For Such A Time As This - Part II

A Heart For Community

While in Willmar we developed a heart for the church to break down the walls and come together as the Church of Willmar. It might be that our all of our efforts were just plowing ground for the future, but then isn't that what Forerunners do? Plow new ground and lay seeds.

After a YWAM tour came through town we started monthly Worship and Prayer meetings called First Fridays. We rotated through several churches and developed relationships with many area pastors. This is when I developed a burden and determination for intercession. We had one faithful pastor who kept this effort going for a few years. In 1999 John & I headed up a March for Jesus in the city. Over 50 churches participated and nearly 1,000 Christians marched through our downtown area. It was quite a sight.

Many at the time didn't understand what it was all about. I felt like we accomplished in the Spirit exactly what the Lord wanted. A declaration was made that day for the Church in Willmar that we couldn't see in the natural, but in the supernatural. Isn't that the way prayer is? We don't see what's happening and might not see as long as we're on this earth, but He requires us to do it in faith.

Freshfire lead worship for many events and speakers that came to the area, including Luis Palau. This gave us opportunity to see and get a taste of many different ministries. In 1999 Tracy, Shelley, John and I made a trip to the Enjoying God Worship Conference at Metro Fellowship in Kansas City. That very weekend IHOP was going 24/7. We had no idea what that was all about but we were curious about Harp and Bowl worship. There was also a Pastors Conference that weekend held at Shiloh with Paul Cain that our pastor at the time attended. I think we were all ruined for life around that time.

There was a time some years later where we were leading worship for a speaker and they wanted us to play "warfare" music. (Apparently they wanted some Pentecostal, minor-key, two-chord fight songs...that we weren't doing!) I leaned over to Shelley and said, "But we're in the lovesick camp!" Something for all of us had changed. It was no longer a thrill just to lead others in worship, we felt there was much more to it. We were born to Harp and Bowl. We quickly learned though that it's hard to just lead an audience in this style of prayer and worship without the teaching. So where do we do it? We didn't know, we just knew it was embedded deep into our hearts. We would talk with other worshippers we knew in the community to see if they were seeking the same but no one wanted to commit to anything. We took that as a closed door to doing that type of ministry in Willmar. It just never felt like the right time to start a new thing.

During this time John was not only working his way up the ranks at the radio station but for 8 years he lead worship at the small church we were at. I also lead a dance team and directed children's musicals. Together, we even produced a local radio show for our church. After all the years of serving and many times feeling worn out we decided we had to make a change and rest, which meant making a very painful decision of leaving our small church and going to rest at a big church where we wouldn't have to do anything. HAHA! I say very lightheartedly because we both have servants hearts and find ourselves serving even when we try not to. Several months into our rest John started filling in for the worship leader who was stepping down to start a new church plant. Eventually they did hire a Fine Arts Pastor and John occasionally lead worship on Sunday mornings and prayer gatherings. I was able to burn some creative energy by directing a children's choir, choreographing worship dance, teaching drama for MAD(music, arts, and drama) camp, and directing the drama for "The Promise". This was a large production with live animals, children, and men dancing. (I convinced them it was only natural for Jewish men to dance.) It looked fantastic and I think they even enjoyed it.

Missions Trips

In March of 2005 we had the opportunity to go to Japan with a small group to prayer walk a new area of potential ministry for the church's long term missionaries. Upon returning we felt the Lord's tug on our hearts for ministry. Only we didn't know what kind or where. It seemed all doors were closing for the things that really burdened our hearts.

Then just 9 months later another ministry trip came up. This time John and Zach went to Thailand to lead worship for a E.Free missionaries conference. (I knew I couldn't leave our kids for another long period of time and Grandma probably would have been locked up in the funny farm when I returned.) I was regretting that decision when I saw pictures of where they stayed. I hope Zach doesn't think all missions trip have the same accommodations.

The Decision is Made

It was after this trip that John went on a 40 day fast to seek God for direction. On day 21 he received an email from IHOP of an inquiry he had made several months before. In May we visited to see if this was where the Lord was leading us. That weekend we felt it was confirmed in our hearts that we needed to sign up for the Intro To IHOP internship that started in August 2006. We didn't know why, we just knew we had to be obedient. Our faith was tested much after we had made the decision. Just a short time before we had to leave for training our house still had not been sold. It was a frustration for both of us. I was talking to God about it one day and I felt He laid this into my heart, "Are you going to base this act of obedience on material things?" We may never know the meaning of His timing, but we knew the move was an act of obedience, no matter what. It took a year to the day to sell the house. But he took care of us financially. My favorite saying at the time was, "We're either crazy or called". It was a huge decision for us to quit a good job, pack up 7 kids, and move to another city when you like the one you're in.

The Move

10 Days before training started we arrived in Kansas City. Intro to IHOP was an awesome experience for our entire family. About half way through the training we started wondering, what are we doing here. What does God want us to do after training is over? That's when we started hearing about GOD TV. The Prayer Room was already on the Internet via a single camera mounted on the ceiling in the prayer room, affectionately known as 'Cyclops'. A friend of ours in the IT Department said they were looking for someone to improve the webstream and get live shots instead of one view. That interested me right away and I started working on this with IT as the prayer room broadcast manager. In the meantime, John was approached by the head of the media department who was putting together a broadcast manager position to broadcast the prayer room to GOD TV. We sort of got laugh out of this, 2 departments working on the same thing without knowing it. And both of us being offered the same position titles but from different departments. We thought this must be a "God Thing" so we asked to share the position under the umbrella of the media department. And so it started....

The Media Apprenticeship

The first thing we had to do was recruit 40 people to work as 5 person teams to run the cameras, direct, run audio, and get the feel of the prayer room on the webstream. The launch date was to be in October but was suddenly pushed up to May 28th giving us a matter of weeks to pull together teams, schedules, and training. It was amazing and had God's grace all over it. God is God and who are we to stand in his way. All summer we were writing policies, procedures, and still interviewing and hiring MA's. It has not been without it's struggles. We had no clue what to expect when we took this on. Our biggest job is pastoring. We're growing in wisdom and revelation. These young (and some old like us) people are simply amazing and talented but people are people and have real problems and struggles. It's actually causing us to be better parents.

To be Continued.............