One of the widely disputed theological arguments is found in the Christological debate. In this debate there are two main viewpoints. The classical view begs to say that Jesus was both fully God and fully man. He had some of the divine attributes of His Godliness, while at the same time He also had some of the attributes that a human has. In Classical thought, this is what made Jesus fully God and man. The kenotic view on the other hand, says that in order to become fully human, Jesus had to relinquish His divinity. This view still believes that He was fully God, but the difference is that He removed Himself from the areas that made Him God. Personally, I have come to find the kenotic view to be a much truer reading of the text as I see Jesus’ humanity overwhelm His story.

This view of Jesus relinquishing His God-side comes from Philippians 2:7 when it is stated that Jesus “emptied Himself.” Many classical believers argue that there is no proof as to what it is that Jesus is emptying Himself of. One author from The Handbook of Bible Study presents this argument: “It was a lowering, an emptying, to go from living as God lives to living as a slave lives.” It seems that we can’t accept the idea of Jesus becoming fully human because too often we think that focusing on Jesus being more human than divine is a bad thing. But in actuality, it gives more praise to God. A God who is willing to give up His own being in order to get the job done, shows a much stronger view of God than many views do. The Bible Knowledge Commentary points this out quite well in reference to the Gospel of John. “John presented the Incarnation—God manifest in the flesh—as the foundation of the gospel. This is the “glory,” not the “problem,” of the Fourth Gospel.”

I believe that one of the reasons people have a hard time adopting the idea of kenosis is because they do not understand the power of the Holy Spirit. After all, if we say that Jesus was fully man and gave up His divinity, then how exactly did He perform healings among many other things? The answer to this question is that He did these things through the power of the Holy Spirit, which He received in Matthew 3:16 through baptism. It was the divinity of the Spirit that He operated out of instead of His own Godliness as He had set that aside. And yes, I would go so far to say that it was out of His relationship with God and the Holy Spirit that He was able to walk on water and command the weather.

Jesus lived His life in step with God and through the power of the Spirit, as we see throughout the gospels, which goes to prove the kenotic view all the much more. For if Jesus ever exercised His divinity, He would have no reason to even try to connect with God through different forms of spiritual formation. What would be the point in fasting for 40 days (Mt. 4)? Why would Jesus find time to be in solitude with God or pray to God if He could hear His Godly side (Mt. 14:23; Mark 1:35; Luke 5:16; Luke 22:41)?

One of the obvious replies from a classical believer would be that Jesus did so to show us how to live our lives as Christians. However, when I read these passages I do not see a man praying to simply demonstrate something, but praying with a passion that can only be found in true search of God. When He found Himself in the garden of Gethsemane, He did not sweat drops of blood on command (Luke 22:44). No, He was obviously under a lot of pressure and undergoing some intense prayer. And the fact that this intensity lead Him to even ask God to take His cup from Him (Luke 22:43) demonstrates that this prayer was genuine and not simply prayed for the sake of an example. It was a prayer made out of true anguish, demonstrated by the blood He sweat.

However, that is not to say that Jesus’ life was not lived out as an example to believers. Actually “Being both God and man, Jesus simultaneously revealed God’s will for human life and reconciled sinful people to God through his own perfect life and death,” as the Tyndale Bible Dictionary points out. I believe that this is a view that kenotic and classical believers can both agree on, as we all agree that Jesus was both God and man. But it is in my opinion and the kenotic’s that He lived this example out with humanity overwhelming Him rather than out of the divinity He relinquished, making His example all the much more real.

But if this statement is true, then that means we have to deal with one of the biggest objections to the kenotic theory: how did Jesus do so many divine and miraculous things if He was just a human? If we dive deeper, we find our answers. John 14:12 states Jesus as saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works that these he will do…” (NASB). With this verse in mind, we come to see not only that Jesus did supernatural things as an example to believers, but that He did so outside of His own divinity. I say this because the rest of us are obviously not fully God or even partially God, yet we are expected to do greater things. Therefore, we will operate out of the same Spirit in order to do the same things. And if you want to go deeper than that, we could also mention that in the Old Testament, Joshua prayed that the sun would stop moving (Josh. 10:12-14), Elisha brought a dead boy back to life, (2 Kings 4:32-35), and prophets all over the place predicted the future. These can all be related to some of the things Jesus did and these men were completely human.

 

Bibliography

Elwell, W. A., & Comfort, P. W. (2001). Tyndale Bible dictionary. Tyndale reference

library (632). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.

Karleen, P. S. (1987). The handbook to Bible study : With a guide to the Scofield study

system. New York: Oxford University Press.

Walvoord, J. F., Zuck, R. B., & Dallas Theological Seminary. (1983-c1985). The Bible

knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures (2:268). Wheaton, IL:

Victor Books.

 

Or so I was taught yesterday. It was really bizarre actually. I had just finished chapel band practice and had a butt-load of homework to do. Most of it consisted of reading and I was really not in the mood.

I found myself turning on “Where You Go I Go” by Brian and Jenn Johnson and lying on the floor to open up my day by spending time with God for once, rather than just taking off and ignoring Him. On top of that, this song has become significantly important to me as I’ve begun to realize Jesus had to hear from God to do the things He did as He did them in the power of the Spirit (I just wrote a paper on this that will be up soon if you want to hear more on this topic).

So there I was, lying on the ground trying to concentrate on the truth of the lyrics, praying and offering my day to God.

Lyrics to Where You Go I Go :
Where you go I go
What you say I say
What you pray I pray

Jesus only did, What He saw you do
He would only say, What He heard you speak
He would only move, When He felt you lead
Following Your heart, Following Your Spirit

How could I expect to walk without you
When every move that Jesus made was in surrender
I would not begin to live without you
For You alone are worthy You are always good

You are always good
You are always good
Always good
Always good

I had some strange thought that I thought might have been something I had made up, but then I got to thinking it was God.

“Don’t drink pop today. Drink living water.”

Imagine the look on my face.

I managed to regain composure thinking to myself, “WHY!? Why would God say that!? Must be because I’m chubby.” So there I sat, staring at my half full beautifully orange Livewire that I had drank some of before practice:

I actually ate breakfast for once and it was so awkward to drink water. Where was the fizzle? It was so… plain. And now, hours later I’m sitting at lunch. How do I eat lunch without dew? I do not know! So as I am gathering my food I keep reminding myself, no dew today. Remember to get water.

I sat down and began to eat my food and then took a quick trip to the bathroom. When I came back to my chair, there was my lovely looking food and a half consumed glass of Mountain Dew.

Oops.

It’s a habit I guess. I remembered remembering to get water. I just apparently… didn’t. So I didn’t drink the rest of the cup and went and got water. Again… so plain. Same thing for dinner, and around some point in the evening it was starting to make sense.

I actually rely on Mountain Dew quite a bit. Sad, but true. I wake up and I drink dew or some other form of pop to get me started (most of you drink coffee so don’t even start!). I don’t know if it really gives me energy every morning, but I do know that I feel good.  Throughout the day it continually makes me feel refreshed. Like seriously, sometimes I will take that initial sip and my whole body all of the sudden calms down. And saddest of all, pop doesn’t keep me awake all night. It helps me sleep. In fact, freshman year of college I had to go buy a wild cherry pepsi every night otherwise it was hard to sleep without it.

So to get rid of this sustaining thing just for a day was quite difficult for me. But as I continually drank water throughout the day, I could tell that God was trying to say something along the lines of “I am living water. I will sustain you and keep you going. Put your trust in me.”

Really?

There actually was a lesson to all of this?

Some weird thought I had in the morning was actually God trying to teach me something?

Huh. Perhaps it’s time to start listening a little more.

Man Raised From Dead

Been coming across some stories lately about God raising the dead and I thought you might be interested in reading/watching:

Dead Raised
In April we had a mission trip in route to Tecate, Mexico who happened across an accident just north of Los Angeles. A vehicle had blown its front tire and then plunged into the concrete divider in the median. The team was the second car on the scene and began to ask all the passengers involved if they were okay. As they went from one person to the next they came across a 9 month old baby who had been thrown from the car. He was laying face down across the lap of a lady who informed them that he was not breathing. The mother was crying out for her child and gave the team permission to pray. Finding no pulse or breath they began to command the baby back to life calling him by name (Albert). After a few minutes he twitched. He twitched again and fluttered his eyes. From that point on he began to breath and was in and out of consciousness. By the time the paramedics arrived he was alive and very mad about his new oxygen mask. Meanwhile the mother had given her life to Christ and the team had left; just another day in the Kingdom!

 

Fish Raised from the Dead
“Michael Addis of Columbus, Ohio said, “I am not a fisherman, but I now have my  own ‘fish story’ from God.” On Labor Day evening, he promised his youngest son they would get a couple more fish for their aquarium. Ten minutes after he released the fish into the tank, one went belly up. His seven-year-old son was very upset. Michael said, “Ian, it’s OK. That will be my fish.” Five minutes later, the fish was still floating. His wife said, “Maybe we should flush him down the toilet.” Michael said, “No, I still have my receipt. Maybe we can get our money back.”

Then righteous anger rose up in him, and he said, “In the name of Jesus Christ, live!”

Then righteous anger rose up in him, and he said, “In the name of Jesus Christ, live!” And he touched the fish and it jolted up and across the tank. Two of the kids saw it happen.

The last time he prayed for a pet fish (many years ago), it took him two hours to raise the fish from the dead.”*

 

May 9,2008

This testimony is from Michael Proctor of Elisha’s Request Ministries in Washington:

Greg, a man on our ministry team (healing rooms director in Bremerton), had been ministering to an unsaved man who had been in the hospital. Greg arrived at the man’s room in a rehab center, and the man was not in his bed.  At 5 p.m. the man was found breathless and pulseless (no vital signs) in the restroom. They pulled him into the room where the staff verified no signs of life. Paramedics arrived at 5:15 (brain death/damage occurs within about 5 minutes with no vital signs) and began resuscitation efforts, with little hope of success. Greg prayed as he followed the ambulance to the hospital. Forty minutes had passed since the man had been clinically dead, when suddenly he opened his eyes, fully awake and coherent! Greg was able to go to his room where he was admitted to the hospital and led him to the Lord. The man went home to heaven later that night.

Raised From The Dead

July 21,2009A child was raised from the dead after drowning in a pool.  The child had been under a long time and they were trying to resuscitate; there were believers praying and declaring life!  It was on the front page of the local newspaper.

Resurrection Life came to another person.  People were praying for here (but not in the room.) The person died on the table during surgery and the OR staff were  cleaning up and the person came back to life!  Yeah God!  Many were praying for this person.*

Here’s a long one about a woman being raised. Read it here if you’d like because it’s quite long to post up here.

 

It’s stories like all fo these that I can’t wait to see God do in front of me and stories like these that cause me continually try to pray for people’s healings, even when I don’t see anything. Actually, we had some dude speak out SAU chapel awhile back about kidney problems. Some friends and I went to pray for him. It’s initially a bit hard to ask, but once you finally get the faith to walk up to that person, sometimes you randomly get more courage than ever to pray.

So I have a video I made that I’d like to show you, but I’d like to preface it first. I had a thought at a communion service probably about 2 weeks ago that I wanted to make a video with a communion service in it. Then I started having communion more than usual and decided to focus the whole video on communion. One of my teachers whom we students call Dr. Mojo, had an optional communion service after class every Monday night. I ended up going to a couple and the other day we had the service at the end of class after watching a movie on the life of Henri Nouwen. Man that guy did a lot for God in his lifetime.

But some strange feeling swept over me during Communion. Something I had never felt before. It made me feel… weightless. I understood it to be the Holy Spirit working in me in a physical way I haven’t felt before. And then today, I was reading The Happy Intercessor by Beni Johnson. When I put the book down I had a feeling sweep over me again, which just occurred to me that it was really quite the same feeling. And then I passed out for about half an hour.

So now I present to you:
a communion video.

 

One of things I’m starting to realize about Christianity is that we make up some pretty misconstrued ideas in order to give the words of Jesus (and other Biblical authors) a meaning we want to believe, rather than the actual meaning behind the text. One of the greatest things about the Bible is that we get a chance to be detectives. If we want to learn how to be true Christians, we need to investigate for a better understanding. Sure, some hate this, but I actually find it quite enjoyable. However, since we’re all investigating these words on our own time and in our own way, we sometimes tend to come back with different ideas and answers. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as there are plenty of lessons to be learned from the same stories, but when we start twisting things around for our own sakes, we rip the Spirit of God right out of the Words of God.

See, here’s the dilemma I’ve come to see quite a bit of over the past couple weeks:

1. When Jesus speaks in parables, sometimes we don’t search deep enough to learn all that we can from what He has to say.
2. But what annoys me more than anything is when Jesus speaks straight up about something and we try to turn it into something else! Why?

Because the life we’re expected to live as Christians is more than we’re willing to become!

So instead of trying to live that way, we water it down into nothing!

“Sure, Jesus said to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect, but of course He didn’t mean it,” we say.

“That whole ‘turn your other cheek thing‘ wasn’t what Jesus meant. We can hurt people if we have to.”

No wonder we don’t look like Christians half the time—we keep altering the words of Jesus to sound like what we want it to, not what it is!

Just some thoughts to throw into your day. Investigate the Word with the Holy Spirit—NOT with demons. I’m sure they love to illuminate Scripture too. How do you think we get some of the most misconstrued ideas about Scripture and Christianity that we have?

Despite this rebuke, I am quite happy to see a generation rising up to take it’s place. Let’s just make sure we continue to gain a full understanding of Jesus and not water down His Words. After all, He did go through quite a bit to give us those Words.

Great quote of a quote out of Eugene Peterson’s “Working the Angles.”

One of the indignities to which pastors are routinely subjected is to be approached, as a group of people are gathering for a meeting or a meal, with the request, “Reverend, get things started for us with a little prayer, will ya?” It would be wonderful if we could counter by bellowing William McNamara’s fantasized response: “I will not! There are no little prayers! Prayer enters the lion’s den, brings us before the holy where it is uncertain whether we will come back alive or sane, for it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God.’”

William McNamara, O.C.D., The Human Adventure (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., Image Books, 1976), p. 89.

Came across this in a book I’m reading and thought it was great:

“A brother… committed a fault. A council was called to which Abba Moses was invited, but he refused to go to it. Then the priest sent someone to say to him, ‘Come, for everyone is waiting for you.’ So he got up and went. He took a leaking jug, filled it with water, and carried it with him. The others came out to meet him and said to him, ‘What is this, Father?’ The old man said to them, ‘My sins run out behind me and I do not see them, and today I am coming to judge the error of another.’ When they hard that they said no more to the brother but forgave him.”

Ibid., p. 117

I heard a little bit ago about a “shofar” for the first time while listening to a message called “Wakey Wakey” by Beni Johnson. It’s an awesome message, you really oughta take a listen. Actually, it was so good that I bought her book “The Happy Intercessor” on kindle which I still have to read, but I’m excited to start here soon. Anywho, I forgot about it, but just came a cross an article she had on it and decided to look into it a little more:

From the MW Collegiate Dict. (11th Ed.)

pl sho￢ﾀﾢfroth \shￅﾍ-ￋﾈfrￅﾍt, -ￋﾈfrￅﾍth, -ￋﾈfrￅﾍs\ [Heb shￅﾍphￄﾁr] 1833 :ￂﾠa ram￢ﾀﾙs-horn trumpet blown by the ancient Hebrews in battle and during religious observances and used in modern Judaism esp. during Rosh Hashanah and at the end of Yom Kippur

From Beni Johnson:

Sounds from Heaven

Sound is vibrations that travel through the air or another medium. Releasing the sound of heaven is a very powerful weapon. One of the tools we have found that releases that sound is the shofar. Shofars were sounded preceding a war. They were used to rally the troops for action and to call the people together for prayer and repentance. The shofar is like an air raid siren that alerts us to danger and summons us to action. I believe that the shofar, used the right way, can be a powerful weapon in prophetic intercession. The sound that the shofar produces can cause a change in the spirit realm, which in turn changes our physical realm. I didn’t always used to feel this way about the shofar until I began to study about them. I really like blowing the shofar outdoors. I think that they should only be blown before the worship starts and with permission. Shofars are a gathering tool for worship and war. I have learned that a shofar brings a stirring and a settling all at once.

Several years ago, I was talking with one of our seers. (A seer is one who has the ability or gift of seeing into the spirit realm.) We were talking about the prayer house. There had been some strange ungodly happenings going on around the house. She told me that there was an illegal communication line going into the prayer house. Obviously, this was something that was not legal and needed to be taken care of. I knew I needed to pray and get God’s solution to this intrusion. As I asked God, I felt like I was to take the shofar to the prayer house and blow it there. So I went early one morning with a friend, and when the sun came up, I blew the shofar. That is all I did. I didn’t pray. This was the first time I had ever used the shofar. I really have no idea why. I had never been a fan of blowing the shofar. Someone had given me one and I thought they were cool, but didn’t think I would use it for anything. But little did I know?. Because of the strange happenings going on and our prayer house being open 24/7, we had brought on security staff to watch over the place. So, after I blew the shofar that day, I waited a week and went to our security guy and asked him how the week had gone at the house. He did not know that we had blown the shofar the week before. His response to me was, “You know, the strangest thing happened this week. There was no weirdness. It all has left.” I was so excited and I knew that the sound of the shofar had released the sound of heaven that displaced the evil intent. Since then, we have used the shofar from time to time to release a sound into the atmosphere. Just like in the declarations that we pray, the same power that is released when we declare is the same power that is released in sound. God’s first language is not English, nor does he just use words to fulfill His will. That is the adventure of serving Him. Listen for His voice and be a releaser of the sounds of heaven!

And some Biblical history:

The Jews used two different kinds of trumpets, those made of silver and those made of ram’s horns. The silver trumpets were used especially by the priests to signal the camp when something important was happening (Num. 10). The ram’s horns were used primarily for celebrations. The common Hebrew word for “trumpet” is shofar; for “ram’s horn,” it is jobel, which is the root of the word jubilee. The “Year of Jubilee” was the fiftieth year after seven Sabbaticals, and was a special time of celebration in Israel (Lev. 25; 27:17–14). The priests blew the ram’s horns to “proclaim liberty throughout all the land” (25:10).^[1]

---

^[1]Wiersbe, W. W. (1996, c1993). Be strong (Jos 6:1). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.

Sometimes it seems as though it is our ecclesiology that splits us into different denominations and separates churches. Whether it is the way the music is played, how often communion is taken, or what form of church government rules above it, all of these things are certain to create problems between believers. Yet, it seems at many times that everyone is right, whether they are extremely for one side of the argument, or very much against it. But it is in my opinion that there is a middle ground to many of these debates that is often times overlooked, and it is there in the middle ground that the Spirit has full potential to move. People tend to leave either too little space for the Spirit (or sometimes none at all), whereas on the other side of things, there may be too much room for the Spirit where the entire congregation is not edified by what He is doing (1 Cor. 14:26). Therefore, the form of ecclesiology that I wish churches to adopt, and the form that I find myself in favor of is that of a Spirit-led service with structure.

Having a Spirit-led church with structure is obviously not a new idea. There are plenty of churches doing so right now. But if we take a look at the past and the New Testament church, we find that one of the only Scriptures explaining how we should “do church” has a similar ecclesiology. In 1 Corinthians 14:20-40, Paul lays out an ecclesiology full of structure that includes the Spirit. His idea of order in the church is as follows: listen to a psalm, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, and an interpretation. So yes, Paul has a structure. But Paul is also capable of giving the Spirit space within that structure. Not only do they have time in their service to speak in tongues (a gift from the Spirit) and share revelations from the Spirit, but in the same passage, they are also told to prophesy. The way Paul “does church” is neither evangelical nor orthodox, yet churches today have only adapted pieces of this Biblical account into their structures.

Now there are other avenues outside of the ones that Paul laid out that our churches have found important to be included, such as music. Now music isn’t expressly noted in Paul’s structure but we find it important today. And on top of that, there is a possibility that the psalms they shared in the New Testament churches were sung since they are, after all, psalms. Today, worship music is one of the areas that many churches tend to cut the Spirit out of. At the extremity of evangelicalism, we find that the worship songs may be timed out to end at an exact second in order to stay on a very strict and rigid schedule. On the other side of the spectrum, however, churches may worship up to four hours, leaving plenty of room for the Spirit to do what He feels fit. The only thing wrong with worshipping for four hours is that you may never get a chance to get to some of the other basics of church.

But when it comes down to it, there is nothing seriously wrong with such an extension of time allotted for worship. There is, however, something wrong with cutting the Spirit out of worship completely. Worship through the avenue of music needs to be understood as important as it is one of the most universal ways to give praise. Realize that the debate here is not on the genre of music a church plays, but the space left for the Spirit to move through it.

One of the things that evangelicals are obsessed with in today’s age is making their churches relevant and cool to the society that we live in. There are also, as you might have guessed, churches that could care less. The Eastern Orthodox Church is obviously one of these churches as they are incredibly ingrained in a very ancient form of tradition and claim that their way of doing church is the only right way. Once again, it seems to me that the Spirit moves best somewhere between these opposing viewpoints. It does not matter to Him what millennium it is, as He exists and moves regardless. It is obvious that He is moving in some very modern churches, just as He is in those that are very traditional. But I would again suggest that He is given the most freedom to do His work in between the arguments. In this particular case, I believe it is easier for Him to reach out to unbelievers when the doors of a church do not present him or her with culture shock.

Paul had a concern about the church reaching the unsaved. He believed that the churches of his time could reach unbelievers through the gifting of the Spirit. He points out in 1 Corinthians 14:24 that through prophecy, God made Himself real to the unbeliever. Now first off, churches would have to start teaching and practicing prophecy in order to show an unbeliever God in such a way. But in order to get an unbeliever into a church in the first place, it doesn’t hurt to have a church that can minister to the era they live in. This takes us back to the issue of music, as it is really one of the biggest tone setters for a church. While it may have its flaws, contemporary and modern music is where my heart lies and I feel that it has a max potential to reach unbelievers. But that is an argument we will not get into right now.

While making the church an environment for unbelievers to come to is good and all, that does not mean that we need to dumb down every fabric of her being. Doing such a thing actually gives the Spirit less room to move (if any at all). More specifically, I speak about the messages preached every Sunday. The church is hungering for a deeper, more intimate understanding of God and His Scriptures and the Spirit is longing to give it to her. But some of the messages pastors preach today are so watered down that the Holy Spirit has a hard time trying to find a serious (or at least a new) application to give to the body.

I believe that is why churches like Rob Bell’s in Michigan and Francis Chan’s in California are flourishing. Bell delivers some of the most in depth and well rehearsed messages you will ever hear and people show up because they love to hear it. Chan, on the other hand, delivers messages that may not be quite as deep, but are so real to the listener that he or she cannot leave untouched by the Spirit. The pastor of a church is not meant to be a businessman. He or she should actually spend time with the Spirit to find out how He wants to move. Revelations are important to knowledge and message-giving and the passing on of that knowledge is important to growing in God.

And then there is still the subject of Sacraments, some of which were commanded by Jesus Himself. Obviously we need to look at these as important, which the traditional churches have done much better at than the modern, even though both have an extreme side to them. Communion, for example, is basically dead in evangelical churches and has the potential to be dead to those that are more orthodox. When a church does not practice Eucharist rarely or at all, they are really leaving out an important practice of Jesus’. But when a church practices it all too much, the very reason for its existence can be lost in Christian legalism. My current idea is to have communion once or twice a month, but practice it more regularly in other venues such as small groups. I would also perhaps have a day each week where a communion service takes place for anyone who would like to come. That way the Spirit has a chance to make communion real to people in the right dose for their particular understanding.

When it comes to the sacrament of baptism, my approach is much like that of the Free Methodists. Dedication as a child is appropriate, but baptism should be approached as an adult. Therefore the Spirit has led a person to claim baptism for his or herself rather than have a fellow Christian claim it for them. This is meant to be a serious moment in one’s life and it should be undergone at an age of understanding and by the work of the Spirit within them.

When it comes down to it, I can definitely identify my ecclesiology as Spirit-led and structured. The problem with many churches is that they are either too hot or too cold on an argument when many times, the Spirit seems to be sitting in the middle of the debate whispering, “It’s balance.” Too often we support our debates by closing doors. We think that the best way to believe is to set our minds on something and never ever change it. Sometimes Jesus Himself could come knocking with the answer and we could completely lock Him out!

The truth is that the Spirit works in many ways. Through the traditional and the modern; the Orthodox and the Evangelical. By restricting Him, we are hurting the body. He may not always need to lash out in an all out charismatic fest. Maybe He just wants to whisper something. But it is in the balance of the structures that perhaps we find the most efficient service. Mix that with the Spirit and that church comes alive. However we decide to run our churches, we must realize that “all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner” (1 Corinthians 14:40).

I rolled out of bed around 8:23ish and then headed to the good ol’ dorm showers. I then proceeded to stand in the hot shower water for about 8 minutes before finally grabbing the soap. I then went outside to my newly frosted car, quickly remembering that I broke the heat recently which meant that I would of course have to scratch the frost off. Perhaps one of the most painful of jobs to do in life.

I pulled up to my dorm, chucked my keyboard and accessories into the car and headed over to Spring Arbor’s (half) circle drive to meet up with a group of other charismatic weirdos who were headed over to the homeless shelter.

We then prayed for the homeless shelter and were on our way into the heart of Jackson. When we arrived, we set up our stuff as I got ready to play the worship music with a friend and his bongo. Funny how more people were singing their hearts out at a homeless shelter to songs they probably didn’t know than most of the churches I’ve been at.

4 songs, 2 Psalms, a message, and an invitation later, Brewer threw out a word of knowledge. He had explained how we were going to pray for anyone who wanted us to and that we would be praying for healing because Jesus would like to do that for them. And so he started with a demonstration:

“Before we start, is there someone here who has pain in their foot? I felt like God was telling me there  was.”

“Yeah I do,” said some dude in the back.

“Yeah? It’s your left foot right?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, why don’t you come up here. Now is your foot in pain right now?”

“Yeah, well it hurt when I was walking on it on the way up here. The pain is from the bottom of my foot up through the back of my leg.”

“Okay, well do you mind if I put my hands on it and pray for it?”

The guy seemed slightly confused.

“I mean, you’d much rather have it healed now than have to go to the doctors right? Not that I have anything against doctors!”

Laughter from those sitting in the room.

“Yeah, go ahead.”

Brewer had us all stick out our hands to pray for the  guy while he lead in prayer for his leg, asking God to heal it. When he finished, he asked “Why don’t you move it around. See how it feels.”

He began to move it around when Brewer asked him to walk down the aisle. The guy seemed amazed and when he reached the end of the aisle he said:

“Well, I guess I’ve been proven wrong!” Which I believe was his way of saying “There really is a God!”

And so there it is peeps. The first healing story I can say that I was there when it happened. And don’t think that this will be the only one. Oh no. I expect to see God work in the miraculous for the rest of my life as He opens my eyes to His world.

We then went around and prayed for other people. I found myself praying for a cool guy named Adam who believed in God very much, but appeared to still be working on understanding it all. I also prayed for another man looking for employment and laid hands on a blind lady. While it didn’t seem that her eyes were healed, we’ll see if anything happens throughout the rest of the day for her. And if not, I hope she still felt God’s blessing this morning!

God does this stuff. In fact, it’s part of his plan to use you so that He can do it. Wanna learn? We meet Thursday nights on campus. Let me know and I’ll get you the rest of the details.