Blog archives for September, 2009

30 September 2009

Sustainable Youth Ministry 3

I was sent a link to an article this week that just appeared in Christianity Today – it is by Kara Powell and it asks the question: “Is the day of age segregated ministry over?” You can read it at: http://tr.im/A5OF

This is certainly not a new debate in youth ministry and this won’t be the end of it either.  While everyone has their own opinion, just this morning I launched into Chapter 11 of the book by Mark DeVries, Sustainable Youth Ministry, which I now consider to be the most significant book on youth ministry released in the past 5 years at least. I came across some interesting insights that are well worth sharing.

Mark’s previous book was Family Based Youth Ministry. In that book he made a compelling argument for ministry that is congregation or family based. Now, based on new research, he is saying: “Um! Hold on just a minute – here are some new insights that need to be considered.” And he proceeds to focus on the importance of peer-based ministry. See the extract below.

Now, in no way is he suggesting that adults and church involvement is unimportant – in fact, he is raising the bar considerably on that front (with ideas like: (1) we don’t just need one leader involved in the life of each teenager, but each student needs multiple godly adults involved in their lives; and (2) the youth pastor should be primarily the architect of a constellation of relationships!) – but it is pushing the debate back towards a more inclusive approach that looks at youth ministry as a vital part of the church, led by adult leaders with significant adult involvement, yet with space for age specific connections where teens get to be with their peers and trained to minister as leader themselves.

Here is the extract from chapter 11 of Mark’s book:

THE COOL CHURCH

Because of my strong emphasis on family-based youth ministry over the past fifteen years or so, I’ve argued passionately that what kids need most is not just a group of Christian peers but also droves of durable, Christian adults. But I’m starting to broaden my appreciation for the unique role the youth themselves can play.

No one brought this principle home to me as clearly as Rick Lawrence did in Group Magazine’s fascinating study of ten thousand youth group kids. They asked students, “If you were choosing a church, how important would the following things be?” Check out the first two responses, both of which ranked way above all the others (numbers represent the percentage of kids who rated this item as “very important”):

1. a welcoming environment where I can be myself: 73 percent

2. quality relationships with teenagers: 70 percent

When kids are thinking about the church they might want to be a part of, they’re not-at least not initially-thinking about the adult leaders. They’re asking, “Are these the kind of people I would like to be friends with?” Interestingly, the third-highest response, coming in at 59 percent, was “a senior pastor who understands and loves teenagers.” Coming in near the bottom of the list was “quality relationships with adults” (only 36 percent). And bringing up the rear with only 21 percent was “a fast-paced, high-tech, entertaining ministry approach.”

The article that reported this study, incidentally, was called “The Cool Church.” If we were to borrow Catie’s language, this would not be a church that looks cool to everyone who comes, but rather a church in which “I feel cool enough” to belong.

Please understand. Youth not ranking “relationships with adults” high on the list does not minimize the profound role adults play. Long-term, sustainable faith is most deeply influenced by the adults that surround our kids, not just their peers. But as we look at what causes kids to stay in groups, peers playa central role, a role that most adults simply can’t play.

As I look back on my experience as the new kid at church, the results of this study ring true. At eleven years old, I moved to Texas with my mom, and we quickly found Central Presbyterian Church in downtown Waco. The service was predictable enough, the adults were nice enough, but when it came time for “fellowship hour,” I wanted to throw up.

As my mother “fellowshiped” with all the other fellowshipers, I was left to stand in my prepubescent body by the ten-cent Coke machine. Kids of all ages with dimes in hand walked past me to the Coke machine, gathered their bargain prize and walked away. Though a few gave a polite hello, most were just as uncomfortable having a new kid around as I was standing there.

It wasn’t until Thereasa, an angelic tenth-grader, introduced herself to me that my terror started to thaw, and I began to think there might be a chance I would find a place. Every time she invited me to sit next to her, it was an affirmation that I had a place, that 1 really was starting to belong.

Thereasa did what the adults in the group couldn’t have done. She made me feel like part of the group. It’s not that adults were insignificant (they became more important as time went on), but adults could not be the sticky paper that kept me connected to the church. Friends had to be.

Once I began to grasp the power of these principles a few years ago, our youth ministry team decided we wanted to make our group the safest, most welcoming place in the city for teenagers, a place where no one could ever walk away saying “I could never be cool enough” to fit in there.

29 September 2009

God Evening 3

The third consecutive God Evening took place (read about week 1 and week 2 if you have not done so already) and the sense of anticipation in the sanctuary was almost tangible. God had met us in such dynamic ways in the past three weeks that even the realisation that most of our senior leaders were away did not damped the sense of expectation and anticipation.

The night started with the sharing of a word that the prophetic team had received (they had spent an hour before the event praying and seeking God’s face about the evening) – it was a verse from Isaiah 64:5 which says: “You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways.” Our hearts lifted as we realised that God comes to meet those who wait for him with joy.” Instantly we knew that the theme for the evening would be the joy of the Lord. No-one had to even say that was so!

A worship leader prayed that God would come and inhabit our praises – that it would not just be a visitation but a habitation.

The pastor leading the meeting shared her intention to teach for five minutes before giving the rest of the evening to pressing into the glory of God. But first she invited people to come forward to testify about what God had done in recent weeks – one spoke about the joy that they experienced; another about understanding grace properly and not needing to perform before God; and another spoke about relaxing and allowing God to touch us and use us even if our minds tell us that we have not spent enough time with God during that day. That was a critical word, because we sometimes feel like we are unworthy to minister for God because of stuff in our lives – but God was challenging that works-based mentality in his presence.

The pastor then shared from Hebrews 6 that God rewards faith – we need to believe that God is at work and then step out in faith to partner with him. She shared from Ephesians 5:18 that we are to be continually filled with the Holy Spirit – and that it is in tough times (as in the context of Isaiah 64) that God floods our hearts with joy. Psalm 2 was referred to as justification for laughter that has happened in our midst on Tuesday nights – for even God laughs at his enemies who try and stand against him – it is like someone throwing an acorn against an armoured car – futile! We have the victory – for greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world! The joy of the Lord is our strength!

She then shared that when someone manifests in our services there could be one of 3 causes:

1. God is doing something phenomenal in the person’s life – and all we say is “more Lord” (a phrase that I struggled with some weeks back as I felt we should focus more on giving God more of us than looking out for more of him – but clearly as we are experiencing a deeper sense of his presence each week there just seems to be a strong case to crying out for more of God in our lives and in the lives of the people we are praying for.

2. A demon is either coming or going – when we worship, an atmosphere of heaven is created on earth and demons have to flee. If demons are coming, we need to worry, but that is pretty much never the case – they are always fleeing from the presence of Jesus. If this is the case, then all we say is “more Lord”.

3. The person is doing it – but we are always involved to some extent in what God is doing. Even when we were saved, we heard a message and had to respond in prayer, or with some action, to symbolise what God was doing in our hearts. Whenever the Holy Spirit moves in our lives, we have to step out and do something – so we are involved. God influences our hearts and we respond to what the Holy Spirit is doing. If people draw attention to themselves or cause a distraction that is a problem, but otherwise we say: “more Lord”

I think we all got the message – we want more of the Lord in our midst, in our lives, in our families, in our businesses, etc. We were challenged, that when we sense the Holy Spirit coming upon us, and we feel that we need to do something, we must go ahead and do it – even if it makes us look stupid – like lying on the floor, doing new hand movements, waving a flag, etc. We were reminded about a message preached on Sunday that worship is an automatic response to a revelation of God. We have no option but to respond!

The final challenge before we started to worship was to do more than worship with our voice – but worship with our whole being. And boy did we worship!!! It was a lively start of physically expressive worship songs, but very quickly there was an intimacy and a joyfulness that came over the audience. Clearly God’s joy was in the sanctuary. A prophetic song was sung, preceded by a Scripture from the Old Testament, and we corporately sang a new song about rising as God’s beloved to come and meet with him. Words of declaration were sung about the freedom that we were experiencing in God’s presence.

After about 30 minutes, the pastor invited folk to come forward if they needed prayer.I was hoping to be a spectator on the night and just be on the receiving end of ministry but when 50 people flooded the front of the sanctuary (there was probably around 250 people in the audience) there was no time to stand back.

This is where I was surprised by God. On previous occasions in my life I have known that God was about to use me by a unique sign. I would maybe heard a word spoken in a foreign tongue and I would start to sweat – as I knew that God wanted me to step out in faith and speak out the word of phrase that he had given me and trust that he would give me the rest of the interpretation. Well, tonight, there was a whole new sign that God was about to work through me: my right hand would start to shake (pretty much uncontrollably, unless I held it tightly under the armpit of my other arm. I would engage with people (mainly guys) and ask them their name and how I could pray for them, and almost immediately I would know how to start praying for them and my arm would shake and they would immediately fall to the ground – it was almost as if the power of God was welling up within me and would be released in an instant.

To say that this was unknown in my life as little as three years ago is an understatement. It has been building up over the past years and seems to be reaching a whole new level. There was a guy who was almost twice my height and there was no way that I was going to climb on a ladder and attempt to push him backwards. The moment I laid my hand on his chest, he went to sleep for about 10 minutes. When we chatted later he spoke of how God had met him so powerfully and he knew he was changed. He had asked for prayer to be a better father and husband.

A chap who is physically (not mentally) challenged also was overwhelmed by the presence of God as I prayed and he too lay in a peaceful “sleep” as God did a work in his life. One colleague manifested more dramatic manifestations as I prayed and ended up resting before the Lord, but he shook a great deal for what seemed like forever. Even the leader of the evening that I sensed God wanted me to share a prophetic word was overcome and struggled to stand in God’s presence as I prayed for her.

One more truly exciting part of the evening was the speaking of prophetic words into people’s lives – including teenagers that were in the sanctuary. I felt prompted to speak about one receiving the wisdom of Solomon (that he would just look at his friends and have godly insights into what is wrong in their lives) and the other the spirit of Nehemiah (that he would be accomplish great things for God, have a divine ability to see what needed to be done and mobilise people to get the work done). Other words and lines of throught came to mind as I prayed for people, and judging by the affirmation they would make – it seemed as through they were fully agreeing with what I was sharing with them.

In fact, the evening started out when I met one of the guys that I had prayed for two weeks back and had spoken bold word about a brand new business venture that was going to be beyond his wildest dreams – well, he testified of how in the past weeks he has started a new bakery business and this week he has seen that his earnings are up 180% – now that sounds like something unique that only God can do!

One of the “lay” elders shared a prophecy near the end of the evening about how that as we worship God and experience his joy, that something was taking place that was flowing out to supernaturally impact our land. We ended singing a prophetic new song about our land being changed.

As I reflect on the night and my past – I have one comment to make – that for so many years we believed in the infilling of the Holy Spirit – but we almost NEVER prayed for it to happen. And that is pretty much what we spent the whole evening doing – praying that God would fill us, and fill people that we were praying for – with his presence. And he answered our prayers and came and did it – mostly in dramatic ways, but in some instances in quiet ways.

The elder mentioned as we were leaving, that in our crime filled city, Johannesburg, people are hesitant to go out on a weeknight (any night for that matter) but the parking lot was packed out on a Tuesday night. He suggested that we need to keep these mid-week meetings happening as God was doing something profound and people were responding by arriving with expectation to encounter God.

26 September 2009

What Happens When Teens Fight?

A youth group is supposed to be this well behaved group of model teenagers, right? Well, not if you are creating an environment in which unchurched and pre-Christian teens feel at home while they encounter Christian youth and encounter Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.

At our group last night we had just wrapped up our review of the term at the end of a Chill ‘n Connect evening to end off a great 8 weeks of youth ministry. It was looking like the night was a great success and good connections had been made with regulars and new teens who felt comfortable to attend for the first time.

A leader confronted me and suggested that I urgently make my way downstairs to the carpark where a teenager had been beaten black and blue. The site that confronted me was truly horrific. A teen who has been in our ministry for around 5 years had been viciously attacked by two teen girls – one who has been attending for about 9 months and the other who had visited for 2 weeks. Her face had so swollen up that she was barely recognisable. From stories we had to piece together, it looks like an allegation of rumour spreading had caused the 2 girls to gang up on the 1 girl and she had no way of defending herself – until other teens had intervened and pulled them apart.

The rest of the night – up to midnight – involved a number of interventions that I have chosen to share in this blog so others can learn from our experience on the night:

1. Meeting with the three teen girls to try to piece the details of what had happened together as accurately as possible. Despite the savageness of the attack it was still important to as objectively as possible to seek to gain the whole whole truth and not prejudice our investigation based on who was new as opposed to a long time member of the group.

2. Meeting with the parents of the three girls to ensure that all knew what had taken place and helped with what actions to take as a result of the events of the evening. The mom and sister of the girl who was beaten arrived at church so we were able to interact with her right at the scene, I called the father of one of the two girls who had been the protagonists and he arrived so we could talk things over, and I left to visit the mother of the other girl who had thrown the punches.

3. Driving the girl who had been beaten to the police station so that a case of assault could be opened. This was the response that the mother requested and we felt it our duty to help with transportation. One of our youth leaders took her, her sister and three witnesses of the assault to the police station (we concluded that it would be quicker to do this than sit around waiting for the police to arrive).

4. Taking the girl who had been beaten to the hospital so she could have a thorough medical examination, including x-rays to determine whether any bones had been broken. We were somewhat relieved to discover that the extent of the injuries were contained to severe bruising.

5. Alerting our church’s lead pastor as to what had taken place on the church property that night. I believe that it is vital that senior leadership do not learn second hand of things that take place at youth events. This was take well as he could see that we had things under control and were covering all the bases.

So what can we learn from the experience?

Firstly, we need to ensure that there is adult supervision of teens at all times while they are on the church property. The father of one of the two protagonists asked where the leaders had been when the attack took place. We said that it was at a vulnerable moment when we had just dismissed the teens and had not yet dispatched a leader to supervise the congregating and leaving in the car park. We know that we will be working hard at this before the group re-opens after the school holidays!

Secondly, we need to ensure that we contact details for the parents of all the teens that attend our youth ministry. We were fortunate that we were able to contact all the parents involved and know that it could have been a worse situation and we might not have been able to contact parents in an emergency.

Thirdly, we need to ensure that all parents are contacted before the police are contacted – unless the situation is of such a nature that immediate calling of the police is critical. The mom of one of the girls did express disappointment that she was not called to the property before the leader left to take the victim to the police station. She felt that the parents could have resolved things together without calling the police. We suggested that her daughter’s out of control temper could well end up benefiting from the seriousness of the case that had been opened at the police station.

Fourthly, we need to follow up with the teens involve and even provide counselling for the teens that witnessed the events and also for the rest of the teens who are all talking about what happened and forming their own opinions. We need to ensure that it is treated as a learning opportunity for everyone involved and not something that could destroy the great work that is being done in and through the youth ministry.

May God guide us as we seek to minister among teens who will clash and who will manifest tempers and aggression – after all we live in an environment historically and presently plagued by violence and we cannot assume that teens will be immune to what is going on in the wider society.

Sustainable Youth Ministry 2

The youth staff at His People Church met this week for a well deserved end of term breakfast meeting at our improved version of Starbucks in south Africa, called Mugg ‘n Bean. We spent a significant amount of time reflecting on Mark DeVries’ book, Sustainable Youth Ministry. Mark says:

“Every church can build a sustainable youth ministry by attending first to the two key components of system’s thinking in youth ministry:  (1) Architecture – the structures of sustainability; and (2) Atmosphere (the culture, climate and ethos that sustains the health of an organisation.”

In chapter 5 Mark suggests that the Architecture includes certain controlling and visioning documents. The Controlling Documents include: (a) Directory of Youth, Leaders and Staff that is kept up to date; (b) Annual Events Calendar; (c) Job Descriptions of All Leadership Positions; (d) Master Recruiting Lists for enlarging the volunteer data base; (e) Curriculum template. The Visioning Documents include: (a) Mission Statement; (b) Measurable Three-Year-Goals; (c) Statements of Values; and (d) Organisational Chart.

In chapter 6 Mark suggests that the Atmosphere includes the following objectives: (a) Deliverable Results, (b) Trusting the Process (see my previous blog post on this one); (c) Importing Joy into the Chaos; (d) Instil Stories and Metaphors; and (e) Embrace Rituals, Traditions, Signs and symbols.

We spent our time reflecting on what we already have in place and what needs to be added. We also spent a significant amount of out time discussing our approach to teaching – we do not have a long terms list of what we will cover – even though we have clearly defined outcomes for each level of our faith journey and booklets that are taught at each level. We want to stay open to the leading of the Holy Spirit along the way so that we can adapt to issues that arise in the lives of our teens – as well as responding to themes that are set by the wider church family.

We believe that one of our strengths as a movement, and particularly as a youth leadership team is that we pursue strategic leadership with a prophetic edge. We seek to integrate two seemingly opposing approaches to ministry – strategic thinking and forward planning with adaptability and spiritual discernment.

Sustainable Youth Ministry 1

I am reading a book by Mark DeVries entitled: Sustainable Youth Ministry. It is truly fresh and challenging. Here is an excerpt that lept out at me as I read it (it resonates well with the insights from the Jim Collin’s book that I blogged about last week, How The Mighty Fall yet it pre-dates Jim’s book):

Moving from where we are to where we want to be takes time-so much time, in fact, that many, youth directors short-circuit the process. If we’re going to engineer a climate of transformation for our youth ministries, we will not do it by stepping in with guns blazing.

Sustainable change happens when leaders recognize the power of incremental revolution, the power of one small change after another, until the incremental changes result in exponential change. Architecting a healthy climate for ministry is usually a lot more like growing bamboo than like a construction project.

Try watching bamboo grow sometime. (You won’t be entertained.) After waiting for weeks, then months, then up to three years, you may begin to wonder whether your plant has issues. You might compare your inferior specimen to the other successful bamboo plants you’ve seen. You might be tempted to exhume your mutant plant, to analyze its problems.

But people who know bamboo relax when they see no visible signs of growth in the first few years. They know the process, and they trust it. If the environmental conditions are right, eventually the tipping point comes, and growth happens. In fact, some bamboo plants, when they hit their growth season, can grow up to four feet in twenty-four hours.

Those of us who work with junior-high-schoolers know the feeling, don’t we? For years we wonder if we’ll ever see signs of change, if anything is sinking in. Then suddenly the process takes hold, and those young people begin to explode with questions, with honesty, often with compassion and faithfulness that must have been buried beneath the surface for years.

Too many churches and youth ministers distrust the process and find themselves changing focus every few years, gambling their hopes on the next superstar on the court. As a result, they never experience the profound momentum that builds when a team moves together in the same direction for years.

Sustainable Youth Ministry by Mark DeVries (Page 88-84)

24 September 2009

How The Mighty Fall by Jim Collins

In recent weeks I have been gleaning incredible insights from the new book by Jim Collin, entitled: How The Might Fall. In the past he researched factors that are critical for building long terms organisations (Built to Last), then how to move from an average company to an excellent one  (Good to Great) and now he has now turned his research and thinking to what causes companies to decline and he has even identified the five stages of decline (How The Might Fall).

This book is a must read for leaders of companies and churches. When we experience success we conclude that it was all our own doing and before long we are taking on more than we can handle, we forget to keep doing those things that helped bring success in the first place and we begin to deny the warning signs that things are unravelling at the seams and before long we are grasping for salvation or a silver bullet to rescue us from disaster.

We’d do well to learn from Jim’s incredible insights in this book and pursue excellence over the long haul.

Read my notes on the book and download a spreadsheet that I have created to check whether your team is on the way up or the way down from my website (http://www.ymresourcer.com) and on the Summaries page (which includes many other summaries worth reading).

23 September 2009

God Evening 2

The second God evening, in this current series of three Tuesday night meetings, took place last night. At least four of the key pastors were away on the evening and even though the focus is on God, I arrived at the church with mixed emotions. Would God still choose to manifest himself as he did last week without key leaders being present? Well, there was no reason to worry. God showed up!

Pastor Iain Shippey began with an exhortation from Ephesians 1:13 and spoke about the seal of the Holy Spirit – we are marked by God – which denotes ownership and protection. We are sealed as God’s sons and daughters. Iain read from Romans 8:15 and asked me to share some thoughts on adoption out of our own adoption process. I spoke of how I had no understanding of adoption before we began our own adoption process, with Drew Nguvu, and how I had wondered if I could love him as much as I had loved my biological children who were 10 and 12 when we adopted Drew. But the opposite has proven to be true – there is a security and depth in our love for Drew that in some ways goes beyond natural birth. We had chosen him and he is ours. There is nothing he needs to do to earn his place in our family! He has our name and is ours! The congregation seems to resonated with my repeated refrain: “He is mine/You are mine!”. Iain stressed how that God defines our love and that his voice should be the loudest voice in our lives. We were challenged to bask in the love of God and this invitation led to a time of exuberant praised based on the understanding that God had adopted us.

As we worshipped I experienced a depth of abandonment to God that I have never felt – it was as if I was giving myself wholeheartedly to God and despite the consequences, truly meant it with all my heart!

We listen to words from scripture about how that God knows us intimately and has created us wonderfully (Psalm 139).

I sensed that we needed to pray down the love of God – to ask God for an anointing of his love, just like John Wesley had experienced with his baptism of love. I shared this with Iain who got up and shared about our identity in God and led into a powerful time of praying for people who came forward. Many were overcome by the power of God and many simply experienced a new depth of awareness of the love of God for them.

After a song, Iain shared that so far we had focussed on our identity, but that there was a city, a country and a continent around us and that God wanted to release the blessing of Abraham and the blessing of Rebecca (from Genesis 15 and Genesis 24 respectively). This led to an intense time of intercession where we cried out for the city of Johannesburg. Someone shared the Psalm: “Say to Zion: Here is Your King” and this led to the repeated shouting of: “Jozi: Here is Your King”. I am sure the roof considered lifting off! When the shouting led into a song, Bayethe Nkosi (hail to the king), the declaration was overwhelming!

The last theme for the night was about “calling those things that are not as though they are.” People came forward, one by one, to pray about areas of life in our city and continent – they were not asking God to do thing as much as declaring them as done – here are some of the declarations that were made: Jobs for all people; homes for all people; justice for all people; women to rise up as nurturers; men to rise up as leaders in their homes; school leavers to choose service and not status or financially focussed careers; an end to famine; performers who give God glory; godly role models on television; new entrepreneurs to arise; youth to know they are called and chosen; media to become a channel of God’s beauty and truth; Africa to be healed of AIDS; and non-citizens in South Africa to be blessed.

The night ended with a dramatic drum solo to symbolise how God was marching through the land – and the final act was the blowing of a vuvuzela (the instrument that is used at football stadiums across South Africa)!

All praise to the king!

The night was different for me personally, probably because I was more involved in leadership this time, but there was no less awareness that God was present and that he had moved dramatically as we spent the 2 hours focussing all our attention on lifting him up and experiencing his presence. I look forward to next Tuesday night with great anticipation.

16 September 2009

God Evening 1

During the month of September in 2009 we set aside three Tuesday nights as God-evenings. We normally have one such event a month (if you are unsure what it is all about, see the blog post I made about it on this blogsite before reading further).

Our church has just started a new series in Sunday mornings called Invitation: Grace, Worship, Supernatural. It is a series devoted to exploring how we are love live in light of God’s grace, how God is calling us to enter deeper into worship, and it will end with a focus on how the supernatural is supposed to be a part of our daily lives.

On Tuesday night, the 15th of September we gathered in our church sanctuary for the first of three God-evenings in the month. After a rousing gathering song and the song, Rain Down (by Delirious) we listened to Pastor Andrew Gossman give an impartation based on Romans 8 – we were reminded that there is nothing we can do to receive God’s favour because his grace is freely given based on the finished work of Christ on the cross, so we are able to enter into an experience of worship with the Father just as we are.

It was not long before we were radically overwhelmed with the manifest presence of God in the building. We heard the sound of rushing wind and “felt” the waves of his presence washing over us. Here are some of the manifestations of the move of God that I personally experienced:

1. Being Weighed Down
On only two other occasion in my life have I experienced the sensation of being rendered immobile in the presence of God – and the one was just before I stepped out in faith to launch disciplemaking movements in numerous countries around the continent of Africa, a calling for which I felt profoundly inadequate to accomplish and God confirmed the calling by pinning me to the ground and sending waves upon wave of his love and affirmation on me until I walked away willing and empowered to do what he had called me to do. Back to the God-evening – on two occasions in the night as a wind of God’s presence blew through the sanctuary I found myself unable to move – I was standing at first and found myself frozen to the same spot for what seemed like hours. It was probably only about 10 minutes – but when I finally could move I knew that God had been doing a supernatural work in me. On second time it happened, I found myself literally collapsing int a kneeling position and could not move or sing for another significant period of time. All I could do during these times was commune with God and enjoy his presence.

2. Laughing
I have always thought that laughter in worship belongs to the lunatic fringe and so you can image my surprise when waves of joy flooded my heart and I found myself unable to contain the joy and all I could do was laugh. There was such a sense of lightness and happiness that I sensed, that it was not something that could be contained with just “happy thoughts”. It was not uncontrollable, but I guess it could have gotten to that place if it had continued much longer.

3. Anointing in Prayer for Others
I then experienced a profound send of God working through me as I prayed for people who came forward, first to receive a touch from the Lord, and then business folk who were looking for an anointing on their lives in business. As I prayed for people, you could just sense the person was dramatically receiving a touch for God – they would respond in  physical ways as I laid my hands on them and it was clear that God was touching them in profound ways.

4. Prophesying Over People
I then had the experience of receiving divine guidance for five different people in the room – and spoke words of direction and inspiration over each of them as God allowed a prophetic gifting to rise up within me. One was a word of encouragement and comfort and affirmation of God’s love for a brother, another was a vision of how God was going to help them develop a unique idea in business and how it would become a movement and not just a business idea, for another it was about how they had not been recognised or listened to in their work place and how that was about to change, and for another it was words about what God is doing in the worship ministry among teens at our church – how he had heard the prayers for breakthrough in worship among teens and how that God was rising up to accomplish his desires.

5. Receiving a Gift
The final manifestation that i can remember in this incredible evening of worship, was the receiving of a gift from God. One of the worship leaders spoke of how God had just placed in his hands a trumpet (in a vision format and not literally) and how that God was wanting to give each of us a unique gift. We were encouraged to extend our arms and “see” God give us a gift. I immediately “saw” God give me a pen and my hand began to move as if I were writing. I am in busy writing a chapter for a book on youth ministry for Zondervan, and even though I have always written manuals and stuff for wed-distribution, I have never actually set out to write a book. I sense that this is going to change in the coming months and years.

Well, if that was the first of three God-evening for the month of September, I can not wait for the next two sessions. Watch this space.

God-Evenings

Over recent Months, our church has set aside one Tuesday night a month as a God-evening. It is a 2 hour meeting that is dedicated to being with God and enjoying his presence. Each evening will have a theme but one of the main differences between this event and our regular church meetings is a lack of preaching and the extended time dedicated to worshipping God.

There is usually a theme for the evening, and normally a time of teaching to set the context and focus the minds of the audience. The worship team under the oversight of one or more of the pastors will then lead people in praise (with the regular exuberance and physical expressions that normally accompany praise in our church) and then into an intimate time of worship (with the normal quietness and intimacy that characterises our time of inner court worship) and then into a time of ministry (which could include prayer for deliverance, prayer for anointing for ministry, prayer for healing, etc.)

We leave the place with a genuine sense that in the context of unhurried worship we have truly encountered God and that he has touched our lives in fresh ways.

A God-evening is time set aside just to meet with God and allowing him to touch our lives as we honour him in worship. The night is preceded with focused prayer, fasting and discerning about what God is wanting to do and say to the worshippers – and the insights gained from this time of waiting and listening to what the Spirit is saying, are used to shape the evening.

Soaking in Worship

The first time I heard the word “soaking” I thought someone was talking about taking a long bath – you know those baths where by the time you get out your fingers are seriously wrinkled. But the context was worship.

At a leaders meeting one Tuesday morning, we were encouraged to find a comfortable position to sit or lie in and told that soaking music was going to be played and that we were to simple relax with God – to sense his presence and just stay in an attitude of worship.

I could probably best describe soaking worship but what it does not consist of. It is not a time to confess sin, it is not a time to strive to encounter God, it is not a time to hear from God about anything specific, it is not a time to sing songs.

It is simply an experience of abiding in the presence of God, allowing background music to lead you deeper and deeper into an experience with God where his love overwhelms you and you get lost in wonder, love and praise (to steal a famous expression from John Wesley).

I have uploaded a song that is typical of the kind of worship music that characterises soaking worship – there are words, but fewer than in a regular worship song and there is lots of instrumental interludes where you are drawn into, and kept in, an awareness of God who is present. Download and listen to the song by clicking on this link.

Come My Beloved

You don’t have to be in a group setting to experience soaking worship – you can play the track, or any other appropriate music, in the privacy of your lounge, and experience a level of being with God that is relaxed and unhurried. God is inviting you into an intimacy that is deeper than anything you have experienced before.

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