"What does this mean?"

When it comes to evaluating spiritual experiences that are noted within the covers of the Bible, it's easy to forget that we read about them from the comfortable vantage point of history and canonical endorsement. In other words, they may appear strange (e.g., Ezekiel laying on his side before his model of Jerusalem)or downright odd (tell me Hosea marrying a girl from the red light district isn't odd), but Wise People Who Know Things tell us that these actions were acts of God and therefore not just strange but true. But we've read about them enough by now that they're not as strange as they once seemed to our ears. Mostly because we were not there...and we know, after all, the rest of the story.

So when "signs and wonders" happen in real-time, in our own sanctuary or city, then we are in the same soup as Ezekiel or the Apostles on the Day of Pentecost. Some are wowed. Some mock. But most don't have the foggiest idea of what is going on. Recently, I was reminded of this very thing at a regular gathering of the youth fellowship that meets on Wednesday night in our sanctuary.

It was another night at The Focus. The kids had gone around the circle and shared some of the high-lites of their week. Joe - our youth leader - facilitated a lengthy discussion that began as a response to a message they had listened to the week before on "dating." As these things go, over the course of 40 minutes we touched on issues of purity, dress, and all things relating to how our actions influence members of the opposite sex. It was fun and real and yet serious, too.

Following the discussion, as Focus is wont to do these things, they turned the lights down low and worship began. Kayla, a very prophetic young woman in her own right, was burdened to pray for a pressing need in Morocco where many of us have friends there. She and her brother, Noah, knelt down by a chair and began to pray in earnest. It was something about Kayla's demeanor, however, that caused me to think that perhaps I ought to go and pray over her. Soon several of the kids joined me and we either stood or knelt by these two as they interceded for Morocco. And then things began to morph before me. Kayla was becoming more agitated...not just in her words but her body language as well. Her breathing increased rapidly as did the volume of her voice. I continued to watch and pray in my prayer language while at the same time asking the Father what was going on. As emotional as she was becoming, it didn't feel emotional (if that makes any sense). And then she screamed for the first time. It wasn't a "come-out-in-the-name-of-Jesus"-type scream as you might hear from someone being exorcised. At that first scream, I knew then what was going on for I have heard that scream before on at least four occasions. Kayla was in labor. She was "pregnant" but not with any human child. She was in the process of giving birth to something in the Spirit.

For the next half hour this continued. Kayla was having regular "contractions" that were increasing in intensity as "the child" was entering the birth canal (okay, these are totally human terms that I'm using in trying to describe what I witnessed but hopefully you get the drift.) During the course of her ordeal she had even assumed the position in order to give birth. Nicole, a mom and a woman who helps us on Wednesday nights, and Sarah, one of the other students, were on each side of her assisting her. Having said all this, however, Kayla was not "out of it" because in between "contractions" she would coach us - "Okay, guys pray for Noah! Girls, pray over me!" and the like. Finally, after an extended period, "the baby" was born (complete with afterbirth a few minutes later - really!)

But it didn't end there. Because then the focus moved to Noah. As a few of the guys had continued to pray for him, the Holy Spirit's presence on him seemed to increase. But after the baby was born, he assumed a crouched position and began to stomp the floor with his right foot over and over again. Ed seemed intuitively to know what to do and began exhorting him to stamp harder. Meanwhile, Kayla was off the floor and she and several of the girls who had been praying over her began to dance in a circle around Noah and Ed while the drummer drummed out a war beat on the djimbae. As the girls danced faster, Noah pounded stronger. The whole thing reminded me of dying Elisha's encouragement to King Jehoash to strike the ground with the arrows from his quiver (see 2 Kings 13). This went on for perhaps 10 minutes until the Spirit seemed to lift from us as if the work was completed.

On the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples in the Upper Room, what happened in those wild and woolly moments that followed was enough to offend the mind of more than a few who were witnessing this strange display of glossolalia. "They're drunk" is the conclusion of some who were eyewitnesses. Peterson translates verse 12 in this way: "Their heads were spinning; they couldn't make head or tail of any of it. They talked back and forth, confused: 'What's going on here?'" (Msg). It's probably the most honest thing we can ask when such strange things occur: "What does this mean?" (Acts 2:12) After all, what is a "sign and a wonder" but something that makes us wonder?

Which church out there doesn't make a habit of inviting the Lord's Presence at the onset of their worship service? The traditionalists even put in their bulletin: Invocation. But do any of us have a clue of what we're asking? Poet laureate Annie Dillard once wrote:

On the whole, I do not find Christians outside of the
catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does
anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so
blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe
a word of it? The churches are children playing on the
floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of
TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear
ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should
all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life
preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to
our pews. For the sleeping god (sic) may wake someday
and take offense, or the waking god (sic) may draw us
out to where we can never return.
Quoted by Guy Chevreau in Catch the Fire, pg. 2

I don't know what she means by her words but I know how I hear them. It means - in short - be careful of what you wish for ("Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you!" Is 64:1 - talk about strong medicine!) you may get it. And that may mean that a nice, pleasant Sunday morning is overturned by an angry Jesus overturning tables in the meeting place or a virgin daughter at the altar giving birth to a baby conceived by the Holy Spirit. Like most people when these things happen - if they happen at all - we probably will find ourselves "amazed and perplexed" asking one another "What does this mean?" (Acts 2:12, NIV)

A Taste of Grace

Last night in Chetek was the Ralph Dewey Memorial Concert. It’s the concert held every March featuring the talents of both the vocal and instrumental groups in our school. All the proceeds help send aspiring students to music camps every summer.

My two youngest children, Ed and Emma, are in a variety of musical groups in both departments. God has deposited within them talent that, at least around here, is recognized and appreciated. But last night the hundred or so who gathered in the “small” gym at Chetek HS experienced more than just a musical exposition. We were given a taste of grace. It came on us unawares and so suddenly that it quite literally took our breath away.

Midway through the program, Emma and two of her friends, all freshman, performed “You Raise Me Up” by Josh Groban. The girls began to sing and all of us were listening politely and encouragingly. But then their song took us by force. Such sound was emanating from these young women. A sound of such beauty and strength. Tears were streaming down many a face. The alto in the group especially was moving and I leaned in attempting to discern who was singing this part. And then I realized in an instant it was my daughter, my daughter singing with the sound of an angel. She may be only 14 years old but already I have great admiration for her. She is a very confident, intelligent, talented and beautiful young woman. But listening to her sing last night I was overcome with my sinfulness and God’s goodness toward me that he would grant such a wonderful individual to father and to care for. I know I do not deserve such goodness. How could a voice so pure come from someone fathered by me?

I’m fully serious. I’m not just carrying on as you would expect a father to do. In fact, as I type this short reminiscence I tear up still touched by that wonderful, awesome moment of grace we all experienced in that high school gym. It wasn’t the words (as inspiring as the words to that song are). It was the sound – the sound of heaven blessing us whether we were worthy of the blessing or not (and most of us are not).

And then this morning, another blessing occurred. Suzy Favor Hamilton, winner of multiple awards at the high school, collegiate and professional level and three time Olympian, visited our small town. She and fellow Madison-athlete Casey Fitzrandolf (a 2002 Gold medalist himself) were in town promoting healthy living and fitness. Apparently before she speaks, she likes to work out for awhile and so an invitation to run with her was extended to anyone who cared to. Of course, Ed volunteered to do just this along with perhaps 8 of his classmates. And so on a beautiful Tuesday morning, they gathered by the track and Coach Knicker turned to Ed and said, “Okay, Ed, lead ‘em out.” And, with Suzy at his side and the rest all around her, they took off for the short trail behind the school. For the next 30 minutes or so she schooled them. Her energy was palpable and her humor was infectious. This, too, was a taste of grace.

It’s not every day you get to run with an Olympian and – if only for a brief time – have her as your personal trainer. It’s not every day you get to take the stage and be heaven’s amplifier to announce to all who would hear it that God is good and he means our good. But in a span of 12 short hours I had a taste of grace that humbles completely and fills me anew with a sense of awe all over again at his love extended to someone like me.

This is my story

Recently, we finished reading Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliott in our weekday family reading time. It’s the story of the five missionaries and their wives – Jim and Elisabeth Elliott, Nate and Marj Saint, Pete and Olive Flemming, Ed and Marilou McCully, and Roger and Barbara Youderian – who moved to the wilds of Ecuador in the 1950s pursuing God’s call on their lives. If you’ve seen the movie The End of the Spear, you know that the men were killed on a Sunday in January in 1956 at the hands of the very people they had come to serve, martyred for the sake of the Gospel. Their deaths became a national news story and captured the hearts of many who heard it. Our copy happens to be the 25th Anniversary edition which includes an epilogue written by Elliott in 1981. In it she writes:

“Although the pathway of my life has taken many unimaginable turns
since I wrote this (my first) book, I have not been allowed to forget
the story. I would not have wanted to forget it, but there have been
times when I have wondered if others might. Perhaps they have tired
of it. Should I continue the retelling as I am so often asked to do?
I spoke of my misgivings to Miss Corrie ten Boom who, as an old lady
indefatigably traveled the world to tell her own story over and over
again, of her family's providing refuge to Jews in Holland during
World War II, of their being betrayed and imprisoned in a concentration
camp,and of the death of her sister and aged father as a result.
‘Sometimes,’ she told me, ‘I have said, “Lord, I must have something
fresh. I cannot go on telling the old story.” But the Lord said to me,
“This is the story I gave you. You tell that one.”’ So Corrie encouraged
me to go on telling mine.”

We all have a story that’s been given to us to share. To our own ears and to others it may not sound overly dramatic and even worth sharing. I mean, my own story is fairly pedestrian as tales go. No drug abuse. No lewd sex. No time behind bars. No, I was just a kid raised in a church who one day, in the middle of a conversation, realized he did not know God and asked simply to be introduced. A “non-event” by the standard measure. And yet it sufficed and propelled me into the vocation I am now in – a man who is determined to spend the rest of his life telling the best Story ever told.

The problem is our perspective. We are always captivated by the famous, the glamorous, the infamous, those who stumble upon the prized “15 minutes of fame” (think, “Joe the Plumber”). We do not comprehend that we are prone to look at things through the wrong end of the telescope. It makes me think of C.S. Lewis’ protagonist in The Great Divorce who while on his journey through the borderlands of heaven, encounters a parade of sorts of someone whom he surmises must have been someone famous here on earth.

‘It’s someone ye’ll never have heard of [his guide informs him].
Her name on earth was Sarah Smith and she lived at Golders Green.’”

“ ‘She seems to be…well, a person of particular importance?’”

“ ‘Aye. She is one of the great ones. Ye have heard that fame in
this country and fame on earth are two quite different things.’”

We are forever making judgments about others and about ourselves, about our significance or lack thereof. In most of us I would guess that this is a healthy dose of modesty at work. But as Paul once said about his own detractors:

“It matters very little to me what you think of me, even less where I rank in popular opinion. I don't even rank myself. Comparisons
in these matters are pointless. I'm not aware of anything that
would disqualify me from being a good guide for you, but that doesn't
mean much. The Master makes that judgment.”

So don't get ahead of the Master and jump to conclusions with
your judgments before all the evidence is in. When he comes,
he will bring out in the open and place in evidence all kinds of
things we never even dreamed of—inner motives and purposes and
prayers. Only then will any one of us get to hear the "Well done!"
of God.”
1 Corinthians 4:3-5 (Msg)

We all have but one story to tell – our own. “By the grace of God,” Paul said later in the same letter, “I am what I am” (1 Corinthians 15:10, NIV). And so as lame as my own story seems to me – and probably to others as well – I guess it’s not mine to judge. So until I see rightly, which won’t be this side of heaven, I’ll continue to sing one of my favorite Fanny Crosby hymns loudly and lustily:

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine
Heir of salvation, purchase of God
Born of his Spirit, washed in his blood

This is my story
This is my song
Praising my Savior all the day long
This is my story
This is my song
Praising my Savior all the day long

This, too, is my son in whom I am well pleased...

I still remember the Friday of my first official week as pastor of the fellowship I now serve. We had moved to town on a Tuesday night and the next few days I spent setting up house and office as well as meeting with the leaders of our small congregation. But now it was Friday, the first “normal” day as Pastor of what was then Chetek Full Gospel Tabernacle. I had rose early, showered, donned suit and tie and drove the three blocks to church. After putting the coffee on, I read my Bible and spent some time in prayer. I looked at the clock. It was 6:30 a.m. Now what do I do?

I had no meetings to go to. I was not yet part of any volunteer organization in Chetek. I had no people to meet with (besides it was way too early). Other than sermon prep for Sunday, what in the world do I do with the rest of my day?

Thinking about that moment seventeen and a half years later I long for such a simpler time. Since then I’ve collected an odd assortment of assignments and titles that would fill a manila folder to overflowing:
• President or Secretary of the Chetek Christian Ministerial Association
• Member of the Lions Club
• President of the Facilities Improvement Committee (a local citizens group
that helped lead a school referendum initiative)
• President or Vice President of the Chetek Youth Center Project
(our local youth center)
• President or Vice President of Kinship of Chetek (a youth mentoring group)
• Ministerial liaison to the Chetek Food Shelf (our local food bank)
• President of the Barron County chapter of the Salvation Army
• Board member of the Chetek Food Shelf
• Volunteer chaplain at the Barron County Justice Center
• President of The Well International (a ministry to the local Somali
refugee population)
• Member of the citizens’ Task Force committee exploring the possibility of
Weyerhaeuser and Chetek school districts merging
• Great Books leader at Roselawn Elementary School
• Odyssey of the Mind coach
• President or other officer of the Chetek Parent Teacher Organization
• Plus I read weekly at our local elementary school to the tune of about 3 ½
hours per week
• To say nothing of the various tasks any pastor of a small church is
called upon to do whether he feels it or not including serving as
youth leader, Sunday School teacher, VBS Director, camp counselor,
worship leader and Bible study facilitator.
In retrospect, I did not have the maturity nor experience to appreciate what a wonderful moment in time that was back in the Fall of 1991 when early one Friday morning I had nothing to do…nothing to do but tend to the Word of God and prayer, something that Scripture says (at least) is my main job description.

Over time, I went from being the “new guy” to the “everything-pastor”. It was intentional – mostly. I mean, I had an interest in many of these things at the time that I became associated with them and felt like I was honoring God by my involvement in them. But seasons change – and we with the seasons. And long after the passion subsides all that’s left is dogged adherence to your original commitment. Which is an honorable and altogether right course of action (say) in marriage but can be such a life-draining thing when it comes to volunteer associations. But my reluctance to break my word or my fear of letting others down often keeps me – as a pastor – at a place of interior clutter most often reflected in the chaos that abides in my office.

About a month ago, Linda and I attended the College of Prayer held in Menomonie. Dr. Ron Walborn of Alliance Theological Seminary in Nyack, New York was teaching on physical healing. He was following his notes that he had distributed to us earlier about the healing ministry of Jesus and then made this comment: “Oh, incidentally, Jesus had his Father’s approval before he performed any healings or miracles.” It was an aside; a throw-away comment. But it struck home. I had just finished taking the kids at The Focus (the youth church that meets in our building) through Mark 1. And there it was: Jesus is baptized, the Holy Spirit comes upon him and the Father pronounces his blessing on him: “You are my Son whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11). Turn back to Matthew’s Gospel and find this: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). Turn forward to Luke’s Gospel and the good doctor records it this way: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). Everything that he is known for – the wonderful teachings, the amazing healings, the awe-ful power encounters – all of it is found after the fact.

During the ministry time that followed, I knelt at my chair and tried to still myself before the Lord. One of the guys in my section came over and knelt beside me and began to pray for me. I shared with him how Dr. Walborn’s so-called ‘throw-away’ comment had hit me like a heat-seeking missile in search of acquisitioning a target. So he simply encouraged me to “pray into” that. Now, up until this moment I had not been feeling anything out of the ordinary. Many others in the room were expressing themselves freely but I was emotionally neutral. But as I began to pray, I had something of a vision – a vision that created an immediate emotional response in me.

It was my son, Charlie. Charlie is a great kid who is always willing to help me or Linda out at home. He has autism, a condition that only augments his natural shyness and makes him an enigma, at times, even to those who know him best. He doesn’t have a job description. While he helps out in the nursery when called upon, he doesn’t “do” anything at church. He has no assigned responsibilities. Like so many of the folks who make up the Refuge family, on Sundays he partakes of the shared worship experience and then goes home. So, here’s what I saw: it was simply a picture of Charlie walking up the steps of Refuge and the sight of him doing so moved me emotionally. And then I heard the words of the Father: “You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy” (Mark 1, NLT). Charlie doesn’t do anything to gain my approval. He just has it because he is my son. And quite unexpectedly I found myself weeping with the realization that maybe this is the same way that the Father looks at me. I don’t have to do a thing to have his approval. I don’t have to rack up a score card to impress him. I have his approval already whether or not people get saved or healed or delivered – even though it is my desire to see these very things.

It is very hard for me to say no to anyone as my resume clearly shows. And in that picture of my son I saw how much I remain bound to the fear of man, that fear that is common to many pastors. The vision, however, only accentuates my hunger to be free of the fear so that I may only be about the things He calls me to. And in tending to those things I suspect I’ll experience a sense of freedom like I knew once on a certain Friday morning back in October 1991. Except this time I’ll not feel guilty about it but enjoy the sheer pleasure of knowing Him.

Afterdim

I consider myself a Pentecostal in that I have experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit and, among other things, I have been graced with spiritual language.

I pastor what some would call a Pentecostal fellowship in that many of its members have had the same experience.

And yet, when I pray for someone to receive the filling of the Holy Spirit, nothing “happens.” No shaking. No rolling. No laughter. No “joy unspeakable and full of glory”. Not so much of a “she-came-in-a-Honda/see-my-bow-tie-tie-my-bow-tie.” Usually when I pray for people in this way, judging by appearances I’d say it was (almost) a non-event.

So what is it with me?

Tonight was a good case in point. I’ve been sharing from Mark 1 lately with the students from The Focus, our Wednesday night youth church. Our text tonight was Mark 1:9-11 which reads,

“At this time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. The moment he came out of the water, he saw the sky split open and God's Spirit, looking like a dove, come down on him. Along with the Spirit, a voice: ‘You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.’”

All the gospel writers put this event at the beginning of their story. In Mark’s case, it’s in the opening lines. Before the miracles, before the healings, before Lazarus shuffles out from the tomb, before all the amazing things that make up the stories of Jesus’ life, he is baptized in water and in the Spirit. If he, though fully God, as a man required Spirit baptism, what keeps the rest of us from submitting to the same? If to be a Christian is to walk as Jesus did and do what Jesus does, it is impossible without the Holy Spirit coming upon us. This was my message in abbreviated form.

After sharing, we tied in to our internet feed with the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, encouraged the kids to find a separate place in the sanctuary, dimmed the lights and asked them to turn to the One who longs to fill them afresh. After about twenty minutes or so, I made an invitation to any and all who were longing to be filled for the first time or in need of experiencing a fresh infilling, to come forward. Perhaps a quarter of those present did (and four of them were my own kids). I asked one of the youth leaders to join me and one by one we prayed over the perhaps 8 kids who were sitting in the provided chairs.

I sincerely was hoping that there would be some demonstration of the Spirit’s presence. Tongues. Tears. Joy. Laughter. Anything that would suggest that the Holy Spirit had come upon them but with the exception of one, it was the drill I have grown accustomed to in my ministry, which is to say nothing meeting the eye.

My theology prevents me from going home discouraged. After all, we seek Him not a feeling. And just because nothing seems to be going on doesn’t mean that nothing is going on. But every once in a while my faith needs a little bolstering. I mean, after all those first Christians prayed that God would stretch out his hand and show his stuff and the house they were in shook and they left boldly going where before they had been afraid to go.

I don’t think that’s asking too much. I don’t think I’m tasking the Lord when I ask him to show up if only to awaken the kids who didn’t seem so moved to sit in one of the chairs and in one case are fast asleep.

Maybe it’s me?

How Do You Actually Win a War on Terror?

“For we are attempting to conquer Sauron with the Ring. And we shall (it seems) succeed. But the penalty is, as you will know, to breed new Saurons, and slowly turn Men and Elves into Orcs.” – J.R.R. Tolkien to his son, Christopher, May 1944, who was in the RAF and stationed in South Africa as quoted in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien



Tomorrow the reigns of power will once again peacefully transition from one President to the next. One will enter Washington in the atmosphere of a conquering hero. The other will quietly slip out the back door and move into his new home in suburban Dallas and presumably begin to write his memoirs. For all the rhetoric of change that is common fare in American politics, certain things, however, will remain the same come tomorrow evening. Among them the ongoing “War on Terror” that was declared following the horrible events of September 11, 2001. Eight years later the battles of that war still rage and, in fact, are heating up in Afghanistan. When will it end? How do you actually win a “War on Terror”? Is it when every last bad guy is dead or incarcerated? Is it when we bring in Osama bin Laden dead or alive and declare ourselves winners? How do you know which cough is the last gasp of the Taliban in the end?

In 2003, then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield announced with customary bravado that the coming invasion of Iraq would best be characterized as “shock and awe”. And it was. Though was anyone really surprised that we rolled over Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guards as easily as we did? If this had been a movie, then certainly the falling of Saddam’s statue in Firdos Square in Baghdad a month later would have been an excellent backdrop for the credits to roll. But that was not the end of it. It wasn’t even the end of the beginning of it. How many lives have been affected since that time on all sides of the conflict? And are we even closer to its desired conclusion? And do we even know what that looks like?

I have no degrees in international relations. I know personally only two Muslims. But overcoming terror by inflicting terror savagely on those who would seek to hinder our peace-seeking efforts in both those countries seems like using a hammer to solve a problem that requires far more skill and expertise. And time. Hatred cannot be healed or overcome by the use of blunt force alone. You may indeed have the bigger hammer and subdue your foe – for the time being. But in time he will return with friends.

This is no criticism of our soldiers or their conduct in the current conflict. Good soldiers in every war do the best they can to fulfill their mission within the hostile circumstances that are forced upon them. But it seems to me what is needed most in the long run are boots on the ground. And not regulation issued ones either. Where are the sons of God in Iraq and Afghanistan right now? “Blessed are the peacemakers,” Jesus said, “for they will be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). Where are those who are willing to go the extra mile, to give the shirt off their back, to love him who feels committed to kill the other? My guess is that they are there already but in numbers too small to be recognized at this safe distance between me and the war that rages half a world away.

The War on Terror as we are fighting it is un-winable because it assumes that ultimately we will kill all the bad guys and gone will be the threat they pose to our society. But for every father we take out, for every brother who is killed accidentally in the crossfire of urban warfare, for every mother or daughter who is terrorized, what’s to say that we haven’t bred already another generation of individuals who hate us and are prepared to seek the revenge they crave?

In The Kingdom (2007), director Peter Berg underscores this point in the closing scene of the movie. This fictional story is about FBI agents working together with Saudi Arabian military personnel to capture the man responsible for killing Americans living in a housing compound in Riyadh. At movie’s end, there is a flashback to one of the opening scenes of the story when lead investigator Ronald Fleury (played by Jaimee Fox) is comforting the widow of his best friend who was killed in the bombing. When we see it the first time, we don’t hear what he tells her. But this time we do. He’s asked by his colleague, “Tell me what you whispered to Janet, in the briefing…before we even got airborne. What’d you stay to her?” At the same time, we see the grandson of the terrorist who had perpetrated the bombing being asked the same question by his aunt. “What did your grandfather whisper in your ear before he died?” Chillingly, they answer the same way:

Ronald Fleury: I told her we were gonna kill 'em all.
15-Year-Old Grandson: Don't fear them, my child. We are going to kill them all.

The only weapons that are powerful enough to overcome such hate are sacrificial love and forgiveness. Only these things have the virility to absorb whatever bitterness may throw at them and transform it into real peace.

I’m sure I’m speaking nonsense to those who know Arab culture or who have a far better grasp of the history of that particular region of the world than I do. But it begs the question, are Jesus’ words about loving our enemies and praying for those who do us wrong only words we use around a camp fire while on retreat or the very means to overcoming evil, wherever it rears its ugly head, with good?

Jesus was the 12th Man

It’s Saturday night in the town in which I pastor, and only 11 people have showed up for our quarterly prayer gathering. Of the eleven, five are pastors, one is wife of one of the pastors present, one is the guy who leads the local prayer initiative accompanied by his wife, and one is an elder of one of the fellowships represented who is also serving as our worship leader tonight. That leaves two people who make up “the congregation.” And given we are meeting in the Lutheran church sanctuary whose parallel rows of pews stand at attention like soldiers on parade ground stretching into the distance, it makes our already small group feel even smaller. Understandably, a pall of disappointment hangs in the air. Certainly it makes the worship leader’s gesture of plugging into the amp and all the testing of mics a bit superfluous.

But Kirk, our prayer leader, opens as if there were a whole company of intercessors assembled instead of a platoon and we follow the predetermined program as planned. Earl, our worship leader, leads in song and then as arranged, one by one we each carry out our assignment for the evening. I lead in prayers of adoration. Pastor Mike from a neighboring community leads in prayer of confession. Pastor Dan leads us in thanksgiving and finally Pastor Norm, the grand old man, leads us in intercession for our community. Interspersed in all of this are songs and opportunities to pray spontaneously. And pray we do – fervently, joyfully, and expectantly. There are moments of silence – pauses – but never a lag in the flow of the evening. Early on a prophetic word is shared affirming us of God’s pleasure in our gathering together. All of this took perhaps two hours but it was the last 40 minutes of the gathering that made my night.

We had adored the Lord, confessed our sins, gave thanks to God and interceded for our communities and His church and now it was time to pray for each other. A hot seat was pulled out and one of the pastor’s wives sat in it confessing her need for deliverance from demonic oppression. Pastor Guy, the host pastor, placed the oil in my hands and we all circled around this woman of God and began to pray – some in English, some quietly in tongues – all of us pronouncing Christ’s authority in her life and commanding those things that were afflicting her to go to the feet of Christ to be dealt with as he saw fit. We proceeded to pray for a few more of our friends – one wanting wisdom, one seeking healing, another seeking healing for a friend of his. There we were eleven individuals from various fellowships but all from the Body of Christ ministering to one another as God has called us to do. Afterwards, as we stood in a circle around the vacated hot seat, Pastor Guy began to lead us in a spontaneous chorus of intercession. “Let the glory of the Lord rise among us!” followed by similar verses for God’s healing, blessing and favor upon the Church of Jesus in our area. It seemed to me at that moment that the joy of the Lord filled that place. And then Guy led us in the singing of “The Lord’s Prayer” as a benediction.

It was only eleven people among how many hundred believers in this area. And yet, Jesus – our 12th Man – had brought us victory – and we exited the building feeling confident that “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil 1:6).