As a leadership team, there are ideas, ministries, efforts, and attempts that we can point to in our tenures over the years that range from great success to total failure. Sometimes the ideas were straight from God, and sometimes they were probably merely our ideas. At times these ideas lacked vision or leadership, and sometimes the timing just wasn't right. Many times, because God is good, He blessed them regardless of their limited practicality or strategy. As we peer into the past and consider the present, our model for Sunday morning Ministry Rooms stands near the top of our list of "ideas." When we look back at nearly a year of our Ministry Room being in operation, we are so incredibly thankful that God chose to bless this idea and even enhance it.
What God is Doing - The success and testimony from our Ministry Room has gradually increased. In the month of April 2021, about 2/3 (21/32) of the people who received prayer in our ministry room for a physical issue experienced at least some improvement, and many were completely healed. Of late, rather than asking "who was healed?" as a measuring stick for how God moved in this room, we've been asking "who wasn't healed?" Not only tangible, immediate, and visible issues have been restored, but a handful of testimonies have come in of extraordinary movement in family situations and things external to our ministry room that we've interceded for. At least one person visited Praise from a relatively far distance just to receive prayer in our Ministry Room because they had heard a word-of-mouth testimony and they were hungry for healing. Further, it's becoming common that people are getting saved, delivered, baptized, or "re-dedicated" to the Lord each Sunday. What began as a simple act of humility and an effort to make room for God to move and touch people has begun lately to scratch the surface of what could be called a "healing room." We're all familiar with John G. Lake's Healing Rooms, and we're certainly not comparing our Ministry Room to his incredible Spokane Healing Rooms, but what we have seen is a good God partnering with willing and humble vessels. We're excited for more.
Factors - We believe there are several ingredients to God moving at Praise, specifically in our ministry room.
1. We've carved out time during the week to host a prayer meeting. Most times this is lightly attended but none the less it's a time to gather and pray for God to come and touch our congregation.
2. We made room for God to move in the ministry room.
We designated a location for the ministry room.
We staffed it with volunteers who are of high character, humble attitude, and who believe God heals and restores.
Our ministry room is organized, headed by a warm "receptionist," and designed to be sensitive to people who might be fragile and in need.
We carefully record what God is doing in our ministry room by filling out cards that we later catalog and digitize so we have them for reference.
We separated it from the sanctuary - people in need of prayer can receive prayer discreetly.
We pray for and announce words of knowledge, which gives people an opportunity to respond to what God may want to do.
To the best of our ability, we've celebrated what God has done in our ministry room.
We make time to at least briefly preach the Gospel message every Sunday morning to those who may have never heard it.
3. Our Ministry Room standard has been: RESULTS. We've not been rigid about this point and made it about the numbers, but we are honest with ourselves and each other that if God is moving, there should be adequate evidence that He is moving. If there isn't, we've got to change something.
4. Our church used to have no or very little means of outreach; now we do. We prepare and serve hundreds of meals to those in our community every Friday and Sunday. This factor can't be underestimated.
5. We're open. We've maintained throughout the COVID season that we have a Biblical mandate to gather, preach the Gospel, and lay hands on the sick... in person. We've viewed this as a simple act of obedience.
6. Last Spring, at the height of the politicization of COVID, we fell victim to having an opinion about the COVID lockdowns instead of maintaining focus on knowing love and becoming love. We learned from that season and changed our ways. Our having met and grown as a church over the last several months had nothing to do with masks, political opinions, or patriotism; it had everything to do with pursuing God.
7. We've preached Humility. Not only do our core values touch on aspects of humility, we've purposed to preach and act, in every facet as a church, out of the position of humility.
As an offshoot of our focus on humility, we've implemented leadership standards.To be a leader of a ministry at Praise, you MUST 1. Attend church regularly, 2. Volunteer, & 3. Tithe. These aren't meant to be exclusive rules to keep people out of leadership, they're rather evidence that you're able to lay down your life - those are the types of leaders we welcome and celebrate at Praise.
We're convinced it's not random that God is moving in a special way in our Church and our Ministry Room. We believe some combination of this list of factors is attractive to God and we intend to keep it up!
- Praise Staff
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