Friday, October 26, 2007

Prophetic Workshop

Hello whoever reads this blog and thank you for reading. I hope these stories are inspiring you to draw closer to God from whever you are at in life, so that you may experience the power of God in a such a real way.

About a month ago, I shared a story of how 2 leaders and a fellow staff person and I did some prophetic evangelism in a hippie town and how we say God move in such marvelous ways. Well, the prophetic movement in evangelism is something as a base we all have really wanted to delve in to. Leah (a leader on the base) has been doing workshops with her church and a few with YWAM here for these past few months and we thought it was time to introduce this new MAD DTS to the prophetic, so that when we go out into the city to do evangelism, there will be much more purpose in our thinking.

Last night Leah and Andy asked Amber and I (we were the four that did the prophetic stuff in Byron) to help with this prophetic workshop for the MAD DTS. So we got together about a half hour before we were to meet with the school and talked about what we were going to do, how we were going to make the prophetic a practical thing rather than some gifting that seems to high to attain, and also to pray. During our prayers, we felt God moving inside of us in really overwhelming ways. The four of us has been feeling the burdens of the school over the course of the day, feeling heavy, feeling fearful, and feeling disconnect from God (these are all issues that the students were dealing with). And after feeling God break through these feelings we felt Him promise a real move. We were stoked, but kinda scared, not ganna lie.

I started the workshop off telling the stories of Byron Bay, which were so inspiring and powerful. And then Andy balanced those stories with some stories of how many times her and Leah have been rejected or have gotten it wrong or the timing wasn't right. We did that simply to give the students a very real view of what operating in the prophetic looks like. Sometimes, we think that a person who is prophetic, we could never be like them because they are so gifted, but God has given that gift to all of us. It says in the Book of Revelation, 'the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus'-- so all who are claim Jesus as Lord and are surrendered to him have the ability to prophecy.
Then Leah had the four of us get up in front of the school and prophecy over the students. We just went for it. Every impression, every picture, every word that God gave us was right on. We must have prophesied over 10-15 students or so. It was incredible to see God move in that way. Not matter how small the impression was it was always right on.

Leah then interviewed us on HOW we recieved the prophetic word, once again to just show how simple it is to operate in the prophetic. After that we had 5 students come up and we had the rest of the school prophesy over them. We let that go on for a fair bit and we ended with worship.

I led worship, and I felt like we needed to turn the lights off so that people could be free to express themselves however. It was an optional thing, people didn't HAVE to stay for worship, but everyone did. They were all so hungry to encounter God. I led a few songs and just felt the prompting to ask if there was anyone who wanted to give their life to God--- I barely finished the question before 2 or 3 people start screaming out "I give my life to you God!" and "Everything I have is yours!"
We kept on worshiping God, His presence seemingly tangible.
At one point I stopped playing guitar and we all just sang the song of our heart. \
After that I felt another prompting to confront that fear that I had felt earlier on. I spoke out, "I feel that the Lord wants to say to you all, that His perfect love casts out fear. And if you have fear in you, raise your hands, because God wants to bring His love into your life so that you won't have anymore fear inside of you."
Most of the school raise their hands and we prayed together and as we did there was a release of freedom over the group.. People started crying out, giving their fears to God, girls were dancing, we were all singing.. asking for His love to come in a greater way.
It was an incredible move of God.

After a bit more singing, we finished worship. And they just wanted more. One of the students asked, "Is there anyone with a hurt ankle? I feel God wants to heal you." A girl raised her hand and we all came around her and prayed for healing to come to her ankle.

It was such an incredible night to see all these students come on fire for God, to be hungry for His presence and His word, and to be set free from fear.
Isn't our God great?

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Some MAD Worship.

Hello world.

Today would be the first official week of lectures on the MAD DTS, which is awesome. The new bunch of students (25 girls, 7 guys) are from all sorts of backgrounds and countries--From broken homes with christianity as the Sunday things to some as Pastor's Kids who've seen it all and are just plain skeptical. It's an interesting mix to be sure.

So we kicked off yesterday with some lectures and some community worship which was good, but frankly not very free. It felt stiff. Gunnliek (MAD school leader) led worship with a bunch of us MAD Staff backing up (I did some keys and crazy lead guitar). It was a good time but not that deep. But it's okay, it was only the first day.

Today being the second day, and being the day that I was designated to lead worship for the MAD school, I was ready to get past the stiffness, the shallow worship. Of course Ingvild (fellow Staff leader) and I searched God's heart on what was to happen to day and we felt very strongly there was going to be freedom. We felt God was going to touch these guys in a way that they had never been touched before, showing the reality of His being, of His presence. Naturally, we were stoked. The past two mornings I woke up insanely early (the only alone time possible, pretty much) and this morning I felt in my spirit excitement and praise start to build inside of me in such an overwhelming feeling. I knew something good was going to happen.

I felt God lead me to speak release to this kiddos. So we gathered at our usual meeting time and I gave a bit of a talk about expression. I felt it important to greet them all in this manner:
"Good morning, Creators. Who here is a creator? Raise your hand! All of you raise your hand, because you are all creators. We were created to create."
I spoke to them simply of the expression of worship from our heart in the gifts (art, music, poetry, dancing, photography, cinematography, ect..) that God has given us. To bring our most excellent talents before the throne room of God as an offering of praise to God the Creator, the Father. I told them they had freedom to do and express whatever they wanted. They could sing whatever, draw whatever, dance whatever as long as it was worship to God. After a short 5 minute talk we were off.

I felt the words flow out of me as naturally as they always do when I begin to worship God. We sang maybe one song and then dove into the prophetic-- as God impressed feelings, thoughts and guiding of where He was taking this whole sha-bang, I led the rest of them into it. After a while this eruption of praise was coming from Ingvild and I:
"Your unfailing love casts out fear!
It casts out fear in me!"
And I felt the Lord give me the nudge. I spoke it out, "Does anyone here feel like there is some sort of fear, or hinderance that is keeping them from God?"
A few hands go up and the staff flock to them, and as they do some one named Maureen falls down in tears weeping.. The presence of God is heavy now.. And as my fellow staff are ministering to these girls in this worship time, the girls are crying out to God in tears. It was beautiful..
But I knew there was something more. So we kept worshipping, singing out exactly what God was doing in me or what He was wanting to do in others.. Another prompt:
"Has anyone here never been touched by God before or felt His presence?"

One hand from Mick (one of my guys) and I spoke it out:
"Mick, God wants to touch you."
His hands go out in a cry and he falls to his knees as two leaders come to minister to him.. It was such a joy to see God move in the way that He said He would.. Bringing freedom and life to those that were captive to death..

Worship ended in the chorus of one of Brad Kilman's songs:
"I want to be close to you, I want to be found in you.." over and over and over again.

The cry of our hearts is to find identity in Jesus Christ.
And Jesus is on the move.