Posts in the month of: Mar, 2010
IHOPU New England Update 3/20-3/21
On Saturday, March 20, the IHOPU team drove four hours to the University of Maine in Orono. They knew that the awakening meeting that night would be different from all others previously held. Maine has very little of the rich spiritual heritage of other areas in New England. “There are no wells to re-dig here,” said one of the local church leaders, “but that’s why the Lord led us here, to dig until He sends revival.”
People from a diverse selection of denominations showed up, the majority of whom were from cessationist backgrounds, which means they don’t believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are for today.
After worship, Jesse Engle spoke about the first commandment and consecration to the Lord. That was followed by a ministry time for repentance and freedom from sexual immorality and for the infilling of the Father’s love. The altar was filled with people who desired to be free from everything that would hinder them from loving God wholeheartedly.
As the night continued, physical healing became the focus and many were healed as they received prayer. Because of the healing presence of the Holy Spirit, they became aware of the nearness of God in their lives, and many people felt the presence of the Holy Spirit for the first time. One of the IHOPU team asked a young man who was filled with joy and laughter what he was feeling. He responded, “I can’t move!” The IHOPU team member asked, “Is this normal for you?” The man replied, “I’m a Baptist! This has never happened before!”
On Sunday morning, March 21, the IHOPU team ministered at a local church. They felt strongly that the Lord wanted to call the church to be faithful witnesses and to stand boldly for their faith. One of the IHOPU leaders shared testimonies of bold evangelism and salvations, and explained why God calls us to be witnesses. The students had the opportunity to pray with many in the church for boldness.
At the end of the weekend, the team counted the number of testimonies and found that there had been as many healings, deliverances, and salvations in the three days spent in Maine and New Hampshire as have been reported throughout the rest of their time in New England.
Here are just a few of the many testimonies from the weekend:
Mark’s Story
Nine years ago, I crushed a disc in my lower back. I’ve had three back operations since then, the most recent being a fusion three years ago. Through prayer and the mercy of the Lord, I was able to stop all pain medications. Tonight, I received prayer, and the sciatic pain running down my left leg was healed. I have feeling in my left foot, which I have not had in nine years. Thank You, Jesus!
Rachel’s Story
In recent weeks, I have been in a class at my church, dealing with offense and unforgiveness. Many people did wrong to me as a child. I thought that I would never be able to forgive and that as a result of that, God could not forgive me. Tomorrow morning, I am going to be baptized in water. I know that I am supposed to leave my old man in the baptismal pool, but I was afraid because of the unforgiveness I felt toward myself and toward the people who hurt me in the past. I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and have suffered from depression and suicidal thinking throughout my life, even as a Christian. During the ministry time, a member of the IHOPU team asked if I had been struggling with depression. I renounced it, and I have been set free from depression and suicidal thinking. The IHOPU team member led me through a prayer of repentance and forgiveness. I felt so much lighter! I feel like I don’t even recognize myself. Also, my back pain is gone, and I believe God has healed my ears as well, because I felt a warm sensation in my ears. Thank God!
IHOPU New England Meeting Schedule
IHOPU New England Update 3/19
On Friday, March 19, the IHOPU team ministered at Grace Fellowship Church in Nashua, New Hampshire. During the drive from Boston, they asked the Lord to show them how He wanted to move. A number of students felt the Holy Spirit emphasizing the Father’s love and freedom from performance. They also felt that this church has an important calling in God, and that they were to encourage the church to persevere and to press into this destiny. A word of knowledge was given that the IHOPU team would be surprised by the miracles that the Lord would do that night.
As worship began, the presence of God was felt in the sanctuary. However, at the same time, many IHOPU team members were struggling with the discouraging feeling that the power of the Spirit was not breaking out in the way that they had anticipated.
After the service that evening, the team gathered to debrief and realized that they had not been aware of all that the Spirit was doing. Nearly every student shared a story of someone they had prayed for that night who had received a significant breakthrough.
One young woman came to the service in deep depression and on the brink of suicide. Though she did not raise her hand for prayer, the Lord highlighted her to one of the IHOPU students. After receiving prayer for deliverance, the Holy Spirit met her and she felt like a completely different person. Another young woman said hat she felt clean for the first time in her life. There were many that night who were delivered from self-hatred, depression, and a performance mentality.
The team was so amazed by the many testimonies that their debriefing time became a time of worship, giving thanks and glory to God for what He had done. The entire team was filled with the joy of the Lord. They read Psalm 126 together: “When the Lord brought back the captivity of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing . . . the Lord has done great things for us!”
Here is one of the testimonies from that evening:
Sandy’s Story
A word of knowledge was spoken from the stage about a person in need of healing in the lung. A lady named Sandy raised her hand. She wanted to be healed from lung pain and other pains that she had throughout her body that doctors had not been able to explain for over a year. As a student began to pray for Sandy, she did not feel anything happen in her lung, but she began to feel the presence of God as the student prayed. The Holy Spirit used the student to speak straight to Sandy’s heart.
After ministry time was over, the student felt led to go back to Sandy. As she walked up, Sandy exclaimed, “I cannot believe you walked over here at this very moment. I need deliverance.” The student led her through deliverance related to performance, and a burden lifted off her.
Later on that night, Sandy walked up to the student and said, “The pain that I felt in my body is almost gone.”
Prayer Requests
Pray for the believers in Grace Fellowship Church to lay claim to the deliverance they have received and to help set many captives free in Jesus’ name. Pray for the IHOPU New England team for continued health, strength, and boldness in ministry and evangelism. Pray for a revival in New England that will lead to another great awakening and touch the ends of the earth.
IHOPU New England Meeting Schedule
IHOPU New England Update 3/18
From the start of their arrival in New England, the IHOPU students felt the Lord emphasizing evangelism as an important tool for their work there. They knew that God wanted to use them to encourage, strengthen, and provoke local believers to evangelize. Very few of the team has had much experience with evangelism, so they spent the first few days asking God for boldness to share their faith with others.
Their plan was to look for opportunities to share the gospel wherever they went, whether waiting at the bus stop, sitting next to someone on the subway, or approaching strangers on college campuses. Sometimes they would use prophetic words, sometimes their testimony, and sometimes open-air preaching.
Many of the student teams returned, sharing their surprise at the eagerness of some to repent and give their life in service of Jesus.
Someone shared a dream in which God called the IHOPU team to answer Charles Finney’s prayer “that many would be soundly converted.” To Finney, “soundly converted” meant that the person would continue to live wholeheartedly for the Lord many years after salvation. That phrase, “soundly converted,” has become the theme for the students’ evangelism.
As the students went out to share the gospel, they talked with as many as eight people who quickly accepted the invitation to receive Jesus. But the students didn’t want them to accept something that they didn’t fully understand. The students took special care with each person to explain what it means to repent of sins, surrender to Jesus, and live for Him.
Read further to learn a few of the testimonies of people who have given their lives to the Lord.
Amanda’s Story
One of the IHOPU teams was riding the bus when they met Amanda, a student at Harvard University. As they spoke to her and encouraged her about her destiny, she began to tear up and said that she was searching for a purpose in life. They explained to her the destiny of a life that is born again, and told her about being saved from sin, being forgiven, and having eternal life.
Amanda looked them in the eyes and said, “What must I do to be born again? Save me, save me; I want to be saved!” They prayed with her, and she accepted Jesus as her Savior in front of the gates of Harvard.
Jessica and Char
Another team of IHOPU students walked around Harvard Square and did some open-air preaching. They saw three girls walk out of the subway station, two of them, Jessica and Char, on crutches and in knee braces. A couple of the students went over to ask if they could pray for them. Char answered, “Well, we’re Jewish.” The students responded, “Jesus was a Jew, so that’s OK.”
After they prayed for the girls, they asked them how their knees felt. Char said to Jessica, “Just tell them you got healed so that we can leave.” Jessica started to bend her knee and test it out. She looked at the IHOPU students and said, “Actually, my knee feels much better.”
The three girls all left in different directions, but as Char crossed the street, the students watched as she began to put weight on her leg. They saw her begin to walk without putting weight on the crutches, and finally she started to carry them, not using them at all.
A block away, another member of the IHOPU student team passed by a girl walking along the sidewalk carrying crutches. He thought to himself, “That’s strange, why would anyone walk around, carrying crutches in Harvard Yard?” At dinner, when they shared about Jessica and Char’s testimony, he found out the rest of the story.
Prayer Focus
Please pray for the IHOPU students during the second half of their time in New England, that like Finney, Edwards, Wesley, and Brainerd, they would see many souls soundly converted. Also pray that the church of New England would rise up with boldness to preach the gospel wherever they go. God has a harvest in New England.
IHOPU New England Meeting Schedule
Unveiling: Prophetic Conference 2010, May 12–15
Join Mike Bickle, Heidi Baker, John and Carol Arnott, and others at Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship for Unveiling: Prophetic Conference 2010 as they share about what the Spirit is saying to the Church in this hour. This conference will be a time of renewed focus on Jesus the Bridegroom and what He has for us, both individually and as the Body of Christ.
From the Forerunner Bookstore: Until He Comes (Reviewed)
“Fervent prayer will be both the catalyst and the essential response to the climax of this age” (Humphrey, 100).1
Jesus taught His disciples about the age to come. He also left them a command to fervently watch and pray until His second coming (Mk. 13:33, Lk. 21:36). Why? It is because, as His friends, we not only have the privilege of “hastening the day of the Lord” (2 Pet. 3:12) but also the responsibility to do so through fasting and prayer (see Mk. 2:19-20).
Billy Humphrey of IHOP Atlanta explores this reality in depth in his most recent book, Until He Comes. Telling his own history in prayer along with stories from biblical heroes of the faith, Billy winds his way through the history of night and day prayer in the biblical narrative. Beginning with the tabernacles of Moses and David, Billy insightfully explores the historical accounts of night and day prayer that touched not only Moses and King David but also other kings of Israel and the prophets. “Night and day prayer was not something the Lord called David alone to practice. Rather, it was to be the centerpiece of the corporate worship experience for God’s people throughout every generation” (Humphrey, 35).
This is the simplest and most comprehensive single work on the history and significance of the prayer movement that I have read. Billy even sets forth the history of the prayer movement, post-Pentecost, which touched groups such as Alexander and the Sleepless Ones (400 AD), St. Patrick and St. Comgall and the monastery of Bangor (433 AD), the monastery of St. Maurice (522 AD), William the Pious and the monastery of Cluny (910 AD), Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians (1722 AD), concluding with the expanding expressions of night and day prayer worldwide that we see today.
This is a concise, quick read that I recommend to anyone wanting their faith stirred for fasting and prayer, or for anyone wanting deeper, biblical clarity of night and day prayer and the movement that is rapidly growing to heed the call to watch and pray.
1. Humphrey, Billy. Until He Comes. Forerunner Publishing, 2009.
The Orphan Justice Center: Turning the Hearts of the Fathers to the Children
As we approach the fulfillment of our hope in the second coming of Christ, the Church will begin to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit and to exemplify the kingdom of God on earth in unprecedented ways. This will come in part through the Holy Spirit turning the fathers’ hearts to the children and the children’s hearts to the fathers (Mal. 4:5-6). This is a sure promise concerning the last days.
James 1:27 says, “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” This carried a two-fold message. The Lord will purify His bride by releasing the promise of Malachi 4:5–6 to “turn the hearts of the fathers to the children” in pure, undefiled love before God, while simultaneously releasing a grace for righteousness to “keep oneself unspotted from the world.”
The overall mission of the Orphan Justice Center (OJC) is to bring physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual restoration to orphaned children. Imagine thousands of children planted in godly families in secure communities with night-and-day worship and prayer. We are eager to receive the lonely, neglected, handicapped, and abused orphans and set them into loving families. OJC investigates human trafficking and child sex slavery in the Kansas City area, and seeks to raise public awareness of orphans, adoption, human trafficking, and child sex slavery.
Locally, OJC desires to empower and inspire families to adopt and care for at-risk children. Since August 2008, over twenty families have partnered with OJC to complete state foster care certification to receive battered children.
On an international level, OJC is working with Thai leaders to establish micro-economies in northern Thailand to end the sale of impoverished children into prostitution. Village opium crops have been replaced with coffee, the sales of which are supporting the villages and their orphanages. OJC is also helping to establish restoration houses of prayer for victimized children.
It is clear that adoption is a justice issue that is on the heart of the Father. As IHOP–KC goes forward in this season to combine 24/7 prayers for justice with 24/7 works of justice, we are asking the Lord to release clarity concerning our role regarding adoption and centers for justice. The question that faces all of us is: will we rise up to partner with the Lord’s heart to see restoration and redemption in the lives of orphaned children?
To learn more about the Orphan Justice Center, please feel free to visit the website at orphanjusticecenter.com.
IHOPU New England Update 3/12
On Friday, March 12, the IHOPU team travelled to Zion Bible College (formerly Bradford College). When they arrived, the students were greeted by leaders of Zion Bible College who told them the stories of Bradford & Zion Colleges and their vision to see missionaries sent from that campus again.
1810 – The first ever American missions organization was formed in Bradford as a result of the Haystack Prayer Meetings.
1910 – John R. Mott, a leader in the Student Volunteer Movement, visited Bradford and called students to again embrace the call to foreign missions.
2010 – The IHOPU students joined with Zion Bible College students and stood on the ground where these two events took place, and cried out for the Lord to send out laborers into the harvest.
The students “prayer-walked” the campus and asked the Lord to raise up a new student volunteer movement, one that would finally complete the task that had been trumpeted 100 years before in that same city: “The Evangelization of the World in This Generation”!*
After visiting Zion Bible College, the IHOPU team visited the ministry Somebody Cares New England located in Haverville, MA. Somebody Cares holds weekly prayer meetings to contend for revival in the region. During the prayer meetings, they send out teams across the city to share the gospel. Many of the Zion Bible College students participate in the meetings and outreach.
They decided to split up the IHOPU team so that the students could be involved with either the prayer room or the evangelism. As the evangelism teams went out, the Lord met them and opened up many opportunities to share the gospel. Here is one testimony from that night.
When the students visited the Zion Bible College Prayer Chapel during their tour of the campus, they prayed over a list of people that the Zion students want to see come to the Lord. One of the names on that list was Sarah.
Little did they know it, but later that day some of the students would meet Sarah while out sharing the gospel. As they witnessed to her, Sarah’s heart was convicted and she gave her life to Jesus. They later found out that she was on the list that they had just prayed over a few hours earlier.
IHOPU New England Meeting Schedule
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* A brief summary of the history of Bradford and the Student Volunteer Missions Movement. The history of this region is so rich that we wanted to share it with you to help you understand and join us in praying for the Lord to visit this area.
Bradford Academy was established in 1804, in Bradford, MA, “for the purpose of promoting piety, religion, and morality.”1 A few years later, in 1810, Bradford Academy’s story collided with the storyline of the famous Haystack Prayer Meeting with the birth of the Protestant missions movement and the forming of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in Bradford. Adoniram Judson, a well-known American missionary to Burma (Myanmar) and his wife, Ann Hasseltine Judson, were two of the first missionaries sent from ABCFM. Ann is still remembered as one of the first female American missionaries.
One hundred years later, many Bradford Academy graduates had faithfully answered the call to foreign missions. As the ABCFM movement was fading, a new missions movement arrived on the scene. The Student Volunteer Movement (SVM) began mobilizing thousands of American college students and sending them to lives of sacrificial service deep in unevangelized nations.
John R. Mott, a well-known leader of the SVM, came to Bradford in 1910, on the 100-year anniversary of the ABCFM, and renewed the call for the youth of America to pursue “the evangelization of the world in this generation.” He said on that occasion:
“The great enterprise which we commemorate here today began as a student movement. It has preserved a close and sympathetic touch with the student centers of America. It has to a wonderful degree commanded the loyal following and devotion of students. . . I find among the students of the present the same loyalty to the Church of Jesus Christ which characterized those of the first generation. I find the same inter-collegiate spirit and conviction as to the importance of united action in advancing the missionary enterprise . . . The first band of student volunteers had . . . visions which they were unable to realize in their day – visions, however, which the students of our day are realizing.”2
In the twentieth century, Bradford Academy (later Bradford College) compromised the gospel and ceased to be a Christian school. By the year 2000, it had become defunct and was shut down. In 2007, it was purchased by a believing entrepreneur and resold to Zion Bible College. Under the stewardship of Zion Bible College, the Bradford campus has become a missionary training school once again.
1 Jean Sarah Pond, Bradford – A New England Academy, p 65
2 ibid., p 85-86
Fulfilling Your Desire for Greatness
I’m convinced that everyone possesses a God-given longing for greatness. As believers, we may think this longing is from some dark place in our souls, or from the Devil. Perhaps we have tried repeatedly to repent of it. But when two disciples asked Jesus for a position of greatness in His Father’s kingdom, He didn’t rebuke them for their desire. He did shock them with how to fulfill it. “Whoever wishes to be great…must be the servant” (Mt. 20:26-28). Our longing for greatness is not wicked, but our self-exalting attempts to satisfy it are!
How do we gain power on the inside to walk the path of greatness that Jesus sets before us? Where do we get the motivation to serve without resentment, without regard for recognition?
Here’s what we find in other scriptures: When we know our dearness to God and His promise to one day openly reward every choice for humility and servanthood in Him, we are empowered to go low and serve. Jesus washed His disciples’ feet, fully aware of His own greatness (Jn. 13:3). Reclining at the table, He knew that He had power over all things; how one day all would bow before Him; how He would soon ascend to sit at the right hand of the Father. And it was with this knowledge that He rose from the table and went to the lowest place. Without resentment, He bowed down to wash the dirtiest part of the very ones who were about to abandon Him—even deny Him—in His darkest hour.
In Colossians 3:1-14, Paul reveals the same movement of the heart. I would amplify it like this:
You’ve been raised and seated with Christ on the most powerful throne in the entire universe. Fill your thoughts with this. You’re going to be glorified with Christ when He appears. The Father will openly reward every hidden act of love. In the twinkling of an eye, your body will be changed to display the measure of glory you cultivated during your earthly life. So put an end to the cravings of your old nature: sexual immorality, greed, and grasping after worldly things to satisfy your eternal longings. Completely turn your back upon anger, slander, and unclean speech. For, remember, you have taken off your old self, and have put on your new self, which is growing in glory as we grow in Christ. Therefore, as ones appointed for greatness, who are set apart for God and deeply loved by Him, clothe yourselves with tenderness and humility… and above all, put on love.
Paul told the Corinthians that they were acting like “mere men” by their envious factions (1 Cor. 3:1-3). His implication is that if they knew their greatness, they wouldn’t have to squabble anymore over who belonged to whom. A thief wouldn’t need to steal anymore if he knew he were already rich with inheritance.
So, why do we grasp for men’s approval when the King of the ages is lovingly watching us? Why do we care if our good deeds go unnoticed by people when we have a Father who sees in secret and is committed to rewarding us? Oh, when I know it deep in my heart, I will gladly serve (in prayer and in deed) those who might never know or thank me.
Now, God doesn’t tell us that we have to feel kind and humble. He says to put on kindness and humility. And as we make the choice to cultivate our natures to be like His, He’ll meet us; and He’ll change our emotions in time.
Lest we romanticize greatness so much that we fail to cultivate it, let us say it again: greatness is forged by choices for love and righteousness, whether we feel virtuous in the moment or not.
In Matthew 5:19, Jesus said that the one who follows His teachings —namely the teaching He was giving in the Sermon on the Mount—and teaches others to do the same will be great in the kingdom of heaven. When we are faithful to be a servant to the Word, regardless of the persecution or disapproval it brings from others, we are at once serving God and others. We have become the servant of all.
Father, I set my heart again today to put on Christ’s character. And if, in the moment, I don’t feel His character within me, that’s OK. I’m going to put it on anyway. Thank You that You will transform my emotions in the process, and You will one day openly reward each choice for love and holiness.
IHOPU New England Update 3/8 – 3/10
The IHOPU students returned to the Boston area on Monday, March 8. As the students pray and minister in New England, they feel the Lord emphasizing three main focuses: salvation for the lost, open heavens, and strength for the Body (SOS).
From Monday through Thursday each week, the students devote themselves to prayer and evangelism. They are experiencing boldness from the Holy Spirit to share the gospel and the joy of seeing people turn to the Lord. One of the principles of evangelism that Jesus taught is that “one sows, another waters, and still another reaps the harvest” (John 4:37). On Monday, March 8, a student shared the gospel with a newspaper vendor in the subway. The man did not respond. The following day, another student, not knowing that the man had heard the gospel the day before, shared with him again. He still said no. The next day, a third student, not knowing about either of the others attempts, presented the gospel. Finally, the newspaper vendor turned to the Lord. Praise God!
Please continue to pray that as they pray and share the gospel in the streets of Boston, the heavens would be opened and the lost would turn to Jesus.
IHOPU New England Meeting Schedule
onething Nashville – Recap
Our first onething regional of the year started off with a powerful move of God’s Spirit. A crowd of 1,400 gathered at Belmont Church in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, and we waited for the Holy Spirit to move among them like He has been ministering to our student body at IHOP–KC since November 11.
As we waited on the Lord before our first session on Friday night, the Lord filled us anew with His Holy Spirit and boldness. Our hearts were expectant, as we called upon the Lord to bless those who had gathered for the conference, and within the first worship song, the presence of the Lord filled the sanctuary and the overflow room. We gave a history of the student awakening at IHOP–KC, set in the context of the ten years we had previously spent crying out for God to send us His Spirit in a greater measure. Our faith was stirred, and we began asking God to visit Nashville in power and to raise up His house of prayer.
That night we witnessed many being touched by the power and fire of God’s Spirit, and many experienced the love of God in a new way. The next day, a young lady testified that she had experienced the love of God so strongly, and that she had been set free of suicidal thoughts and immoral desires. In their place, love for God was burning in her heart. Another young man came under the power of God and testified that he had been delivered from homosexual tendencies. Many were healed of physical pain, and one man was instantly healed of a shoulder injury; he removed his arm sling and left the conference carrying the sling in his hand.
On Saturday we taught about intimacy with God from the life of Mary of Bethany, about the knowledge of God in the person of Jesus, and about fasting and prayer. Our worship team led a Q&A session with hundreds of singers, musicians, and worship leaders. We also gathered around eighty student leaders and college campus ministry leaders to strategize and pray for revival on college campuses.
The Lord met us powerfully again that night. The joy of the Lord came, and many were set free to enter into authentic worship. Sixty students attending from Lee University experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit resting on them for over two hours. Many of them experienced the fire of God’s presence and the joy of the Lord. They left filled with boldness to see God’s glory come on their campus.
Please continue to pray for our onething regional conferences. We’re asking God to pour out His power, and presence, and to strengthen the believers who gather for these conferences.
Find a onething regional near you
