Please do not panic over the title.  I have not gone off the deep end, but I can’t wait to tell you what I experienced at an all day retreat at Camp Mary Dell just south of Abilene, Kansas, yesterday.  My spiritual mentor happens to be the senior pastor at Community Bible Church in Abilene, and he and I have stayed connected in our friendship through a leadership mentoring group that meets once a month.   At our last meeting he invited our group to attend a day retreat led by Pastor Brad Brinson, who pastors Two Rivers Church outside of Knoxville, TN, and who has the spiritual gift of prophecy, and he led it yesterday and really opened my eyes to how God wants to speak into our lives.  I left a changed person.

First, if you’re like me, we have a fuzzy idea about how this gift really functions in the church.  I don’t know of anyone in Hutchinson who professes to have this as their primary gift, but after yesterday’s retreat, I learned that there is a universal level for the gift of prophecy, which is simply  a means by which God chooses to speak into our lives for the purposes of strengthening, encouraging, comforting others, and edifying the church.  There is a universal level for it because in Acts 2:16-18 ALL will prophesy.  And in John 10:1-5, 26-27, ALL believers hear the voice of their shepherd.  This gift is meant to be experienced for and in the context of the church community.  There are probably a good number of believers with this gift, but because of fear of abuse or ridicule, they are not speaking up to share what God is trying to communicate for the purposes of strengthening, encouraging, comforting and edifying the church.  Pastor Brad made it very clear that this gift is not a “thus saith the Lord” with fingers pointing at you as if anyone had the corner of truth.  In fact, the bible tells us that we will only know things “in part” (I Cor 13:9).  You and I will only have a piece of the puzzle that needs to be tested and confirmed by others.  So the first change in me that I experienced is realizing that God speaks to ALL of us (not just some of us, or the pastor, or those with the specific gift of prophecy), and he wants to use us to speak into the lives of others in the church.  (We heard many accounts of how God used this gift in Pastor Brad’s life and in the church community, and it just gave us chills as to how God spoke His voice through multiple believers to speak into each other’s lives.)

Second, this retreat confirmed a phenomenon I have not experienced in my Christian walk until this year.  Many of us intercede in prayer for others because people ask for us to pray for them.  Or we choose to intercede on behalf of leaders in our country because the bible commands us to do so.  But I have to tell you that it wasn’t until March of this year that I experienced being called into the role of an intercessor on a daily basis for an individual and their family that has given me great joy and has been so much fun.  I have walked with the Lord for 38 years, and this strong burden to just start praying for this individual and family members is a first.  I have spent many months processing why I have had such a strong desire to pray for this person, and I have tried to rationalize it instead of just embracing that God has called me out to participate with him as he continues to anoint this very special family.  When I ran this phenomenon by our speaker, he immediately confirmed that I was being called out as an intercessor.  He has had this experience as well and could totally identify with this dynamic and the joy I am experiencing with it.  I left feeling not so weird!

Third, I left the retreat with a commitment to not let another powerful teaching register as good knowledge to store, but instead apply it as soon as possible and start risking with God and how He speaks to me and use the teachings of this retreat to step out in faith.  (For those who would like the talking points that were given to us at this retreat, you may simply ask me to email the pdf for your file.) My application began this AM.  Since I was already praying for this individual and family, I decided to use the order of worship where this person’s son-in-law just got installed as pastor and pray through each of the elements of worship while the worship service was going on.  It was one of the most powerful worship experiences I have had where tears began as soon as I started praying, and God gave me words of encouragement to share along with an image to share.  This is the exciting and the scary part.  I need to risk and share it and let this young pastor test it!  He doesn’t even know who I am, so those of you who feel inclined to pray, please pray that the Holy Spirit will go in advance of my email to prepare this pastor’s heart to receive it and be willing to submit it to the Lord to test it.  If I don’t risk, it will essentially be a form of disobedience, and I will never experience how God really wants us to use prayer to loose and bind things here on Earth.

Blessings,

Lee Ann