IHOP in Your Room

The wild folks at IHOP in Kansas City have a brand new high-quality webstream live from their 24-7 prayer room. I remember them setting up for this massive-thing when I was at One Thing. I've had their Noon to 2pm set on the speakers as they've been meditating on and singing through Jesus' words in the Beatitudes, and David's in the Psalms. The music is really nice. This is very good for my heart.

I spent some time at IHOP in September and January. I'm amazed by their passion and intensity and joy. And by the way they train young people to use their musicianship with excellence while still leaving such room for the spontaneous song. So much of their worship is unrehearsed, and yet still aesthetically-pleasing to both the ears and spirit. This is rare.

If you have a decent connection, check it out.

(Thanks for the reminder that the webcast is now up, Beth.)

Best of Onething

In brief, here are my top 6 moments from Onething 2006 at the International House of Prayer.

1. In the prayer room, watching a group of young adults pray for a girl with CP. And then rejoicing and crying as the crippled girl threw down her crutches and ran around for perhaps the first time in her life!
2. Night one when Mike Bickle started weeping in the middle of his message on Christ's love for us. He then interrupted his message to have the whole arena lay hands and pray for one another to receive a deeper revelation of His love.
3. Shelley Hundley's seminar message on "standing in the counsel of the Lord" (Jeremiah 23:18-22) and the supernatural encounter she had with Jesus back in 1999.
4. Having a messianic Jewish man named Evan sing over us (in Hebrew!) the priestly blessing in Numbers 6, and then lead us in intercession for Israel.
5. Sharing a room with a radical 16 year old named Brittany. She'd flown out to KC from California all by herself to join with her generation in fasting and prayer.
6. Being in the prayer room in between sessions and having a stranger touch my shoulder and say to me, simply and prophetically, "Freedom!" Freedom is the word that I believe will mark my 2007. Have you asked God to give you a word for 2007?

Onething or Nothing

I'm writing from Kansas City, at the International House of Prayer. Tomorrow I'm joining 10,000+ young adults for a three-day gathering of worship, prayer, and fasting to bring in the New Year. Onething is known for being a massive welcoming of the Holy Spirit. For me this is a time of re-focusing on the One. I'm pumped.

I was in the prayer room for a little while last night. (Mike Bickle opened this prayer room in September of 1999 and has orchestrated night and day, non-stop worship and intercession for the nations since then. It is an insane move of God!) We spent hours praying corporately for the young people coming to Onething. That the fire of the Holy Spirit would move on our hearts. (I really think the Spirit likes those prayers.)

I helped out with the pre-conference set-up today. I had the strange-adrenaline-rushed-job of unpacking and displaying thousands of brand new books for the Onething Bookstore. As I wielded the power of my exacto-knife on cardboard boxes, I chatted with a guy named Phil in the Forerunner School of Ministry, IHOP's full-time Bible school. FSM is unique in its approach to theological training, because in addition to the classroom, IHOP requires that every student spends significant time in the prayer room, getting near to God's heart, and dialoguing with Him about the things they are learning. It's a far cry away from just devouring books and filling up a mind with knowledge. This is a heart education.

As a happy and challenged seminary student at Fuller, I was interested to hear about Phil's FSM schedule.

"How many hours to you get to spend with God in the prayer room each week?"

"Oh, anywhere from 25-30. It's amazing." He said.

"I'm jealous for that sort of education." I confessed.

As Storm Clouds Gather

I have often been moved by books that slip under the radar screen of popular approval. (In fact, I tend to duck from those ones. I'm a little stubborn and prideful, I know.) This book is one of those quiet messengers: "As Storm Clouds Gather: A Sleeping Church Must Be Awakened," by Jim Maher. I am only five chapters into it, but it is asking me to reexamine words that Jesus said...the ones that I always, well, sort of skimmed over. Especially Matthew 24. If you are intrigued, forget the book, but go and read that chapter and let me know if anything stirs in you. (I heart when people leave comments to tell me they're reading this bloggy-thing.) I'll be checking back as I try to finish it before I leave it on my friend's bookshelf here in Kansas City.

Tattooed Saints

I am without words for how refreshing it has been to be with both the 24-7 Prayer community, and here at IHOP.

I'll turn instead to tattoos.

Tonight I went with a ministry team of ordinary people into inner-city Kansas City. We left from the IHOP parking lot, prayed we'd bring with us God's love and compassion, and packed in loads of food to hand out to those who have little. We arrived in a park that is known for being dismal after dark. I sat down and talked with one man, named Santos, who had about four tattoos on each of his arms.

"Tell me the stories of your tattoos," I said.

Santos went on to tell me, through his beautiful toothless smile, that he'd seen the inside of a maximum-security prison for many years. He'd been a drug-smuggler from South America and made ridiculous amounts of money each day. He had many regrets. But Santos never did any dope, or even drink much booze. His primary vice? 3 packs of cigarettes a day. He’d been hopelessly addicted.

Somewhere along the line, Santos got out of prison, and found Jesus. He rejoiced with me of his most recent victory: God had given him the power to quit smoking, cold-turkey. He talked more about his job, his life, and we prayed together for all of his nine kids to find Jesus.

I was so humbled to hear this man’s story. I felt absolutely safe sitting in the middle of this crowd with an ex-con, hearing the stories of his not-so-glorious tattoos. He had a peace about him that was other worldly.

Before we left I dreamt with Santos that he’d see far more of God’s supernatural power, beyond the power he’d given to quit smoking. I don’t know if that’s prophecy or what. All I know is that I want to dream more for people, in that way. And I want to take time to listen to more people’s stories. Especially the ones that the world calls “poor.”

Picture taken from Sacred Ink

View from the clouds

I am on a plane headed to Kansas City. There’s a nice view. I salute Southwest Airlines. They are cheap. (Ahem…the flight from Denver to KC cost the same as filling up my car’s gas tank in Portugal.) And they serve plane-shaped crackers! They are such a crack-up when they give the safety-instructions. Today our stewardess said, “Please put your seats in their upright, most uncomfortable positions…Yada yada yada.” She really said the “yadas.” Excellent.

I am jumping out of my skin in excitement that I’m heading to KC for ten days. The first three days I’ll be at the mission base for 24-7 Prayer USA. The last week I’ll be at the International House o’ Prayer mission base. 24-7 Prayer and IHOP are two different expressions of the same basic vision: non-stop, around-the-clock prayer to impact the nations. Both of these prayer movements began in September 1999: 24-7 in Europe, and IHOP in Kansas City. I think God is up to something. I wanna be a part of it.

Links-n-logs:
24-7 Prayer Movement
International House of Prayer (IHOP)