On Friday, August 1st, Tanya and I drove 1 hour and 15 minutes north to a church called the Marion Christian Center. It was my second time there and Tanya’s first time there. On the first Friday of the month, they have an evening called the School of the Holy Spirit. It’s a time of charismatic-style worship with about 45 minutes of good music, lots of visual and creative arts, a guest speaker bringing the message, and a time of prophetic ministry at the end.

During our drive up there, I prepared Tanya for what to expect at a wildly charismatic church. Granted, our Vineyard is technically a charismatic church, but not nearly as eccentric as Marion Christian Center. I told her:

1. That the time of worship would be awesome, but exhausting.
2. There would be lots of colorful banners, flags, and on-stage props.
3. There would be a bit of speaking in tongues.
4. They would take an offering and suggest that we should believe in a material blessing that is proportional to our gift.
5. To be extra-discerning of the message from the guest speaker (Let’s just say that one time when I went, the content of the message was questionable at best.)
6. To have fun during the time of prophetic ministry and be open to whatever God may want to speak to us.

For items one through five, everything happened as expected. We were exhausted after our time of worship; Tanya got a taste of an artistic worship experience that was very much her style; I spoke in tongues a little (softly and to myself); I gave money cheerfully (but not with the expectation that I’m to get a whopping financial blessing); and the message was delivered by the Creative Arts Director and it was a good biblical message.

That finally brought us to the time of prophetic ministry. Here’s how they do things. When you first walk into the building early in the evening, they have a place where you can buy a tape for 1 dollar. You buy the tape, not the prophecy� see how that works? We were limited to buying one tape because we are a married couple. Written on each tape was a letter, A through L, and that letter corresponds to a dedicated room where you will receive prophetic ministry.

So at the end of the evening, we went to our room and there were probably 25 or so people in our room. On at a time, you stand up, move to the center of the room, give them your tape, and they pray and prophecy over you. Tanya and I let 20 people go first ahead of us because it’s fun watching other people receive prophecy. Sometime the person prophesying hits something dead on and it gets really emotional and people start to cry as they realize that God is a lot closer to their situation than they previous thought!

Before I get into our prophecy, I want to bring up what I wrote in my previous blog entry. The Thursday evening before, I went to an apostolic pastor’s conference and went up for prayer ministry. I wrote in my previous entry, “I told the person who was praying for me that I’ve really been trying to seek God in the direction of my ministry and it feels like I’m just sitting in a cloud not going anywhere.” Let me just say that God loves to meet you where you’re at when he speaks in prophecy! God had something to say to us!

For the sake of readability, I’m going to give you a few sounds bytes of that prophecy. Keep in mind this it was given to both Tanya and myself. Uppercase words were verbally emphasized by the person prophesying:

And the Lord says:

This is a fresh season where you have been feeling as though you have been in snow shoes and you have been trudging along in almost every aspect of your lives together. It’s been good, but it’s been some trudging. But, I would say that this is a new time, and I’m changing your shoes, and they’re not those snow shoes because the terrain is changing. And, I’m putting you on one of those skateboards or scooters where you can actually stand on it together and ride this thing together in a completely different terrain that you’re on now.

…

And I will do miracles this year says the Lord. I am going to do miracles in several areas THIS YEAR says the Lord. So that you might wake up with an expectation and a freshness, almost though it’s like a morning that you open up the window and you know something’s coming. That’s what it’s going to be like in this next year, especially just the beginning of that fresh chapter.

…

And I am going to be changing and shifting all things around and it’s like, “This is REALLY not the way it was up until now!” But, it’s a happy good thing. And, it’s a little bit, little bit scary. It’s like, but by faith, even by this word, you’ll say, “God will not harm us. We can do this. It’s kind of wild and crazy, but we’re going to go flow with it.” And I’m going to do exciting things says the Lord.

I believe this prophecy is accurate and spoke very strongly to the place I was at. Many of my prayers that week were about my direction in ministry and a sense that I was getting nowhere. God wanted to tell me he’s in the process of changing our terrain, which leads into a new season, which leads to a change in shoes, which leads to less trudging! God will do miracles this year, so we should be waking up each morning with a sense of expectation. We should expect a shifting, which may be scary, and at the same time exciting, but it’s ultimately going to be for our benefit! Go God! Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven!