God For People Who Hate Church

My friend, Phil Wyman, is putting on a provacative conference called "God For People Who Hate Church." Phil is that wild pastor man up in Salem, Mass, who is being Jesus to his neo-pagan and witch friends, finding innovative ways to seek forgiveness for how the Church has mistreated those friends.

The gathering will feature the preacher-punk, Jay Bakker, son of Jim Bakker. (Years ago, when I first saw Jay interviewed on TV I wanted to marry him.) This will not be your typical Christian conference. It will even include open dialogue with atheists and pagans, who'll talk candidly about how Christians have demeaned those they've tried to reach with the Good News. Read more about the conference here.

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.