching the gospel, healing the sick, casting out demons and planting churches! Just last week, we received a report from a young man that we had prayed for in a primarily Hispanic neighborhood, less than 2 miles from the church. He showed up at our Sunday morning meeting and breathlessly told me how his ENTIRE FAMILY had been healed when we had prayed for them a few days before. They had conditions like arthritis, asthma, depression, Fibromyalgia, night terrors, anxiety and panic attacks and more. Within four days of praying for their household and preaching the Gospel, they ALL were healed. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved, and your household. Acts 16:31

When we began this odyssey in outreach, we had a first year goal to have 10 house churches in Woodstock. I am happy to say that we just did a survey and realized that we now have groups of believers (house churches) in 11 neighborhoods! The next goal on the horizon is to have 50 house churches here in Woodstock. We believe that when we are in 50 neighborhoods here in Woodstock, we will have invaded virtually every major location and hotbed of darkness. Not everyone may be authentically saved by then, but most everyone will be confronted with the truth and the strongholds of Religion and Mammon will begin to crumble!

OUR STRATEGY
Our strategy is simple: go into the neighborhoods in our community, start with the poor, preach the Gospel of the Kingdom with signs and wonders following, win souls to Jesus and make disciples. The best and most fruitful way that we determined to make disciples is in house churches, or groups of believers that meet from house to house. It’s in these house churches that we preach and teach the milk of the Word, worship Jesus together and equip the saints for the work of ministry.

Early on last year, we decided that the Sunday morning gatherings at our church would not be the best place for new believers to get involved. On Sundays, we don’t preach the lowest common denominator stuff that new believers need. Our Sunday meetings are believers meetings geared towards equipping and encouraging more mature believers to get up, get out of your seat and bring the Kingdom of God wherever you are. So we decided that each neighborhood (or apartment complex, duplex, trailer park, etc.) that we are in, needed to have access to true Kingdom Christianity in the form of a house church.

Sure, lots of folks go to church, but the vast majority of believers have never had exposure to the Kingdom of God, which is not just a pretty sermon, but power to save, heal and deliver. Just imagine everyone in a city not even having to leave their own neighborhood to get saved, to get healed or to get delivered! That’s what we see and that’s what we are pursuing. These little house churches start small but the Gospel light begins to penetrate the darkness of each neighborhood, ushering in the Kingdom of God.

AN ANGELIC MESSENGER
Let me change gears here and relate an experience that I had a couple of months ago. I have been chewing on it for a while now and feel that now is the time to talk about it. A couple months ago, my wife and I had put the kids down for a nap and decided to lie down and take a rest ourselves. While I lay down, I was praying about equipping believers for Kingdom ministry and became aware of an angelic presence in the room. I looked up and standing between my living room and my kitchen was an angel. I was shocked and surprised but remembered something a prophetic friend of mine had told me some time ago. I was telling her how I had seen an angel appear in a meeting. She asked what the angel was there to do and I just looked at her and said, “I never asked him”. “Well, he wasn’t there to decorate the place, that’s for sure!” she said. “Next time, ask them what they are there to do.”

The Bible says that angels are sent to minister to those who will inherit salvation (Hebrews 1:14) so if they show up, they have a job to do! I asked the angel that was standing in my living room what his job was and he told me that he was a “Mobilizing” angel. He told me that all I had to do was extend an invitation and he would gather those that needed to come. Instinctively, I knew that this was about equipping the saints for the work of ministry. You see, several years ago, the Lord spoke to us and told us that we would have a ministry training school that was very different from other Bible schools or seminaries. He told us the school would be more “Show You” than “Tell You”. Most places are “Tell You” and you can walk away from many training schools without any real experience in spiritual things. Sure, you can quote scriptures, but can you heal the sick, cast out devils or raise the dead?

Now, we have done several mini training schools and activated a bunch of believers in their spiritual gifts and ministries. And over the last year or so, several folks have spent time with us just to see what we’re doing. But what’s coming and what this angel was speaking about was a ministry training school where you could come not for theories and concepts, but for a living, breathing example of what the Kingdom of God is all about. You wouldn’t just learn about healing the sick, you would heal the sick. You wouldn’t just learn about winning souls, you would win souls. And more than that, we believe that you shouldn’t have to quit your job and career to function in this kind of ministry. Actually, most everyone on our street team that is doing the ministry has a full time job, family and other obligations.

I am telling you because in the near future, we will be extending the invitation to “Come and See” what the Lord is doing. Kind of like an intern program on steroids and Viagra. We want to train the army of God that is not content any longer to warm a pew or fund a building program but is ready to roll up their sleeves, lay down their life and bear fruit for the King!

Am I Talking About You?

Geography Is Irrelevant! - Part II

As we were leaving the group of angry rednecks, we gave them one last opportunity to bow their knee to Jesus and they refused. We excused ourselves and were about to walk away when they challenged us to preach to a notorious gang member they said had killed before. They gave us a description of what he looked like and pointed across the lot to where he was supposed to be. They told us that if we started to preach to this guy that he would pull out the 9mm he had in his belt and blow us away. They told us that we would be absolutely crazy to preach to this guy… Well, that sounded like a challenge to me, so we assured them that we would preach to that very guy.

We excused ourselves and headed across the town square in the direction that they were pointing. We were scanning the crowd, looking for the infamous “sinner” that was sure to blow us away if we preached to him and saw a group of three girls standing by a car. One of the girls had a pair of handcuffs she was holding. That got my attention so I turned to her and asked her what they were for. She gave me some description about it being for some deviant sexual practice and while she was talking, the Lord gave me a word of knowledge for her. The Lord told me that the handcuffs were symbolic of her life; she was in complete and total bondage to several different vices, all at once.

We started talking to her and I just spoke to her what the Lord was showing me, “You are in bondage to many different things all at once. You used to be able to make decisions to do wrong, but your addiction no longer even gives you that option, these demons eating your lunch make all of the decisions for you now, don’t they?” She was kind of fooling around to this point, but instantly sobered up saying, “Oh my God, that is wild! How did you know that?” We promise her that if she wants to be free, God will set her free, TONIGHT. She says she wants to be free.

As I am talking to her, the girl standing next to her jumps back and screams, “What was that!?”. “What?” I said. “That blue light! I just saw a blue light and it freaked me out!” Seeing an opportunity to get her attention, I told her, “Maybe it’s my angel?” She looks at me and looks totally perplaxed, I continue, “Yeah, I have a couple angels that walk with me (Hebrews 1:14) and maybe that’s what you are seeing?” She looks at me like I am crazy and I tell her, “Why don’t you let me pray for you and let’s see if God shows us something for you?” She agrees, I grab her hands just knowing that God is going to blast her. I ask her to close her eyes, which she does hesitantly. No more than 5 seconds after she closes her eyes, I feel a bolt of the power of God flow out of my spirit, down my arms and into her. She jerks back and in a very worried tone says, “Oh my God, what was that?” I tell her that the Holy Spirit just touched her to confirm what we are preaching and ask her if she wants more. “Yes!” she exclaims. I pray for her again and again a jolt of the power of God hits her; she holds on and asks for more. We pray again, God zaps her again and now she looks inebriated. I ask her how she feels and she says, “Drunk!”

I start to explain to all of them that God is real; He loves them and wants a relationship with them. We start to tell them that we aren’t talking about religion or “going to church” but we are talking about a real God, perfectly willing to prove Himself to them wanting to set them free. We tell them that they have to turn to the Lord and make Him Lord and King of their lives. They are spellbound, thanks to the demonstration of God’s power.

We turn to girl #3 and ask her if we can pray for her too. She agrees and we start to pray. I feel a blockage, like she won’t be receiving a touch from God and the Lord starts to show me hurt and pain in her life. I can’t explain other than to say I just knew that she was sexually abused as a young child and blames herself. I start to tell her that it wasn’t her fault and that she was a victim of an attack from the enemy. I start to tell her that the enemy is out to kill her and ruin her life (John 10:10) but Jesus is here to rescue her and will set her free from the bondage of this thing. A girl on our team gets a word that she doesn’t feel safe and even her sleep is hampered with memories of this trauma. The whole time, we don’t mention the word “abuse” but we are connecting, she knows exactly what we are talking about and her friends do too. They are both exclaiming, “That is so wild, how do you guys know this stuff?” We pray for girl #3 and the Lord starts to touch her dramatically, setting her free from a lifetime of guilt, shame and condemnation. The light of His presence shines on her heart and unlocks the chains that were holding her bound to the memory of abuse.

We tell them all that the Lord loves them so much that He would send us all the way from Woodstock, Georgia to set them free and as we are talking, guess who walks up to us? That’s right, the “evil” pistol packing gang member that the angry rednecks described to us. He knows the girls that we are talking to and is coming by to see what’s up. I have a split second decision to either let him come and go, not saying anything due to fear of reprisal or preach the Gospel to him. I choose the latter. I turn around, face him and tell him, “I was told that I should be afraid of you”. He looks confused and says, “Listen, if you don’t hurt me, I won’t hurt you.” I tell him, “Earlier in the night, some guys told me that if I preached to Gospel to you, then you would shoot me, but I figure that you must really need the gospel if people are saying stuff like that. So, I am going to preach the Gospel to you”. He says, “Are you a preacher?” “Yup” I reply. To my amazement, he reaches out his hand to shake and asks for my phone number saying, “Give me your number; I need to sit down and talk with you. Will you talk to me?” “Of course” I tell him. He walks away, saying that he will call me later in the week.

As I am reeling with surprise on how that “confrontation” went, a gentleman on our team gets a word of knowledge for girl #2 and she comes to tears in a minute. We spread out, leading girl #1 to Jesus on the spot and getting girl #3 to agree to go home that night and get right with God. Girl #2 is a puddle as God shows us the secrets of her heart. She assures us that she is a believer and we tell her to get right with God. She agrees that she has been straying and all three of them dedicate themselves to the Lord.

We wrapped up a few minutes later and headed back home to Georgia, exhausted but thrilled with the proof that the Gospel of the Kingdom works WHEREVER it is preached!

Indeed, “Geography Is Irrelevant!”