Day 2 Bethel School of Worship

 Wow, today was the most awesome day I have ever had with God.  It was like he was on my case all day (in a really good way).  I had 6 different prophetic things said to me or over me that all coincided.  It was also the most freeing day I have had ever.  

During the worship Steffany Gretzinger broke out into a spontaneous song… (it was from the Christmas song’

                Do you hear what I hear?

                Do you see what I see?

                A song a song breaking through the night.

It was like God was saying...  So

  

•  ‘You need to see what I see in you, you need to hear how I hear you, your song, your song is breaking through the night’

We then had a session  with Jenn and Brian Johnson talking about how we need to step out to a level where we are responding to God with our spirit and not our flesh.  When we praise we break through the spiritual atmosphere. 

I then went to “review my song” and managed to sing one that I had written to be critiqued by Brian Johnson and his lyricist master.  I was so nervous to present a song but decided to sing “Lord release your power”  which I wrote for my local church. The song started as a prayer in journal, to see God’s spirit and power to break through in my church.  I was worried it was too simple but after hearing them tell everyone to simplify their songs I thought ‘Oh what the heck… I’ll give it a go’.  I shook like a crazy woman.  

I sang it and when I looked up Brian had his hands out worshiping.  That alone was great.  Their comments were really encouraging and they loved my passion, simplicity and melody.  I was a bit shocked really.  So I heard God say…

• You can write songs.

After the song review lesson a lady came up to me and said that my song had changed the atmosphere in the room.  She said that the Lord was saying that my songs would change the spiritual atmosphere of my country. 

• Your songs are going to change the atmosphere of your country

The next lecture was by Dan McCollom.  He preached faster than my husband (and that is saying something).  He blew my mind….  I have never heard anything that roused my soul so much.  He was saying that most of the training resources are about how to have better Sunday services.. but he said that Sunday morning is such a small part of worship.  We are too busy trying to get God to ‘fill the room’ that we are missing ‘filling his temple’.

He talked about the 3 heavens and the purpose of worship in each of them.  

      The 1^st heaven is the realm of man.  The purpose of worship in this heaven is saturation.  Psalm 72v19 says the whole earth should be filled with his glory.  By worshiping we create the spiritual atmosphere.  God is a creator God and His creation declares His glory: so when we create we declare His glory too.  We need to be creative in the church as this brings Glory to the Lord.  We need to break out from just worshiping in church.  We need to take our worship into schools, into hospitals, into old people’s homes.  Wherever we worship, we change the spiritual atmosphere .  

      The 2^nd heaven is the realm of the fallen.  The purpose here is to displace the darkness with light.  When you cast out something bad out you have to fill the void with light and glory (otherwise you are leaving them open for more darkness).   

      The 3^rd heaven is the realm of God.  The function of worship there is for God’s pure delight.  We are seated with God now… we don’t need to wait to die.  Even when we have technical problems, or feel like we can’t sing: we still bring delight to God.   

•  I am an atmosphere changer.

In the dinner break I had my private singing lesson so we literally ran to ‘in and out’ and grabbed a burger.  In the queue a lady tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I was from England.  I get asked all the time: my accent normally gives me away.  I said “yes you heard my accent”.  She said “no… I have never heard you speak.  I just sat way behind you in a main session and I saw this huge banner over you.  It said Mother and Heart for England.” I didn’t know what to say.  She saw my passions.  

• God has given me purpose: motherhood and passion for my country.

     Then I went to my singing lesson.  I had been told by the music teacher at my secondary school that I could not sing.  I could especially not sing high: “You sound like a drowned rat when you sing high” were the words that resonate in my mind.  I had tried to cover this with transposing every song down and singing with a very breathy voice.  This is the very reason why I have been getting sore throats all the time.  When she realised I was holding back and singing ‘petty’ I told her about had to been said to me.  She completely rebuked the comment and cut it off.  She said I had a great voice.  As she showed me how step out I found a voice I never knew I had.  It was like a release.  She has given me exercises to practice… but more than that she restored me.  She said “You do not know what sound like.  You are an amazing singer”.  I am not saying this on here to big myself up: I just had never heard this before.  It had been said to me before but I had never heard it: she is a professional voice coach, an extremely qualified voice coach trained by Michael Jackson’s voice coach.  I believe it now.  

• I can sing and God likes my song.

Then I went straight into my flagging class.  Ok, this is the class I was most looking forward.  Every time I hear music I want to dance… but to be fair dancing is difficult to do when you are self-conscious.  But, dancing with a flag is much less cringe-worthy (and acceptable in church).  So I was hoping to learn some great moves.  This class was not what I expected at all.  But it was far, far, far better than I thought it would ever be.  It was prophetic flagging.  We were asking God for a picture and then creating it with our flag.  Something happened in me.  Suddenly my lack of freedom and low confidence disappeared and my inner dancer just shone through.  I danced with my flag. I danced and danced.  Then she had half of us lie on the floor while the other flaggers danced and prayed over us.  I have never known a spiritual atmosphere like it.  It was like I could see God and hear him so clearly.  While I was on the floor he spoke to me and showed me a picture.  It was of a volcano.  God said “This is you, you smouldering.  But now what I have put in is going to erupt: your light lava is going to go everywhere, seeping into every crevice.  It is going to change the atmosphere.  

• You have been waiting for this and you are going to erupt!  It is going everywhere, changing the atmosphere.

So, God spoke to me today as you can see in so many ways.  Like he was validating me the next thing he has for me.

I know this blog is long today, but I needed to get it all down to remember what God has said.

On our way out of the school we bumped into a few guys singing with their guitars in the car park.  I said to the girls that we should join in.  So we started to sing with them.  Then someone pulled over a bin and got out his drum sticks.  Another got out a mouth piano and suddenly the worhip just stepped to another level.  With my new found freedom I grabbed my pashmina and stepped up on the bench and waved it with all my might.  I danced unashamed and undone by my God.  Then someone said that we should pray for rain as Colorado was being consumed by bush fires.  We all broke out into ‘let it rain’ and I did a rain dance.  Yep a rain dance.  After about 15 minutes of awesome worship someone got a call to say that it had just started to rain in Colorado.  We just worshiped God for his greatness, then we had a call to say that Colorado was now on a flood warning.  Is that not amazing.  Wherever you are you can change the spiritual atmosphere.  Who needs sound equipment, a set, an amazing hall to break through in worship?  We had a bin, a pashmina and a bin.

So here is someone else's YouTube upload of our worship time.  Yes I am the one dancing on the bench at the back with the pashmina....

This is the rain song... and a fantastic testimony from someone who just led someone to the Lord

So I am done now.  If you have read down this far – WELL DONE!!!!!!!