Dear Missionary Church leaders,

Transcription

1 Dear Missionary Church leaders, After sharing with some of my fellow pastors what God has been doing in our church, they strongly encouraged me to send this information to you, in light of our current denominational emphasis on prayer. I realize, as I have been sharing with others, that God is currently working in very powerful ways in many of our churches, as well as at Bethel College, and I only seek to add our testimony to that of others. To God be the Glory! On January 2 of this year I called our church to 172 hours of non-stop prayer (8:00am Sunday, January 16, through Noon the following Sunday), based on Jesus quoting of Isaiah 56:7, My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. We called the challenge: Pray 172. We took a small workroom off the foyer and converted it into a prayer room. We added a chair, some small tables (One doubling as an altar, another holding a light and another a Hymn book and a Bible), a small rug and pillow to kneel on, a small dimmable light, a CD player, a fan and a heater. We then covered three of the walls with a huge sheet of paper. We asked people to write on the paper what they were sharing with God in their prayer time. To schedule time for prayer, one week before Pray 172 began, a large prayer schedule was posted in the foyer, allowing people to sign up for one hour times of prayer in our prayer room. An additional schedule was posted for people to sign up as Prayer Sentinels. These were sixhour commitments to be in the building so that no one was left at the church alone, to open the doors overnight to allow scheduled people to keep their commitments, and to fill-in in the prayer room in case someone failed to keep their appointment. The first Sunday only a few time slots were filled, but people called in throughout the week to schedule times both in the prayer room and as Sentinels. By the second Sunday, people were crowding around the schedules, negotiating time slots with one another, and signing up for multiple time slots both for prayer time AND as six-hour sentinels. (Strangely enough, the overnight sentinel positions were the first to fill, as people made a commitment to have them covered!) When the week of prayer began, there were still some open time slots late in the week, but as the week went on, EVERY SLOT WAS FILLED! (Note: I, as pastor, was fully prepared to spend as much time as needed in the prayer room to make sure no time was left open. But every time someone saw me looking at a time on the schedule, they would say, Don t you worry about that time slot, pastor. If someone else doesn t fill it, I will or they would just sign their name right there and then! I finally did insist that I get two one-hour slots for myself before the week was over!) In all, 86 people prayed at the church during the week. Men prayed, women prayed, married couples prayed, engaged couples prayed, high school and college students prayed, families prayed together or scheduled a block of time with one member in the prayer room and the rest spending time together as prayer sentinels. A few people picked the same time every day and made it their personal daily time with God including one of our women who came in every morning at 4:00 am! Many testimonies of how God was meeting with people in that prayer room were shared with me throughout the week. One which really touched me, early in the week, was when I saw a young engaged couple come out of the prayer room, very sober and quiet, walk over to the prayer schedule, and sign up for two more hours. They told me later the could not believe how

2 fast the time went, and that it just wasn t long enough! They felt they had to come back and spend more time in that room with God! Many people made reference to the presence of God felt in the room noting that it was a place where they did not allow phones, and appointments, or household chores, or anything else, to distract them from their appointed time with God. In preparation for this week I began by setting our vision on God and preaching on the importance of giving God all the glory for whatever He was about to do in and through our church. I then introduced the prayer challenge comparing the Holy Spirit to the blood in our bodies and all that it does and comparing our prayers to the heart which pumps that blood, noting that if we don t pray, how can we expect the Holy Spirit to move? The week Pray 172 began, I preached on how to pray, and presented some basic information on fasting, for those who were interested in combing the two disciplines during the week. At the end of the week, I announced that the sermon was entitled, What God has Done based on my introductory sermon, and announced that I would not be preaching it, but that the congregation would. I first introduced just a few Scripture references on giving testimony of God s glory, opening the mic with the words of Rev. 12:11, They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. The following are some slightly edited testimonies shared during the service, What God has Done, following Pray 172. Many testimonies were shared several through tears, some with laughter, and many to applause to God for what He had done. From one of our men who did not pray at the church that week: I want to praise God for what you eighty-some people did this week. If you think back you might be saying, I don t remember seeing him come in. And I didn t. I m not ashamed of it, even though I know I could have. I want to thank you. I know my wife came twice and I appreciate what she did for the church cause she did it for me. I just want to thank the eightysome people who did that. You blessed the church and you blessed me. God bless every one of you. From one of our men: I found that making an actual appointment with God helped me to set that time aside for Him when everything else was set aside for an hour and I just spent time with Him. It was an amazing experience. From one of our older men: I was thrilled last Sunday after our pastor asked us to come out and sign up on that paper when we could pray. And I have never seen such excitement out of a church. I have not seen this much excitement in the church in a long time. The Lord spoke to my heart. I had talked to the pastor a couple of times and said, Some day we are going to have a revival and I m behind you. Well, I m behind him 100%, because we are seeing revival in motion. God really blessed us and I hope and pray we never lose it. From one of our older men who served as a six-hour sentinel from midnight to 6:00 am: I was excited and pleased to see...friday morning it was snowing and cold. But ladies were getting up in the middle of the night to come in and pray and God was pleased by it.

3 If you think about Jesus in the Bible, He prayed often to His heavenly Father. You would think that would have not been necessary, but it was for Him. Prayer for Him was almost like breathing, so you can imagine how important it is for us. The disciples saw that and said, Lord, will you teach us to pray? and God answered that prayer. It not only changed lives, but it s relevant today. God wants us to pray. We need to pray I need to pray. I know God is going to bless this church amazingly because of what happened, and I am so blessed by all of it. From one of our men: When the pastor announced 172 hours of prayer at the church I thought, Why here? That s silly. I can sign up for a time and pray just as well from my home. Why do I need to come all the way to the church to pray? But our pastor called us to prayer at the church, so I decided I needed to listen to my pastor. I don t know about you, but there was just a neat presence in that room. You could not explain it to anybody, you know, and this wouldn't rationally make sense at all, but there was such a neat presence there. I didn t see anybody come out that wasn t full of joy. It was not like, Oh my, I prayed for an hour. I mean, they came out and they were energized. It was just a wonderful, wonderful time. And I d be thinking about it during the week. I d be thinking about [the prayer commitment] or driving by the church and I d think, I wonder, Who s there? Who s praying? And there was just something about it all week knowing this was going on that just lifted me up during the week... because there were specific things people were praying for, but they were also praying for the body of Crossroads. I am grateful, Pastor, for the step of faith. I know it was an anxious step, but God certainly blessed it and there will be blessings still to come in the days ahead. I am firmly confident of that. Praise you, God, almighty Father. Praise you for meeting your people here that we can lift up our hands and lift up our voices and realize that you met us in a small room, or in a large church, or in our hearts, or in our beds, or wherever we were when we were praying. You know, I, myself, and probably many of us, have prayed along with the prayers, just knowing that they were there, and that we were gathered as one in the Spirit because we were. Not just for our sick, and not just for our sad and lonely, but for a revival of our church. That means to open our hearts and go and travel in the direction of God... that He wants to be the Spirit that fills us. I thought of this like Pentecost like the tongues of fire that came down on everybody s head, because they re full of the Spirit. And that s where we are. God has opened that Gate for each and every one of us. And I know that s so. God said, I will give my children gifts. They need to ask. They need to be on their knees with holy hands held high, and ask. And that s what happened. And this is a miracle in itself that we can gather like this, and lift our hands to God, and pray and open our hearts and cry and sob and feel everybody s pain that s in here for anyone that you look on that wall in there and realize the pain, the suffering, the gladness, the joy the emotions that were poured into that room out of our hearts belong to each one of us. We all share those. And what a miracle that is! Praise Jesus for that! Because this is wonderful! This is a miracle that God has touched this body. I thank my body for this. I thank Pastor for having this happen. You know, [my husband] and I were redirected back here. And I know why. I know why! God wanted to fill us and to use us. We are His arms and legs. We need to be walking, because there are a lot of people who need to be rescued. So praise the Lord for this. This has been awesome! Thank you Jesus.

4 From one of our men: I was in that room an hour when I first started. There had been other people in there. The wall wasn t yet filled, but there was more praise than desires. There was more lifting up of the Holy Spirit than of requests for help, healing, and all this other stuff. I noticed that every place I looked, for the first five minutes I went in there, that s what I wanted to know what had been put up there. And I saw all these praises for life, family, and just everything I could think of. And students I noticed there had been somebody young in there, apparently in high school, put a thanks up there for their school. And I said, Why? Well, if you re praying for your school, can you pray for your church, too? And everybody that was putting their desires up there for answered prayer... let me know I was in the place I belonged. I laid on the floor, put the fan over the top of my head, shut the lights off and prayed. When the knock came on the door I said, NOT YET! I m not done! And I wasn t done. He served as a prayer sentinel the next 6 hours. I spent another two hours in prayer in another room. Every time I came to let someone in I felt God say, You re not done yet! I prayed in the sanctuary, and in other places I prayed just to let Him know I am thankful. And all these people that came and entered the room like was already shared They came out of there with smiles on their faces. When I was in praying taking my time in the room, spending time with the Lord [someone else] was out here praying. And when I came out he was still out here, and he was praying for the church. And I was reminded I was where I belonged! I can t say anymore... From a 9 yr old boy who prayed with his family following-up on a challenge the pastor had given to prepare the fields in prayer to receive the rain of God s blessings: I asked God to rain down on our fields this week. You ve heard a lot of people already say that you can t help but be changed when you are in that room. The presence was just phenomenal. So many things are prayed for in that room. I prayed so much for freedom freedom for all of us from the bondages we have in so many different ways. We re doing a Bible study right now on the Holy Spirit and that s not a coincidence, obviously. Our [Bible study leader] was obedient when God put this study on our heart. Pastor was obedient when God put it on his heart to call this. That s how God works. So often in that room I just prayed for freedom for the people in our church. Freedom to get beyond our preconceived expectations about how the church is supposed to run and how the Holy Spirit is supposed to work. What it means to really be a Christian. I prayed for freedom from the bondage of control Many of us in our humanness just want to control that s what we do and I prayed for that freedom For this church to do the great things that the Lord is laying the foundation for on us right now, we have to be free! We have to be free of all that garbage that wants to do its own thing. It was cool just to see its hard to explain If you were in there you got it I was a sentry on Saturday, and they were right, nobody ever wants to come out when their time is up. You have to make them come out, because somebody else wants their hour s worth of time in there. To see the faces and the peace and how God was working in them was just absolutely phenomenal! But I guess my biggest prayer all week, was just freedom for this church so we would be open-minded to be open and ready to do what the next thing is. This is a big thing! He s going to call us to do big things with it. It s not just a feel-good session for one week so we can all pat each other on the back. This is prepping us for something much bigger. We have to have that freedom and we have to be open to be ready to do it.

5 From one of our men (Very emotional): My wife and I came in together to pray, and I am thinking, What am I going to do for an hour in there? I opened the door to go in and I am thinking, This is a pretty small room for both of us. While sitting there, He [God] told me to stand up, put my hands on the wall and I did that and I feel this from my head to my toes this warmth just pour over my body. And I said, Wow! That s pretty cool! Do that again! And He did it! I said, Alright, you know I have been having this problem with my foot. Make that pain go away. I walked out of there its gone! The other thing we have been working on is opening up our house to children foster children. One of my prayers was, Open up our house and our hearts so that these foster children can be led to God through us. That s [written] on that wall in there. But if you touch that wall you can feel it. It s there. One of our men in positive response to many comments shared through tears: Its amazing all these big men standing here crying! I m not going to cry yes I am! Let me tell you about the power of prayer because I am a personal example and witness of that. About eight years ago I sat up here and most of the men who are in here, that touched me and prayed for me about my cancer and my healing. I had a devastating cancer and I got through it. And we thought it reared its ugly head about a week ago. I went in and had some testing and I was afraid it was back. But you know what, It s not! Because everybody prayed again! Let me tell you something, folks, if it wasn t for that power of prayer, I would have never made it. I don t know how anybody can. It s difficult to stand here, and I think of my brother over there (now fighting cancer), and I love him, and he knows it. And he knows that power also as do so many other people in here. I can t reiterate that point enough. [Prayer] just happened in this room, the last week. Every Sunday, every time it goes on it might not be that big but when people pray for you it s just tremendous, and I just can t say enough about it. I was one of those who signed up for three times and ended up going four. God answered prayers before the week was over. I said, Thank you, Jesus! God cares about and answers our prayers the big ones and the little ones. From one of our men who is currently fighting cancer: I m not good at giving speeches or anything, but I have got to do this today. First of all I want to thank each and every one of you for all the prayers you have given me over the past two to three months. I have felt every one of them. I know that there are a lot of people praying for me here. I know my wife and I came in here at 2:00 Monday morning. I wanted to get it over with before I had to go and get chemo, because I did not know what it would be like afterwards. But we prayed and I m not one to ask for much, for myself, but I do a lot of thanking. I thank the Lord every day for everything he does. God has answered part of my prayer our prayeryour prayer Last Wednesday [tests showed] the tumor in my lung has decreased by more than half. And I know that s prayer from each and every one of you in here. I feel it. I appreciate each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart. It was time to get rid of all my junk and get real with God to take time out of all my busyness and to open myself up to God to forgive me for this. Thank you for that. That s

6 planting that ground that He talked about getting ready for that rain. And if we haven t gotten rid of that junk, it s not clear and open it won t [do any good]. I didn t have anything spectacular happen like a foot healed or something but it was a sweet time to spend an hour with God. From one of our men who had scheduled one hour of prayer before a 6-hour prayer sentinel shift: After church last Sunday I wanted to sign up. Through a misunderstanding I found out, I m going to be in there for TWO hours praying? What am I going to pray about? But you know what? I did it! And those two hours went so fast! And when I came out of that room it was unbelievable! I was energized to sit till almost 6:00(am). God is amazing! Prayer is powerful! But you know I signed back up from midnight till 1:00, and then I had to turn around and get back up at 6:30-7:00 for work, and when I got out of here at 1:00 in the morning after praying, I could not go home and go to sleep. I had to just kind of wind down and between 2:00-2:30 I was finally able to go to sleep. It is amazing. You go through that prayer list in there for those of you who didn t pray you go through that list of prayer requests and praises, and you go in there with your own and I had three prayers that were answered before the end of the week! God is amazing! Prayer is powerful. From one of our high school young men: I have two things that are completely separate. One is, of course, the TONIGHT event. (TONIGHT was a four-church youth organized overnight youth event hosted at our church the past Friday-Saturday during the 172 hours of prayer. This was one of our big prayer emphases throughout the week and throughout the entire event as it was held! The youth sharing was our lead youth in organizing the event.) As the guys were preparing for this, months in advance, we were praying to see people come and grow in their faith as Christians, and I grew, myself, so much spiritually during the past couple of months, that I think this was probably for me as much as anyone else who came here that night. I know I saw two of my friends here that night who are not Christians. At the beginning of the night they were kind of out of place being at a Christian event. They did not become Christians that night, but by the end of the night they felt like they were at home. It was great. Last week, I did not get into that room to pray, which I am really kind of upset about, but (commenting on the end of the call to prayer at noon, and to those who had not been able to schedule a time to pray): The last time I checked, no one signed up between 12 and 1 today. There are a lot more days this year and a lot more hours in those days, so (He then went in after service and prayed until 1:00!) From one of our men: God had started to prepare me in my prayer life months ago for this. I went through, since September, migraine headaches. I had to give myself injections for them to go away. My prayers were, Why God? Why God? Please take these from me. After a while, my prayers changed, and I started thanking God: Thank you God, I don t know why you gave them to me, but thank you. On January 2, I went into the hospital with a blood clot. Things are getting worse, but I m still thanking God: Thank you, God. I don t know why you put me here. I can t get out of bed, but thank you. January 3 I get a text from my son in college, Dad, I m in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. Anybody that has a kid in college, that s all they say- a few words. I call and ask him what s going on? He s on the wrestling team, he fell down, had a

7 headache and he couldn t get up. Once again: God, I don t know why, but thank you. I got out of the hospital. I m on blood thinner. I found out that in two days they re closing my company down and I ll be out of a job. Thank you, God. I don t know what else you ve got for me, but thank you. Well, my son is fine. He s back on the team practicing. The blood thinner they put me on took my headaches away. The blood clot will be gone in 3-4 weeks. And two days after they told me I was losing my job I got a call from someone who said, Come and see me. I ve got a job for you. So, my hour in that room was spent on my back with my leg propped up, LAUGHING! And thanking God. From one of our older men: If anyone knows me, and my family can testify, when I sit down I fall asleep. So I prayed before I came in here for sentinel duty (Midnight till 6:00 am), that I might stay awake. And I did! I didn t get sleepy at all! I spent quite a bit of time reading the Bible. It was great It was awesome in that room. It was me and God! When I went in there, there were praises all over the wall. I just wanted to read from 2 Chronicles 14: If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. That s what it s all been about this week. From one of our college-age young men: I was here at the TONIGHT event and I saw there were two open slots 4:00 am and 5:00 am. I was in the church at 2:00 with a lot of folks and figuring the older ones were probably feeling a little tired by then. I was looking at the slots and I was asked, Oh, are you thinking of taking one? I m 18 years old. I ve seen 4:00 am a few times. So I wrote my name down. My concern was, What am I going to pray about? and How am I going to stay awake? I had never prayed for an hour straight in my whole life up until then. I got in there and I m a pretty emotional person and it took me all of maybe 20 seconds to start crying. Just the presence I felt in there was insane! It s like everybody keeps saying its just absolutely insane. It s like you were one-on-one with God in more than just your average everyday prayer. I started praying for things about myself and went, You know, this is supposed to be a call to prayer for our church. So I started praying for some church members, specifically, and as a body. Before I knew it, I realized that some of the people I was praying for I hadn t even talked to in years. I read about them on the list and went, Wow! I didn t even know they were going through that trouble. I didn t know they were having a health problem or I had forgotten. And that was huge for me. Walking out of the room is the closest I have felt to my church in eight years of being here. And that was huge for me especially when I saw some names on a list of people that I knew absolutely needed it. When you are looking at a list full of people and it says, inoperable cancer and I said, What if nobody else is praying for that person. I have to be that person to pray! I looked (in the prayer room) at our list of college students half of whom I had grown up with and I realized: I hadn t prayed for my best friend in how long? I just sat there in that room and cried to God, and said, Be with [list of names]. It was awesome.

8 I looked at my clock and it was 2 minutes till the hour, and I said, Really? I ve only been here ten minutes, it felt like. I stayed in there a little bit longer. To me the greatest thing was just knowing that everybody was feeling it. The message that night was for unity, and for our church to be brought together in this way, at this time, was really dramatic for me. It s cool to me to see some of the pillars of this church and some of the guys I have looked up to be able to just cry ball their eyes out and smile while they do it, because they know that it s a great thing that the Lord has done here. And I thank pastor for calling us to this. From one of our college-age young men: Earlier this week I went in with my girlfriend, and it was kind of weird, because we didn t know if it was alright for two people to go into the room at the same time. We have been getting more involved spiritually, reading the Bible more and trying to apply it to our lives. It s kind of weird, it s not just a coincidence. We started doing this and Pastor brought up the whole idea of prayer for 172 hours for our church. I could tell it was one of those doors that God really kind of just opens up for you. This is one of those things that got me to realize, again, that God can open up all the doors for us... for us to find ways to try to get closer to Him. He puts us on the right path, but you have to take that step yourself, also. For 86 people to go ahead and take that step closer to God, it really speaks volumes it really is special. We came in and prayed on Friday because we did not have classes that day. I remember asking her- I know this is what everyone struggled with-what to pray for. I was hoping maybe I could steal an idea from her! She said, yah. But she didn t tell me what it was. I remember when we got there, I saw [someone] come out and had seen she was in there praying and prayed for her and what she was praying for not even knowing what it was. As soon as you walked into that room you could just feel a certain presence in there and you look at the walls and there was like something calling me to lay my hands on it. It almost seemed wrong. It was just a piece of paper on the wall and some writing on there, it was almost too much to just touch it. You get really shaky something just comes over you. I know it really helped change me and set my path much, much straighter with God. I want to say thank you to Pastor for it, because it was a big risk for him. And I want to say thanks to everybody else who did this. And I want to say thanks to [my friends] and my family. Thank you. When I was in praying, I just spent time listening to what God would say to me. Time and again He brought me back to the word, new. God led me to: See, I am doing a new thing! Do you not perceive it? Forget the old things. The Lord is ready to do something new here. There is revival coming. We need to be prepared. He is making us into new wineskins. (Quoted from Matthew) If we want God to do something new here, we need God to provide new wineskins, otherwise we are going to crack. I m cracked enough as it is! It has been on my heart and in my prayer: Lord, we are ready for something new, but, Lord, You ve got to give us new wineskins. We need to let Him. From one of the men on our worship team: I m glad to see I m not the only one who cries! It s encouraging! First of all, I m glad that the Pastor did it, and my wife and my children did it, and I am very proud of them. But I asked my wife a couple Sunday nights ago, What is my purpose? It seems like all I do is work. Guys, hang onto your hats! We are in for a revival! Church has become so civilized and proper

9 that we can t cry. You know, it is cool when God touches you. When you feel that tingle, and your heart melts, and tears start to flow. It s just an awesome feeling. You know, I don t want to see this end. Next Sunday morning, we can t come back in here and be all proper again. Get your Kleenex! Take it to your pew. We re going to worship God. We re going to cry. Its going to be wonderful. We re heading into a revival, and I m excited! From a woman on our worship team before a closing song and altar call: We are going to go ahead and open the altar. You know, this 172 hours doesn t have to end. The power you felt in that room it can be there all the time. It can be [wherever you are.] So we just invite you to come up to this altar. If there is still something you want to pray for, bring it up here! The Holy Spirit is here. And He is waiting to do something so remarkable in this church! Hold onto your hats. The Altar call: Following the time of testimony, we opened the altar to anyone who desired to come and spend just a few more minutes, here in the church, with God in prayer, or to praise Him for what He has done. Over half of church came to the altar! Families gathered. Friends gathered. Many others stood with hands raised to God. Many tears were shed as people continued to come throughout the closing song. Pastor s closing remarks at end of altar call: Many have asked, Can we keep that prayer room a place for prayer? HOW CAN WE NOT! That room is now a permanent place of prayer in this church. I will give up my office before we fail to have a room set aside for prayer. That prayer room is open. If this church is open, that prayer room is open. If you need to come in and pray some other time, see me and we will get it open for you. I encourage you to make an appointment with God. We are going to put out a schedule book for you to make an appointment to spend time with God. Pastor s closing challenges: 1) A call to prayer every Sunday morning at 8:00 to pray through the entire church. (We now have a group averaging 7-8 who meet at 8:00 and pray through the church every Sunday morning.) 2) A call to create prayer teams. (We now have a women s prayer team starting and a men s prayer breakfast group starting.) 3) A call for a prayer coordinator to oversee and build on what has been started. (We now have several people coordinating prayer ministries) 4) A call to have someone in the prayer room every Sunday during the service. (People are making a commitment to do this!) When man works, man works. When man prays, God works! God said, My house will be called a house of prayer. Let us be known as a House of Prayer. Follow-up thoughts: Listening to testimonies, as well as comments I heard the following week, I began to get concerned that the paper covering the walls had the potential of becoming somewhat of an

10 idol. I did not want our emphasis, going away from this week, on what God HAD done during the week, but on what He was continuing to want to do. I feared that the wall might become our Nehushtan. So I carefully photographed every part of the wall and placed the prints in a folder as a tribute to what God had done during this special week with him. I replaced the paper with a journal and encouraged people to keep a running journal of their time with God in prayer. I also added a large 8-foot cross to the room. Next to it I added a poster showing a man kneeling in front of a cross, with his hands lifted in prayer. It reads, We come to God at the foot of the Cross. This has been very well received. I have had a number of people ask me if we will do this again next year. At this time it is my hope that this will become a very looked-forward-to annual event in our church. What better way to start a new year?! Following Pray 172 I have preached on spiritual warfare (as many have sensed an increase in the enemy s attacks), growing in faith, prayer for healing, increasing our faith, being fully committed to Christ, letting the world know what God has been doing in our midst, surrendering fully to Christ, and (as a new challenge for the remainder of the year) reaching the lost through concentrated prayer. Many have commented that they are continuing to see God s moving through all of these messages, building on what He began through Pray 172. Our altars have been filled nearly every Sunday, as people are coming to recognize, more and more, the joy of coming to God in prayer and praise. God is truly working in many ways in and through Crossroads Missionary Church. I share this with you to give God more of the glory He deserves! Pastor Bryan Balasa Crossroads Missionary Church