The "Lord’s" Banquet

Last night, our church hosted a beautiful Christmas Banquet, complete with fine china, ornate crystal, delicious food and live entertainment. We spared no expense to make our honored guests feel like part of the family. Many folks in the church elaborately decorated their tables and showcased their creativity (which is abundant), giving their tables their own personal touch. The buffet line was absolutely amazing! It was decorated to the nines and brimming with copious amounts of delicious turkey with dressing, hams, casseroles and desserts.

In planning our annual Christmas Banquet this year, we decided to forgo the usual way we do our annual Church Christmas Banquet and were provoked to follow the Lord’s specific instructions for having a banquet. Did you know that the Lord spoke specifically about having a banquet?

“And He also said to him who invited Him, When you make a dinner or a supper, do not call your friends or your brothers, or your kinsmen, or your rich neighbors; lest they also invite you again, and a recompense be made to you. But when you make a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you shall be blessed, for they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” Luke 14:12-14

When we first got the word out about how we would be doing our Christmas Banquet this year, the response was amazing! Money came pouring in to cover the considerable cost of hosting such an event. Also, volunteers from the church came out in force. We actually had too many people offering to serve and host tables! The dedication to detail and folks giving their very best was awe inspiring.

The next step was going around to all of the neighborhoods and communities that we have been ministering the gospel in these last few months and years and invited all to the banquet. We also made special efforts to invite and bring in many from the Latino communities that we have been in. Many of these folks are living in abject poverty all within about a 5 mile radius from the church. Many of them are sick and infirmed, as well as demonically tormented. In short, they need Jesus.

We were a little worried as to who would come and not come, but as it turns out, we had over 60 folks from all over the community that we brought it or who managed to make it out on their own, filling our tables with our extended “Family”. It was an awesome sight to see our guests come in and be loved, accepted and welcomed by our church family. You had successful businessmen and upper middle class families mingling with the poor and strong believers mingling with unbelievers. The whole mood was ecstatic and you could feel the presence of God brooding over the place.

As part of our outreach team that has been ministering in these neighborhoods the last couple of years, it was such a treat to see many of the folks we have been preaching to in the same place at the same time. It made our efforts “real” and really helped me see the fruit of our labors these last few months. It also was great for our church to connect with the folks that they have heard about in testimonies, but never really met personally.

During the course of the night, several folks, moved by the love of the church towards them, gave their lives to the Lord. There was prayer for healing going on and prophetic words given. A group of Hispanic men asked us when they could come back for a Spanish speaking service (it’s in the works, trust me!) and several folks that have never stepped foot in the church before promised that they would be back.

All in all, it was a great success and we are so pleased with the Lord and His goodness, as well as the amazing generosity of the Lord’s people.

Going Out With A Bang! - Part II

Hey There,

Here's the OTHER account to what happened at our last High School football game of the year... Remember, both of these accounts come from teenage girls out preaching the Gospel with signs, wonders, healings and miracles at local football games on Friday Nights.

Come on Jesus!

Blessings,
Ryan

********************

Hey Ryan!

Yeah it was AWESOME!!!!

I was SO provoked by Sarah’s story (from last weekend), that all this week I have been telling the Lord that I am grateful if only 5-6 kids get born again, but that I wanted to see crowds of kids getting born again too...and I totally saw it!

So here is the story...

We actually drove to a football game at Roswell, but the kids over there said that they didn't have a game. So, we left and went to Lassiter. It was so full of kids, I guess because it was the last game...but I had never seen that many people at a football game!

So I looked at Katie and said, "Katie, we absolutely have to go for it...it's the last game, we can't hold back." and she totally agreed! So we went to the corner of Lassiter where there was a HUGE crowd of kids just screwing around. I walked over to them and shouted, "Hey all you guys, come here! I have something really awesome to tell you!"

So all of these kids stopped and stared...haha! Me, Katie and Rebekah, started prophesying to these kids one after another. It was awesome! Then, Stephanie, who was also at that game came over and joined us...

Okay, this is funny...all of the kids started saying, "OH my gosh! You guys are what they were talking about/warning us about in our prep class...". We couldn't figure it out, but we think people are talking about what we have been doing at their football games in their prep classes! :)

We then asked them if they were born again, and most of them seemed unsure... Then one of their moms came over, cuz she was really curious about what was going on...so we told her that we were preaching the kingdom to all of these kids...and get this...she starts telling all of the kids there that they need to listen to us!!!

So, we told all of the kids they needed to get born again. So about 10 kids got on their knees ready to give their lives to Jesus!

BUT WAIT IT GETS BETTER!!!!!!

All of these kids around us were watching, so I stood up and shouted, "Hey, you guys, we are giving our lives to Jesus and making him our King. Come on you guys get on your knees too, and give your lived to Jesus too. AND THEY DID! 10-15 kids got on their knees too! So I think between 20 and 25 kids got born again and got filled with the spirit! I think that happened at least three times...I would look over at Katie and she would be on her knees with a huge group of kids, and so I would get on my knees with them and then she would look over and I would be on my knees with a huge group of kids and so she would get on her knees too!

Then we started calling down the Holy spirit, and the fire of God onto these kids. They were so open and hungry it was so freaking awesome! They literally started falling back, and when I say falling back I mean FALLING not stepping!!! Katie, Stephanie, and I actually had to catch them so they didn't hit the ground!

IT WAS AWESOME!!!

So awesome that I guess we drew too big of a crowd because we got approached by 3 cops and a Lassiter guy. They told us that we couldn't do what we were doing anymore, and we couldn't touch the kids anymore (even with permission). He said that he appreciated what we were doing but that what we were doing was meant for inside a church, not football games. :)

We were really compliant, so they left, etc. So we turned around to all of the kids and told them what the cops had told us. We told them that they didn't have to leave, and that we could still call down the Holy spirit and the fire of God without touching them at all. So we did, and kids started falling back! They were saying that they felt a hot burning all along their backs and their heads...we didn't even tell them that they would feel heat or anything!

So that started drawing another crowd, and around 10 kids gave their lives to Jesus! Then, since we couldn't touch them, they decided to touch each other, and they started calling down the Holy spirit onto their friends, and their friends started falling back! HAHA!!! So, by that time we had really upset a little Jewish girl. She came over to us and was all like, "stop, stop! I am mad!" and I was like, "why?" Then she said that she was mad because we were converting kids to Christianity, and she didn't like that, and she didn't think parents would like that either! So I told her that we couldn't stop. She wanted to argue, and I didn't want too, because such awesome stuff was happening... So I said, "listen chick, I believe what I believe just as strongly as you believe what you believe, nothing you say can change my mind".

I told her that every tree will be judged according to it's fruit and that I was seeing WAY too much fruit to stop. So she got really mad and left...

About 5 minutes later we got approached by the Lassiter guy, and he said we were not welcome to do this at his school, and that we had to leave... So we did... hahahahaha!!!

IT WAS AWESOME!!! I think at least 50 kids gave their lives to Jesus! I get so excited just thinking about it again! Sorry the story was so long! SO much happened, I didn't want to leave any of it out! :)

Erin

Going Out With A Bang! - PART I

A couple of week ago was our last Friday night football game outreach at local high schools and we went out with a bang! Kids got healed, prophecy was flowing and nearly 60 people gave their lives to the Lord, on their knees, in front of all of their friends. The spiritual hunger of this generation is intense.

Once again, I asked the young ladies that were at the center of it to give their account. We’ll probably do this in two parts.

*********************************

KATIE’S ACCOUNT

Okay, here's my part...

One pretty cool thing about this night was that, for me, the past 4 or 5 weeks I had gone out, nothing really happened. Maybe a healing or two, which is awesome, of course. But then I get back and another team has like 20 something healings and a bunch born again, etc. So I really wanted a good night, especially since this may be the last game this year for us.

Long story short, I talked to the Lord about it and He basically said that I would have to do it, I would have to step out and be bold and He would back me up. So we had a deal. I'd jump in a group and be bold and He'd back me up with prophetic stuff, etc. Erin had this same word too, so we just jumped right in as soon as we got there.

Erin first approaches this group of probably middle school, maybe younger, kids. She just yells "Hey guys!! I have something to tell you!!" This gets their attention, but only a few came over and listened... about 3 or 4 girls. So we start telling them what we're doing and prophesying to them. Sure enough, as soon as we asked them if we could tell them what God was showing us (at which point I had nothing), He instantly showed me something.

From here on, for me, it's all a blur. We were prophesying left and right, and about 3 or 4 times, I look over and all the kids we had prophesied to were getting on their knees, and the kids we were prophesying to wanted to do it too! So we all got down and they all confessed Jesus as their King (loudly!) and invited the Holy Spirit to come.

This goes on for a while and I thought we should start praying for the kids for God to touch them. So I start with one, Erin and Stephanie jumped in and started praying for a bunch of others, because nearly ALL of them wanted it... Especially after 2 or 3 of them were going "I feel it! I feel it!!"

As we were praying for them to be filled with the Spirit and fire of God, they were falling back. So much so that we had to pull them back towards us as we held their hands. Some said they felt intense heat on their heads, some said they felt electricity going up and down their spines, some felt tingling, etc.

Another cool thing was, a few times as I was standing there prophesying and praying for people, I had this "automatic mouth" thing going and I was thinking at the same time as I was prophesying, "I don't even know what I'm saying... This must really be God". Haha.

That's basically it. Nothing specific. It was just so much and it came so quickly. We also got kicked out. A cop and some authority from the school told us not to touch them and that the religion thing is the same as in school, etc. So we kept talking to them (because they said we could do that), and we prayed for them without touching them. They lifted their hands the same way and they still felt it and were falling back. But again, they came back and told us that we couldn't even talk to them about this stuff and that we should probably just leave because this wasn't the place for that (wrong!).

Okay, I know that was a lot... Sorry. I'm so excited. :)

- Katie

*********************************

To be concluded…

AMAZING Testimony!

I just got an amazing testimony from last night’s football outreach in my email. Normally we send out a couple of different teams to two or three different local high school football games. At the game I went to, other than preaching the Gospel to a group of kids, there really wasn’t anything remarkable that happened. That wasn’t the story with the other group that went out at all. In fact, they had an absolute blowout!

Here’s the testimony straight from Sarah (who by the way is 16 years old).

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SARAH’S TESTIMONY

Okay, so I was at the Roswell game with David and Jason… For the first hour maybe, it pretty much sucked…nothing was happening. So David asked if I would feel comfortable going into a crowd by myself and I said, “Sure, why not?”

I jumped into a crowd of maybe 15-20 kids. I told them that Jesus is King and that He had told me some stuff about them (which He hadn’t yet), and I asked them if they wanted to hear it. They said, “Sure”. All of a sudden, I was giving prophetic word after prophetic word, and the kids kept bringing all their friends to me… It was insane!

So then, I was like well all of these kid are going to walk away and not get born again, and that’s not cool. So I told this boy who really wanted to get born again to go around the crowd and ask everyone if they wanted to do it too… He got maybe 12-13 kids, and they all got on their knees and gave their lives to the Lord!

That happened over and over again. The second group of kids that got born again was like five or six and the third group was like eleven or twelve! After that every kid who came up to me to get prophesied over ended up getting born again!

Then this kid who had gotten born again a little earlier, got on his knees again when I was getting a different group of kids born again…I was like ok, what is this all about…Then as I was telling all these kid’s to repeat what I say, he starts telling them what to say!

He led a group of kids to the Lord!!!!!!! Then he saw me calling the fire of God down on all these kids, and he in awe…so I called the fire of God down on him, and he almost fell back! After that, I told Him he could do what I was doing, and told him to just lay his hand on someone and say ”Fire of God”, over and over again… He laid his hands on like the very next kid who came up, and the kid he was praying for really felt the fire of God…The guy who was praying started jumping up and down he was so excited…He then laid hands on like everyone else who came up to us!!!!!!!!

**********

EDITOR’S NOTE:

All in all about 40 kids gave their lives to the Lord by literally bowing their knees in front of all of their friends and family, making a public declaration that Jesus is now their King! Then, our team (and a new believer) laid hands on them imparting the Holy Spirit and His fire.

What’s cool is that they started with a dud and ended with a bang. They pressed through and saw a breakthrough. Maybe if our team would have pressed through, we would have seen something similar?

I also love that Sarah really didn’t have anything prophetically, but in faith stated that she did. Just knowing that it is the Lord’s heart to speak over the lost was enough to start the prophetic flow! Lots of folks ask us all the time how we get the prophetic stuff and that’s a good example. Many times we have nothing whatsoever; we just step out in faith!

More often than not, God covers our backs!

On The Road Again…

I have a way cool testimony for you. This one will be a quick update.

Truthfully, our outreach schedule has lessened of late; we’re only doing 3 outreaches a week instead of our regular 5-6. Translation: Less time spent preaching to unbelievers = fewer miracle stories. But its okay, many of us needed a break as we were approaching burnout after investing heavily into a bunch of folks that wouldn’t change! Rick Joyner says it like this: “The moment you stop learning and being teachable is the moment that you cease to be a disciple (pupil, student) of the Lord”. The wall we ran into over the last year or so is that folks who were so grateful and tender to the Holy Spirit just months ago have now hardened as they did not choose obedience to the Word of God over their opinion and lifestyle. People like that get hard instead of tender and refuse change over staying right where they are.

So, we’re on the hunt for teachable, tender people that will run with hunger and fire with the Kingdom of God. Is that you?

AT MORNINGSTAR
Over the last couple of years, we have been to a few places in Georgia and around the southeast, imparting what the Lord has taught us to whoever will listen and run with it! This stuff is easy and once you get a change of thinking, the results are normally fantastic. Anyone and everyone can be used by God to bring the Kingdom of God here to earth! All that it takes is a willing, teachable heart and a little bit of faith (spelled R.I.S.K.).

Our buddies at Morningstar Ministries near Charlotte, North Carolina have a great school of ministry there at the old Heritage USA grounds in Fort Mill, South Carolina. For years we have been fed by the teaching and prophetic ministry that’s come from them. In fact, both Pastor Marc and I are part of their Fellowship of Ministries. But after hearing what the Lord has been doing here, they decided that they want some of what we have! We were thrilled to be able to give back to a ministry that’s given so much to us and stood with us when things weren’t that great. So Pastor Marc and I went up there last week and had a great time teaching students, imparting boldness and stirring up believers to walk in the supernatural power of God and destroy the works of the enemy!

Probably the coolest thing that happened was some of the students taking what they heard to the streets after the morning class that we preached. They went out in a group to the place with the most people that they could think of: Wal-Mart. They wandered the aisles looking for an opportunity to bring the Kingdom of God and guess what? They found some!

The first person they [rayed for had something wrong with her leg. If I remember correctly, she had a brace and everything. She was in severe pain and had extremely limited mobility, from an injury, I believe. So the young people from the Ministry School went up to her, asked her what was wrong and said “Hey, can we pray for you?” As they did, the Fire of God came on the lady and the pain left her leg. In no time at all, they had her demonstrating her healing by doing things that she couldn’t do before without pain! And in the Wal-Mart aisles!

But that’s not even the coolest thing that happened.

A lady came walking in and they all noticed her. She was wearing an Indian head dress and a leather vest with all sorts of marking on it. She stood out like a sore thumb! So this lady overheard them praying for the lady with the leg and asked for prayer for herself. They prayed for something (I can’t remember what it was now) that was relatively minor and the Lord touched her. Seeing that this stuff is real, she sheepishly told them that she has terrible vision and can barely see her hand in front of her face. In fact, they later found out that when she goes shopping at Wal-Mart, the manager has an employee literally lead her by the hand and go shopping with her, because her vision is so poor!

So the students all gather around, asking the God who invades the impossible to invade the impossible and grant this woman her eyesight. They told us later that they were so scared they could barely pray, but pray they did! As they prayed, they all felt a tangible anointing come on them and they all starting praying with boldness and faith, right there in the store! They asked the lady what was happening and she said that her eyes felt hot. As they continued to pray for her, the heat increased. When she finally opened her eyes, she could see all the way down the aisle! Her vision was absolutely perfect! She was rejoicing, the students were rejoicing and even the Wal-Mart employees were rejoicing. They had a little worship service right there in the aisle and brought the incredible testimony of God opening blind eyes in the aisle of Wal-Mart back to the School of the Spirit meeting that night!

See, God will even use noobs that trust him…

Constant Change Is Here To Stay...

You’ve heard it said and we’re living it! So many things have changed around here in the last couple months. Change is good though. I remember a couple of years ago when we were praying and believing to see a miracle or a healing here and there. I remember when we were shocked, SHOCKED to see someone give their lives to Jesus. Now it’s totally different. We see miracles when we want to. That’s right, we make a decision, “Am I going to preach the Gospel and see God’s power move, or am I going to stay home and sit on the sofa watching a Law & Order rerun?” It’s really simple; if we preach the Gospel of the Kingdom, God comes rushing to our aid with demonstrations of the Spirit’s power and we see salvations, healings and miracles. If we choose not to preach and instead stay home, we are guaranteed that we won’t see God move like that!

I’ve got a sacred cow that I want to fry too… If we simply GO TO MEETINGS, but don’t get out there and mix with the lost, yeah, we’ll have good meetings and we may even see a few people healed, but we will not see the glorious release of God’s power that we see among the lost! Honestly though, did Jesus die on the cross so that we (believers) could have good meetings only? We’ll be blessed and refreshed, but what about our neighbors, our cities and our communities? We can be selfish and keep the power to ourselves with a little bless me club and obsess over our miniscule problems, but what about the lost? They need the power too! The Gospel is for the poor in spirit! Your problems really aren’t that bad, trust me!

REPENT!
So, one of the major things that has changed around here is our minds, the way we think (repentance). We used to think that a move of God is totally sovereign, that the only way you would see God move is by praying, fasting and waiting on Him. But that’s not the case! God is moving! We just have to agree with Him and do what He is doing! We can, by faith, step into a move of God and actually create our own “Wave” of the Spirit. Time after time these last 6 weeks, our teams have created a revival out of thin air! People were just there having a nice football game and hanging out, but our teams decided that they wanted to see God move in power. So what did they do? Did they call a fast, confess a prayer several times a day and wear a wristband? Did they send out a 21 day prayer focus? Nope. They cleared their schedule (harder than you think) and showed up at church at 6:30pm on a Friday night. They sacrificed time with their loved ones and recreation/fellowship time to have a revival! And guess what, they HAD a revival! Dozens have given their lives to the Lord, hundreds of miracles have taken place and the Gospel has been preached with POWER!

Here’s the strange thing, if they don’t show up, God doesn’t move. This was illustrated to me over the last couple of weeks. I had an appointment a couple of weeks ago on a Friday night that prohibited me from going to the game. Guess what, I DID NOT have a revival, but THOSE WHO WENT, did! Last week, I was under the weather and dealing with some stuff at home, which prohibited me from going to the football game and guess what? I DID NOT have a revival, but THOSE WHO WENT, did! Once again, illustrating to me that all of our prayer and fasting won’t produce a harvest. You can declare a harvest to your field all day long, but until you roll up your sleeves and get to work in that field, that harvest WILL NOT come in. Jesus said the fields were ripe unto harvest 2,000 years ago, so what does that make them today? One person in the field, working together with God produces and actually brings in a harvest more than 1,000 people in a prayer room or 5,000 people in a conference meeting. Sorry, but I’m right about this.

Now that my axe has been ground to a fine edge…

AN UPDATE…
We’re losing daylight as the nights come quicker and quicker. That means that our ability to get out there when people are home during the week is fading fast. We’ve found out that we have a heavy “harvest” season that runs from the beginning of daylight savings time to the end of daylight savings time (April – September). After that, we have to follow up with and cultivate what we have produced during the summer. Now that daylight is gone, our only real opportunity to preach the Gospel to unbelievers is during the day or on the weekends. We have a team of mommies that go out each week to local nursing homes and visit the widows (James 1:27), but that’s about all that we have found that works during the day.

More than that, we are now having to face the cold, hard reality that many of the people we have been preaching to over the last 2 ½ years are not running with the Gospel we are bringing them. Now many of these peopl are ones that we follow up with and have house church meetings with. But most of them are apathetic in their faith and cold in their love towards God. This is very disturbing. Why? Because so many of these folks came to the Lord as a result of a dramatic display of God’s power. Many of them were healed and saw miracles and many of them came to the Lord as a result of a word of knowledge or prophetic word. You would think that this would give them a “leg up” on making them dedicated followers of Jesus, but that’s not the way it’s turning out.

When people don’t repent of their lifestyles and make quality decisions to follow the Holy Spirit and forsake the things of this world, then lukewarmness and apathy result. One of the reasons for the mediocre long term fruit that the Lord has shown us is this: Many of the folks we are preaching to simply put our gospel into their religious/traditional/southern paradigm of what church is/should be. They file their miracles and encounters with God that we bring them into their nice little religious file under “I believe in God now” almost totally ignoring the fact that our Gospel says follow Jesus with ALL your heart, ALL your mind and ALL your strength.

I’ll write about this more in depth, but the long and short of it is this: We will not let our outreaches be reduced to “visiting” lukewarm Christians that refuse to change and grow in the things of God. We will invest in the hungry and the desperate, not in people who are self-satisfied and lukewarm. So we’re going into the Spanish community. My gut tells me that they will RUN with this Gospel…

We’ll see, won’t we?

Are You Ready For Some FOOTBALL?

Sorry that the updates have been infrequent this month… Crazy busy. It’s primarily due to a team from our church and a mission trip to visit Heidi and Rolland Baker in Pemba, Mozambique, but that is the subject of another update.

Anyway, it’s Friday night and I’m home with the kids. I just got them to bed and sat down at the computer to write out what’s been going on lately. Our outreach schedule says that I should be out taking a team on an outreach tonight, but alas, I am home. Why? Well, mainly because my wife INSISTED on going to a football game tonight. It’s not because she likes football either. In fact, she couldn’t give a rat’s hind end about the game of football. The reason that she wants to go is because in the last three weeks, we have seen several dozen kids give their lives to the Lord, over 50 instant healing miracles and a couple hundred kids get their mail read prophetically; and all at high school football games!

Last year, my buddy Joel in California gave us a great tip: Go to high school football games. They are fantastic opportunities to see the kingdom of God break out in power. Evangelistically, it’s like fishing in a barrel! There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of kids hanging out and this generation is ravenous for the power of God! If you bring the power, more often than not you will see the Kingdom of God break out and the fire of God spread all over the school.

JUST LAST WEEK...
My wife was inspired to jealousy because one of the young mommies in our church was powerfully used by God. Imagine the picture of what happened, a young mommy with her tiny 2 month old baby in a Baby Bjorn kid carrier sleeping soundly while she boldly preaches the Gospel to a rowdy group of high school kids in the concession area of a football game! Kids are being healed, kids are getting saved and there is mommy and baby right in the middle of the melee, prophesying, healing and leading people to Jesus! The prophetic revelation that she was getting was startling! She received several names of kids best friends, she told them what their parents did for a living and told them all sorts of intimate details about their lives. Now, I would pay serious money for a picture of that scene, wouldn’t you?

Well, that’s what happened last Friday and that’s not even all of it! Also last week another couple of young ladies from the church “got into it”, as we say. They had over 20 instant healing miracles in a little over an hour! Backs, necks, ankles, knees and arms all healed! Pain disappearing, mobility returning, swelling leaving and people doing things that they couldn’t do barely two minutes before prayer. After a power demonstration and the preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, they gave an invitation for kids to give their lives to Jesus. In one fell swoop, eight kids got born again! And that was just one football game out of three that our teams were at.

My favorite part of these two girls’ testimony that they gave last Sunday was that they were slogging away, praying for the sick and prophesying over people for over an hour before things started to break loose. They were being mocked and ridiculed by 11 and 12 year old kids as they prayed and nothing happened. At one point they thought to themselves, “What are we doing?” So what did they do? Did they turn tail and run away? Nope. They just kept going. They kept praying and they kept prophesying. When healing broke out, it broke out BIG.

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT…
Was just as good! One of the teams that went out had some healings start to happen right after they got there. They found a couple of kids with injuries; broken arm and sprained ankles. As they prayed for them, all the pain left and their mobility returned and kids were able to do things that they couldn’t do. The result? They run away only to come back with their friends and friends’ friends. In no time at all there is a hungry group of young people desperate for a touch of God! Necks, backs, arms, legs, ankles and necks are being healed now; each healing produces more excitement and the expectation builds. Someone with a herniated disk in their back experiencing severe pain and limited mobility is healed on the spot. Another kid with a busted ankle who can’t fully extend his foot is running up and down the sidewalk demonstrating his newfound mobility and lack of pain saying, “I’m healed! I’m healed!”

One of the kids comes up to my brother Jordan, who is 18 years old and asks him sincerely, “Are you Jesus or something?” Totally flabbergasted that the sick are healed and that these strangers (us) know all sorts of supernatural revelation about them, their only thought is, “is this guy the Lord?” They explain, “No, we’re not Jesus, but we know Him and His power is at work inside of us!” They explain the Gospel of the Kingdom and exhort many to follow King Jesus with all of their hearts and lives. They are all professing Christians, but are confronted with the reality of Heaven that speaks loudly against their dead religion.

AND THEN THE WEEK BEFORE THAT…
What I would call a Biblical miracle takes place. One of the girls in our church takes her kid brother, who is ten years old with her to a game. In no time at all they “get into it”, prophesying over kids left and right. The young guy (who is ten years old, mind you) stands side by side with his sister healing the sick and prophesying over kids 5-20 years his senior. Imagine a line of high school kids, lining up in front of a ten year old kid, waiting expectantly for the word of the Lord coming from his lips or the healing touch from his hands! Did you just hear what I said? These are high school kids! You know, kids totally obsessed with being cool that they will do anything to maintain their “cool” status… Well, what’s cool about waiting in line to hear from a ten year old?

You know, who really cares when he is dispensing the power of God!

The Real Deal

We just got through having a meeting with Surprise Sithole with Iris Ministries (www.irismin.org) in Mozambique, Africa. We had met him earlier in the year and were given the opportunity to host him again. For those of you who don’t know who he is, let me sum up. This guy is currently overseeing over 8,000 churches in 28 nations! He is a true apostle who has seen the Lord and has raised the dead many times. In addition, he and many with him have been beaten, stoned and suffered greatly for the Gospel. There is just something about spending time with someone like that, that can greatly change, shift or clarify your perspective. We were able to take him to dinner and over dinner I was able to ask him questions and pick his brain about what they are doing out there n Africa.

I was just telling my wife how much I can glean out of little impromptu meetings like that. When David Hogan was here in 2004 I had a couple of questions to ask him. When he answered them I was able to move forward in faith with what I knew the Lord was telling us to do. The result? We now are preaching the gospel on an almost daily basis and into 28 places every month! Pretty good fruit from a little conversation I would say.

REMEMBER YOUR LEADERS!
Soon after I got baptized in the Holy Spirit, the Lord spoke something so important to me about who I should learn from and what I should learn from them. He gave me this scripture:

“Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.” Hebrews 13:7

If you pay attention to this scripture, it was save you a bunch of time and energy and greatly increase the produce of your life! This scripture says that we are to remember our leaders and consider the OUTCOME of their way of life! That’s where we get so tripped up! We don’t heed this scripture and follow after what leaders SAY, not the FRUIT or OUTCOME of their way of life! So basically, we are to look at our leaders FRUIT, not their great messages, not their revelations or even their personalities. FRUIT talks, everything else walks!

So what I do is simple. I scour the earth for people who have a significant ministry along the lines of what I want to see in my own life. The result is that I have found a few who actually LIVE what they preach about! Many talk revival, but who is walking in it? Many have theories on city taking, but who has conquered a city? Many have prophecies about revival, but who is living in one? Whose lifestyle is PRODUCING what they preach? Who actually has the FRUIT of the Gospel, not just pretty words about the Gospel?

My list is short, I don’t know about yours. But David Hogan in Mexico and the guys who are working with Freedom Ministries and Heidi and Rolland Baker and whoever is working with Iris Ministries are on my list. SO when these people speak about their lifestyle, you can take it to the bank! When I started doing in our neighborhoods what David Hogan does in the villages of Mexico I started seeing what he sees! It’s not rocket science! When I imitate their faith, I get what they have! I have seen this work with Hogan and now I am looking forward to seeing it work with Surprise Sithole.

LESSONS FROM SURPRISE
Well, when Surprise was here I had a few more questions to ask him. Most of them centered on equipping and releasing leaders, something that they are doing a spectacular job of! I mean, do the math, 8,000 churches in about 7 years. 7 years x 365 days a year = 2,555 days. And they have panted 8,000 churches in 2,555 days! That’s over 3 churches planted EVERY SINGLE DAY! That’s crazy folks! And these are BIG churches! Many of them involve entire villages that come to Jesus as a result of the power of God being displayed. Many of these churches have 500, 1,000 and more!

One of the keys to their spectacular growth is because they can get in a place, preach the gospel, impart to leaders and leave leaders that produce other leaders! They aren’t churches in and of themselves, they are church planting churches! So when they plant one church in a village, many from that village will go out and plant churches. They plant one church and that church plants ten churches that plant 10 churches each! Talk about multiplication! It’s like MLM for Jesus!

So the questions I had for him were about raising up leaders. Our folks that lead people to Jesus and are discipling new believers can get worn out pretty quickly, especially when people don’t change or act crazy. And a lot is depending on them. Many times if we don’t show up in a neighborhood and lead everything, then nothing happens! What they have managed to do is QUICKLY release new leaders to lead people. With my American (business) mindset, this seems so hard to do. But that’s what I got from Surprise! Here’s a guy that oversees over 8,000 churches in over 28 nations and he is one of the most childlike, simple and joyful people I have ever met! Most church leaders that I know lead one church and are covered up in worry, doubt and fear about finances and people. Far from childlike, they are about as fun as a heart attack and have the personality of a head of lettuce. They more resemble CEO’s than childlike simplicity.

TWO QUALIFICATIONS
So as I peppered Surprise about raising up leaders, two qualifications emerged for their leadership. Now these two qualifications are so simple and so biblical that they have absolutely no place in the Western church. I guess that’s why we don’t raise up church planting movements that plant 8,000 church in 7 years and lead and disciple over a million people to the Lord in that same time frame? So, putting all your ridiculous notions of what leaders should be like, are you ready to hear how they qualify leaders in Africa?

QUALIFICATION #1 – “HUMILITY"
Surprise told us that when they are raising up leaders, they never select the person who pushes themselves forward and desires leadership over others. He told me that they are the ones that produce all the problems. I can say that in our own ministry, that has absolutely been the problem. It’s like the more they want authority over others, the worse of a leader they turn out to be! So they look for the person sitting in the back, who doesn’t push themselves forward. They are looking for humility and childlikeness. Children aren’t looking for positions of leadership, yet unless we become like a child we can’t enter the Kingdom! So they award humility, not persistence. We have given people charge before basically because they wore us out with asking, asking, asking! But in every case it has turned out badly.

Lesson learned.

QUALIFICATION #2 – “DRUNKENNESS”
I kept asking and he kept telling. He said that the ones that drink of the Holy Spirit the most are the ones they are looking for! He said that the ones who get absolutely plastered in the Holy Ghost make the best leaders. The ones that stay full, get filled and keep drinking are the ones that will best take the move of God to higher and higher levels! I thought about this and besides being a command (Be filled with the Spirit!) being filled with the Spirit is EXACTLY what leaders need. They don’t need to be full of knowledge because knowledge puffs up. They don’t need to be full of good ideas or human gifts because the church isn’t built by human wisdom or ingenuity. They need the Holy Ghost! The church is built up and strengthened through the power of the Holy Spirit! So what we need is more of the Holy Spirit and the power of God!

How simple and how profound. What this did for me is make it so simple. We are looking for people who are full of the Spirit and who are humble. They can take the move of God to the next level. Their humility allows them to be led by the Spirit. Their being filled with the Spirit enables them to accomplish much more than the one full of themselves!

Look out world! Here we come, armed with the simplicity of the Gospel!

Muchos Milagros!

Or, “Lots of miracles” in English. Last week, I had an email box full of testimonies and I just have to share them with you. One peculiar anointing that we have seen for healing has been in sending people prayer cloths and handkerchiefs that our church has prayed over, according to Acts 19:11-12. Upon contact with these handkerchiefs, the power of God routes and destroys cancer and other incurable diseases! How cool is that?

Anyway, last Sunday at church there was no preaching, no teaching and no equipping from the pulpit. Instead, there was over an hour of testimonies of the power of God moving out in the marketplace! The best part is that the testimonies came from people in all walks of life. Mommies with kids, businessmen, teenagers, students and even grandparents are out there “doing the stuff” and advancing the Kingdom of God!


GOD @ WORK
One of the guys in our church, a business man that owns a heating and air company testified how he was on the job with a Chinese gentleman he was working with. As they talked, he began to minister to the Chinese brother sharing the Gospel of the Kingdom. After a few minutes he asked the man if he had ever made Jesus King and Lord of his life. The Chinese guy responded that yes he had. “When did you do that?” the guy in our church asked him. “Well, I did it about 5 minutes ago when you were talking and I believed what you said for the first time!” Forget a prayer of salvation! This guy just heard and then believed in his heart!

A few days later this same guy came to work with an adverse reaction to working with insulation on his forearms and hands. They were very swollen and itchy. When the guy in our church saw this he said, “Remember Jesus?” “Oh yes, of course I do!” the Chinese brother said. “Well, he’s not only our Savior but He is also our healer!” He then prayed for the man. Within hours, ALL of the symptoms had left the new believer!


ESOPHAGEAL CANCER HEALED!
A computer programmer at our church had a discussion with a colleague about his father who was recently diagnosed with stage 3 cancers of the esophagus and giving a very slim chance of living. The guy from our church preached the good news of the Kingdom of God to him, that God's will and purpose for his father was to be healed, according to the Lord's Prayer. Several folks at the church prayed over a handkerchief, according to Acts 19:11-12 and gave it to the young man who was leaving for what he thought was his last trip to visit his ailing father. He took the anointed handkerchief and gave it to his father praying a simple prayer of healing.

After some time passed the co-worker came up to the gentleman from our church and said, "I don't know if it's something you did or what, but it's (the cancer) going into remission and is almost completely gone!"


COLON CANCER HEALED!
A gentleman in our church owns and operates his own business. On hearing that one of his clients was diagnosed with colon cancer he asked the church to pray over a handkerchief according to Acts 19:11-12. He gave it to the man with colon cancer who actually slept with the handkerchief. On returning to his doctor he found that all of the cancer was gone!


CYSTIC FIBROSIS HEALED!
A mommy in our church heard about a 4 year old child that lived in her neighborhood that was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis by two different doctors over a period of about a year. She requested permission from the mother, who allowed her to pray. As she prayed, she prophesied that the little girl no longer had the disease and encouraged the mother to take her back to the doctor. The doctors checked the little girl out and pronounced her free from Cystic Fibrosis!


MIRACLES ON THE JOB!
A businessman in our church had contact with a client that was involved in a very serious accident that left him in terrible condition. Upon hearing about the accident, he desired to pray for his client but others in the company would not release information about his whereabouts. This one woman at the company was, as he later found out, sick of "all that Jesus stuff".

Working with what he had to work with and simply believing that prayer knows no boundaries he prayed, believing that the Lord would touch him anyway. Several weeks later the client who was in the hospital was released. He called the gentleman in our church thanking him and giving credit to the power of his prayer for his miraculous recovery saying that he was the only one who was believing for his recovery. Even his family and close friends were resigned to his death. The lady at the company who stopped him from coming for prayer was immediately fired.


THE INCREDIBLE CHANGING DIAGNOSIS!
One of the gentlemen in our church works as a contractor and has held many of the same clients for many years. Over the years, the Lord has used him dramatically on the job to release healing over friends and family in the neighborhood. So much so that many times when these clients and family members get a bad report from the doctor, the first thing they will do is call this brother from our church to come over and pray!

As he prays, he often declares that everything the doctors saw in X-Rays, MRI’s and CAT scans will disappear and they will be given a clean bill of health. Spots on lungs, livers and brains have many times either totally disappeared or are changed from malignant to benign growths. Also, he has even prayed for family pets and seen dramatic healings and miracles, drawing their owners close to the Lord!

Just had to share...

"IT’S SHRINKING!"

Last week we were back at our old stomping grounds, the parking lot. We were out there after a hiatus of about a month. As usual, we got the chance to preach the Gospel to a bunch of very rebellious kids. We even had the police called on us. Why? Because some kids apparently don’t like hearing about the kingdom of God. Whatever. But something cool went down that really encouraged me. I was with a new friend of ours visiting from Australia. He wanted to come see us and participate in a couple of outreaches. (Think about it, 27 hours on a plane just to come see little old us!) We’re out in the parking lot for five minutes and I see a group of kids that we had preached to several weeks before, when David Baker was in town from Mexico. They were a very loud, obnoxious bunch of God haters, violently opposed to the gospel. One of the kids even bumped me with his car to get me to move out of a parking space where I was preaching to his friends! His reward for doing that was a sermon, from me, inches from his face… ha-ha.

SAVED FROM THE BRINK OF DEATH
Remember me telling the story about the kid whose neck got snapped? Well, he’s totally fine today. He walked out of the hospital only a few hours after getting taken there by the ambulance with severe injuries. God really touched him. We were fortunate enough to reconnect with him a few weeks after that happened and witnessed to him, telling him what went down in the parking lot and how God delivered him from death. That encounter left him shaken and we were there with some words of life and prophecies about his future. He let us pray for him a few weeks ago, which was a big deal. This guy has been running with gangs for years and was pretty hardened to the things of God. But not anymore!

We see him, walk over to him and he’s a totally different person! Gone are the gang clothes, the hardened look and the terrible language. I mean, we can hardly believe that this is the same guy! Since our last encounter with him, his life has totally been transformed. His Dad, who repeatedly abused him as a child had died and he was able to bury all of that unforgiveness and anger with his Dad. The Lord had been speaking to him and providing the grace to change and change he did! He sat there and told us for 15 minutes all of the differences since our last meeting. No more gangs, no more illegal behavior, clean and on his way to being sober! Thank You Jesus! Rescued from the grave!

QUIET HATRED TURNED TO VOCAL PRAISE
But that was just the start. A friend of his, another guy that was violently opposed to the Gospel barely more than a month before, came up to us to tell us what had been going in his life. He overheard our conversation with his friend, the now ex-gang member and was compelled to us of the changes in his life. Weeks before, he just sat there while we were vilified and persecuted by his friends, adding only an occasional slur in our direction. He was a tough nut, wouldn’t even speak to us, except to cuss me out. Well, he came up to us all bubbly and excited and just started talking! He told us how he had seen a couple of miracles since we last saw him and believed in Jesus now. His neighbor invited him to a ministry facility somewhere south of Atlanta and he had actually witnessed a healing of cancer in a close, personal friend. He was totally convinced and preached to us for almost 45 minutes! The Lord had dramatically proven Himself to former this God hater, transforming him from a skeptic to a full fledged preaching believer! Very cool! So now we have another ally in the fight against the kingdom of darkness. But this time, it’s an “inside man”.

Like the Lord, I try to always save the best for last…

DOES GOD HEAL SATAN WORSHIPPERS?
We received a follow up from a guy we prayed for about six weeks ago. He is literally a Satan worshipper and with his very mean girlfriend; railed against up for over an hour the last time we saw them, assailing us with the most horrendous language you could ever imagine! They were saying things to provoke us to anger and hurled some obscene garbage at us about the Lord! Sick! Anyway, after persisting with them and totally demonstrating supernatural self control (to not punch them in the mouth), we finally started getting some information from them. The big guy turned out to have an inoperable brain tumor and the doctors had only given him another 3-6 months to live. So he was going gangbusters, drinking, partying, taking drugs like there was no tomorrow. And for him, without hope and without Jesus, there was no tomorrow. That is, until we showed up. We told him of the Kingdom of God and how God wanted to prove His love and mercy to him by healing him. It took awhile, but he finally let us pray for him, under the condition that we wouldn’t touch him. So we took what we were given and cursed the tumor, only extending our hands to him, but not touching.

While we were talking with our new preaching friend, I see the Satanist out of the corner of my eye. Not wanting to be rude to my new buddy I don’t interrupt him. The “Satanist” comes up to me and hesitantly extends his hand for a handshake, looking me right in the eye (something that he couldn’t do before) and then he tells me, “It’s Shrinking!” For a minute there, I forget what he’s talking about. In fact it takes a few minutes for me to recall the whole encounter we had with him a few weeks before (sometimes I’m slow!). But he’s excited and says it to me again, “It’s Shrinking!” Getting some more details, we find out that he had been in for another appointment since we had seen him and the tumor had shrunk dramatically! I ask him if the Lord has his attention yet and he nods in the affirmative. I tell him, “that’s awesome, now what?” You see, we made an agreement that he would give his life to Jesus if the Lord healed him. He looks dead at me and says very sincerely, “I’ll give you a call when it’s totally gone”.

I love it when they come back. (Luke 17:17)

On We Go In Jesus!

The work continues as the lost are saved, the sick are healed, those with demons are set free, the poor have the Gospel preached to them and new believers are being discipled and grown up into the things of God. Just a couple weeks ago, a young man with a couple of broken ribs was instantly healed. All the pain left his body and he was able to breathe and bend normally! He was very grateful of the goodness of God on his behalf. A couple of neighbors in one of the worst places we are in are both schizophrenic and suffer greatly with anxiety and fear. We looked them both in the eye and told them that they have demons. They begged us to pray for them and when we did, both of them went from a nervous wreck to completely at peace. One of the ladies couldn’t even look me in the eye; the demonic presence was so strong in her. After prayer for deliverance she sat there and talked to me almost normally, looking me right in the eye.

It’s not always pretty and it’s definitely not polished or slick. There aren’t any programs and there isn’t a training school that can prepare you for the worst the devil can do with people. Every day in the trailer parks and low rent apartments is like an episode of Jerry Springer. Fighting, cursing, drugs, sex, sin and sickness plague the poor. It’s our job to bring in the light of God and transform once dark places into lighthouses for the gospel. It’s our job to invade the kingdom of darkness at work in the hearts, bodies, lives and homes of these poor souls. Sometimes it’s instant and a sunburst of God breaks through the darkness and depression. Other times it takes a minute. And by a minute, I mean a week, a month or a year.

We’re undoing generational garbage that has destroyed these folks for years. We’re shining light on habits and patterns of sinful behavior that has destroyed family after family. We don’t win every fight. Some people go back to their darkness. Some have the mercy and grace of God revealed to them only to turn away from the Lord. Some gain their healing, go back to their sinful lifestyle and come out the other side worse than before we met them. It’s our hope and our prayer that every one would serve Jesus with all of their heart, but that’s just not the way it is. It’s our job to love the unlovable, preach hope to the hopeless and faith to the unbelieving. Everyone loves the testimonies of when God breaks through, but few are able to hang in there when things don’t go our way. It takes perseverance and patience. It takes longsuffering and unquenchable faith. It takes a full measure of the Holy Spirit and Jesus!

GROWING PAINS
We’re going through another growth spurt right now as several more believers in our church are getting stable. That is, stable enough to make a weekly commitment to the lost, hurting and dying. That commitment means that a neighborhood will be touched with the Gospel. Imagine that, one believer’s commitment to one night a week means that they can impact two neighborhoods a month! But many, many believers can’t even do that. Their lives are in turmoil and their priorities are way out of whack. They want to be a help, but they can’t. The truth is, stable, mature believers = growth and a spreading of the Gospel. Until you are stable, the lost can’t count on you. Until you are stable, you’ll just be an irregular blip on the radar of the unsaved. But when you get stable and when you get a little commitment working on your life, all of a sudden, they can count on you. When you simply do what you say you are going to do, you stand out form the crowd as one who has integrity.

So now we are in about 25 different neighborhoods now and just keep trucking along, doing what we’re doing. Our core team is being strengthened and expanding, which is good news for the kingdom of God and bad news for the kingdom of darkness. During our weekday outreaches, it’s now common to be sending out 4 or 5 teams to different neighborhoods. Each of them comes back with stories of miracles, healings, prophetic evangelism and salvation experiences. It’s so hard to catalog and keep up with all the testimonies! I have to get them to send me emails detailing what happened each night just to keep a pulse on what’s going on. I am never disappointed.

One of the things I particularly love is hearing the reports of our folks getting words of knowledge and discernment of spirits for people, revealing their hearts and leading them to Jesus. The Lord is so extravagant with prophetic revelation; even more so when we make a determination to use the gift for evangelism. Just about everyone walking out the door now is walking in some measure of the prophetic, which is awesome. Just a few years ago, we would have deified these folks and have them traveling as an itinerant minister when they demonstrated such gifts. It’s not uncommon for the Lord to reveal very specific details about a person, their physical condition, their family situation, etc. What is predictable is their response! When the secrets of a person’s heart are revealed, all they can do is bow down and surrender their lives to Jesus!

The lists of new believers continues to grow. Many of them have been baptized in bathtubs. We had a coworker of one of the new believers take issue with that. He was offended that he wasn’t baptized into a church or inside a church baptismal, as if the water is holier there or something. Believe it or not, this was a Baptist! You would think that a good old southern Baptist boy would just be happy that the lost are converted and being baptized, but religious spirits rarely see the good.

One other interesting thing is the Lord has been sending us people literally from all over the world. We have had several folks in from the UK and this week a gentleman from Australia came all the way out to spend a week with us on the streets, seeing God move. We just know that each of them will get impacted and ignited in the things of God, taking the fire back to their cities, towns and nations. Even here in the states, there have been several folks from across the country coming to visit, to partake and to witness what the Lord is doing here. We are encouraged as others, even in our own city are making quality decisions to take up their sword and engage in this fight!

What are we going for? For starters, we want to see one American city truly and honestly fall to the Gospel of the Kingdom.

We’re going to see it.

PS – It’s my birthday! For a fleeting moment, it’s all about me! Happy Birthday to me!

“The Good Guys Don’t Hide”

That’s a line I heard from a movie some time ago that stuck with me. I actually think that it’s Biblical and we try to practice it in every situation. When we’re witnessing out in the parking lots and the police sweep in to arrest folks that are breaking the law and loitering, etc., at first we wanted to run with all of the other kids. Then it hit me, “Hey, we’re doing nothing wrong! We have no reason to hide!” I mean, after all, we’re out there witnessing to people about Jesus, leading people to the Lord and healing the sick Why should we (the good guys) run like chickens from the police? Sure, there are laws that tell people to not loiter, but we’re not loitering, we’re working for the Gospel! So I made it a policy, “Don’t run from the police”.

It’s actually come in handy a few times. It makes us stand out from the crowd. We’ll be standing there talking to people and preaching when the police will fly into the parking lot, sometimes 3-4 cop cars strong. They are there to break up groups of people, check for drugs and arrest bad people doing bad things. So when they roll in, everyone runs for their cars and tries to get the heck out of there. When we just stand there, unaffected by the police, it makes a statement. A couple of times the police have come to us (seeing that we are the only people left) to ask us what was just going down and who the bad guys are. Because we didn’t run, they assumed we were ok and not doing anything wrong. And we are!

Last weekend we saw this principle demonstrated and it made quite an impact on a group of kids who thought they were hot stuff. Friday we went down to be with a group of believers in Newnan, GA. It was a good time as we were able to preach, teach and minister Friday night and then on Saturday morning, about 30 people descended on the streets of Newnan to preach the Gospel, heal the sick and cast out devils. There were several healings as ankles, arms, backs and necks were healed instantly, on the street, in Wal-Mart and at Home Depot.


AN INVITATION
One of the places that we went was the projects. One minute in the neighborhood and you could discern that there are some rough people here doing some rough stuff. I always like to scan the area, looking for the biggest and most intimidating sinners we can find. We go to them FIRST. It’s like William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army said, “Go for sinners and go for the Worst!” So there was a group of about 6-7 kids, dressed like gang bangers. When we drove through their cul-de-sac, they gave us the “evil eye”. They stepped off the curb, walked towards us and made motions like they were reaching for something in there belt as if to say “get out of here!”

Well to some, that would be a put off, but to me it’s an invitation! All we were doing was looking for a place to park but they were looking to rumble and intimidate. Bring it on! We park the car down the street from them and walk up the long sidewalk headed their way. You could tell right off the bat that they were surprised, as if no one looking like we did (four preppy white boys) would dare approach such mean “gangsters” like them! Whatever. I have learned something ministering on the streets and it's this, “the bigger they are, the harder they fall… to the Gospel!” So we walked right up to them and immediately started with, “Listen, we’re here to tell you that the Kingdom of God is on the earth and Jesus is King!”

They weren’t impressed.

They told us, one by one, how they believe in God and how they pray at night. So I pressed it, “Even the demons believe in God!” (James 2:19) I said. “So that won’t do. My question to you is this, Is Jesus your King and Lord? Is He your boss? Do you go where He says go and do you do what He says do? Do you live your entire life for Him?” They got the picture. We weren’t playing and this wasn’t about “come to church”. We were confronting their spiritual condition and they were getting uncomfortable. After a few minutes they stopped playing and they stopped pretending. They got honest real quick and admitted that they weren’t living right and they were doing some messed up stuff.

We implored them to repent TODAY as there is no guarantee of tomorrow and the Bible says that TODAY is the day of salvation. A couple of the guys even told us that they have been thinking of getting straightened out, but they weren’t quite ready yet, they wanted to live their own lives their way for a little while longer. What a deception! I pulled no punches and went into graphic detail of what a life like theirs can lead to. Sudden, instant death due to foolish behavior is common with these thugs. We even mentioned getting busted by the police and flushing their lives away with jail time. Totally unimpressed by the words we had to say and the message that we had to preach, we pushed in for a supernatural demonstration.

I had to press in to the Lord to get anything prophetically, but after a few minutes of standing there with little to say, it started to flow. The Lord began to show us stuff about how they were into drugs and women. We prophesied over a couple of the guys, revealing giftings and callings in them. I called one guy out as a leader and told him that I saw some young ones watching his every move. He freaked a little and obviously had some younger siblings that he was conscious of. Another guy we called out as a trail blazer and a “doer”. I told him I saw that when other guys were talking about doing something, he would just go and do it! The other guys in the group started telling us that we were right on and that we must know him or something!

We asked the usual stuff, were they or anyone in their family in need of a miracle or a healing? This usually starts a crack in the tough exterior, even with the skeptics. When they see that we are willing to demonstrate our message of the kingdom with a power demonstration (healings and miracles) they open up and give us a shot. Not so with these guys. They just wouldn’t budge, no matter how hard I preached to them on getting right TODAY, they all still held to the deception that some other day they would get right.

So, when they:

1. Didn’t listen to the Gospel of the Kingdom
2. Didn’t give us an opportunity to minister healing to them or their family
3. Didn’t receive accurate prophetic words that revealed their destiny

The last thing I had in my arsenal was a proclamation. I just looked the lead guy in the eye and told him emphatically, “Since we can’t get your attention, then the Lord will have to. In the name of Jesus we're just going to pray that God do WHATEVER it takes to get your attention and help you see that we’re telling the truth.” So after that, we lingered a couple more minutes, but didn’t really have anything more to say.

Then God started to talk.


CHICKENS IN THE HOOD
About 3-5 minutes later, three police cruisers came barreling into the cul-de-sac where we were standing! Cops jump out of the cars and scramble towards the guys we are talking to. And guess who went running? The gentle Christians? Nope. The rough, “I’ll kill you for your shoes” thugs who minutes ago were totally unimpressed with the power of God went running like the chickens and sissies that they truly are! Beneath all of the posturing and pretending were a bunch of scared little boys. It was awesome. So they were running and we just stood there. They apparently had a warrant for one of the guys we were prophesying to just minutes before. They get him to the ground, frisk him and throw him up against the house, slapping cuffs on him. A couple of the other guys disappear to their homes while a few others regroup on a nearby front porch. We go up and talk to them. They’re freaked out but I don’t stop, I’m relentless: “Where did you guys go? What are you guys afraid of? Let me ask you, is that enough of a sign for you? Does God have your attention now?”

They are paying attention. One of the guys says, “Yeah, I need to get right. I have a girlfriend that’s been trying to get me straightened out. She was right, I should get right”. I tell a couple of the other guys hiding on the porch that “The good guys don’t hide”. I told them that if they walked in righteousness like us, then they wouldn’t have to run. All of a sudden, they are all ears. We find another one of the guys literally hiding inside of his house, looking out a screen window to see what’s going on. I walk up to the house and start really PREACHING through the window.

I read him the scripture in Romans 13:3-4, “For rulers are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. And wouldest thou have no fear of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise from the same: for he is a minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is a minister of God, an avenger for wrath to him that doeth evil.”

We tell him once again that TODAY is the day of salvation, not tomorrow. I look closer through the screen and realize that I have been preaching to a whole family gathered on the sofa. Grandma was motioning me to go on and saying "Amen!".

Well, when the day was done, none of them got down on their knees and repented. But one thing I know is this; they were confronted with the truth and will never be the same.