First off, i just found out about this conference last night, INTERNATIONAL HEALING CONFERENCE
They are going to have Heidi Baker, Randy Clark, Bill Johnson, Jean-Luc Trachsel, Ian Andrews, Cal Pierce, Mickey Robinson, Jim Rickard as their main speakers. Worship is going to be led by Daniel Brymer.
So, I’m stoked, because they 7pm sessions are free and open to the public, and they are going to be Randy Clark, Heidi Baker, and Bill Johnson, who I want to see.
Now, on to the meat of this.
Lauren and I have been looking for more ways to be out in the community praying for people lately. Since I’m a wuss, I’ve been leading towards established places of prayer, vs. standing out on the street or going to the mall and trying to pray for people. Mock me later if you want…my wussiness is not the subject of this post.
I stumbled upon one such perfect opportunity by looking around on Boston Vineyard’s Website, called International Healing Rooms. The Vineyard there participates in one in Boston, and there happen to be a few in the Twin City areas. It is a para-church organization designed to bring people from different denominations together to pray for people in the community.
Well, this has all sorts of appeal to me on all kinds of levels, and it happened to be that they were doing a training this week (I found this site on monday). So Lauren and I signed up.
First impression was mixed. The people seemed cool, but they were playing that John Paul Jackson CD where he just says a whole bunch of names that God is called in the Bible. Thing started going, JPJ got turned off, and the director and his wife talked for a bit. They are a super-cool inter-racial couple.
The toss in a video of this Cal Peirce guy, who teaches shares some cool testimonies. My favorite was a woman who had a terrible accident, so bad that they put a plate in her face / head that held together the remaining fragments of bone left. She suffers from migraine headaches, seizures and she sets off the alarms at airport security even if she empties the change from her pockets. Anyway, she got a CAT scan or something like that because she felt worse than ever, and the pain pills were barely taking the edge off, and making her life go by in a haze. Doctor says he can’t do anything else, she goes to one of these healing rooms, or healing room conferences, gets prayer, migraines go away, no more seizures. Goes back to the doctor. Gets another CAT or CT scan or whatever. The findings: No evidence of brain trauma, no evidence of ever having had bone problems anywhere in her skull, and no metal plate in her head. Next time she flies, she walks through the security gate with no problems.
Anyway, this guy then starts talking about how healing is tied to the atonement. He goes on to say some things about how we are responsible for allowing ourselves to be the conduit for healing, and that God has already done what he is going to do by the atoning work of the cross. Then he goes on for an hour about some stuff about free-will that even I find hard to swallow….(aside: It is odd how much I disagree with classical arminians as well as 5 point calvinists…..I wonder if a Weslyan Arminian should be called something more like a three point calvinist than an Arminian…or maybe I hang out with Jeff too much).
Anyway, the sum total of the intellectual part of this is that the guy has said something about focusing on God during prayer that are really good. It very much embodied some of the things I’ve heard that have been helpful, but with a different phrasing, and some small twists that were helpful. But, other than that there were some good and some bad analogies and metaphors, and some good and bad use of scripture (IMO) to back up his point, and ultimately it seemed that his theology was based around a man-centered free-will view of things that I don’t exactly see in scripture.
But I hope that I don’t have to completely agree with them on this healing being part of the atonement thing, cuz I would like to work with these folks, and the overall environment was great.
The couple who direct this thing prayed for us, and I have not in my life heard such dead-on prophecy. The woman, Trish, spoke directly to Lauren and I, and how we have been feeling lately. Specifically one of the things she said was that I try to make God look good to other people, and I should stop that and be bold, because he can do a good job of making himself look good. I can’t tell you how long I’ve been praying about my feelings around that area, and I haven’t heard much. This was like a key to helping unlock boldness in my life…I feel much lighter now, and more like I could actually pray for people in the street. And the prophecy didn’t stop there, but I don’t want to go on about it. I’m just going to say, Lauren and I felt rocked, and like God had taken a lot off our shoulders and put a lot of power into our hearts actually do some things that have been our hearts lately.
If you want to check out that conference with Lauren and I, let us know and we will get some carpooling going.
And, that is all for now…move along, nothing else to see here.