For two years now we’ve had the privilege of serving the youth on the island of Cyprus by hosting a gathering we refer to as “encounter”. It’s about 10 days set apart to encounter the Lord. Our whole aim during this time is to create an atmosphere in which these kids will encounter the presence of the living God! This past year was a time full of the presence of the Lord and we are so grateful. There is lasting fruit in the lives of these young people because the presence and power of God that they’ve encountered during these times. One story of fruit that remains is a young man named Panayiotis who is attending our discipleship training school this year because of what the Lord did in his heart during ‘encounter’. He tasted and saw that the Lord was good and is coming back for more!

-Thaddaeus

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A great article by John Mullen that will challenge and encourage you.

SELF FOCUS ………….to ………….Christ Focus

greed, gratitude, wholeness, generosity

pride, humility, integrity, courage

foolishness, faithfulness, perseverance,wisdom

“Christ-focused” is a way of thinking. It evolves into a way of living. Our thinking and behavior influence our attitudes and perspective. These become our unconscious reality, and make the difference between living in hell-on-earth or heaven-on-earth.

As a church family, our transformation from “self-focus” to “Christ-focus” will begin with our confession of greed and our commitment to gratefulness. We are exhorted over and over in the Bible to “give thanks.” Healing leads to wholeness and the Lord promises that he will fill our hearts and minds with peace as we give thanks (Phil. 4:6-7). Wholeness can be demonstrated by giving more than you are taking. It is the fruit of gratitude and it produces generosity. God loves a joyful giver because God is a joyful giver. Trials and adversity are considered “joy” (James 1:2) because when we suffer and do without we appreciate “normal everyday” things (appreciation is a form of gratitude). It changes our perspective, and a proper perspective is the key to joy. You cannot change your circumstances but you can change your perspective.

Our transformation will also begin with our confession of pride. God resists the proud and often we find ourselves working against God because of our attitude. If we want to be a community of GRACE we need to take on the form of a servant and be humble. I believe humility leads to integrity and eventually courage. Jesus is our model. As a young man he had many reasons to be proud. His humility separated Him from the leaders of His day who lacked integrity. It was His understanding of who he was (integrity) that gave Him the strength to be courageous. It is the courageous who change the world for Christ (Acts 4:31).

Finally, the gospel is foolishness to the world but not to those who are “being saved.” From an eternal perspective, living for earthly riches, pleasures and power are foolishness. Becoming Christ-centered means moving away from foolish passions and pursuits and moving toward being faithful with little things. If we are faithful with the small things, we will have learned to persevere. It is those who become persevering people who can walk in wisdom (James 1:3-6). Intellect is an accumulation of knowledge. Wisdom is an accumulation of experience. Biblical wisdom is a gift from God and comes from a preserving life of honoring God through good and bad.

When we find ourselves walking generously, courageously and wisely, our behavior will have matured to be “like-Christ.” Similarly, our attitudes and perspective will be reshaped as we move away from “me” focus to “Him” focus.

Blessings.
John

Jason Heilman shares about ministering to Joplin, Mo in the aftermath of a devastating tornado.

First of all, thanks to Dan, Tom and Welser for going with this crazy, traveling minstrel on this journey to Joplin. We arrived to some great hospitality… an entire dorm with a complete kitchen, stocked fridge and everything we needed for the weekend… Thanks to Daryl B and all those involved in hosting us.

When I entered the damage path area of the city, I was really overwhelmed by the extent of the damage, even a month and a half after the incident. There really is no way to capture through words, photos or video what it feels like to stand in the middle of 360 degrees of destruction. It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Although it’s a tough thing to see, I almost feel it’s a good thing for anyone to travel to a place that is experiencing or living through a trying experience. It helps you to appreciate what God has done and is doing in your own life. It brings perspective back to you to realize the blessings you live with everyday that you take for granted.

Friday night we packed out a tent that was set up in a park adjacent to the hospital that was completely destroyed by the tornado. We led worship and then testimonies were shared, some that I will share with you shortly… AMAZING stories. We then spent the last hour interceding & prophesying through music and declaration over the people and the city. It was incredible actually. Here we were worshipping outdoors through a blaring sound system, the sound going forth to all those who drove by, to all those in the city. We were releasing a kingdom sound in the very place where the sound of devastation had been just weeks before. We released a sound of peace, of hope and of healing. It was an incredible feeling, experience and honor for me.

The next morning Tom and Welser led a worship and prayer set at the JOPHOP for an hour and we were joined by a team from IHOP-KC. After a break, we had the opportunity to split into two teams and go canvassing in some neighborhoods. Dan and I had the chance to talk to and pray with a young man who was still living in a home that had been badly damaged in the storm. His home still stood, yet all around him were homes totally destroyed. I can still remember the cool wind of his AC pouring out of his front doorless doorway as we encouraged him and prayed with him. He had a smile on his face as we left. I was amazed at this young man’s ability to have any sense of joy in the midst of the situation he was in. I made me so thankful for my little townhouse back in TX.
Dan and I had the opportunity to drive a Baptist pastor around to all of these homes. This Pastor had been in the community for over a decade and I was so blessed by all he was doing for the people. The Baptist church was actually contacting each and every homeowner that had left their homes without giving the city a right of entry, thus potentially saving each of these former homeowners upwards of $4000 each. I was so blessed by what they were doing in the community. Dan and I were able to pray and prophesy over this Baptist pastor in our car before dropping him off at his church. It’s amazing how the denominational walls fall away in the midst of a situation like what is taking place in Joplin.

After a break for dinner, we held our second night of ministry in the tent. It was equally powerful and the tent was packed out again. We had a man from Houston actually share a little that night and he brought a cross that he had made from the very rubble of the tornado. He himself had been in Joplin for over a month just praying and ministering to whomever he came into contact with. Let me tell you that I really experienced another realm of community kingdom culture here in Joplin. It was as if “church as usual” was off… Anyone could share on the mic at these meetings. There was such a sense of family, of spontaneity. The spirit of professionalism was so far away. I looked down at my dusty, sandaled feet and thought of how Jesus and the disciples had stood and ministered the same way on dusty, dirty hills to the people… Man, it was just awesome.

I want you to know that the people in Joplin, especially some key leaders in the house of prayer movement in the city were VERY blessed by us being there. I want to thank all of you that prayed and that supported us to go to bring hope, joy and love from Dallas to the Church of Joplin. Another south Missouri tour is in the works for September 2011 and we hope to stop by Joplin again very soon.

Some of the stories I heard were too incredibly detailed for me to write it all here, so I will list them in short summary. These are stories I heard directly from people who spoke to me on Friday night after the meeting. (I have not confirmed these stories in any way, I share them as I heard them from others)
One story I heard had to do with a 4-year-old boy who was found in a field behind what was formerly the Home Depot. When they asked him where he lived, he was too young to tell them his address, all he knew was his name and his parents names. This boys parents were in touch with the police in order to find the boy. Once they were reunited, they realized that the boy had been found FIVE MILES from his home. When they asked the boy how he got to the field, he told them, “The angels carried me through the tornado.” Are you getting the same chills that I did when I heard this?
Another story is one that I actually found & confirmed online. A girl was with her grandma in a car when the tornado was picking them up off of the ground. The grandma told her to start praying and she did. The girl said she could see her guardian angel during the incident. A metal bar actually came through the roof of their care and pierced this little girl into her shoulder and through her abdomen, totally MISSING EVERY VITAL ORGAN. The doctors simply removed the rod from her body and she survived and fully recovered…

I talked directly to a woman who was actually in the Wal-Mart that was completely destroyed by the storm. She showed me a picture of the Wal-Mart right after she got up from the floor… there were no roof or wall that remained. She told me that when she got up and looked around, she saw more that one “large black men” walking around the Wal-Mart dressed in white picking up large chunks of rubble off of the people in the store. When she looked for these “men” later, they were nowhere to be found.

One story had to do with a man who was praying in his basement and felt the Lord tell him over and over to “go outside.” At first he was like, “Are you crazy, why should I go outside during a tornado?” But after being prompted continually, he obeyed to find a group of ten people outside of his home, people who had no basements, people whom also later said that they also felt “something” telling them to go outside. This man called them all into his home and into his basement. All of these people survived, only to later find that the basement-less homes that they had vacated had all been completely destroyed. The still, small voice…
One older woman was in her third story apartment. After the tornado hit, she tried to go down the solitary stairway out of her place only to find that the stairs were gone. From nowhere a giant man came up to her, picked her up and set her down on the stairs. He then thoughtfully grabbed her walker and handed it to her. She never saw this “man” again.

One man, we will call him Andrew, was in his basement with his family. After the tornado ravaged their home, he went to the bottom of his basement stairs to look up at the top to see a black man dressed in a bright white t-shirt. The man asked, “Andrew are you and your family okay?” Andrew first wondered how this man, whom he’d never seen before, knew his name. Secondly, he wondered how his shirt looked so clean. After Andrew answered yes, the man walked away from the stairs. Later, when Andrew went up the stairs, he realized that his home had completely caved in with no clear way of coming in or out. They had to dig their way out, afterwards realizing that no man could have gotten into their home to the top of their stairs and kept their clothing completely clean!
Once again, these are all stories that christian men and women told me after the Friday meeting. I just stood there in awe at their stories and testimonies. I left Joplin with a renewed sense of the reality of the supernatural realm. The craziest part is that I know that these are just a few of the many, many supernatural stories surrounding the Joplin Tornado.

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What do Christians in the new millennium do when they are sick? We go to the doctor. We go, not because the doctors are always 100% accurate or 100% effective, but rather because we have faith in medical science. When did we lose faith in God to heal us?

The church lost a lot of things in the first few hundred years of its existence. The transition from a simple to a complex organizational structure, from the Spirit to the flesh, left little room for dependence on the Lord. Divine healing was one of the casualties.

But I would prefer to write about how we can get divine healing back into the church rather than how we lost it. (If you’re wondering if we lost it, compare your local church’s ministry to that of the 1st century church.) Some groups within various Christian traditions have succeeded in restoring the ministry of divine healing to the local church. What do they have in common?

Ken Blue (Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Vancouver, Canada) did some research. He discovered three common elements among a broad diversity of Christian traditions.

#1: One assumption shared by all Christians who participate in vital healing ministries is that God wills to heal the sick, that He desires wholeness rather than sickness for His people. Those who are consistently effective in praying for the sick anticipate healing.
#2: The second cardinal element present among healing communities is a sincere compassion for those in pain.
#3: A third essential element mutually held by Christian groups which effectively pray for the sick is the personal investment and risk-taking of those who pray. Human compassion and a belief that God wills to heal are fused with a readiness to be vulnerable in the attempt to heal.

It sounds so simple, yet I have been teaching on the first point and finding some opposition. Do you believe God wants to heal the sick? “When we say that God sends sickness or asks us to endure it, we are creating for many people an image of God they must eventually reject. What human mother or father would choose cancer for their daughter in order to tame her pride?… Those preachers and chaplains who try to comfort the sick by telling them to accept their illness as a blessing sent from God are giving an immediate consolation, but at what an ultimate cost!… In a sense, we unwittingly treat God as something like a pagan deity, placated by human sacrifice.”

With Jesus came the Kingdom of God. With Jesus came healing, deliverance and salvation. With Jesus the forces of darkness were pushed back. Then with His disciples the offensive continued (Mat. 10:1,8, Luke 9:1, 10:9). The sick were healed, the oppressed delivered and the lost saved. The early church looked for the spiritual benefits in suffering but gave instructions to “pray for the sick” (James 1:2, 5:14).

Jesus desires that His people have life and life more abundantly (John 10:10). He is the author of life and not sickness or death (Heb. 2:10). He desires to bring healing to the spirit, to the soul (mind, will and emotions), and to the body .

In conclusion, we must believe God is for us and not against us. We must pray for God to give us compassion for others and their struggles. And finally, we must be obedient and step out and pray for the sick!

John & Kelsie Mullen are serving as long-term missionaries in the Czech Republic.

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Modern Day is partnering with Hungry Hearts United to reach communities across America. Hungry Hearts United is a grassroots, community outreach strategy connecting relevant faith-based touring artists with the local church to impact communities through live performances and practical hands-on service.

Community
Hungry Hearts United partners with local churches and social resource centers to contend for each individual community’s needs.
By focusing on social aspects, i.e. low income families, the homeless, the poor, etc., HHU offers a practical and hands-on local grassroots approach to outreach, ministry and community service. This “Cause” conscious appeal resonates widely with today’s youth and young adult demographic.

Music
Hungry Hearts United merges creativity and social causes with relevant faith-based touring artists. With a focus on entertainment, outreach and ministry, both up-and-coming and established national acts create an environment of ease, hope and comfort for those whose daily life is riddled with fear and anxiety.

Service
Practical physical and spiritual resources are desperately needed in hurting communities. The heart of Hungry Hearts United is to provide a hot meal, a friendly face, someone to talk to, and even a shoulder to cry on.

By partnering with the local church, Hungry Hearts United fosters a two-fold community equipping strategy:

1. 1. Practical Engagement: Engaging in the practical needs of their community, the Local Church exemplifies God’s love towards their neighbor. Through this engagement lives are touched. Strength and healing can begin.

2. Practical Service: Serving the Local Community by providing resources and services to assist the community’s unique needs to develop long-term positive and healthy relationships.

Demonstrating and declaring the Good News of the Gospel in a practical way provokes a Kingdom experience for both the community and the local church. Cultivating this community through practical service via a relevant and focused needs outlet is what Hungry Hearts United aspires to achieve. Modern Day is proud to help launch this new initiative.

Hungry Hearts United was formed by ComeandLive! recording artist, Men As Trees Walking.

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