I am sitting in the airport updating this so I cannot put my photos on (as I put the lead in my suitcase and it has been checked in).
Today was our final day. We started off with about 2 hours of worship. It was a great send off. Then we had a time of prophecy and finally a fire tunnel where the staff prayed for us. It was so good I went through twice.
After that several of us went back to the lake for a final swim. The water was warmer than the week before and it was so lovely to swim in the mountains. So peaceful. I said goodbye to the mountains and the sunshine. It was hard to part with the sunshine... I have so loved being warm.
Then we went back to the church. Then I came home and packed. Now I am going home :)
Today in the worship I stepped outside to encourage one of
the ladies who was painting on the stage.
She was nervous about it, so I thought I would tell her how amazing her
picture was. But a lady followed me out
and gave me the most encouraging word.
She said I had the most amazing voice (which was really nice as I am
still trying to soak these compliments in), but as she left to go back in the
hall the lady I was encouraging said “Do you know who she is? I said no.
She said ‘she is an amazing opera singer’. I cannot remember the name she gave me, but I
still feel like God is saying “see you can do this. Now go home and step into what I have
prepared for you”.
Ray Hughes was the main speaker again today. He has the most enormous moustache which I
find very disconcerting. I am not big on
facial hair, and this moustache is big enough for a bird to nest in..
His main points were:
What we believe and say about us becomes our new song. When we believe in what the liar says about
us, that is our song. When we come into
agreement with what God says about us, our sound changes and our song
changes.
Sound waves can move the earth. Sound changes the atmosphere. When we put on a worship CD it can change the
atmosphere in the house.
When you get a song stuck in your head, that goes round and
round, the only thing you can do is sing a new song: because new song will
break repeating cycles.
Loads of the psalms start with “sing new song to the Lord”
then David got them to sing it.
Each revival has a fresh new expression a new sound.
1904, in Newquay UK a pastor Joseph Jenkins decided it was
time for people to see what the young girls in his church had seen. As they were dancing the holy spirit descended
on the girls with blue light and flames of fire. For 10 years people thought he was a bit
bonkers but….
Welsh revival: In 1914 on Feb 14 Florrie Evans said ‘I love Jesus with all my heart. He died for me’. The tears in her eyes became an outpouring to
all people. This started a new song
which was the beginning of a revival that went around the world. “Here is
love”. She led it all around Wales.
The power of the testimony is your song. What ever you value, write songs about
it. It will happen.
Let’s live our lives bigger than church. When the passion for God rises higher then an
any resistance we may have.
Evan Roberts was the preacher in the revival. But he would often just lie on his front and
just pray for hours. Not even preach,
but just pray for God to move. They
would sometimes sing, sometimes be silent.
The whole land sang the song.
Whatever your song is for this generation, we pray that it
will not be snubbed out by religious ideas, or church structure, or criticism
from others. Let it rise.
Next I went to probably my most favourite class yet. It was more than awesome. It was a class on bible meditation with Will
Matthews. I have tried meditating on the
bible before and to be very honest I have become distracted and lost momentum. In this class (a 2 hour class) I was so upset
when it ended – I could have done this all day.
I so so so so very much want to bring this back home, to do on my own
and teach others to do it.
So first here are his main points and then after I will
describe how we did it:
In the old testament they meditated on the word of God all
the time
In this culture with social media we live in a time where
people think that just commenting on your status on facebook, that you are good
friends. But good friends spend time
together, they eat together and commune together. Just as Jesus did with his deciples. It is the same with God: we need to spend
time with him, sharing the word together.
Purpose of Meditation
To reflect on, contemplate on and imagine (thinking on)
To plant in the mind and intend in your mind (planning)
To engage in devotional contemplation, especially in prayer
(engaging)
To think on something deeply, to reflect deeply on spiritual
matters, to mull over, to muse, to ponder and chew, to speculate and
contemplate.
Meditation is not about empying our minds but about filling
it with the truth of who God is.
In Ephesians 5 v 26 it talks about washing ourselves clean
with the word of God. Meditation is like
taking a bath in the word.
Where your mind is determines where your life will be. If you think about junk, your life will be
like trash. But when you think about God
his word will renew our minds.
Colossians 3 talks about setting your mind on things above
and on the mind of Christ.
When you meditate on and speak out a verse, first we just
say it. After a while we feel it, and
then we see it. A bit like sitting at a
door, then knocking on and having it opened for us.
The greatest thing in life you can do is to sit at His feet
feeding on His word. More than a
missionary position, or a leadership position.
When we spend time with Him, these things will flow out.
Ok so how did we do it?
First we had to choose a scripture.
We were all given Psalm 27 v1.
The Lord is my light and my salvation
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the Stronghold of my life
Of whom shall I be afraid?
READ First we read
it.
WRITE Next we wrote
it down
SAY We said it, over
and over, lingering on one word and saying it over or just saying it all.
SING Then we sang
it. Everyone had a different song. We had some great guys from IHOP just playing
in the background. They sang out bits
too. In fact we started by singing the
words we had written and then just spun into other things that the Lord
revealed from the scripture. It was
awesome. Some sang and some spoke it
out at the same time (like at IHOP). It
was an awesome sound. Then we started to
write down what God was saying to us through it. I certainly got enough stuff that I could easily
turn it into a song.
DANCE Some of us felt
really moved to dance it too. Will was
so encouraging as he said he often looks out when he leads worship to see what
the dancers do as they are often the 1st ones to receive the prophetic. He said that he asks God to interpret their
dance.
PRAY Then we were
praying it over our lives. It was the
most powerful prayer. After an hour you
really know the scripture and believe it to be true.
We then shared what God had been saying to us. Many of us had visions that were amazing. When I was singing out and dancing I closed
my eyes and saw angels. I had seen these
while I have been here when we worship (only when I close my eyes though). When I danced I saw these angels again… but this time they were dancing with me. They were copying me exactly. When we worship Him the angels join with us…..
and now I know that angels dance! How
cool is that! Other people shared what had said to them and I found it so
encouraging. We all heard differently
from the same scripture but it was awesome to hear what everyone else saw.
Next I went to a main session with Jeremy Riddle. He was talking about hosting the
presence. He said we cannot release the
presence unless we first learn to host the presence. He said as leaders we must
not pursue the power of God, but we peruse the presence of God. He said unless we know what God’s presence
looks like in our own private worship we will not be able to know when it comes
corporately. Many worship leaders
completely miss the presence of God when it comes in worship because they do
not know His presence in their own devotions.
He said a leader should step back and assess the room and the spirit
rather than ploughing through their song list.
I hope this is something I do. I
try to see where God is moving. He said
that God is omnipresent (all the time), but also sometimes comes as a manifest
presence (like the glory cloud or as a tangible presence in the room). The things he thought were vital in hosting
the presence were:
RISK He said that
obedience requires some risk. If you
feel that God wants you to sing out, or have a period of stillness it can be a
risk to do it. But it is when risk
happens that God’s presence comes.
FAMILY A beautiful
family takes time to cultivate. Church
is not a business venture. Church will
feel like home when it feels like a family.
Families have intimacy and this is alluring to the world.
CULTURE OF HONOUR Don’t
criticize other worship movements. Ask
God to show you what is beautiful in them and ask God what to make that beautiful
in you. Don’t imitate others… their sound is good because it is their
sound. Take good elements by all means,
but don’t try and be them. You are you
and your sound is what God wants to hear.
SPIRITUAL EXCELLENCE
Not performance excellence. Seek
God.
PERSONAL EXCELLECE Be very careful. The enemy most wants to derail those who hear
God. The easiest way for him to do this
is though a lack of sexual purity.
AUTHENTICITY Being
yourself will release your anointing.
SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY
Don’t stand in the authority of your giftings… Stand in the authority of
God. Your amazing guitar playing and
sweet voice might move hearts, but when you have spiritual authority you will
move not only hearts, but heaven itself.
He ended the session by praying for us. Then we just waited on the Lord. It was awesome. To sit in silence with others all seeking God’s
face is electric. After about 10 minutes
the spirit started to move people. Some
were crying and some were laughing hysterically. We then sang several worship songs – just voices. The
presence of God was so thick and I ended up dancing on my chair. Others did too and we rocked the joint.
After dinner I decided to sit in the 24 hour prayer room and
soak while catching up with my notes and blog.
An hour passed so quickly. I must
try and go in there just to soak and pray before I go.
Next I went to the loo (I know this information is too much for
some of you), and I could hear this amazing beat of a drum through the
wall. I then went to find out where this
noise was coming from. It was a dance
Jam. Like a music jam with all the instruments
– but people were dancing to it. It was
the most amazing dancing vibe I have ever witnessed. They danced to Mexican music (complete with a
trumpet), African music (with loads of different drums), in fact every kind of
music. People were just dancing
completely free and uninhibited. I
watched from the window and then some girls came out and got me and dragged me
in. They had already been dancing for an
hour but there was still an hour and a half to go. I danced and danced. I watched loads of men come in and they
danced too. There were people
breakdancing and leapfrogging everywhere.
It was so very very cool. I am
still on a high. I managed to dance (not
just bobbing up and down but skipping, leaping and running) for an hour and a
half. And my hips do not hurt at
all. My back is stiff but my hips are
good. That in itself is a miracle.
Today was my very first time celebrating the 4th
of July. It so fun. We put our chairs up on top of the hill and
settled in about 4 hours early to watch the fireworks. After a long while some people decided to
walk down the hill to see the sundial bridge.
I needed the loo and I knew there were some at the bottom of the hill so
I decided to join them. They waited on
the bridge for me while I walked across the car park to the toilets.
These are the toilets. I know you are wondering why I have a photo of them.... but look at the picture; they have porta sinks too with soap, water and paper towels. I have never seen that before.
Anyway, when I tried to come back to the
bridge I found that they had closed it and were not letting people across. I stood trying to persuade the police officer
that I was on my own in a foreign land and all my friends were on the other
side of the bridge. He said that I would
not be able to cross the bridge until midnight.
I stood next to him on the phone to my friend who was now saying ‘let me
talk to the cop. Stop being British and
tell him to move that gate and let you go across’. I kept saying ‘no, he is a nice man, he is
just upholding the law. It is not his
fault. He would let me across if he
could’. Anyway he cracked under my
niceness and let me on the bridge.
However on the bridge I found most of my friends. They had waited for me but now none of us
were allowed off the bridge in the direction of our chairs (and the rest of our
friends). So we just had to join the
main celebrations on the side of the bridge we were on. It was awesome.
They had a live band that played patriotic ‘we love America’
and ‘our marines are amazing’ songs. I
was amazed there were so many songs.
Like, we should really write some patriotic songs about England. I felt fully American and ready to enlist in
the marines by the time the fireworks started.
The fireworks were the most awesome ones I have ever seen –
and they were FREE to watch. I am used
to fireworks in the freezing rain in November in England, but here I got to lay
on the dry grass, in the warm air watching the amazing display. Loved it.
My American friends thought I was hilarious saying ooohh, aahhhh, and twizzler
like we do in the UK.
Today the worship was loud and we danced a lot. It was great.
Jeremy Riddle was praying that we would be stubborn and have faces set
like flint to God. I am so pleased I got a picture of him saying this:
Then Steffany Frizzell prayed that we would lose our own minds
and take on the mind of Christ.
After this Christa Black Gifford came and talked about ‘Perfection
V’s Excellence’. It was one of the most
amazing talks I have ever listened to.
In fact I went to the book shop and bought her book. I tried to upload the talk on here but is not working so I will have to try tomorrow.
Her main points were:
Perfection is the fruit of performance but excellence is the
fruit of sonship.
If you only think you are loved when you do well, you will
be a perfectionist.
Adam and Eve were in the garden in the beginning, before the
fall they walked with no shame. Even in
their nakedness they had no self awareness, they were outward looking and had
intimacy with God.
When the fall happened they then became aware of their
nakedness. They became self aware and inward
focussed.
Some of us are wearing a cloak of shame too.
But, in the garden of Eden God walked with them. Now, he lives in us. So why are we still wearning the cloak of
shame?
Why are we not living like God is inside of us?
Shame makes us focus on what we don’t have and not on what
we have been given.
When we judge ourselves we also judge others.
1 cor 4 v3-5 says that we are not allowed to judge ourselves
or others before Jesus comes back because we are in a supernatural period of
grace. Even when we reach judgement day we
will receive praise from our God.
John 16 v7-11 Christ
lives in me. My sin is dead because
Christ lives in me. Because my sin is
dead, I cannot receive judgment for it.
The Holy spirit is here to convict you of your righteousness
not your sin. When God points to an area
of your life – He is not pointing at your sin, He is pointing you towards the
truth about Him you have not realised.
For example instead of pointing at you in your food binge saying ‘you
disgust me’ he is pointing at His love saying ‘You just don’t know yet how much
I love you. Bask in my love’
Again she told the story about the man who was dwelling in
his misery of years ago. Jesus said “I
want my stuff back. I paid for
that. I want it back. It is not yours anymore!”
She gave a testimony of how one day she needed a binge
fix. So she snuck into the kitchen and
started to devour food. Suddenly she
heard a pop behind her: It was her new husband opening a packet of crisps. She stood full of shame at being caught. He said to her, ‘oh honey. If you need to binge I am just gonna sit here
and binge with you. I don’t want you to
be alone in this’. She said this is what
God does in our sin. He comes to the darkest
place, shines his light and loves into wellness.
I have to say I just sat after and cried. Not in sadness but in relief … as condemnation
left me.
After lunch I went to a Spoken word class. I went to this one for my friend Rachael… I
have recorded it for you lovely friend. This
is mike last year at Bethel School of Worship:
He gave the history of the spoken word and then performed
some of his spoken word stuff. It is
basically dramatic poetry. He is very
good. I would love to see some of this
in our church: another creative expression.
I would also love to see dance and art incorporated into our services
too. I watched a lady paint a picture in
the service a few days ago and it spoke so clearly to me prophetically.
Also he endorsed getting an iPhone to record lyrics and to
record poem and song ideas. I am going
to have to save up for one of these.
Might take me a while.
Next I went to another class with Christina Black
Gifford. She was talking about leading
in rest.
God does not expect Christains to give every minute to ‘the
cause’ at the expense of their families.
God wants us to rest in Him and love our families.
God will not ask you to give and give at the expense of your
health – we do not need to strive in the Kingdom.
We get the wrong idea about work and striving though our culture
(you must be the 1st in and the last out to be successful), our
families (you have to get good grades, you have to be the best), and the
structure of religion and Church (all about the Sunday service and
meetings). But God modelled rest to us
in Genesis 2 v 1-2. God rested on the 7th
day.
Jewish people have a day off one a week – always. But they are very productive.
When you rest in God He will give you all you need for the
rest of the day. You will be more productive.
2 Cron v20 We don’t
need to fight the enemy – he has a third of the angels, we have 2 thirds and
Jesus, and God and the Holy spirit. We
are on the winning side… When we rest
and praise God defeats our enemies for us.
Soak and still yourself in the Lord and He will bless you
and keep you.
After one more main session we went out to celebrate July 4th. I will post about that later. It was awesome!!!!
Today the worship was not loud and showy, it was an acoustic
set and I really enjoyed it. I danced at
the back . I am not so miserable today:
which is great as I have felt very homesick.
I know now that it is Tuesday and it is all down hill to Sat when I
begin to travel home.
I still feel a bit stiff today after my bendy dance class. I
have decided not to go to tonight’s technical class, I am just going to stick
to dancing at the back. God doesn’t mind
if I’m technically not brilliant – he just cares about my heart.
Jenn Johnson then
gave another testimony from her life. She
was talking about how we need to be accountable to other people. We need to have a couple we can be
accountable to in our marriage – so that the devil can not get a foothold.
Next I went to a talk called ‘leading out of fullness’ with
Christa Black Gifford. It was so so very
good. She is brutally honest about her
life, and in her vulnerability you see God move in power.
Her main points were:
Your perception of God is your reality. If You think God abandoned you, you will feel
abandoned.
We don’t need to ask God to come and fill us… He is already
in us. We need to ask Him to make us
more aware of Him in us.
We can never be empty because God is always in side of
us.
Christ did not die for me…. He died AS ME. Like with my sin. Because He died as me, there is no sin or
addiction too big that he could not take it with him to the grave.
There are things that are true, but these are different to
the truth. eg. It is true that you need money, but the truth
is that God can provide outside of earthly parameters. We live on the earth, but we can still live
by the truth.
What we see will come to pass. So if we fix our eyes on earthly parameters
we will be stunted. But if we set our
eyes on heaven and His kingdom we will see greater things come to pass.
She said we should fight FROM victory, and not towards it.
Instead of giving out of a lack, we should sit under the
waterfall of God’s love and give out of fullness.
How do we get free from addiction? We need to be loved into wholeness. Do not look at your sin, or spend time
fixating on it – just look at God and let Him love you. You will find yourself
getting free out of love rather than striving.
Ask God to show me how much He loves me. What does he say about me? What scripture does he have to describe me?
Ask God to show me 5 things I think about Him or me that are
not true.
Then I went to a piano class. I was so surprised to see that he was teaching to play piano like I play it. I thought I would learn loads – but felt like God was say “see I have already equipped you. Be confident in what you can already do. Stop calling yourself a beginner”. I have had loads of compliments about the way I have played in the classes I have played in. I thought they were being nice. I think God is just out to encourage me here.
Today I woke up so miserable. I cried and cried. I miss my family and friends so much. I have never been away from my kids and
husband this long before. I feel quite
low today.
I felt much better after I had talked to John, he is good at
picking me up and setting me back on my feet.
The worship was wonderful today. It was led by Christa Black Gifford (she is a
great worship leader but has recently been playing violin, touring with Michael
W Smith). We were resting in God’s
presence. We lingered on this song “I
love your presence”. I really needed to
rest in God.
She then talked to us about Mary
and Martha. She was talking about how
Mary sat at the feet of Jesus and Martha was busy running around worrying and
doing. There is nothing wrong with doing
but Jesus said that one thing is the most important: Listening to and hearing God.
When we listen to God and we hear
him, we see how much He loves us.
When we know He loves us, when we
know what He thinks of us, everything else will come from it.
Are we like Mary or Martha when
we plan our worship set? Yes we need to
get it organised and photocopy, BUT if we have sat at Jesus’ feet and filled up
on his love and vision, we will be able to do the doing from a different
place.
The word obedience in Hebrew
means ‘to hear, to listen towards’. When
we spend time hearing God we will be obedient to what he has for us. You cannot give what you have not received,
so we need to sit (quietly) and listen and receive so that we can give out of a
wellspring.
She also talked about how we
should stop asking God to come down, he is already alive in us. We should be still and listen to Him inside
of us. Train yourself and your senses to
know when God is on the move. If we listen,
we will see Him moving in power.
I had a dance class next and it was ok, but I did not
realise it was a 2 hour class so I think I missed the best bit. I decided to go to my next class half way
through which was all about the music industry.
I thought it would be good to learn about copy-writing or royalties,
production and manufacture. It was
heavy. I think it completely turned me
off the idea of making an album. I think
perhaps it was something I should not have gone too. I think being naive is a better option. A lot to take in and a scary road to
take.
Brian Johnson talked next about being authentic to who God
has made you to be. He said
We need to get quiet and ask God
who we are, what has he made us to be?
Perhaps we are not in the right
ministry now? Is God telling you he
needs you somewhere else?
Are we confident in our own
sound? Are we trying to be like someone else?
Are we stepping out in the word that God has for our life?
Tonight I went to a lecture by
Ray Hughes. He was speaking on the
tabernacle of David and how it relates to worship.
He said that there are 7 different Hebrew words
for praise.
1. Halal is a primary Hebrew root word for praise. Our
word "hallelujah" comes from this base word. It means "to be
clear, to shine, to boast, show, to rave, celebrate, to be clamorously
foolish."
2. Yadahis a verb with a
root meaning, "the extended hand, to throw out the hand, therefore to
worship with extended hand." According to the Lexicon, the opposite
meaning is "to bemoan, the wringing of the hands."
3. Towdahcomes from the same principle root word as
yadah, but is used more specifically. Towdah literally means, "an
extension of the hand in adoration, avowal, or acceptance." By way of
application, it is apparent in the Psalms and elsewhere that it is used for
thanking God for "things not yet received" as well as things already
at hand.
4. Shabachmeans, "to shout, to address in a loud
tone, to command, to triumph."
5. Barakmeans "to kneel down, to bless God as
an act of adoration."
6. Zamarmeans
"to pluck the strings of an instrument, to sing, to praise; a musical word
which is largely involved with joyful expressions of music with musical
instruments.
7. Tehillahis
derived from the word halal and means "the singing of halals, to sing or
to laud; perceived to involve music, especially singing; hymns of the Spirit.
We need to know which one is
which. David would write the songs and
then he would give the songs to the musicians.
To be musician you had to
go through 7 years of
training.
You had to be over 30.
You had to be aware of the
times.
You would have to build your own instrument.
You would have to be able to
quote the whole bible by heart.
If you get rubbish in, you will
get rubbish out. You get the word in
you, the word will come out. They would prophesy
on their instrument. They would release
the power of heaven in the room.
Now I am off to another dance class: Beginners Modern Dance. ? I have no clue whether I will manage it. I am still hoping for a healing as I dance.
Ok... just back from my class. It was not as I expected.... and I really struggled. We spent about 40 mins contorting ourselves into stretches I would not have been able to when my body was well, let alone now with my gonky pelvis, hips and knees. I did my best but did feel after 40 mins of trying and really not bending very far, I decided to tell the teacher that I have been in and out of a wheel chair for 8 years. She then seemed to warm a bit to me. It was too hard for me unlike the one I was in this morning. I did my best but I think I will have to rethink my classes. I like the creative ones and not so much the precise technical ones. I am still holding out to God healing me while I dance.
Every one else went out after class today.... I decided to come home an chill out.
This is the song that has captured my heart and I want to bring back home and do in our church. I have bought their album... it is great.
Today is Sunday. We decided to take a trip to see Lassen Volcano (about an hour from Redding). We decided to go early so that we would be back in time for church.
It was so amazing to see. I have never been to a volcano.. and it was beautiful! As we got higher we got colder and colder. There was loads of snow on the summit. It was so beautiful to see California on all sides.
I also had my first 'pancake on a stick'. It was like a corn dog with syrup and it was amazing.
I even saw a real live chipmonk
Tonight we went to church.
To be honest I just wanted to be asleep.
I tried so hard to concentrate but I was dead to the world. Then, at the end of worship suddenly the
atmosphere shifted: Gold dust started to
flicker in the air. Not just flicker but
some of it was shooting from side to side.
I tried to capture it on my camera and you can see it flickering.
Then the whole church broke out in spontaneous worship. No band just our voices. As we sang we heard angels singing with
us. It was awesome. The worship and gold went on and on for so
long. It was amazing and woke me from my
sleep and misery.
