A Touch of Glory, by Lindell Cooley

A Touch of Glory

by Lindell Cooley

John Kilpatrick and Lindell Cooley

Lindell Cooley wrote as the worship leader at Brownsville Assemblies of God in Pensacola, America, a church in revival since 18 June 1995.   This article is from his book A Touch of Glory (Revival Press, 1997).

Renewal Journal 11: Discipleship– PDF

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An article in Renewal Journal 11: Discipleship:
https://renewaljournal.com/2011/08/09/discipleship/

 

 ___________________________

True revival comes

when God descends

in His glory

____________________________

One of the most important things I can tell you is that true revival comes when God descends upon man in His glory.   That’s it.   There is no formula or religious dogma to memorize and implement at your church.   There is no “12‑Step Revival Plan in a Can” that you can purchase at some expensive church growth seminar.   Extraordinary things happen when the Extraordinary God shows up among ordinary people who long for more of Him.   That is a summary of what happened at Brownsville Assembly of God on Father’s Day in June of 1995.

When I moved my mountain of boxes to Pensacola, Florida, and began to lead worship there, I quickly realized that I had come to an ordinary Assemblies of God church.   Pastor John Kilpatrick was a wonderful pastor and a skilled teacher of the Word, but he struggled with the same problems every other pastor has to deal with.   He worried about motivating and training workers, finding time to handle his counselling load, and balancing his roles as administrator, family man, and spiritual leader of the flock.   He worried about the welfare of the sheep in his care, and he was fervently praying for revival.   It was a church that wanted more because it didn’t have it yet.

I inherited a great worship team and a talented group of musicians, but like anyone else I struggled with rehearsal schedules, motivation problems, and the constant need to learn new songs and resuscitate the old ones.   The congregation was a normal mix of young, old, and in‑betweens, representing almost every musical taste you could think of.   In the midst of the normal challenges, we desperately wanted to see revival spark in our services and we were frustrated.  Brownsville Assembly of God was like most of the medium‑sized Pentecostal and Charismatic churches scattered across America.  We wanted something that we didn’t have, and we were pressing in by faith to see it come to pass.

I was scheduled to return to the Ukraine for a short missions trip in June, but before I left I began to teach the worship team, the choir, and the music team some Vineyard worship choruses.  I had done away with most of the hard‑driving, lively praise songs I favoured before.  I didn’t want to do anything that smacked of hype or emotional manipulation.  I just wanted to go directly into worship and bypass praise altogether.  The congregation seemed to enjoy some of the choruses and was indifferent to others.  Something was still missing.

Revival!

I went to the Ukraine in June of 1995 to help conduct a short choir tour and planned to return the week after Father’s Day.  I was getting ready to leave the Ukraine when revival came “suddenly” to the Brownsville congregation on Sunday, June 18th.  At the end of the Father’s Day service, the visiting evangelist named Stephen Hill gave an altar call.  He had just delivered a normal sermon during a normal Sunday service, but everything changed when the Spirit of God suddenly descended on the congregation.

Many people who were present, including Pastor Kilpatrick, literally felt a wind sweep through the sanctuary during the visitation.  A thousand people rushed to the altar that day to confess their sins, repent, and commit themselves to the Lord without hesitation or compromise.  At this writing, the revival has continued week after week for two years and 125,000 souls have been added to the Kingdom by conservative count.  The Lord continues to visit us with ever‑increasing power and glory month after month.

I flew into John F. Kennedy Airport in New York on Tuesday the 20th after reluctantly bidding my beloved Ukranian friends good‑bye.  I found a phone and immediately called Pastor Kilpatrick.

“Hey, John what’s going on?”

“Lindell, It has happened!”

“What has happened?”

“Revival is here.”

I had waited to her those words for a long time.

My heart leapt in my chest because I knew it had to be real or the man on the other end of the line wouldn’t say it like that.  I wanted to get back to Pensacola just that much quicker, but I knew I couldn’t make it until Wednesday.  During the flight from New York to Florida, my mind kept taking me back to those “gentle laid‑back moments in God’s presence” that I had embraced since April.

When I arrived, John and Brenda Kilpatrick picked me up at the airport, and he began to share with me what God was doing.  It sounded wonderful, but I was very tired, and felt disconnected.  I didn’t realize it then, but that disconnected feeling would stay with me for about two weeks.  There was no doubt that God was in the house, but I was having trouble entering in.  I ran headlong into a major disappointment because I was expecting “Toronto”.

Breaking Old Dislikes

First there was this Stephen Hill character.  I had never met him before the Wednesday night service after Father’s Day, but this evangelist seemed to be just a little “too hyped” for me.  Pastor Kilpatrick assured me that he was okay and said that he had known Steve for years.  My daydreams of a ‘gentle’ move of the Holy Spirit that morning were jolted back to reality by Stephen Hill, a dynamo with an unquenchable passion for souls.  He was far from gentle.  I thought he came across like a speeding freight train that first night.

He had us sing one chorus for 30 minutes straight at a clip of 90 miles an hour, and I felt like I had stepped back into my old Pentecostal roots again.  All the wonderful things that the Lord had done for me suddenly seemed to disappear and my own heathenistic self came out again.  I thought, I am not going to do this!  Sorry, but I’ve been there, done that.  I don’t want to do this!  I want that gentle sweetness that I had.

After the service I was pretty hard on Steve Hill once we were alone.  I said, “Steve, I am not going to get up there and do all that hype stuff.  If you want it, then get someone else to do it, because I’m not doing it.”  Frankly, I had a rotten attitude.  Do you know what Steve did?  He totally disarmed me with his answer.  He said, “Well, brother, that’s all right.  Whatever you want to do.”  I had to repent to him shortly after that because I was so mean to him.  He could have been angry with me but he wasn’t.  The battles in my heart would continue for a while, but we were on the way to becoming close friends with one heart.

I knew that my reaction to Steve was rooted in my dislike for the old pattern of wanting to be worked up by powerful music.  After my breaking in April, I was so moved by the revelation of just loving the Lord that I could be moved to worship at any time by the slightest breath of the Spirit.  All I have to do is say from my heart, “Lord God, all You want is my worship.  All You want is my attention.  You are like a Father to me.”  I don’t need a lengthy time of praise to crank my flesh up to speed.  At the mere mention of His name I am ready to fall to my knees and worship.  He has touched me so deeply that I must respond.

I didn’t realize it, but God was also out to break my deep‑seated desire to be somebody important.  (Everyone I’ve ever known has had this desire too.)  I was just floating along on a cloud of simply loving Jesus and hungering after the Lord, but there was some hidden poison still lurking in my heart and God wanted it out.

It was the glory of God that finally destroyed the yoke around my neck.  Before God touched me, I always thought that God had called me to a greater grace and a higher calling than to just be somebody’s “flunky musician.”  I thank God for His mercy and grace in forgiving my arrogance.

Just when I was convinced that God wasn’t doing anything in me, He brought all my wrong motives to the surface.  In the first few weeks of the revival, any time Stephen or Pastor Kilpatrick would interrupt one of my songs or stop the worship service to say something, I would be totally offended.  I wouldn’t say anything or change my actions, but in my spirit I was offended.  My face might have been smiling but my heart and head were shouting, “Doggone you, get away from the microphone.  I don’t interrupt your sermons, do I?  Now stay out of my hair ‑ I’m trying to lead worship here.”  (I am not interested in being “politically correct” in this book; my goal is to speak the truth in love so that you and others can avoid the mistakes I made and move directly into God’s best.)

It was wrong, but I felt like these godly men were invading my territory.  Musicians seem to have an old link to lucifer the first rebellious worship leader ‑ they have a pride that is never satisfied.  They jealously guard what is “theirs” and then wonder why they don’t have what the pastor or evangelist has too.

God would be using me mightily in worship, and then this “old ugly” would come out.  Right then and there, in the middle of an anointed Brownsville Revival service, I would feel my hidden spiritual pride, piety, and ego rise to the surface.  I’d catch myself thinking, I’ve been in this thing a long time, and here is some old drug addict [Stephen Hill] preaching a sermon.  Dear God, he just said he got saved in 1975!  I was rolling on the floor and speaking tongues in 1975.  Why, I’ve been in church all my life and never veered from the path!  (Sounds like the older brother of the Prodigal son, doesn’t it?)

God never let me get away with it.  He would just zap me and say, “Stop it.  If you want Me, humble yourself.”  Yes, you thought you had that jealousy under control, but I brought that out to show you that you don’t.  Repent of it, and let it go.”

One of the greatest joys of working with Pastor John Kilpatrick and Stephen Hill is the fact that they are transparent.  They prefer direct communication.  I told Pastor John one night after service, “You know, God has brought out some really ugly stuff in me, and I’ve had to repent.”  I don’t think he was surprised, but I do know he was pleased.

When the Spirit’s work was complete in the area of my calling and self‑worth in Christ (He has so much more to do in me), I had a totally different attitude.  Now any time those brothers need to say something or interrupt for any reason, I think, ‘That’s fine, brother.  I trust your judgement.  Go ahead and do anything you want to do.  If you want to prophesy, if you want to stop me in the middle of my favourite song, that’s fine.’  Yes, the musician in me will still occasionally grumble a little bit when I’m interrupted, but now I have a tolerance for it.  I just tell myself, Oh well, what is the big deal?  The guy is trying to follow the Lord here.  Relax.

Pastor Kilpatrick, Stephen Hill, and I have great confidence in one another today.  We trust each other.  We’ve cried and wept in each other’s arms, and we are soldiers.  We’ve been in the fox hole together, we’ve watched out for each other’s back, so all of the small differences and irritations just don’t bother us now.

New Things ‑ Even in Revival

Once my eyes were opened to the incredible work God was doing in me those first two weeks of revival, I became content.  I realized, for the first time in my life, that I wasn’t “somebody’s” piano player ‑ I was God’s piano player.  (My mother had been saying it for decades, but I guess I just wasn’t listening close enough.)  If that was what God wanted me to do for the rest of my life, than praise His name; I would be content.  I had to pass that hurdle before the other gifts within me could be released to grow.  If I had failed to pass that test, my selfish ambitions would have tainted all the other gifts and callings in my life.

Very early in the revival we began to notice some supernatural occurrences in the worship service that let us know God was personally involved in this revival ‑ even in areas not related to the hundreds of souls won each night and the filled altars.  I looked in my personal journal and found an entry dated August 17, 1995 (about two months after the revival began.)  This is what I wrote down after I got home that night:

August 17, 1995

The service tonight seemed to be pretty average until the very end.  As I was about to leave, I talked with Richard Crisco, the youth pastor, and he questioned me about a particular worship chorus we had sung toward the end of the service.  It was an ad lib thing that just came out of the air.  He wanted to know how I was able to cue the sound track tape to come in as precisely as it did.  I told him there was no tape, it was just me and the keyboard ‑ there weren’t even any singers, but he didn’t believe me.  He said that he had heard at least three voices and several instruments.

As  Richard spoke, I remembered that I too had heard a third voice singing a beautiful counter melody, but was so caught up in the presence of the Lord that I didn’t see who was singing, or who it might be.  I knew I was singing, and I assumed it was Jeff Oettle [one of the worship singers at the time] or someone who had felt inspired and grabbed the mike to join in.

As Richard talked, I remembered two things: First, the third voice was exceptionally clear, and the counter melody sounded rehearsed.  Second, when we had finished singing, I went to sit by Pastor John who was a little lost in the Spirit (in other words, he was out like he always is), and he told me in slurred speech, “That new chorus you just did was wonderful.  Could you do it again tomorrow night?”

Later on, Benny Johnson (the sound guy) and Van Lane (the children’s pastor) told me that they had heard it too.  They were at the sound board, and were trying to find out what channel the third voice was on.  [It wasn’t going through the sound board at all!]

My conclusion, that the third voice was definitely not of this world, wow.

Later that week I asked Jeff Oettle, “Were you singing with me?”

“No, but I was standing on stage.”

Then I asked him, “Did anybody else sing with me?”

I already knew the answer ‑ no.

All this happened during a Thursday night service, and I remember that the entire worship team was exhausted because early in the revival we used to sing for hours at the end.  Somewhere close to midnight the band started to really sound bad and the singers were nearly out of it, so I dismissed them so they could get some rest.  I punched in a piano program with a breathy sound on my electronic keyboard, and I just started playing a chord with a monastic Gregorian chant style.

I clearly remember hearing a backup voice and a third voice come in that was singing a perfect counter melody to my song, except that it wasn’t repeating what I was saying ‑ that would have been impossible anyway.  I was making it up as I went.  Yet this voice was singing at the same time I was singing in perfect counter melody with an incredibly clear voice.

I was making up the melody and words as I went and the other voices were singing right along with me while putting in these little moves in their melodies.  I was kind of thinking, “That’s cool, whoever that is.”

Two girls from Puerto Rico who had backgrounds in witchcraft came to the revival that night.  When I started singing this song, hundreds of people were still being prayed for at the altars, and it is normally pretty loud.  When I started to sing, “Ha‑ha‑hallelujah…” accompanied only by the keyboard, everything became totally quiet.  The song (with the heavenly voices) was so impressive that everyone stopped to listen.  This went on for probably two or three minutes.  (Everybody I questioned that night heard it.)

When I stopped singing, one of the Puerto Rican girls sitting to my far right released a blood‑curdling scream and I thought, How rude of you to interrupt.  But it was almost as though a demon had left.  The girl told one of the intercessors who was working with her that she had tried to get deliverance from the witchcraft that she had practiced for years, and she’d never been really free of it.  Once the angels started singing, that demon left her, and that was that.

It Comes Full Circle

Once I allowed my insecurities and religious pride to be broken, God began to speak into my life again through prophecy.  A prophet named Michael Ratcliff prophesied in the revival in 1995 that the Lord was giving me an anointing of “imperialism”.  At the beginning of the prophecy he said that I had laid down the anointing to speak the Word because I felt it was inappropriate, but that God was commanding me to open my mouth, and that I would be used as a spearhead to pierce the darkness.

He said that when I or my music went to Taiwan or mainland China, God would give me eight different currencies to work with, and that He would begin to bless me financially.  I was to give and be free with it, and the people would be touched, as well as the officials.

He also said God would give me a song that would be sung around the world, and that the Lord was giving me a ministry to heal marriages.  The song would be about the Lord and His love for the union of marriage.  Some of the marriages healed through the song would be the marriages of heads of state in many countries and I would sing and speak the Word of the Lord to them.

Ruth Heflin prophesied early in 1966 that because I had embraced the harvest, the Lord would make my path flat.  I should take no thought, and I should not worry about the things that others do, because God would provide all that I needed ‑ houses, food, and clothing.  She also said that the Lord would move me from harvest to harvest.  Anywhere in the world that there is a harvest, I would have a portion of it.  The Lord said that there was a generation that would follow me, though they’re incomplete, but the Lord would raise them up, and they would follow.

These prophecies closed a prophetic circle in my life by fully confirming the prophecies spoken over me long ago.  Some of them have come to pass already and others are in process.  Since they were in full agreement with what God had already put on my heart, I embraced them with joy.  From time to time I remind the Lord about His promises to me and stand on His faithfulness.  As a young man not yet in his 40’s, I am hardly old enough to publish an autobiography of my life, but I am obligated of the Lord to share some of the lessons I’ve learned along the path of obedience.

For reasons known only to God, I have catapulted to a place of national and international exposure, and I am well aware that thousands of leaders and would‑be leaders are watching me.  I am writing this book from the things that I know and have experienced, and I will leave other subjects to those better qualified than I. …

The glory of God has fallen on Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Florida, and it has also fallen in significant measure in Toronto, Ontario and at Holy Trinity Brompton Anglican Church in London, England.  At this writing literally thousands of reports are flooding the offices of Brownsville Assembly testifying that God’s glory is falling all across the globe. …

If you have abandoned the old landmarks that God established in your life years ago, then it is time for you to hurry back to those landmarks.  Clear away the brush and debris that hide them and once again cherish the word of the Lord over your life.  Protect those things that are holy and cleanse those things that are unclean.

Used with permission from A Touch of Glory by Lindell Cooley (Revival Press, Destiny Image, 1997), Chapter 8, pages 119‑132.

(c) 2011, 2nd edition.  Reproduction allowed with copyright included in text.

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Contents: Renewal Journal 11: Discipleship

Transforming Revivals, by Geoff Waugh

Standing in the Rain: Argentine Revival, by Brian Medway

Amazed by Miracles, by Rodney Howard-Brown

A Touch of Glory, by Lindell Cooley

The “Diana Prophecy,” by Robert McQuillan

Mentoring, by Peter Earle

Can the Leopard Change his Spots? by Charles Taylor

The Gathering of the Nations, by Paula Sandford

Book Review: Taking our Cities for God, by John Dawson

Renewal Journal 11: Discipleship – PDF

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BLOGS INDEX 2: MISSION (INTERNATIONAL STORIES)

BLOGS INDEX 3: MIRACLES (SUPERNATURAL EVENTS)

BLOGS INDEX 4: DEVOTIONAL (INCLUDING TESTIMONIES)

BLOGS INDEX 5: CHURCH(CHRISTIANITY IN ACTION)

BLOGS INDEX 6: CHAPTERS (BLOGS FROM BOOKS)

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Amazed by Miracles, by Rodney Howard-Brown

Dr Rodney and Adonica Howard-Brown are pastors and revival evangelists.

Critics focus on the rip-roaring style of his revivalist “camp meetings”, but this US-based South African evangelist says all he’s interested in is God touching people’s lives.

Renewal Journal 11: Discipleship – PDF

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Amazed by Miracles, by Rodney Howard-Browne:
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An article in Renewal Journal 11: Discipleship:
https://renewaljournal.com/2011/08/09/discipleship/

 

______________________________________

 

The Holy Spirit wants to touch the lives of real people.

I don’t spend much time wondering about God’s ability

to do what he said he could do.   I just trust him.

______________________________________________

On previous visits to Australia, Rodney Howard-Browne has attracted both crowds and controversy.  But vigorous debate about his methods and the “phenomena” seen at his meetings has not kept thousands away. …  The US-based South African evangelist spoke with Rob Buckingham about spiritual power, the simplicity of faith, and how it feels to be surprised by God.

Buckingham:  Things took off for you number of years ago.  Can you tell us what took place at that time?

Howard-Browne:   We’d moved to America in December ‘87 and travelled wherever the doors opened.  One pastor in upstate New York asked us to have two meetings a day and invited the whole congregation.  So in April 1989 we went to [a town called] Clifton Park to a church with about 250 members.

I was amazed to see people so hungry for the things of God.  On the Monday morning 60 people came to the morning service.  This was amazing, especially in America at that time – there had been some major set backs with different major ministries crumbling, and people were disillusioned.  Next day we had 100 people at the service – nearly a third of the church coming out on a Tuesday morning!

While I was teaching, just like I normally do, the praises of God just filled the room, and people started falling out of their seats.  It looked like someone was sitting in the balcony and shooting people with an invisible gun.  Some were crying, some were laughing, others were rolling on the floor.  It took a little getting used to.

The presence of God literally filled that place.  We saw an outbreak of a revival that now, this April, is nine years old.  It’s gone around the world, touched the lives of millions of people, an it hasn’t subsided or stopped.  It’s been a great adventure.

Buckingham:  What are your reflections now on what took place back then?

Howard-Browne:  I see it as an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  It’s not like we weren’t expecting it.  We were crying out to God to come and move; we just didn’t know how or when it was going to happen.  So when it happened the way it did it totally took us by surprise.

Buckingham:  Is there any change in what took place then compared to what’s happening now?

Howard-Browne:  It’s just multiplied many times over.  In the beginning it was 100 people and now it’s thousands.  Whether we’ve been in China or Japan, Holland, Germany, Russia or the islands of the sea, it’s the same.  People are the same and they have the same needs.  The Holy Spirit wants to touch the lives of real people.  There are many religions in the world, but religions will leave you empty because it’s man’s vain attempt to reach God.  But Christianity is God reaching man through the person of Jesus Christ.

Buckingham:  There are reports of physical healings at your meetings.  Do these happen in every country?

Howard-Browne:  It happens everywhere.  We look at it this way. When people come to a meeting where the Holy Spirit is moving, whatever their needs are God will touch them at that point.  Healing is just one of these.  People come with cancer, arthritis, different diseases, and the presence of god touches them.  Some are healed in their seat without even having hands laid on them, and it’s only later they find out that they’ve been healed.

Dolly, a little Alaskan native lady, came to our meetings in a wheelchair.  She’d had arthritis for 18 years, the last five confined to a wheelchair and the final two years bedridden.  She came as a last resort, asking God to please touch her.  We laid hands on her, but we didn’t really pray that she’s be able to get out of the wheelchair, just that she’d get some joy and that God would touch her.  I said, “Lady, what do you want to do?”  She responded, “I want to get out of this chair.”  So I said, “Well then, go ahead.”  Then she climbed out of the chair and walked around the building and was totally healed of crippling arthritis.  This happened back in 1991 and we’ve seen her subsequently.  She’s still totally healed with no trace of arthritis in her body.

Buckingham:  That’s physical healing. What about emotional healing?  People can carry a lot of baggage around inside.

Howard-Browne:  There are many examples.  One is about a woman in North Dakota who was raped by a so-called friend.  She contracted two venereal diseases, the worst the doctor said he’d seen.  He told her that she’d never be able to have children.

This woman came to the meeting pretty traumatized – this had only happened weeks before. The power of God touched her, she fell on the floor and as she was lying there she felt like there was a fireman standing over her with a big fire hose washing her clean.  For about two-and-a-half hours she felt this water washing her clean.  When she got up she could remember the rape but it was like it happened to somebody else.  God had totally removed the hurt from her.  When she went back to the doctor there was no trace of the diseases.  That was over five years ago.  Today she’s married to one of the pastors of the church. They’ve had children with nothing wrong.

Buckingham:  What about other stories?

Howard-Browne:  An executive-type lady came to a meeting with a lot of deep hurt in her heart.  About 20 years ago she’d had an abortion, and every time she was around things of God she felt guilty and condemned with thoughts like “God’s never going to bless you because of what you did.”

We prayed for her and she was overcome, lying there filled with joy.  Laughing hysterically.  Later she told us it was as if she was taken up to heaven to see a little girl dancing around, with Jesus standing to the side.  The little girl said, “Look Jesus, Mummy’s laughing”.  When that happened, she said it felt like a hand reached down inside her and pulled out all the hurt. When she got up from the floor she didn’t feel guilty any more. She knew that God had forgiven her and everything was all right.

Buckingham:  Are these incidents isolated events?

Howard-Browne:  No.  People are healed from depression, a lot from fear, even from wanting to commit suicide.  There’s so much pressure on people today.  People feel like they can’t make it. So they come to the meetings.  God touches them and sets them free.  It’s wonderful to see.

Buckingham:  Australians are quite different from Americans, and you minister in America a lot.  How do you respond to that difference in your meetings when you come to Australia?

Howard-Browne:  Because I’m a South African, I think it’s probably easier for me to respond than it would be for an American.  I find the Aussies very direct, which I like. There’s no airs or graces, nobody’s pretending.  I think maybe that’s why we’ve had such a great response in Australia.

Buckingham:  You travel extensively around the world. That must be draining on you.  How do you handle the pace?

Howard-Browne:  Actually, I find the travel exhilarating, so that by the time I get to a new place I’m refreshed. We travel 46 weeks of the year, and it’s awesome to see people’s lives touched and changed.  That’s the thing that’s refreshing.  When we get tired, we try to take a break for two or three days.

Buckingham:  Rodney, how do you describe your own relationship with God?

Howard-Browne:  I would describe my relationship as very, very simple.  I don’t understand some people when they always want to complicate God.  I just see him as God – nothing is impossible to him.  I have a very childlike faith that God honours his word.  I don’t spend much time arguing about it or wondering about his ability to do what he said he could do.  I just trust him.

Buckingham:  How does your relationship with God impact your life personally?

Howard-Browne:  Well, because nothing is impossible for him, I always want to believe him for big things.  When you think that he made the heavens and the earth, then everything we come up with after that is really so small.  I just think sometimes people make everything so difficult when there’s nothing too hard for God.

Buckingham:  What about your relationship with others?  How does your faith impact that?

Howard-Browne:  I want God to do for them what he’s done for me.  I’m not anything special or different.  I’m just an ordinary person. But I know that if he can do great things for me, he can do great things for them.

Buckingham:  How does your faith impact your care for the world around you?

Howard-Browne:  When I see a need, my wife has to calm me down; she says, “You can’t do everything.”  God leads you into areas where you can minister effectively to touch the needs of people.  We all want to reach out and feed the poor or help those less fortunate than we are, yet because I’m busy doing what I’m doing, I can’t do it.  So I try to find other ministries and get behind them.  I don’t have to do what they’re doing: I just finance and support them.

Buckingham:  What can people expect at your meetings this year?

Howard-Browne:  Pretty much like two years ago, we’re going to focus on he person of Jesus – people being touched by the Lord and coming back to their “first love”.

Buckingham:  What do you mean by “first love”?

Howard-Browne:  “First love” is the love you have when you first give your life to Christ – the joy that you’ve just met him, that he’s set you free from sin, that all the guilt and condemnation is gone.  It’s like a young guy and a girl; when they first fall in love, they’re just beside themselves.

It’s so easy as a child of God to get caught up in the daily grind, trying to please God, caught up in rituals and traditions.  You end up losing that joy and peace.  Revival is about people falling in love with Jesus all over again.

Anything can happen when people come back to their first love.

This is an edited version of an interview conducted by Rob Buckingham for use in On Being ALIVE and his weekly radio program “Rob Buckingham and Friends”.  It was originally broadcast on 3MP on 29 March, 1998.

Reprinted with permission from On Being ALIVE Magazine, No. 4, May 1998, pages 30-34.

(c) 2011, 2nd edition.  Reproduction allowed with copyright included in text.

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All Renewal Journal Topics

1 Revival,   2 Church Growth,   3 Community,   4 Healing,   5 Signs & Wonders,
6  Worship,   7  Blessing,   8  Awakening,   9  Mission,   10  Evangelism,
11  Discipleship,
   12  Harvest,   13  Ministry,   14  Anointing,   15  Wineskins,
16  Vision,
   17  Unity,   18  Servant Leadership,   19  Church,   20 Life

Contents: Renewal Journal 11: Discipleship

Transforming Revivals, by Geoff Waugh

Standing in the Rain: Argentine Revival, by Brian Medway

Amazed by Miracles, by Rodney Howard-Brown

A Touch of Glory, by Lindell Cooley

The “Diana Prophecy,” by Robert McQuillan

Mentoring, by Peter Earle

Can the Leopard Change his Spots? by Charles Taylor

The Gathering of the Nations, by Paula Sandford

Book Review: Taking our Cities for God, by John Dawson

Renewal Journal 11: Discipleship – PDF

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Revival Blogs Links:

See also Revivals Index

See also Revival Blogs

See also Blogs Index 1: Revivals

GENERAL BLOGS INDEX

BLOGS INDEX 1: REVIVALS (BRIEFER THAN REVIVALS INDEX)

BLOGS INDEX 2: MISSION (INTERNATIONAL STORIES)

BLOGS INDEX 3: MIRACLES (SUPERNATURAL EVENTS)

BLOGS INDEX 4: DEVOTIONAL (INCLUDING TESTIMONIES)

BLOGS INDEX 5: CHURCH (CHRISTIANITY IN ACTION)

BLOGS INDEX 6: CHAPTERS (BLOGS FROM BOOKS)

BLOGS INDEX 7: IMAGES (PHOTOS AND ALBUMS)

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Renewal

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Renewal

I make all things new

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Two books compiled in one volume

A summary survey of historical and current revival.  Chapters are compiled from revival articles in the Renewal Journals.

This book explores a few facets of our Lord’s renewal of all things. 

 

Contents

Chapter 1, Renewal Ministry, explores how renewal applies to our lives as we love God and love others.

Chapter 2, Revival Worship, notes current developments in renewal worship and ministry.

Chapter 3, New Wineskins, tackles issues about emerging churches and networks.

Chapter 4, Vision for Ministry, dreams big and explores some implications of renewal in ministry and service.

Chapter 5, Community Transformation, touches on the amazing current renewal transformation in communities and ecology.

Chapter 6, Astounding Church Growth, surveys the explosive expansion of the church during the last century.

These chapters are compiled and reproduced from these articles, also available here on line:

Renewal Ministry (Issue 7: Blessing)

Revival Worship (Issue 6: Worship)

New Wineskins to Develop Ministry (Issue 15: Wineskins)

Vision for Ministry (Issue 16: Vision)

Community Transformation (Issue 20: Life)

Astounding Church Growth (Issue 2: Church Growth)

Foreword

He who sat on the throne says, “Behold I make all things new.”

Revelation 21:5

Jesus Christ is Lord.  Every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that he is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

He reigns as King of kings and Lord of lords – not just in some future time or only in heaven.  He reigns now.  He makes all things new.

Ultimately, everything will be new.  “Then the end will come when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power.  For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (1 Corinthians 15:24-25).

All dominion, authority and power belong to Jesus our Lord.  He makes all things new.

We call that process by many names, including renewal.  Our Lord is renewing everything.  Right now he is doing that in all the earth, especially with everyone born anew or born again (John 3:3, 7).

Yet, renewal is far more than conversion, vital as that is.  Our Lord is making all things new, not just some people.  His renewing is cosmic and eternal.  He is renewing ecology as well as communities.  He heals the land (2 Chronicles 7:14).

This book explores a few facets of his renewal of all things.  Each chapter is reproduced from my articles in the Renewal Journal.

Chapter 1, Renewal Ministry, explores how renewal applies to our lives as we love God and love others.

Chapter 2, Revival Worship, notes current developments in renewal worship and ministry.

Chapter 3, New Wineskins, tackles issues about emerging churches and networks.

Chapter 4, Vision for Ministry, dreams big and explores some implications of renewal in ministry and service.

Chapter 5, Community Transformation, touches on the amazing current renewal transformation in communities and ecology.

Chapter 6, Astounding Church Growth, surveys the explosive expansion of the church during the last century.

The companion book to this one, Revival, is compiled from other articles originally published in the Renewal Journal, specifically:

Revival Fire (from Issue 1: Revival)

Spirit Impacts in Revival (from Issue 13: Ministry)

Revivals into 2000 (from Issue 14: Anointing)

Revival in the 21st Century (from Issue 11: Discipleship)

Our Lord is making all things new – your life, your relationships, your destiny.  I hope these books both inform and inspire.

Reproduction is allowed and encouraged with the copyright intact with the text.  These articles are also available on the internet.

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Revival

I will pour out my Spirit

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Two books compiled in one volume

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Also on Amazon and Kindle

A summary survey of historical and current revival.  Chapters are compiled from revival articles in the Renewal Journals.

Contents

Foreword

1   Revivals to 1900

2   20th Century Revivals

3   1990s – Decade of Revivals

4   21st Century Revivals

See also Revivals Index

Foreword

I will pour out my Spirit

Joel 2:28-29, Acts 2:17-18

Revivals bring thousands into God’s kingdom as his Spirit moves powerfully in the earth.  All revivals carry some or most of the characteristics of Pentecost, the prototype and forerunner of revivals.  Peter, preaching then, explained what was happening from Joel’s famous prophecy (Acts 2:17-21):

And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God,
That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh;
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
Your young men shall see visions,
Your old men shall dream dreams.
And on My menservants and on My maidservants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days;
And they shall prophesy.
I will show wonders in heaven above
And signs in the earth beneath:
Blood and fire and vapor of smoke.
The sun shall be turned into darkness,
And the moon into blood,
Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD.
And it shall come to pass
That whoever calls on the name of the LORD
Shall be saved.

This book provides a summary overview of many revivals since the first Great Awakening in the eighteenth century including some current revivals now transforming communities.  I give more details in my book Flashpoints of Revival, and still further details including footnotes in Revival Fires (see Appendix).

Flashpoints of Revival     Revival Fires

This book gives a brief glimpse of revival in summaries.  These are compiled from my articles in the Renewal Journal, available on the web at renewaljournal.com, especially the Blogs:

Revival Fire (from Issue 1: Revival)

Spirit Impacts in Revival (from Issue 13: Ministry)

Revivals into 2000 (from Issue 14: Anointing)

Revival in the 21st Century (from  Issue 11: Discipleship & Transforming Revivals)

The companion book to this one, Renewal, also contains chapters drawn from my Renewal Journal articles, namely:

Renewal Ministry (Issue 7: Blessing)

Revival Worship (Issue 6: Worship)

New Wineskins to Develop Ministry (Issue 15: Wineskins)

Vision for Ministry (Issue 16: Vision)

Community Transformation (Issue 20: Life)

Astounding Church Growth (Issue 2: Church Growth)

Our Lord and God still pours out his Spirit, affecting untold millions of people, churches, communities and even nations.  I hope these books both inform and inspire you.

Reproduction is allowed and encouraged with the copyright intact with the text.  These articles are also available on the internet.

Renewaljournal.com – 1st editions

https://renewaljournal.com – 2nd editions and eStore

Amazon – see ‘Geoff Waugh’ for journals and books

Resources

This book gives a brief glimpse of revival in summaries.  These are compiled from articles in the Renewal Journal :

Revival Fire (from Issue 1: Revival)

Spirit Impacts in Revival (from Issue 13: Ministry)

Revivals into 2000 (from Issue 14: Anointing)

Revival in the 21st Century (from  Issue 11: Discipleship & Transforming Revivals)

The companion book to this one, Renewal, also contains chapters drawn from Renewal Journal articles, namely:

Renewal Ministry (Issue 7: Blessing)

Revival Worship (Issue 6: Worship)

New Wineskins to Develop Ministry (Issue 15: Wineskins)

Vision for Ministry (Issue 16: Vision)

Community Transformation (Issue 20: Life)

Astounding Church Growth (Issue 2: Church Growth)

Renewal Journal – Contents  – All issues with links to articles

Book Depository – Renewal Journals – free postage worldwide – $8

AmazonRevival  – with ‘Look inside’, reviews and details

The Book DepositoryRevival – (free postage worldwide)

 

Blogs about recent revival movements:


God’s Surprises – Blog
God’s Surprises – PDF
Biographical stories of current revivals in over 20 countries


Jesus’ Last Promise – Blog and Video – Pentecost
You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you


God’s Promise – Blog and Video – I will pour out my Spirit
Seeing God’s Spirit poured out in over 20 countries

 

Revival Blogs Links:

See also Revivals Index

See also Revival Blogs

See also Blogs Index 1: Revivals

GENERAL BLOGS INDEX

BLOGS INDEX 1: REVIVALS (BRIEFER THAN REVIVALS INDEX)

BLOGS INDEX 2: MISSION (INTERNATIONAL STORIES)

BLOGS INDEX 3: MIRACLES (SUPERNATURAL EVENTS)

BLOGS INDEX 4: DEVOTIONAL (INCLUDING TESTIMONIES)

BLOGS INDEX 5: CHURCH (CHRISTIANITY IN ACTION)

BLOGS INDEX 6: CHAPTERS (BLOGS FROM BOOKS)

BLOGS INDEX 7: IMAGES (PHOTOS AND ALBUMS)

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Reaching the Core of the Core, by Luis Bush

Reaching the Core of the Core

by Luis Bush

 

 

Dr Luis Bush, International Director of the AD 2000 & Beyond Movement writes on evangelism among unreached people groups.

 

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Renewal Journal 10: Evangelism
https://renewaljournal.com/2011/07/22/evangelism/

 ___________________________________________________

If we are faithful to the Scriptures,

obedient to the mandate of Christ,

and unwavering in our commitment to plant churches

within every people and city,

then we will get to the core of the core

‑ The 10/40 Window.

___________________________________________________

The core of the unreached people of our world live in a rectangular‑shaped window!  Often called “The Resistant Belt,” the window extends from West Africa to East Asia, from ten degrees north to forty degrees north of the equator.  This specific region, which has increasingly become known as The 10/40 Window, encompasses the majority of the world’s Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists ‑ billions of spiritually impoverished souls.

As we approach the end of this millennium, it is imperative that our evangelistic efforts be focused among the people who inhabit The 10/40 Window.  If we are serious in our commitment to provide a valid opportunity for every person to experience the truth and saving power of Jesus Christ, we cannot ignore the compelling realities within this region.

The 10/40 Window confronts us with several important considerations:

first, the historical and biblical significance;

second, the least evangelized countries;

third, the dominance of three religious blocs;

fourth, the preponderance of the poor;

fifth, the unreached ethnolinguistic people groups;

sixth, the least evangelized megacities; and,

seventh, the strongholds of Satan within The 10/40 Window.

1.  The historical and biblical significance

The first and most fundamental reason why committed Christians must focus on The 10/40 Window is because of the biblical and historical significance of this area.  Indeed, the Bible begins with the account of Adam and Eve placed by God in the heart of what is now The 10/40 Window.

God’s plan, expressed in Genesis 1:26, was that mankind should have dominion over the earth, subduing it fully.  However, Adam and Eve sinned against God and forfeited their right to rule.

Mankind’s sinful behaviour increased until God intervened and judged the earth with a cataclysmic flood.  Then came mankind’s futile attempt to establish new dominion in the building of the great Tower of Babel.  That effort, which also occurred in the heart of The 10/40 Window, was an open defiance against God.  Once again, God reached forth his hand in judgment.  The result was the introduction of different languages, the scattering of earth’s people, and the formation of the nations.

In The 10/40 Window we can see clearly the crucial truth expressed in Graham Scroggie’s book The Drama of World Redemption: “A World having turned from God, He left it and chose a man through whom He would ultimately by Christ reach the world.” Certainly we can see how ancient history ran its course in the territory marked by The 10/40 Window, from the cradle of civilization in Mesopotamia across the fertile crescent to Egypt.  Empires rose and fell.  The fate of God’s people Israel varied in relation to their obedience to his covenant.  It was here that Christ was born, lived a perfect life, died sacrificially on the cross, and rose triumphant over death.  The church age was ushered in, and it was not until the second missionary journey of the Apostle Paul that events of biblical history occurred outside The 10/40 Window.  Without question, this is an area of great biblical and historical significance.

2.  The least evangelized countries

The second reason why committed Christians should focus on The 10/40 Window is because it is  home to the majority of the world’s unevangelized people.  The “unevangelized” are people who have a minimal knowledge of the gospel, but have no valid opportunity to respond to it.

While it constitutes only one‑third of earth’s total land area, nearly two‑thirds of the world’s people reside in The 10/40 Window.  With a total population nearing four billion, The 10/40 Window  includes 61 countries, both sovereign states and nonsovereign dependencies.  Those countries with the majority of their land mass lying within the boundaries of The 10/40 Window are included.

Of the world’s 50 least evangelized countries, 37 are within The 10/40 Window.  Yet those 37 countries comprise 95% of the total population of the 50 least evangelized countries! Such a fact leaves no doubt that our challenge in reaching the unreached must centre on the core ‑ The 10/40 Window.

If we take seriously the mandate to preach the gospel to every person, to make disciples of all peoples, and to be Christ’s witnesses to the uttermost part of the earth, we must recognize the priority of concentrating our efforts on The 10/40 Window.  No other area is so blatantly in need of the truth that salvation is only in Jesus Christ.

3.  The dominance of three religious blocs

A third reason we must focus on The 10/40 Window is evident in the fact that it contains three of the world’s dominant religious blocs.  The majority of those enslaved by Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism live within The 10/40 Window.

Viewing the map from left to right the Muslim world can be seen most prominently in a wide band across the north of Africa into the Middle East, a bloc representing over 700 million persons.  In the middle of the map, overshadowing the subcontinent of India is the presence of Hinduism, also constituting a population of more than 700 million.  On the right side of the map is the Buddhist world, encompassing the whole of China.

From its centre in The 10/40 Window, Islam is reaching out energetically to all parts of the globe;  in similar strategy, we must penetrate the heart of Islam with the liberating truth of the gospel.  We must do all in our power to show Muslims that the highest prophet described in the Koran is not Mohammed, but Jesus Christ.  And that He is not only the greatest prophet, but the Son of God Himself who died and resurrected in order that millions of Muslims may be saved.

Overwhelmed with poverty and ravaged by disease, India is victimized even more severely by the spiritual blindness of Hinduism.  To a nation in which fattened cows roam freely among emaciated humans, we must proclaim the truth that Jesus came to give us life, and give it abundantly.

Although officially an atheistic country since the Marxist revolution of the late 1940s, China is nevertheless influenced deeply by its Buddhist roots.  Some scholars, in fact, consider China’s true religion to be a combination of atheism and Buddhism.  In actuality, religion in China is a hodgepodge which includes folklore, mysticism, animism, and occult practices.  Regardless of how one may assess the situation, the fact remains that 1.2 billion Chinese are in desperate need of Jesus Christ.  They represent the largest identifiable block in The 10/40 Window.

4.  The preponderance of the poor

A fourth reason we must focus on The 10/40 Window is because the poor are there.  Of the poorest of the poor, more than eight out of ten live in The 10/40 Window.  On average, they exist on less than $500 per person per year.  Although 2.4 billion of these people live within The 10/40 Window, only 8% of all missionaries work among them.

Bryant L. Myers, in his perceptive article entitled, “Where Are the Poor and Lost?”, states that “the poor are the lost, and the lost are the poor.” He arrived at this conclusion after illustrating that the majority of the unreached live in the poorest countries of the world.

When Christians from 170 countries gathered at Lausanne II in Manila in 1989, great concern was expressed for the materially poor.  In the second section of the Manila Manifesto, that concern was recorded in the following declaration: “We have again been confronted with Luke’s emphasis that the gospel is the good news for the poor (Luke 4:18; 6:20; 7:22) and have asked ourselves what this means to the majority of the world’s population who are destitute, suffering, and oppressed.  We have been reminded that the law, the prophets, the wisdom books, and the teaching and ministry of Jesus all stress God’s concern for the materially poor and our consequent duty to defend and care for them.”

Committed Christians cannot ignore the reality that there is a remarkable overlap between the poorest countries of the world and those which are the least evangelized.

5.  The unreached ethno-linguistic people groups

The fifth reason we must address our concerns on The 10/40 Window is because it contains the largest spiritually bankrupt ethno-linguistic mega-peoples (over one million).  In fact, over 90% of the individuals in these people groups live in The 10/40 Window.

6.  The least evangelized megacities

The sixth major reason we must focus on The 10/40 Window is because it contains the overwhelming majority of the world’s least evangelized megacities ‑ that is, those with a population of more than one million.  Of the top 50 cities on this list, all 50 cities are in The 10/40 Window!  This fact alone underscores the need for prioritizing our efforts to reach each of these great metroplexes with Christ’s love and truth.

7.  The strongholds of Satan

Reason number seven for focusing on The 10/40 Window is that it includes numerous strongholds of Satan.  The billions of people who live in The 10/40 Window have suffered not only the ravages of poverty and disease, they have also been kept from the transforming power of the gospel.  The are poignant examples of the truth expressed in 2 Corinthians 4:4, which states that “the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

We must not view this situation with a fatalistic attitude, for we have been granted power to intervene.  In a later passage of the same letter, the Apostle Paul declares: “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.  The weapons we fight with are not weapons of the world.  On the contrary, the have divine power to demolish strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:3‑4).  Although Satan has established a territorial stronghold in The 10/40 Window, we must not concede one parcel of land nor one person.  The gospel must advance!

Looking back across the pages of history we discover a heartening story about spiritual warfare in the writings of the prophet Daniel.  A fervent man of prayer, Daniel was highly esteemed by God and by the people of his generation.

On one occasion, while waiting on God in prayer, Daniel fasted on bread and water for three weeks.  Finally, a majestic angel whose appearance was as lighting brought an answer to his prayer.  He assured Daniel with the promise that “…your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words” (Daniel 10:12).  However, the angel then went on to explain how, en route to answer Daniel’s prayer, he was detained for 21 days by the demon assigned to the Persian king (Daniel 10:13).  It was only when the archangel Michael arrived to help that he was able to free himself from the battle to go to Daniel.

This fascinating passage unveils the reality and territorial nature of the spiritual battle in the heavenlies.  The angel who visited Daniel announced that he would have to return to the battle over the Persian kingdom.  Apparently, that battle still rages, for ancient Persia is now modern‑day Iran.  Still a stronghold zealously held by Satan, Iran is situated at the centre of the The 10/40 Window.

George Otis, Jr., has concluded that two powerful demonic forces, with great biblical significance, stand at the epicenter of the unreached world ‑ the prince of Persia (Iran) and the spirit of Babylon (Iraq) ‑ and both must be penetrated with the gospel before the Great Commission can be completed.  Otis observes that this will occur in the region of the Garden of Eden, where the command to “subdue the earth” was originally given.

It is evident that the forces of Satan have great power and will resist all attempts to be overcome.  If we are to storm the enemy’s territory, we must put on the full armour of God and fight with the weapons of spiritual warfare described in Ephesians 6.  To depend on anything less is utter foolishness.

The focus of the concerned Christian community 200 years ago was for the coastlands of the world.  A century later, the success of the coastlands effort motivated a new generation to reach the interior regions of the continents.  Within the past decades, the success of the inland thrust has led to a major focus on people groups.  More recently, the world’s burgeoning megacities have also become focal points of concern.  Today, rapidly approaching the third millennium since Christ, we are wise to concentrate our efforts on The 10/40 Window.

Of course, this calls for some of us to reevaluate priorities.  We must find the most innovative ways to reach billions of people within The 10/40 Window with the love and truth of Jesus Christ.  We must mobilize for a massive prayer focus on The 10/40 Window with the body of Christ worldwide.

However, it must be clearly understood that concentration on The 10/40 Window does not mean a curtailing of Christ’s work going on elsewhere around the globe.  Missionary endeavours, in evangelism, training, relief, development, church planting, and mobilization for cross cultural missions should go on unhindered.

If we are faithful to the Scriptures, obedient to the mandate of Christ, and unwavering in our commitment to plant churches within every people and city, then we will get to the core of the core  ‑ The 10/40 Window.  May God grant each of us boldness and wisdom and energy to do our part in taking on this great and eternally significant challenge.

By all means, get involved!

This article was written by Louis Bush, International Director of the AD 2000 & Beyond Movement.

 

© Renewal Journal 10: Evangelism, 1997, 2nd edition 2011.
Reproduction is allowed with the copyright intact with the text.

Now available in updated book form (2nd edition 2011)

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Renewal Journal 10: Evangelism

Power Evangelism, by John Wimber

Supernatural Ministry, by John White

Power Evangelism in Short-Term Missions, by Randy Clark

God’s Awesome Presence, by R Heard

Evangelist Steve Hill, by Sharon Wissemann

Reaching the Core of the Core, by Luis Bush

Evangelism on the Internet, by Rowland Croucher

“My Resume” by Paul Grant

Gospel Essentials, by Charles Taylor

Pentecostal/Charismatic Pioneers, by Daryl Brenton

Characteristics of Revivals, by Richard Riss

Book Reviews: Flashpoints of Revival & Revival Fires, by Geoff Waugh

Contents of all Renewal Journals

Amazon – Renewal Journal 10: Evangelism

Amazon – all journals and books

Link to all Renewal Journals

GENERAL BLOGS INDEX

BLOGS INDEX 1: REVIVALS (BRIEFER THAN REVIVALS INDEX)

BLOGS INDEX 2: MISSION (INTERNATIONAL STORIES)

BLOGS INDEX 3: MIRACLES (SUPERNATURAL EVENTS)

BLOGS INDEX 4: DEVOTIONAL (INCLUDING TESTIMONIES)

BLOGS INDEX 5: CHURCH (CHRISTIANITY IN ACTION)

BLOGS INDEX 6: CHAPTERS (BLOGS FROM BOOKS)

BLOGS INDEX 7: IMAGES (PHOTOS AND ALBUMS)

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Evangelist Steve Hill, by Sharon Wissemann

Evangelist Steve Hill

Steve Hill

Sharon Wissemann wrote this article on Pensacola Evangelist Steve Hill  in her Diploma of Ministry studies at the School of Ministries of Christian Heritage College in Brisbane, Australia.

 __________________________________________________

Stephen Hill has remained ‘holy, humble and hungry’,

enabling God to entrust him with powerful leadership in revival.

___________________________________________________

Since Sunday 18th June, 1995 hundreds of thousands of lives have been changed as a direct result of the Pensacola Revival in Florida, USA.  The spark that ignited the revival was an evangelist named Steve Hill.

Born Stephen Hill into an upper middle class family in January 1954 in Ankara, Turkey, Hill began to rebel at a very early age.  His life of drinking, smoking and taking other drugs began at nine years of age.  The next twelve years of his life was spent in cults, travel, hard narcotics, parties, music and jail.  Hill was arrested 13 times for car theft, narcotics trafficking and other related crimes.  His life was changed on October 28, 1975 when a Lutheran vicar led him to the Lord by simply saying the name of ‘Jesus’ over and over.  At 11 a.m. that Tuesday morning he had a dramatic conversion when the power of Jesus Christ flooded his soul.

In 1977 Hill entered the Twin Oaks Academy, a leadership training institute in Texas founded by David Wilkerson.  At the Academy he was taught prayer by Leonard Ravenhill and evangelism by Nicky Cruz and through personal experience.  He met his wife, Jeri at the Academy.  After graduating from the school, he entered into church ministry.  God called Hill to the mission field when he took a group of young people to Mexico.

In Argentina that Hill first saw Carlos Annacondia minister to tens of thousands of people.  In his first Annacondia meeting out in the middle of a soccer field he witnessed fifteen to twenty thousand people ‘craving God’.  Although he always had the desire for evangelism, Hill believes that he received the evangelistic anointing from Annacondia, who has lead over two million people to Jesus, when he laid hands on him.

Hill was involved in the Argentine Revival, seeing multitudes saved and healed. For seven years he helped plant seven churches in Buenos Aires and Southern Argentina during this revival.  He also planted churches and conducted church crusades in several other countries such as Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Spain, Russia and Belarus.

As well as from planting churches in various countries, Stephen Hill has been involved ministries such as Teen Challenge, street evangelism, counselling, youth conferences and crusades.  He has helped to establish drug rehabilitation centres in several areas around the world.

In 1995, Hill read an article in Time magazine about the move of God in an Anglican Church in London.  He arranged for a meeting at three o’clock on January 19 with Pastor Sandy Miller of the Holy Brompton Anglican Church to see what was going on.  Over 500 people were shaking and laying on the floor under the power of God when Hill arrived.  Instead of having the appointment, Hill asked Miller to lay hands on him.  He received a new impartation from Miller’s prayer.

On Father’s Day, June 18, 1995 Hill was invited by John Kilpatrick, the Pastor of Brownsville Assembly of God,  to speak at the Sunday morning service.  Kilpatrick had just lost his mother to cancer was emotionally and physically weary, so he requested his longtime friend Hill to speak in his place.  Hill issued an altar call and a thousand people responded.  Kilpatrick says that he felt the sensation of a wind blowing in the church.  Various manifestations occurred such as falling to the ground, weeping and violent shaking.  The morning service was scheduled to finish at noon but continued till 4 p.m.  Likewise the night service was extended and became a five-hour long service.  The Pensacola Revival had begun.

Congregation members asked Hill to stay a several more days.  This he did and began to cancelling appointments, including a trip to Russia.  He decided to stay and moved his family to be near the revival.  It is estimated that over 100,000 people have been saved and over 1 million people from all over the world have visited Pensacola since 1995.  Hill continues to minister in the revival services Wednesday to Saturday nights at Brownsville Assembly of God to this day.  Steve Hill is a leader in current revival.

Why did God choose Hill to start the Brownsville Revival?  There are two answers to this question.  Firstly, God is sovereign and he can choose whoever he pleases to start a revival.  Secondly, Hill possesses certain attributes that enable him to be one of God’s chosen vessels for this revival.

Characteristics

Several features of revivalists outlined in the 1795 classic Accounts of Revivals by John Gillies apply to Steve Hill.

The first feature Gillies listed was that revivalists are earnest about the ‘great work of ministry on which they had entered’.  Steve Hill is an evangelist.  His primary passion and compassion is for the salvation of the lost.  Hill’s preaching echoes the words of John the Baptist and Jesus ‘repent for the kingdom of God is at hand’ (Matt. 3:2; 4:17).

Revivalists are also men of labour.  Gillies explained that they labour for eternity knowing that ‘the time was short and the day of recompense was at hand’.  Hill is convinced of the urgency of this hour.  As an evangelist Hill’s preaching and prayers are geared towards the salvation of the lost, the backsliders and the prodigals.  It is because of his own past of crime and drug addiction that he can relate to the lost in a with insight and compassion.

Revivalists are people of ‘most decided doctrine’.  There is a ‘breadth and a power in their preaching’.  This feature applies to Hill’s preaching.  He knows the Bible and delivers his messages bluntly and directly from the Word of God.  Personally Hill would rather ‘hear the hard truth and live than to fall for a soft lie and die’.  This belief compels Hill to preach the full gospel, including the reality of hell, to people.  He preaches Christ crucified, total atonement and the Blood of Christ.  As the revivalists of old, Hill’s trumpet gives no uncertain sound.

Revivalists are also people of prayer.  Hill sets time aside to pray and sit in God’s presence to learn his instructions and his ways for each day.  Early in his Christian life Hill had been instructed in prayer by Leonard Ravenhill at the Twin Oaks Academy.

Another reason that Hill is involved in this current revival in Brownsville could be that he ‘caught the fire’ from elsewhere and was the spark that ignited the flame.  Throughout his Christian life Hill received impartations from leaders in different fields.  While at Twin Oaks he was taught by David Wilkerson, Leonard Ravenhill and Nicky Cruz.  In Argentina he ‘hung around’ Carlos Annacondia for seven years.  Hill received an impartation from Pastor Sandy Miller of the Holy Trinity Brompton Anglcian Church in London in January 1995.  Several months later, revival broke out in Pensacola.

Hunger is another contributing factor to Hill’s involvement in revival.  At the height of the great revival in Argentina, Hill experienced a personal, spiritual drought even though his devotional time was intact, his marriage was strong and new churches were being planted.  Through this time of testing by God, Hill maintained his time with the Lord during the morning hours.  This drought created a passionate desire within him to have more of God and less of himself in his ministry.  He wanted a fresh touch, a new anointing and craved intimacy with Jesus.  This personal famine produced in him an intense desire for genuine revival amongst sinners.  He wanted a ‘deep holy move of the Spirit amongst sinners’ and to see them ‘drawn to the Lord just by sensing His presence’.  Pensacola is the realization of those desires.

The Brownsville Revival is different from past revivals in history. This revival is not focussed on one particular personality, such as John Wesley or Charles Finney.  Instead it has occurred in one particular location, the Brownsville Assembly of God, Pensacola, Florida, USA, where God has chosen to pour out His Spirit.  Brownsville also illustrates the new team concept that has been prophesied about in recent years.  The team has been nicknamed as Pastor Watchful, Evangelist Street Smart, and Music Director Trendy.  God chose a team without fame or significant national acclaim to lead his revival.

Steve Hill is the evangelist in the current revival at Brownsville.  Saved radically from a life of crime and drug addiction, he has ministered in many places throughout the world.  He was the spark that ignited the Pensacola Outpouring on Father’s Day, June 18 1995, that continues to impact the globe today.  The fruit of the revival proves that Hill has been effective in his gifting and calling as an evangelist.  He is a man of earnest labour, prayer and doctrine dedicated to saving souls and bringing prodigals home.  Hill has caught the fire, ignited it and carried it successfully to this day.

Stephen Hill has remained ‘holy, humble and hungry’, enabling God to entrust him with powerful leadership in revival.

John Kilpatrick & Lindell Cooley, leaders at Brownsville AOG

© Renewal Journal 10: Evangelism, 1997, 2nd edition 2011.
Reproduction is allowed with the copyright intact with the text.

Now available in updated book form (2nd edition 2011)

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Renewal Journal 10: Evangelism

Power Evangelism, by John Wimber

Supernatural Ministry, by John White

Power Evangelism in Short-Term Missions, by Randy Clark

God’s Awesome Presence, by R Heard

Evangelist Steve Hill, by Sharon Wissemann

Reaching the Core of the Core, by Luis Bush

Evangelism on the Internet, by Rowland Croucher

“My Resume” by Paul Grant

Gospel Essentials, by Charles Taylor

Pentecostal/Charismatic Pioneers, by Daryl Brenton

Characteristics of Revivals, by Richard Riss

Book Reviews: Flashpoints of Revival & Revival Fires, by Geoff Waugh

Contents of all Renewal Journals

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Link to all Renewal Journals

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GENERAL BLOGS INDEX

BLOGS INDEX 1: REVIVALS (BRIEFER THAN REVIVALS INDEX)

BLOGS INDEX 2: MISSION (INTERNATIONAL STORIES)

BLOGS INDEX 3: MIRACLES (SUPERNATURAL EVENTS)

BLOGS INDEX 4: DEVOTIONAL (INCLUDING TESTIMONIES)

BLOGS INDEX 5: CHURCH (CHRISTIANITY IN ACTION)

BLOGS INDEX 6: CHAPTERS (BLOGS FROM BOOKS)

BLOGS INDEX 7: IMAGES (PHOTOS AND ALBUMS)

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Supernatural Ministry, John White Interviewed

Supernatural Ministry

Dr John White interviewed

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An article in Renewal Journal 10: Evangelism

Renewal Journal 10: Evangelism – PDF

John White

Julia C. Loren, a psychotherapist and writer, interviewed Dr John White, psychiatrist and widely read evangelical author, about a theology of the supernatural.

____________________________________

 Oh I’ve come home. This is what I want.

This is what I’ve been looking for all my life.

________________________________________
 

Q.   How did you begin shifting towards a theology which included signs and wonders?

A.    An obvious case of a shift in theology was when I met John Wimber.  When I arrived at his course at Fuller Seminary (MC510: Signs and Wonders) I realized here was the Christ I was looking for all my life, the Christ who heals, the Christ who does this and it is all happening in front of my nose.  The search had been going on for much longer and I’d been having visions for much longer without knowing that I was a charismatic.  I suppose I was one then but I hadn’t entered into the fullness of being able to do these things.

Yet God had been preparing for that so‑called sudden shift for many years, both by my seeing the supernatural in operation among primitive tribal people and by my encounter with a Pentecostal guy while a medical student.  And I thought there must be something in it.  But I didn’t know what.  I thought especially that I needed to be baptized by the Holy Ghost but the Holy Ghost wasn’t cooperating.

Q.   Were you seeking such an experience?

A.   I don’t think I was. Or it never occurred to me to seek it.  I had read a writer’s work while in the New Tribes boot camp.  He described the Holy Spirit’s activity in the 19th century.  He talked about it, described his own experience and I thought, “Oh dear, I’d love that.”  But it wasn’t clear enough to me to seek it actively.

Toward the end of my time pastoring the Winnipeg church, Ken Blue was at Fuller Seminary finishing his Ph.D., and he called me about this remarkable man John Wimber.  I thought that was interesting and I’d like to sit in on his lectures.  So Lorrie and I went down to Fuller.  Fuller graciously gave us an apartment.

It was the sense of the presence of Jesus during John Wimber’s lectures; I thought, “Oh I’ve come home. This is what I want. This is what I’ve been looking for all my life.”  And Lorrie was the same. The moment I got in I thought, “Christ is here.”  It was remarkable.  My hunger for Jesus has never stopped.  And I felt that the anti‑Charismatics particularly also robbed me of Jesus.

Q.  This is the first time you ever really encountered the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit?

A.   Yes.  What happened in the third lecture he gave ‑ he would have a lecture then a workshop ‑ he finished his lecture and asked people who had sicknesses of some kind to come forward.  There were about ten of them.  The first guy was a football player who was studying theology at Fuller.  He came because his leg had, until that week, been in a cast and the cast had been removed after a month.  It was his Achilles’ tendon that had been torn.  So John propped him against the wall and asked him to demonstrate how much movement he had in both his feet.  It was very limited in range as it would be after a tendon had been sown up.

Then John prayed for him and he started shaking.  He finally went onto the floor.  And I was worried because one leg was kicking wildly and I thought that was his injured leg.  So I said to three guys, “Look stop him.  Get hold of that leg and stop him from doing this.”  When they got hold of the leg they were all shaking too.  I was mad at them and said, “Stop it!  Do what you’re supposed to do and hold that leg.”  I was concerned about his leg but I was mistaken.  It was the other leg that was injured and when he got up he had a full range of movement.  I got used to seeing things like that.

I asked John, “How do we get into this stuff?  Do we get zapped by the Holy Ghost or what?”

John’s reply was, “No, you just stick your neck out and start doing it.”  He says in retrospect that he saw great faith in me.  See a real Christian has the Holy Spirit and has potentially all the gifts of the Spirit.  That was suddenly revealed to me.  I thought, “Well, I don’t like his answer but I’ll start.”  So we started praying for people’s headaches and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t.

Q.   Had it occurred to you to pray for people to be healed before?

A.   No.

Q.   Despite Lorrie being healed just before you were married?

A.  That’s right.  And despite the fact that it was my prayers that apparently did it.  I know that I was before long doing major stuff.  I was so excited about it after completing MC510 I went around the world talking about this.  I prayed for a little two year old girl in Malaysia. The parents brought her ‑ they were Haaka speaking Chinese.  She had been running around the room.  She had kept her parents awake for 36 hours and when they brought her to us, struggling, she was covered with her execma ‑ and as Lorrie and I prayed we saw the wet area shrinking.  This was very exciting to watch the shrinking take place as we prayed.   I thought, “Gosh what power I’ve got.”  And then the suggestion came to me, “Oh but maybe it’s Lorrie’s prayers that are doing it.”  And I was filled with wild jealousy.  I suddenly saw how dangerous it is to have power.  After that I was very careful.  I saw that my own heart was corruptible.

Q.  You were quick to see that and to write about it.  You mention in The Pathway to Holiness the error of considering manifestations as evidence of superior spiritual power.  Is that also a criticism of the Vineyard movement?

A.  It is more a criticism of people who have been affected by miraculous power whether Pentecostal, or so‑called “Second Wave” or Vineyard.  I think the Lord saw to it that I recognized it right away and I’ve seen it ever since.  I’ve seen what it does to people to have that kind of power.

To me Christ is central to everything.  Signs and wonders isn’t everything.  They probably will be helpful because God loves people and loves to heal their diseases but its no credit to us that we can do it.  We should all be able to do it.

Q.   After reading about Jack Deere’s theological shift I have a sense that you’d agree with him that the evangelical, intellectual mindset fights against the spirit but that we need both word and spirit.

A.  Yes it does.  I feel that intellectuals among the evangelicals are not what the Puritans were.  I make a distinction between J.I. Packer and many other Bible scholars and theologians.  Packer was part of Lloyd‑Jones studying of the Puritan movement.  Lloyd‑Jones had an experience of the Holy Spirit, an experience of being picked up in the arms of the Father so to speak.  He studied the Puritans and the Puritans knew about the Holy Spirit.  That is why John Owen, who was a puritan and I think the vice‑chancellor of Oxford University at one point, was able to write about the difference between those who have the Spirit and those who didn’t.

Q.  You have emphasized the healing gifts of the Spirit in recent years.  Do you believe that people can operate in the gifts of the Holy Spirit without having an experience such as a “Baptism in the Holy Spirit” in the Charismatic sense?

A.  Yes.  I think the focus on the baptism of the Holy Spirit came with the Pentecostal movement.  It was the Holiness movement at that time.  They decided to wait on God until they had something like that.  I’m not even sure that the disciples needed it.  When Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”, at that point they received the Spirit of God.  He was in them.  But I supposed they needed something extraordinary to initiate the powerful testimony that came.  That’s how it was in my own life anyway.

I don’t think there is any difference between Charismatics and non‑Charismatics. That is to say, I think those Christians who do have the Holy Spirit in them, many don’t, may never have repented and those are not true Christians.  There are many who are powerfully anointed and that is why their speaking is so effective.  They may not realize that they can heal the sick but that seems to come in waves anyway.  It seems to build somehow.

Q.   Your recent though unpublished book tentatively titled Control, reveals the way control and manipulation dominates individuals in evangelical and charismatic ministries.  You cry out against this “witchcraft” or abuse of power and advocate a humility and dependency on God to further the work of His kingdom.  You offer your subjective experience of being a “controller, con-artist, and manipulator” as the log you believes God revealed and removed from your eye so that he may remove the mote in the church’s eye.  Your subjective experience of an encounter with God leads you to call this “witchcraft” in your lectures.  Are you encouraging a more experiential interpretation of scripture?

A.  I would say first of all, it enters the whole realm of the objective versus the subjective.  That was what God said to me when my computer crashed one day.  I was filled with fear for some reason when the computer crashed and I said, “Lord what have I been doing?”  It was then that he said, “You have been practising witchcraft since you were three years old.”  That was a subjective impression.

I deplore an increasing tendency in scholarship to overemphasize the letter of Scripture and minimize subjective experience of Scripture.  The two ‑ objective and subjective ‑ are inseparable.  It is only as the Holy Spirit illuminates our understanding of Scripture that we will truly understand it.  Jack Deere has taught us that when we speak of our convictions we are often speaking of what we were taught in church or in seminary.   Divided seminaries and divided churches are an evidence that we follow human opinions as frequently as we follow divine.  Two and a half centuries ago, John Gifford taught John Bunyan this very lesson.

Q.   How have you learned to hear the subjective voice of God?

A.    That’s a tough one.  You see, nobody explained to me as a child that such communications had ceased, so that from earliest childhood I did hear, or else I thought I did.  I subjected my impressions to “scientific” checks.  I am most certain of God’s voice now as I read Scripture.  Even when I was a psychiatrist I would be listening to the Lord.  I would pray with my patients whether they were Christian or not.  And I would have hunches about them which really were prophetic.

He speaks to me on many channels now.  He speaks to me in the night when I sleep and I remember it exactly when I wake up.   This is something new for me.  He also speaks in night visions which are not the same as dreams ‑ which may emerge out of dreams ‑ but suddenly you know that you’re in a different space.  In a dream you don’t usually recognize you’re in a dream but there becomes something different about it and I can’t explain what it is.

Q.   You went from hearing God’s voice to seeing visions?

A.    Though I resisted it at the time, I was also having visions during my residency and I knew those weren’t hallucinatory experiences.  There is something about a vision that you know that you know that you know.  First of all in a vision I can understand everything.  It’s immediately self‑apparent.  I can’t explain this but it is.  Even though the vision is symbolic I don’t need anyone to tell me what it’s about.

Q. In other words, you know what your vision means but with psychiatric patients suffering hallucinations and delusions, they don’t know?

A.   They don’t know.  Many of them have hallucinations that they are demonized. They hear demonic voices.  I think psychosis reduces your ability to discern, to discern between the demonic and the differences between the two.  Satan mimics God’s voice superbly.  But God has taught me to distinguish by the darkness that comes on me.  I can’t explain it.

Q.   Do you have a sense that those who walk into a growing awareness of the power of the Holy Spirit also come into greater awareness of the demonic?

A.   You can’t have with one without the other.  The moment you are in touch with the Lord you are open to the whole bang shoot.  It’s spiritual sensitivity.  Sensitivity to spirit beings.

Q.  In the wake of your theological shift towards signs and wonders, a fury of criticism followed.  Many evangelical doors have slammed shut against your ministry while charismatic doors swung open.  How do you view this shift?

A.   I wish the two sides would get together.  That’s the only thing that I regret.  One door closes and another door opens wide.  I long for the day when people realize that the “Charismatic curtain,” as I call it, is not necessary.  Real Christians are real Christians.

Q.   Where do you believe the church is going?

A.   I’m concerned about apostasy and the parable of the wheat and the tares.  All the reformers spoke of apostasy.  Certainly Calvin did, Arminius did.  Calvin said it was impossible for them to have seen the light but John Owen explains it the best of all.

The Seventh Volume of Owen’s works is a careful exposition of Hebrews 6, focusing particularly on versus 4 through 6.  His attempt is to understand apostasy.  Owen maintains that one may operate in all the power of the Holy Spirit, without any of the inward graces of God’s character, that is, without being “saved” at all.  You do not have to be a Christian to display spiritual gifts.  Non‑Christians can display them also, since the Spirit falls on whom He will.

What John Owen says is that you can have the Holy Spirit and still apostatize and you do that because you opt for power rather than for the brightness of the glory of Christ himself.  In other words you are not pursuing Christ, you are pursuing power.  So it means that on both sides of the Charismatic curtain, there are wheat and tares.

Q.  Apostasy as you see it, is more than lapsing into chronic sin, renouncing Christ and abandoning the profession of faith.  It is an abuse of power.  Frightening thought.

A.   It is a very frightening thought.  When I first began to understand this I thought, well, what about me?  My fear about this personally was countered when Jesus said to me, “He who comes to me I will never reject.”  And that filled me with great relief.

Q.  Throughout your ministry and particularly in The Pathway of Holiness, you mention a vision of darkness “that falls on men and women when they do not let God be God in their lives,” referencing Romans 1:21‑23.  What do you foresee will happen if the darkness is not lifted off of the church?

A.  The darkness will be lifted off of the church. There are some Christians who develop so far and then they lose their curiosity and become worshippers of mammon or whatever unwittingly.  God doesn’t seem to go on doing things in them.  See, in my life, God has been merciful and constantly dragging me into something new.  Sometimes against my will.

The church free of darkness would look marvellous.  The marvellous church cannot occur unless there is a split ‑ a split between those who have the Holy Spirit and those who haven’t ‑ the wheat and the tares.  At what point that would occur I don’t know except that somehow it’s involved in world war and all that’s going to happen in the next little while.  Individuals will have to give God control and they will find one another.

© Renewal Journal 10: Evangelism, 1997, 2nd edition 2011.
Reproduction is allowed with the copyright intact with the text.

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Copy and share this link on your media, eg Facebook, Instagram, Emails:100 Bible Quotes:

Renewal Journal 10: Evangelism – PDF

Renewal Journal 10: Evangelism

Power Evangelism, by John Wimber

Supernatural Ministry, by John White

Power Evangelism in Short-Term Missions, by Randy Clark

God’s Awesome Presence, by R Heard

Evangelist Steve Hill, by Sharon Wissemann

Reaching the Core of the Core, by Luis Bush

Evangelism on the Internet, by Rowland Croucher

“My Resume” by Paul Grant

Gospel Essentials, by Charles Taylor

Pentecostal/Charismatic Pioneers, by Daryl Brenton

Characteristics of Revivals, by Richard Riss

Book Reviews: Flashpoints of Revival & Revival Fires, by Geoff Waugh

See also: Renewal Journal – Signs and Wonders

See also: Signs and Wonders: Study Guide

Now available in updated book form (2nd edition 2011)
Renewal Journal 10: Evangelism

Contents of all Renewal Journals

Amazon – Renewal Journal 10: Evangelism

Amazon – all journals and books

Back to Summaries of Revivals Contents

Free PDF Books on the Main Page

Link to all Renewal Journals

GENERAL BLOGS INDEX

BLOGS INDEX 1: REVIVALS (BRIEFER THAN REVIVALS INDEX)

BLOGS INDEX 2: MISSION (INTERNATIONAL STORIES)

BLOGS INDEX 3: MIRACLES (SUPERNATURAL EVENTS)

BLOGS INDEX 4: DEVOTIONAL (INCLUDING TESTIMONIES)

BLOGS INDEX 5: CHURCH (CHRISTIANITY IN ACTION)

BLOGS INDEX 6: CHAPTERS (BLOGS FROM BOOKS)

BLOGS INDEX 7: IMAGES (PHOTOS AND ALBUMS)

BACK TO MAIN PAGE

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Power Evangelism, by John Wimber

Power Evangelism

by John Wimber

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Renewal Journal 10: Evangelism – PDF

Pastor John Wimber, founder and International Director of the Association of Vineyard Churches, was an international conference speaker, inspiring worship song‑writer, best‑selling author and spiritual leader to the Vineyard congregations.  He was also known as a pivotal voice in the arenas of spiritual formation and renewal.

John Wimber expressed and demonstrated for hundreds of thousands of us a strong, biblical grasp of evangelism in the power of the Spirit as an essential and integral part of the Kingdom of God, now breaking into the kingdoms of this world, but yet to be consummated at the coming of the King.

These edited comments are selected from John Wimber’s pioneering class notes of 1983-84 in the popular and controversial course ‘MC510’ at Fuller Theological Seminary on signs and wonders and church growth.  That course provided material which John Wimber and Kevin Springer then adapted for their best-selling books, Power Evangelism and Power Healing.

 _____________________________________________________

Evangelism is the proclamation of the Kingdom of God

in the fulness of its blessings and promise

_____________________________________________________

 Evangelism is the proclamation of the Kingdom of God in the fulness of its blessings and promise, which has also been called ‘salvation’.

Jesus did more than preach the Kingdom.  He demonstrated its reality with ‘signs of the Kingdom’, public evidence that the Kingdom he was talking about had come.  We believe that signs should validate our evangelism, too.

Since ‘the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work’ (1 John 3:8), he inevitably came into collision with the prince of darkness.  The signs of the Kingdom were evidences that the devil was retreating before the advance of the King.  As Jesus put it, once the strong man has been overpowered by the Stronger One, his possessions can be taken from him (Matthew 12:29; Luke 11:22).

Signs of the Kingdom

The signs of the Kingdom reflect this.  We list them in approximately the order in which they appeared, although this is not necessarily in order of importance.

1.  The first sign of the Kingdom was, and still is, Jesus himself in the midst of his people (Luke 17:21; Matthew 18:20), whose presence brings joy, peace, and a sense of celebration (John 5:11; 16:33; Mark 2:18-20).

2.  The second is the preaching of the gospel.  There was no gospel of the Kingdom to proclaim until Christ arrived.  Now, however, that he has come, the Good News of the Kingdom must be preached to all, especially to the poor (Luke 4:18-19; 7:22).  The preaching of the Kingdom points people to the Kingdom itself.

3.  The third sign of the Kingdom is exorcism.  Evil powers are expelled.  We refuse to demythologize the teachings of Jesus and his apostles about demons.  Although the ‘principalities and powers’ may have a reference to demonic ideologies and structures, we believe that they certainly are evil, personal intelligences under the command of the devil.  Demon possession, and influence, is a real and terrible condition.  Deliverance is possible only in a power encounter in which the name of Jesus is invoked and prevails.

4.  The fourth sign of the Kingdom was the healing and the nature miraclesmaking the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the sick whole, raising the dean (Luke 7:22), stilling the storm, and multiplying the loaves and fishes.  We all agree that these were not only signs pointing to the reality of the Kingdom’s arrival, but also anticipations of the final Kingdom from which all disease, hunger, disorder, and death will be banished forever.  We also agree that God is still free and powerful and performs miracles today, especially in frontier situations where the Kingdom is advancing into enemy-held territory.  Some of us think we should expect miracles as commonly as in the ministry of Jesus and his apostles (e.g. John 14:12), while others draw attention to the texts which describe these miracles as authenticating their unique ministry (e.g. Hebrews 2:3-4; 2 Corinthians 12:12).   

5.  A fifth sign of the Kingdom is the miracle of conversion and the new birth.  Whenever people ‘turn to God from idols, to serve the living and true God’ (1 Thessalonians 1:9,10), a power encounter has taken place in which the spell of idols, whether traditional modern, and of the spirits has been broken.  God’s power for salvation is displayed in the gospel (Romans 1:16), and converts who have been rescued from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God (Acts 26:18) are said to have ‘tasted … the powers of the age to come’ (Hebrews 6:5).

6.  A sixth sign of the Kingdom is the people of the Kingdom in whom is manifested that cluster of Christ-like qualities which Paul called ‘the fruit of the Spirit’.  For the gift of the Spirit is the supreme blessing of the Kingdom of God.  Where he rules, love, joy, peace, and righteousness rule with him (Galatians 5:22-23; Romans 14:17).  Moreover, love issues in good works.  Thus, if the gospel is Good News of the Kingdom, good works are the signs of the Kingdom.  Good news and good works, evangelism and social responsibility, once again are seen to be indissolubly united.

7.  The seventh sign of the Kingdom, we suggest, is suffering.  It was necessary for the King to suffer in order to enter into his glory.  Indeed, he suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow in his steps (1 Peter 2:21).  To suffer for the sake of righteousness or for our testimony to Jesus, and to bear such suffering courageously, is a clear sign to all beholders that we have received God’s salvation or Kingdom (Philippians 1:28-29; cf. 2 Thessalonians 1:5).

Kingdom principles

Evangelism involves the proclamation and demonstration of God’s reign, the Kingdom of God on the earth.  The ministry of Jesus in signs and wonders was based on his relationship with the Holy Spirit who is creative, imaginative and inventive.  Therefore, we should not try to reduce the ministry of Jesus to a group of simplistic techniques or formulas for the purpose of developing a healing ministry.

The Kingdom of God brings the reign of God into all of life, making all things whole.  Healing demonstrates God’s reign.  The following points are some key principles for Jesus’ healing work.

1.  Jesus began healing after his baptism and anointing by the Holy Spirit (Luke 3:21, 22; 4:1-19).

2.  Jesus delivered all who came to him from every kind of sickness (Matthew 8:16; 15:30-31; 17:14-21; Mark 7:31-37; John 11:43-44).

3.  The Gospel writers frequently note that Jesus’ healing works were motivated by compassion and pity for the sick (Matthew 9:36; 14:14; 20:34).

4.  Jesus seemed to be more able to heal in the presence of faith in him and in his power to heal (Matthew 8:5-13; 9:2, 27-31; Mark 5:24-43; 9:14-29; Luke 4:23-28).

5.  Jesus sometimes healed when he alone believed, but he was clearly limited by an unbelieving (negative faith) atmosphere (Mark 6:1-6; 8:22; Luke 4:23-28).

6.  Jesus seems to have healed at all times, but as he flowed with the Spirit, he was apparently aware of times when the Spirit was especially ready to move in power (e.g. ‘power of the Lord present to heal’ – Luke 5:17).

7.  Jesus was always willing to heal those who came to him with faith (Matthew 8:1-4, 5-13;  Mark 7:24-30).

8.  Frequently the Lord would heal many people, one after another, in large meetings or gatherings (Matthew 3:23-25; 14:13-14; 15:30-31).

9.  Jesus did not do miracles for those who only wanted to test him or to be entertained (e.g. the scribes and Pharisees, Matthew 12:38-42).

10.  Resistance on any grounds to healing the needy grieved Jesus (Mark 3:1-6; Luke 13:10-17).

11.  Our Lord used many patterns and methods in healing (Matthew 8:15-13; 14:34-36; Mark 7:31-37; 8:22-26; Luke 5:12-26; 6:6-10; 7:11-17; 8:42-48; John 9:1-41; 11:41-42).

12.  Jesus most often healed in public, though sometimes he withdrew, especially in negative environments, to heal privately (Mark 5:35-43; 8:22-26; Luke 4:38-39).

13.  Jesus often asked questions about the need for healing, indicating that

(a) while he sometimes received words of knowledge, other times he did not, and

(b) he wanted his focus exactly on target (Mark 5:1-13; 8:22-26; 9:14-29; 10:46-52).

14.  Our Lord did not necessarily always equate sin and sickness (John 5:9-18; 9:1-3).

15.  Sometimes Jesus had to pray more than once for the person in need to be healed (e.g. the blind man of Bethsaida – Mark 8:22-26) or had to continue to pray (e.g. Gerasene demoniac).

16.  Jesus frequently delivered the demonized and healed them of related effects using various patterns (Matthew 12: 43-45; Mark 5:1-13; Luke 4:31-37, 40-41).

17.  Very strong warnings were issued by Jesus against labelling healing in his name and by his Spirit as demonic in origin.  Such words would blaspheme the Spirit and could move him to permanent wrath (Mark 3:19-30).

18.  What Jesus saw the Father doing, he likewise did (John 5:19).

Kingdom authority

Through Jesus, the sinless Son of God, the authority or reign which was lost through our sin has been re-established for all who submit to God’s grace and reign through faith in Jesus.  These points outline the significance of Kingdom authority restored through Jesus.

1.  Authority and power are often confused.

(a) Power (Greek dunamis) is might or ability, both inherent and spontaneous.  It is often used for the word ‘miracle’ (i.e. a ‘work of power’ – Mark 6:5).

(b) Authority (Greek exousia) is the freedom and right to act (i.e. the right to exercise that power).  Exousia can be delegated.

2.  God has absolute authority; he is almighty (Luke 12:5; 1:51-52; Romans 13:1-6; Matthew 20:25-26).

3.  Through creation God gave mankind relationship, identity, and position with himself.  This gave us authority (Genesis 1;26-27; CF. Psalm 8:3-4, 6-8).

4.  Through deception and sin, mankind was deposed and lost authority, and Satan became the prince, ruler and god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4; John 8:34, 44; Luke 4:6).

5.  Jesus was sent, as a man (the second Adam) to re-establish God’s authority over the earth by disarming all powers and saving mankind out from under their authority (Luke 4:14-18; John 17:2; cf. 3:35; Matthew 7:29; 8:9; 9:6,8; 28:18; cf. Philippians 2:6-11; Mark 1:22, 27; 4:39, 41; Luke 7:1-17; John 12:31; Hebrews 2:14; Ephesians 1:20-23).

6.  Having deposed Satan, Jesus reinstated those who he has brought into relationship with God through faith in him, and thereby gives us authority:

a. to proclaim the good news, ‘Our God reigns!’

b. to baptize and teach

c. to drive out demons

d. to heal the sick

e. to speak in new tongues

f. to rise the dead

g. to disciple the nations

h. to represent Jesus (saviour) to the world

(Matthew 10:8; 28:18-20; Mark 16:15-21; John 20:21; also 1 John 3:1; cf. 2 Corinthians 5:21; Ephesians 2:4-6; Luke 10:19; Acts 1:8).

7.  The authority to heal is exercised and released through certain premises.  The neglect of the following premises results in a lack of authority:

a. relationship with God

b. faith in what God says and who Jesus is

c. obedience to his Spirit

d. submissive attitude

e. having a servant’s heart

f. faithful stewardship

g. speaking the word of the Kingdom.

Kingdom evangelism

The Church should announce and demonstrate the Kingdom of God.  Kingdom evangelism involves power evangelism: that means evangelism that transcends the rational through the demonstration of God’s power in signs and wonders and introduces the numinous of God.  This involves a presentation of the good news of God’s reign accompanied with the manifest presence of God.  Power evangelism is spontaneous and is directed by the Holy Spirit.  The result is often explosive church growth.

In an interview in Christianity Today, “Springtime for the Church in China,” June 18, 1982, David Adney answers this question: “How do Christians witness and evangelise [in China]?”

The most basic form of evangelism is through personal friendships in which the gospel is shared with relatives and neighbours.  The testimony of answered prayer, especially in healing the sick, has led many to faith in Christ.  In one of the large labour camps, a demented woman, whom no doctor or psychiatrist had been able to help, was placed in the same room with a Christian sister.  As a result of the Christian’s loving care and prayer the woman was completely healed.  The whole camp realized that a living God had acted.

In one area where there were 4,000 Christians before the revolution, the number has now increased to 90,000 with a thousand meetings places.  Christians in that region give three reasons for the rapid increase:

the faithful witness of Christians in the midst of suffering,

the power of God seen in healing the sick, and

the influence of Christian radio broadcasts from outside.

Power evangelism is that gospel presentation which is both rational and transcends the rational; it comes with the demonstration of the power of God, with signs and wonders and introduces the numinous of God.

© John Wimber.  Used with permission.

© Renewal Journal 10: Evangelism, 1997, 2nd edition 2011.
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Power Evangelism, by John Wimber

Supernatural Ministry, by John White

Power Evangelism in Short-Term Missions, by Randy Clark

God’s Awesome Presence, by R Heard

Evangelist Steve Hill, by Sharon Wissemann

Reaching the Core of the Core, by Luis Bush

Evangelism on the Internet, by Rowland Croucher

“My Resume” by Paul Grant

Gospel Essentials, by Charles Taylor

Pentecostal/Charismatic Pioneers, by Daryl Brenton

Characteristics of Revivals, by Richard Riss

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Revival in China, by Dennis Balcombe

Revival in China

by Dennis Balcombe

Dennis Balcombe wrote as senior pastor of Revival Christian Church in Hong Kong and regularly ministers in China.  This article is edited from newsletters sent early in 1996.

 

 

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____________________________________

a supernatural outpouring of the Holy Spirit

____________________________________

We saw the Holy Spirit fall with great joy similar to what some refer to as the ‘Toronto Blessing.’  This has swept many parts of China without any teaching from the West, but in many places has been a supernatural outpouring of the Spirit.

In Asia many Pentecostal denominations are trying to be more acceptable to the denominational church world through more emphasis on theological education and degrees than prayer, fasting and the power that comes from the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  The opposite is true in China, for the house churches are more than ever turning to the Pentecostal roots of our faith.

We also arranged for many other well known ministry teams to teach the leaders in several parts of China.  Among them were Lester Sumrall, Ulf Ekmann of Sweden, Reinhard Bonnke of Germany, Marilyn Hickey of the US and many others.  One overseas preacher was excited as he was able to preach to a crowd of 6,000 in Northeast China.  There has been such a revival there that nearly 360,000 were saved in a few years time.

We took on several new full time local Chinese in the China Ministry.  We have encouraged the rest of the Chinese congregation to get involved in ministry in China.  Of the 1,000 plus churches in Hong Kong, ours is possibly one of the few who openly advocate and participate in ministry in mainland China.  Most pastors are fearful to do so for possible repercussions against them in 1997.  We have made our position very clear, and though it has caused a very few to have reservations about our stand, most of the Chinese congregation know where we stand and are prepared for whatever might happen.

Thus towards the end of the year we organized three ministry trips to Yunnan, Sichuan and Guangdong provinces, and nearly 20 local Chinese participated in each trip.  They all came back burning with the fires of revival as they met with house church leaders who have been greatly used of God to perform miracles resulting in mass conversions.  They also realized clearly the intense persecution against Christians in China and thus are better able to prepare for possible persecution in a  year or so.  Their testimonies excited so many others that the next scheduled trips around Chinese New Year are all full of applicants.  Never before have local Chinese responded to the China ministry in such a positive manner.

Persecution of Christians is severe and widespread throughout China and the situation with human rights is worse than any time since China opened in 1978.  The hard‑liners are firmly in control and there don’t seem to be any moderate voices.  In addition to long prison sentences being given to proponents of democracy, daily scores of people are executed through China, many for what we would call ‘white collar crimes’ or corruption.  In elections for the Hong Kong Legislative Council in September, the pro‑democratic parties won by a landslide.  This was a great insult to China who considers these men as ‘counter‑revolutionary’ and ‘subversives’.  China has vowed to dismantle the whole elected government and will not allow any of these legally elected councilors (who are like congressmen in the USA) to remain in office after 1997.  They have also strongly attacked the local ‘Bill of Human Rights’ and say they are not obliged to honour human rights in any way, for they have not signed the Bill of Human Rights in the United Nations, though they are signatories to the UN Charter.

People are now extremely pessimistic about the future here and many are saying that the only ones who got it right are those who immigrated years ago.  It is quite difficult to do so now at this late date, and people don’t even know if the  present travel document (British Nationality Overseas passport) or the passport that will come in next year (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the PRC) will be recognized by foreign governments.  It is not certain Hong Kong  people will then be able to travel overseas without difficulty.  In addition to the above, the economy has started to decline and unemployment is at an all‑time high.

I continually teach the people that whatever happens we should not even consider leaving Hong Kong, for our nation will need us.  But through the cell group system we are attempting to disciple everyone and prepare them for persecution, if it comes to that.  Also many more people are willing to come into the ministry now than in a booming economy.  We may possibly start a full time intensive Bible School in which people work together and study for preparation of ministry in China as well as Hong Kong.

In December Pastor David Kiteley of Shiloh Christian Fellowship in Oakland, visited Hong Kong and with David Wang of Asian Outreach ordained Kathy Balcombe also a ‘pastor’ in RCC.  She has been operating in the capacity for many years as I am away from Hong Kong much, but this will give her more authority to make decisions when I am away and deal with other matters.  The church is growing rapidly and many are finding the Lord almost weekly.  The goal for this new year is ‘Revival’ and we are believing for 50% growth this year.  We usually have close to 500 people actually attend on any given Sunday, but like any church there are many more who don’t always come except a few times a year.  On special meetings we might have over 600.  We are not only believing for more numbers, but for an increase in the gifts of the Holy Spirit and evangelism.  Several sister churches have been planted by our own Chinese or missionaries working with the church.

We now have nearly 130 full time missionaries under the visa sponsorship of RCC, and many more who now have their own visas (which are given after 7 years in Hong Kong).  We have set up special intensive training for all the missionaries, and hope that many more new missionaries will be granted visas to come here, which it may be impossible after the change of sovereignty.  None of them plan on leaving though the laws about overseas foreign church workers after 1997 is still very ambiguous.

Bibles

Lastly I would appreciate your prayers that we have sufficient funds to purchase Bibles.  For nearly 15 years we received Chinese Bibles free of cost or at a discount from other organizations.   However due to different philosophy in ministry, they will not provide us any Bibles at discount, so we have to pay to have them printed in Sri Lanka.  The price last year was about US $1.50 per Bible, but now we can get them at $1.35 per Bible due to offerings from Norwegian Christian.   It is still not safe, economical or logistically possible to print and distribute large amounts of whole Bibles in China, though many (including ourselves) have printed limited amounts of other types of materials including New Testaments.  The sale of Bibles through the official channels is severely restricted as everyone knows, so the only way most of the church leaders in the rural areas can receive Bibles is through ministries like ours.

Due to the lack of funds there were a  few occasions last year when our workers had no Bibles to take to China, and we were only able to provide teaching materials.  However we want to keep the ratio of Bibles to teaching materials of 80% to 20%, for we are primarily providing these to Spirit filled church leaders who are actively involved in church planting all over the nation.  We have direct contact and relationship with about 50 large evangelistic teams which are ministering to about 10 million believers.  These are all people who are baptized in the Spirit, speak in tongues and exercise gifts of the Holy Spirit.  They in turn reach out to the lost in which their ministry is confirmed by mighty gifts of the Spirit, as in the Book of Acts.  They also reach out to the small percentage of non‑Spirit filled believers, for almost every Christian in China greatly desires the power that only the Holy Spirit can give.

Therefore we desperately need a large supply of Bibles to supply these growing Spirit filled congregations.  We were also saddened to hear recently that a large shipment of 85,000 large study Bibles taken in by container through other organizations were confiscated by the PSB police a few weeks ago in Liaoning Province.  These study bibles are very expensive and not really that necessary as most of the rural church leaders are not trained to use such comprehensive materials.  They basically only need the whole Bible and a few good study books such as ‘The Shepherd’s Staff’.  Rather than teach them doctrine or give them study Bibles with all kinds of exposition and sermon outlines, I personally believe it is best to teach the leaders how to study the Bible and allow them to dig out the treasures themselves.  I have been amazed over the past 18 years of ministry in mainland China to see how Spirit filled leaders almost speak the same message and preach pure doctrine.  The Holy Spirit will ‘lead us into all truth’.

Concerning these large operations, we have found over the years that it is very difficult for such big projects  to succeed due to the restrictive situation in China.   It is best to take in the Bibles in smaller amounts by several dozen people daily and maintain a continual flow of distribution throughout the nation.  We have done this and met with little difficulties.  In fact last year only a few bags of literature were confiscated, and this was due to spot checks of the mainland Chinese Christians on the road or train.  To facilitate such a ministry, you need many workers both in Hong Kong and mainland China and a safe reliable tested method of distribution throughout the nation.  We believe we are this position as we have been doing this for the past 18 years and have probably distributed over four million books in this way.  However we thank the Lord for everything others are doing and don’t want to be critical when things go wrong, for we are in ‘warfare’.  Even so, the need is so great and resources are so limited, it is essential such ministry is effectual and economical.

We are expecting an increase of at least 100% in ‘Donkey’s for Jesus’ workers who carry Bibles into China, and desperately need the funds to purchase the Bibles.  Revival Christian Church has invested heavily in this ministry and last year purchased a floor for the China Ministry Offices at nearly US $300,000 and monthly rents a warehouse for US $1,300.  Therefore please pray with us that overseas Christians will help us to purchase the Bibles.  We still have not found anyone who will donate them, though several have talked about this possibility.  Yes, it is possible to print Bibles in China, but it is much more expensive now as it cannot be done in large quantities for safety reasons and they don’t have the equipment or paper to print on thin bible paper, making the transportation more expensive, dangerous and difficult.  Only Amity Press (associated with the Three‑Self‑Church) prints on thin paper, but their total output is severely limited by the government, as it is an official press.  It still it has not been possible for house church leaders to purchase large amounts of Bibles from them.

Please pray with us that 1996 will break all records for safe and responsible distribution of hundreds of thousands of Bibles and teaching materials in conjunction with many training sessions for the house church leaders.  Thank you for your prayers for the work here.  I hope this information has been helpful.  Below are some recent testimonies relating to the ministry we are involved in.

China testimonies

From 3-9 December, 1995, together with Rodney Kingstone and Ian Rowlands from England, we went to two cities in Henan Province to minister to the brothers and sisters there.  They both move in the prophetic and prophesied over 180 people.  They also taught on the gifts of prophecy and  the Church exercised the gift right after the teaching.  Below is their testimony from this trip:

Our expectation as we arrived in China was not that we had come with all the answers but that we have a lot to learn from our brothers and sisters.  We wanted to encourage and release them in the area of the prophetic ministry, with the anticipation that they would do the same for us in other areas.  So at all the places we ministered at, we asked them many questions and made sure that they prayed and laid hands on us!

At one of these times we were really encouraged by one of the prayers that one of the leaders prayed for us.  He prayed that wherever we traveled we would take and impact the place with some of the revival power from China and that we would be partners together in taking the gospel to the ends of the earth.

One of the things that amazed us, during our stay, was the incredible courage and bravery of the believers ‑ risking everything for the sake of the gospel.  Most of the leaders we met were on the run from the police and couldn’t live with their families ‑ some had not been back home for 20 years and had to find other ways of seeing their wives, children and relatives.

We ministered to many leaders on the subjects of prophetic ministry and intimacy with God.  There were many hours of note taking while sitting on benches no wider than 3‑ 4 inches!  We had the privilege of praying over everyone there and we prophesied over all but a handful as well.  We received excellent feedback on the accuracy and confirmatory nature of these prophecies.

There were a lot of memorable times, here are some snippets:

In one meeting after we had prophesied over some of the leaders, Rod had a word of knowledge about some people having severe pain and discomfort in the lower back area and God wanted to heal them.  After praying three sisters testified that they had been healed:

* one had suffered from back pain and not been very mobile but was now totally free.

* another had fallen down some steps while evangelising and the doctors had told her there was nothing they could do for her but God had just completely healed her.

* another had fallen out of a car and could not swing from side to side but was now able to and no longer had any pain.

At one of the 5.30 am prayer meetings one of the leaders prophesied about a river of God’s blessing followed by us both prophesying about God’s river and its effect, this was followed by us inviting God to come and meet us and us all praying.  After a little while one of the sisters started laughing and crying and then most of them ended up on the floor on the top of one another and then many of the brothers also started to laugh.  The prayer time finished with a great celebration of singing and dancing!

Our lasting impressions ‑ and the challenge to us ‑ was that we had portrayed to an environment that seemed close to the Book of Acts in its power, simplicity and naturalness.  It really was a where the people were truly supernaturally natural.

This was evident when we asked the question.  ‘Are you still seeing miracles?’

Their eyes lit up and their response was immediate.  ‘Yes, every day.’  They then told us story after story of what God had done.  Here are some examples:

Testimony 1 ‑ by Brother Yeung

In 1987, Pastor Dennis Balcombe came and led us into the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  Since then we started to see miracles happening as we go out to preach the Gospel.  Because of the miracles, many people came to know the Lord.  One time other co‑workers and I went to a meeting.  There was a 40 years old lady who was demon possessed who came into the meeting.  She was scolding and screaming at us while I was preaching.  She was disturbing the whole meeting so that I  could not continue to preach.  I then asked the whole congregation to kneel down and pray.  As we were praying, she came to the front and continued scolding and laughing at us.

I then stood up and said, ‘In the name of Jesus shut up!’

Not only she did not shut up, but she said the same thing to me, ‘In the name of Jesus you shut up!’

I then said, ‘In the name of Jesus kneel down!’ but she said the same thing back to me.

Whatever I said she would repeat the same thing.  I had never experienced that before.  I didn’t know what to do but cry out to God desperately.

I prayed to God, ‘I don’t want to be defeated by the power of the devil.’  I decided that no matter how long it may take or how hard it was, I was going to continue to pray until the demon was cast out.

At that time I knew that I could not pray in the understanding for she would repeat every word I said.  So I laid my hands on her and started to pray in tongues.  As I continued to pray I discovered that she wasn’t saying anything and she was softening down.  As she became weaker, I became stronger in the Spirit.  Then the lady tied her hands together and put her head down to the floor.  She cried out, ‘Please don’t pray anymore!’

I continued to pray in tongues.  After a while, she felt on the floor like a dead person.  Then after a few minutes, she woke up and was back to normal.  Because of this miracle, many people believed in the Lord in that village.

Testimony 2 ‑ by Brother Yeung

One time we had a evangelistic meeting in a village.  Many people came to the meeting to listen to the Gospel.  But as my co‑worker was preaching, some gangsters came in the meeting to cause trouble.  When I saw them coming in, I asked my co‑worker to sit down and I stood up to preach.

I thought to myself the reason that they were causing trouble was because they didn’t know the greatness of God.  So I spoke loudly that our God is a true and a great God and He is able to perform miracles.  Then I prayed to God to perform a miracle.  I then asked the congregation if anyone was deaf.  Then a sister brought a lady up who was deaf.  As soon as I prayed for her, she was immediately healed.  I then asked all who were deaf to come forward and that night they were all healed.

The gangsters were amazed as they saw the miracles happen.  Some people in the meeting including the gangsters went back to their home and brought back their family members who were sick.  There were eight paralyzed people who came and six of them were healed immediately.  Because of the miracles, the whole village including the gangsters all believed in Jesus.

I believe the reason for such a great revival in China first is by preaching the word of God and second is by the miracles of God.

Testimony 3 ‑ by Brother Yeung

One time we had a meeting which had 600 believers and 200 non‑believers.  Because the meeting was in a home Church, the house was so packed that many people had to climb up to the roof of on the trees in order to listen to the message.  That night I shared on the message of healing.  After I preached for about 3 hours I started to pray for the sick.

As I was praying, I saw an old lady who was praying desperately before God.  I asked her what  she wanted from God.  She told me that her daughter who was 19 years old was blind since birth and she was asking God to heal her.  Her daughter then stood up and I prayed for her in front of 800 people.

After I prayed, I asked her if she was able to see again.  Then I moved my fingers to test her sight.  Immediately, she was healed and the whole congregation sang Psalms 150 in praise to the Lord.  That night many blind people and paralyzed people were healed, and because of the miracles, the whole village came to the Lord.

Testimony 4 ‑ by Brother Yeung

One of my co‑workers went up to Saan Xi Province to preach the Gospel.  The people in that area are very superstitious and they worship many idols.  He went and preached to the people saying,  ‘Our God is a great God.  He is the one who created the universe.  He is able to cause the blind to see, the deaf to hear even the dead to raise again, but what can your God do for you?’

After he preached, a man ran to the hospital where a boy has just passed away.  He told the boys parents, ‘There is a Jesus from Henan came who said he can raise people from the dead.’

So the mother took her dead child to my co‑worker saying, ‘Jesus from Henan please raise my son from the dead.’

My co‑worker was shocked when he saw the dead child for he had never raised anyone from the dead before.  There was nothing he could do but just cry out to God.  At first he was very worried in his heart that if nothing happened, all the people would say he’s a liar and they would not believe in Jesus.  So he started to pray, but after a while, nothing happened so he prayed again and still nothing happened.  Then he prayed to God, ‘Lord, I don’t mind to loose face, but I really don’t want this to cause the people mock your name and not believe in you.  Please show forth your glory in this place.’

As he was praying that prayer, the mother of the child said, ‘Look, my child is alive again!’

He saw the child stand up and he ran throughout the house.  Due to this miracle, many people in that area burnt all their idols and believed in Jesus.

Testimony 5 ‑ by Brother Lui (who is a Public Service Bureau officer)

I have been a Christian for two years.  The reason I became a Christian is really a miracle.  Two years ago, I had a strange disease in which I had a bad headache all the time and my heart was beating very quick.  Not only that, I suddenly had a great fear in my heart that I was going to die.  I went to see many doctors and even stayed in the hospital, but there was nothing the doctors could do.

One time after I went to see the doctor, I meet a Christian lady who was preaching the Gospel.  Because I had nothing to do, I listened to what she had to say.  My Aunt is a Christian, so I knew a little about Jesus.  As she preached the Gospel to me, I decided to believe in Jesus.  But because I was wearing my police uniform, she didn’t believe that I would really become a Christian.

That night, I felt a great peace in my heart, and I prayed to Jesus, ‘Jesus, I know that you are here and I am willing to truly believe in you.’

The next morning when I woke up, the strange diseases all left me, I knew that Jesus had healed my disease.  Then I went back to the place where the sister preached the Gospel to me, tried to find her, but I did not succeed.  I did not give up but went everyday to wait for her.  She finally came on the fifth day and led me to her Church and baptized me.  I have ever since served God with all my heart.

Testimony of one distribution of The ‘Shepherd’s Staff’

This is the testimony of how God saved us from evil while we were distributing the ‘Shepherd’s Staff’ books of Bible readings.

On 31 July, 1995, the four of us took around 300 copies of the ‘Shepherd’s Staff’ from Guangzhou to bring back to Henan.  We took a train to go back..  The train that we went on was very crowed, we had no place to sit but just stood by the doorway.  After riding for four hours, the train stopped in a city and some police went up the train to have an inspection.  A policeman came to us and asked us why we carried so many bags.  We told him that we were porters, and we were hired by a man to carry the bags to Henan.  But he did not believe us and asked us to open up the bags.  We told him we had no keys for the locks but he still insisted we open the bags.

When he opened up the first bag, he checked and didn’t say a word.  Then he opened up other bags and found out that they were all books named the ‘Shepherd’s Staff’.  He asked us what were the books for, we told him that it’s to teach people how to shepherd.  He then checked the books and found out they were a Christian teaching book.  He was very mad at us and told us to follow him to the restaurant on the train.  At that time we knew that the situation was not good and that he was going to arrest us.

Because the train was very crowed, with all the bags that we had, we were not able to pass through all the people.  So the policeman had to go in front of us to open a way for us.  At that time the train started to move.  As we passed through the first car, the policeman was at the other car, and we knew that that was the only chance to escape.  I then told the other three brothers to leave the bags and run.  Two of them ran immediately and jumped off the train from the window.  Myself and the other brother also started to run, but because the train was going faster and faster, we could not jump at that time.  So we just ran through one car and the other until the train approached a small station and started to slow down.  We then jumped off the train from the window.

After we jumped off the train, we ran up the mountain until we reached the top.  When we reached the mountain top, we knelt down and prayed to God.  On one hand, we were thankful that God has protected us, but on the other hand, we were very worried about the other two brothers and were sad that we were not able to bring the ‘Shepherd’s Staff’ back to our brothers and sisters in Henan.  But thank God, as we returned to our home town, we met the other two brothers.  We rejoice in tears that God was with us and saved us.

© Renewal Journal 9: Mission, 1997, 2nd edition 2011

China reports in Mission Index

Asia’s Maturing Church (David Wang)
The Spirit told us what to do (Carl Lawrence)
Revival in China (Dennis Balcombe)
China’s House Churches (Barbara Nield)
China – New Wave of Revival
Chinese turning to Christianity
Revival breaks out in China’s government approved churches
China: how a mother started a house church movement
China – Life-changing Miracle
China’s next generation: New China, New Church, New World
China: The cross on our shoulders and in our hearts
George Chen – In the Garden: 18 years in prison

Now available in updated book form (2nd edition 2011)
Renewal Journal 9: Mission

Contents of all Renewal Journals

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Contents: 9 Mission

Renewal Journal 9: MissionThe River of God, by David Hogan

The New Song, by C. Peter Wagner

God’s Visitation, by Dick Eastman

Revival in China, by Dennis Balcombe

Mission in India, by Paul Pilai

Harvest Now, by Robert McQuillan

Pensacola Revival, by Michael Brown

ReviewsBuilding a Better World  by Dave Andrews,  Surprised by the Power of the Spirit & Surprised by the Voice of God both by Jack Deere, Secrets of the Argentine Revival, by R Edward Miller

Renewal Journal 9: Mission – PDF

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Link to all Renewal Journals

Revival Blogs Links:

See also Revivals Index

See also Revival Blogs

See also Blogs Index 1: Revivals

GENERAL BLOGS INDEX

BLOGS INDEX 1: REVIVALS (BRIEFER THAN REVIVALS INDEX)

BLOGS INDEX 2: MISSION (INTERNATIONAL STORIES)

BLOGS INDEX 3: MIRACLES (SUPERNATURAL EVENTS)

BLOGS INDEX 4: DEVOTIONAL (INCLUDING TESTIMONIES)

BLOGS INDEX 5: CHURCH (CHRISTIANITY IN ACTION)

BLOGS INDEX 6: CHAPTERS (BLOGS FROM BOOKS)

BLOGS INDEX 7: IMAGES (PHOTOS AND ALBUMS)

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All Renewal Journal Topics:

1 Revival,   2 Church Growth,
3 Community,   4 Healing,   
5 Signs & Wonders,   
6  Worship,   
7  Blessing,
   8  Awakening,  
9  Mission,   10  Evangelism,
11  Discipleship,
   12  Harvest,   
13  Ministry,
   14  Anointing,   
15  Wineskins,   
16  Vision,   
17  Unity,
   18  Servant Leadership,  
19  Church,   20 Life

Contents: 9 Mission

Renewal Journal 9: MissionThe River of God, by David Hogan

The New Song, by C. Peter Wagner

God’s Visitation, by Dick Eastman

Revival in China, by Dennis Balcombe

Mission in India, by Paul Pilai

Harvest Now, by Robert McQuillan

Pensacola Revival, by Michael Brown

Reviews: Building a Better World  by Dave Andrews,  Surprised by the Power of the Spirit & Surprised by the Voice of God both by Jack Deere, Secrets of the Argentine Revival, by R Edward Miller

Renewal Journal 9: Mission – PDF

 

Editorial

Unprecedented evangelism and mission

Unprecedented evangelism and mission continue to accelerate around the world.   No one can keep up with the amazing accounts of this global harvest.  Similarly, the accounts of outpourings of the Holy Spirit with miracles, signs and wonders increase.  Often these cause huge numbers to respond in conversions to Christ.

Jesus said this would be so.  All the gospels and the book of Acts tell of the risen Lord’s commission for our mission.  Each command concerning our mission in the world includes the promise of God’s presence and power essential to fulfilling our mission.

Matthew 28:18-20.  All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus, so we are to go and make disciples of all peoples (ethna – ethnic groups, people groups).  This includes baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything Jesus commanded.  He is with us to the end of the age.

Mark 16:15-18.  This controversial command includes going into all the world and preaching the gospel to everyone.  Signs accompanying that involve casting out demons in Jesus’ name, speaking in new tongues, protection from evil, and placing hands on the sick so they recover.

Luke 24:46-49.  Repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in Jesus’ name to all people, and Jesus said he himself would send the Holy Spirit promised by the Father, so the disciples had to wait for that.  And Luke tells how it happened in his second book – The Acts.

John 20:21-23.  As the Father sent Jesus, so Jesus sends us.  He breathed on his disciples and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’  They did.  So must we.

Acts 1:8.  Jesus last promise and command was that his followers would receive power when the Holy Spirit came on them, and they would be his witnesses to the ends of the earth.  This issue of the Renewal Journal tells a little of that continuing story.

David Hogan describes the outpouring of the Holy Spirit among Mexican mountain tribes.

John Piper grounds the goal and task of missions in worship.  God is great, and greatly to be praised.  The supreme purpose in all mission is God’s glory in everything.  Ultimately all the earth shall worship him.

Peter Wagner gives a brief global sweep of the massive prayer movement in the earth today and describes some of its impact.  Dick Eastman provides further examples of the current astounding harvest in mission.

Dennis Balcombe reports on the growth of the church in China with the miracles accompanying ministry there.  Paul Pilai, a converted Hindu, tells of signs and wonders accompanying mission among Hindu people in India.

Robert McQuillan surveys revival developments in Argentina as well as at Sunderland in England and Pensacola in America, and Michael Brown summarises developments at Pensacola where over 60,000 have now indicated commitments to Christ since June 1995.

The backdrop and context for much of these revivals include increasing violence, families torn apart, death and moral decay worldwide.  Sin abounds.  However, grace abounds even more.  The light still shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot put it out.

Historically, great revivals and moves of God’s Spirit have often broken through into dark times.  That still happens.

We can pray and believe for powerful moves of God’s Spirit in our land, that thousands may yet come to faith with lives and families transformed.

The nineties into the 21st century proved to be fascinating decades in the history of the church, and we expect that the years ahead will see even more profound changes as the kingdom of God breaks in upon us ever more fully.

© Renewal Journal 9: Mission, 1997, 2nd edition 2011

 

Reproduction is allowed with the copyright included.

Now available in updated book form (2nd edition 2011)

Contents of all Renewal Journals

Link to all Renewal Journals

BLOGS INDEX 1: REVIVALS (BRIEFER THAN REVIVALS INDEX)

BLOGS INDEX 2: MISSION (INTERNATIONAL STORIES)

BLOGS INDEX 3: MIRACLES (SUPERNATURAL EVENTS)

BLOGS INDEX 4: DEVOTIONAL (INCLUDING TESTIMONIES)

BLOGS INDEX 5: CHURCH (CHRISTIANITY IN ACTION)

BLOGS INDEX 6: CHAPTERS (BLOGS FROM BOOKS)

BLOGS INDEX 7: IMAGES (PHOTOS AND ALBUMS)

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