You Know What You Call That, Don’t You?

We’re very excited, tonight is the start of our Urban Missionary Training, Summer Boot Camp. We have Surprise Sithole from Iris Ministries in Africa here with us and we’re looking forward to getting people activated into powerful Kingdom ministry. You’ll hear me talk a lot more about that in the near future, but I had a dream from the Lord where we were commissioned to train, equip and release “Urban Missionaries”. Urban meaning, “city dwellers” and missionaries meaning, people on a mission (or the Great Commission). This is what we are and this is what we’ve been doing for the last several years and now we’re getting language for it!

STUDENTS FROM MORNINGSTAR
A couple of weeks ago we had several students from the Morningstar School of Ministry in town on their faith course. The faith course at Morningstar is basically a week where students are given two pages of supernatural assignments that they have to complete for their final grade. The course is designed to get students out of their “norm” and into accomplishing supernatural feats through the faith and the power of God! There is stuff on there like doing kind acts for strangers and also stuff like healings, miracles and leading people to Jesus.

Several of the students remembered us from our Trip to Morningstar last October so on their way down to Atlanta, they looked us up through the Morningstar Fellowship of Ministries directory. I got an email on Monday night telling me that they were on their way down and I returned the call Tuesday. I asked how we could help and one of the students, Jonathan explained to me a little about the faith course, asking if they could come out on outreach with us.

Fast forward to Wednesday and we meet up with the guys. There is a team of three girls and another team of two guys in town. The guys meet up with me on Wednesday afternoon and we head out into “the hood”. We get out of the car and start banging on a couple of doors. A few minutes later we spot a group of people sitting out on their front steps and drinking. We walk up to them and one of the ladies there gets very nervous and just blurts out, “Are you the police?!” “Do I look like a police officer?” I said. “I don’t know, but it’s not every day three big white boys go walking in the neighborhood!” So I started to explain to them that we’re here to preach the Gospel and demonstrate it through the power of God. We get talking to them and a few minutes later, the vocal woman gets up and says, “I’m going to get my husband!” I was concerned; I really didn’t know her intentions at all. A few minutes later, she comes out of her house with her husband and he starts asking us questions.

Immediately, we start prophesying to the guy, telling him what the Lord is showing us about his life. We were telling him that he is really a true disciple and walks with the Lord, yet few know about it, we’re also telling him that he has a pastoral and teaching gift, etc. etc. etc. He takes us off the steps, ushers us into his house and asks for more. The next 45 minutes are spent prophesying and encouraging this man in his calling and purpose. As it turns out, he’s a relatively new believer that has been isolated and discouraged. He knows the Lord but his wife doesn’t. She drinks heavily and uses drugs and this guy has been holding the fort for the last couple of years without any encouragement! We were just what he needed. In fact, in the last few weeks since this happened I have been meeting with him most every week and we now have a little house church in that neighborhood!

We ended up at the church later that night and we met up with the team of girls. Over dinner, the guys are breathlessly telling the girls how awesome things were that evening and I told them, “You know what you call that, don’t you?” “Call what?” they said. “What we did today” I replied. They were sitting on the edge of their seats, waiting for some deep answer and I let them wonder for a few seconds… “Wednesday” I told them. “Huh?!” They were confused. “Wednesday happens every week and comes around every seven days. It’s normal to be used of God in that way among the lost and dying, hence the name Wednesday.” They got it. It was normal to “do the stuff”.

THURSDAY
So the next day they had a laundry list of stuff that they had to accomplish. I asked them “So what’s left on your list? Give me the most intimidating thing you have to accomplish on there”. “Well, one of the big things on here is to have a public healing and miracle service and advertise it creatively” they told me. “No problem, I know just the place” I confidently said. I was going to take them down to Grady Hospital where lots of sick people hang out, a great place to do a public miracle service. Before we left I asked them what their ideas were for advertising creatively. The only thing they could come up with was writing “Free Prayer” or something like that on poster boards. I told them, “That’s just lame; you can do better than that”. “What did you have in mind” they asked. “Well, why don’t you do it like Jesus did? How did Jesus advertise his healing and miracle ministry?” I asked them. “He didn’t” they said. “Wrong. He sure did.” and then I gave them this scripture:

“And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. And His fame went throughout all Syria.” Matthew 4:23, 24

I told them, “The best advertisement for healings and miracles is healings and miracles! If you want to draw a crowd, get people healed!” They looked at me very skeptically. “I’ll show you” I told them.

So we arrive down at Grady Hospital in downtown Atlanta and it doesn’t take more than a few minutes to spot some very sick and injured people. We find s guy down there with a swollen, nasty ankle sitting on a bench. I asked him what’s going on with his ankle and he told us that he was held down and beat with a baseball bat. He said that they wanted to put him in a cast because the ankle is fractured, but he wouldn’t let them. He couldn’t put any weight on it whatsoever without excruciating pain and walked out of the hospital with a single crutch, waiting for his girlfriend to pick him up. I had three of the kids from Morningstar with me and I told the guys about the Kingdom of God, that there are no crutches and lameness in Heaven. I told him that if heaven touched his ankle, he would be pain free and healed. He allowed us to pray for him and as we prayed, he said that he didn’t feel anything. I then told him the story how I was instantly healed of a broken ankle a few years ago. I told him that when I was prayed for, all pain left the ankle and I stamped my foot on the ground, pain free!

You could literally see the faith spring up in his eyes! His face lit up and he hoped off the bench and tapped his foot to the ground. As he did, this CRAZY look came over his face and he began to stamp his foot and busted ankle on the ground. “No pain!” he said. He then began walking up and down the sidewalk, putting all his weight on the foot. He then jumped on it and hollered a bit saying, “NO PAIN!” I turned around to the 10-15 people surrounding us and said, “Jesus healed this guy’s ankle!” On cue, the people surrounding us LINE UP and start asking us for healing prayer. All of a sudden, everyone in the group is praying for healings and miracles on the street. I tap Jonathan on the shoulder and tell him, “You’re having your public healing and miracle service right now. And the guy with the healed ankle was your creative advertising!” The kids look at me and grin sheepishly.

“Oh yeah, you know what you call this, don’t you?” I said.

Thursday.