The Three Chairs: Practicing the Prophetic

Several things I loved about today:

*We had fish for dinner. Ha! Good stuff...

*I was able to chat on the phone for 40 minutes with a revivalist girl from Michigan (who did 2 years of Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry) and recently moved to the valley.

• She just visited church on Sunday, and is coming back next Sunday. Her presence in Arizona and her interest in our church is SUCH an answer to prayer. One of the things Emily (my fellow revivalist buddy) and I pray for extremely often is for God to send us ready-made revivalists. And by "send us" I mean both to our church, as new members who want to get plugged in and help make things happen, OR as just part of the greater network of contacts and new friends we are building in the area. Whether this girl becomes part of our lives for the former reason, or for the latter reason (or both), it's going to be great having her around. I'm thrilled. I had a grin on my face the rest of the afternoon! I love answers to prayer. I love it that God hears our prayers, period. But then it's astounding to see just how specific he can get when he answers them. Such goodness. BTW - another thing Emily and I pray for is for God to send us those that are ready to be awakened to dreams of revival, destiny, and a supernatural move of God. So...not just the ready-made revivalists, ha! :) We want to help MAKE them, too!

*School of Supernatural Ministry started up again after we all had a bit of a summer break - and that was majorly fantastic. We had a group of around 30 students.  Kris Vallotton taught on the prophetic (not live, rather through a previously recorded DVD), and then we did an activity where we placed three chairs facing a wall, had three volunteers sit in them, and then the guy who runs it pointed at someone out of the rest of the students. The three volunteers in chairs, who couldn't see anything and didn't know who had been chosen, were to see if they got a prophetic word for that person. Two out of the three had a word, and once those had been shared, the lady who had been chosen explained to us how those words applied to her life. Pretty cool, huh?! I was glad that one of the brave volunteers didn't actually get something, or at least, didn't share it, only because hopefully that makes everyone realize that it is completely okay to not have anything! And practicing the prophetic is essential. It helps us identify how it is we hear the voice of God and feel his presence, and that way we can apply it out there in the "real world", where there's obviously not a contained, controlled environment for stepping out in the prophetic.

God is a rockstar!

Revival: Birthed From a Place of Prayer

Church today blew my mind. Justin preached on Identity, and how to often we taken the worst part of Calvinism (God is sovereign and has a perfect plan for my life) and the worst of Armenianism (I have free will and can make choices), constructing something like this...

Worst case scenario that we tend to come up with in our minds:

God has a specific plan for your life (Reformed/Calvinism); you have to make choices (Armenian); but God hides his plan from you and if you choose wrong you miss his "best" - then you are condemned to live out a second-rate life (consequences of sin); with God and you playing out a continual adjustment of your life plan (more movie than Bible). The result is a life of regret, longing for the life that was "meant to be".

Justin encouraged us to know that we are sons and daughters of God, and that even if we sin and he has to take us to the woodshed (i.e. discipline us), he does so because he loves us very, very much, and it doesn't change the fact that he has a wonderful plan for our lives. We are not destined to lead second-rate lives.

------------Understanding our identity, and also....deeply knowing and believing in who God says he is------is KEY to living a revivalist lifestyle. If we don't know the authority and power that God has granted us, if we don't know and believe that he is a raging romantic, head-over-heels in love with us, then we're not going to be able to operate in the fullness of a revivalist lifestyle. 

------------------Phoenix-area revival update-------------------------
Emily and I got together with three other ladies....Bev, Gloria, and Kim, to share ideas/strategies for this region, and to pray together. I was really encouraged...my faith was stirred. God wants to do something in this region. He is moving key players into place. It's coming! :)

I think we are going to continue to get together to pray, although I don't know how often.

I really think that revival is birthed from a place of prayer. More thoughts on this later....but or now, that's quite a bit to chew on.

And so, I've got my pray-for-revival cap on - and I'm going to contend for his power and his manifest presence. WOOT!

Growing Vision - What I Like to Call "Heart-Bursts"

So it's been growing.

This sense that I'm supposed to be here in Gilbert, Arizona, right now, in this city, in this state, in this church...for such a time of great awakening and revival that the city has never seen before!
I believe revival is birthed from a place of prayer...both individual/in-the-secret-place prayer, and corporate prayer. I believe it's birthed out of fasting and living a radical lifestyle of laying down worldly pursuits and going after the Kingdom.

One by one God has been stripping things off of my heart, things that have had their claws dug into me for far too long.  One of those things is arrogance. I never thought I was an arrogant person. But I'm realizing there's deep layers of pride, of ego, that I have so identified as being part of my confident persona, that I haven't realize they were there. It was not until they were offended recently, by unprecedented rejection from a few close people that I had really put my trust in, that I realized the presence of the layers of pride that have been coating my heart.

You know what...it takes a lot of vulnerability and courage to say that. It's a hard thing for me to admit to. Painful even. And now it's out there for the whole world to read. But it needs to be read, it needs to be confessed, and I need to repent from it, and I need to have my mind renewed. May my thoughts and actions and speech and mannerisms really reflect a genuine love for people and for the things of God, for no other reason, for  no other cause, than that I am in love with God my King, and I love the things he loves, and love the people he loves.

So strip it all away, God. Strip away the hurt, the pain, the pride, the rejection, the offense. May I worship you with an unoffended heart.  May my life be one of your favorite movies to put in and watch! If you even do such a thing. ;)

And so - this growing vision, this dream...this bursting going on in my heart...what is it?

Oh, yes, I burn for revival, I burn for transformation, for an awakening of hearts across America and this world, for the raw power of God to invade our lives with his goodness and beauty and lavish love. I want to see people freed of addictions, healed of cancer, healed of AIDS, healed of emotional and sexual abuse....to see lives radically restored, devils cast out, the lame walking, the blind seeing, and every child living free to dream big dreams, and every adult walking in the fullness of their calling and destiny, not believing for a second that youth has passed them by, and that they can't still have that mind-blowing adventure-filled life they have always envisioned. 


But truly, on a more practical level, my heart for my generation is growing. I used to be one very frustrated, legalistic, judgmental teenager. I was so annoyed and angry that people couldn't just LIVE FOR GOD, ALREADY! Now I have so much more compassion, realizing that people's behaviors don't just come out of nowhere - that there is a reason, a belief or value system, that they are holding onto. What they really need is not to curb their behaviors, but rather, they need to experience an identity shift that only comes form encountering the unbridled love of God.

And so, what I really want to see is a whole generation lit for Jesus. And to be honest, in the Scriptures, a generation was pretty much everybody alive. So my heart burns for everyone. Haha.  That's awesome. Love it.  Thank you Jesus for growing my heart, for filling me with compassion, for giving me your eyes to see all the beautiful treasures around me. There are no mere mortals - something C.S. Lewis said that really messes with my mind. THERE ARE NO MERE MORTALS. But more specifically, the age bracket that I feel called to in this season of life is 12 to early 30s.

I know that this is all over the place - it's like one big, excited thing going on inside of me...swirling at a million miles per hour. A tornado of vision and emotion and drive.

I'm asking Jesus - what else do you have for this time in my life? You've taken some things out...now what do you want to replace it with?

Emily and I recently attended an event where we were able meet with other 20 and 30 somethings of the Valley who are professionals and looking for local churches to plug into, or looking for ways to make more friends, meet more people in their stage of life, etc. The music was fantastic and the sermon really got to me with where I'm at in life now.

However, I do believe we need a network of 20-something revivalists - in the vein of seeing the supernatural power of God invade every part of this city and transform a generation. What this event/organization (the one we attended) is doing is incredible, and I support and believe in their work and efforts to unite hundreds and hundreds of 20 and 30 somethings across the city. However, I do think we need a place of prayer, worship, and the prophetic, where we aren't worried about saying something that would offended someone from a different denomination or approach.  My concern is that there is this whole piece of the Christian faith walk (the signs and wonders, and you-will-do-greater-things-than-ME-aka-Jesus stuff) that won't be addressed by the particular organization whose event we attended. We need a place where Burning Ones can get together, get all fired up, and go out and preach a gospel of love, healing, and radical transformation.

So how can we do that, while still supporting what our friends at at this organization for 20-30-something-year-olds is doing?

They said at the this event that they want to see revival. But what does that MEAN? What does that look like? Does that look like living under an open heaven where God moves in the miraculous? Again, don't misunderstand me. I so believe in what they are doing. I love their hearts. I love their passion. I love their hair (yes, the people there have super cool hair...not even kidding). But what about training and equipping and providing fellowship for a generation of miracle-working revivalists?! We need a place where this can happen, too.

Emily and I are praying, brainstorming, writing, reading, looking, getting downloads...

And we are excited. We are so excited to see what is going to happen.

On Sunday we are meeting with a lady named Beverly who goes to our School of Supernatural Ministry on Monday nights. She goes to a different church (which is awesome - I love it that we have people from different churches besides Two Rivers that are attending TRSSM), and has a real heart for prayer and revival amongst youth. She also knows two kids that are Bethel right now, and should be coming back soon, for the summer at least (I don't know if they are doing a second year or not). Anyway, I want to start a network of young revivalists in this city. I don't know WHAT it would look like.  Where and how would we meet? What would we do? How do we make sure the local church is strengthened by us hanging out, not plundered for its on-fire revivalists?

Again - we are thinking and praying and brainstorming. And praying. And praying some more.

Let me know if you have any thoughts on this! Eager to hear any wisdom!

Love Zaps From God

After work today, I did a little hop and skip over to the Gilbert Healing Rooms.

I enjoy it so much when my brothers and sisters pray for me. Makes me feel pretty loved, both by God and by them.  Sometimes you just need a little love zap from God.  ZZZZZZZip!

The one specific thing I've been contending for lately - His peace. I've been going through some storms, and fear and anxiety have crept in at times. About 45 minutes prior to the time I was due to get prayed for, this huge cloud of anxiety just FELL on me. I felt my heart drop ...a long, long ways. It was such "crestfallen" feeling that it was borderline despair. I have not felt that in a year's time. I realized right away that I was getting spiritually attacked, and that I needed to fight it off. This was of course happening all right before the time of prayer. So then I walked over to the waiting room, where you sit and soak in God's presence while you wait for your name to be called, and started journaling, asking God to bring peace over my troubled mind and heart.

The nice thing about the Gilbert Healing Rooms is that they pray over your name and get words from God before you even come into the room.

Soon enough they came to get me, stood me under a sign that said "In His Presence", at which point I could tangibly feel this mist of love coming over me (not something that happens to me very often at all, probably about 4 or 5 times a year), and two out of the team of three people that prayed over me had received the word "peace" from the Lord, along with Scriptures to share with me.

None of them knew me from Adam.

So that was just a really sweet time.

Thank you, Jesus for the love zap. :)