What led me to start the program

In 1996 I was giving a seminar with Gary Kah of Hope for the World at an independent Church in Houston. For two nights as I was praying God spoke to me in a way I'd never forget. Not audibly, but with knowledge that seemed like it had always been a part of my experience, or knowledge base. It was not pleasant. We had been having some division and a power struggle both in the church and the board. While praying, God impressed upon me that sin had caused a spiritual hardening of some hearts which in turn had caused a split that weekend. He also showed me not to despair. We were to start a program (as yet unnamed) that would focus a few mature Christians on obedience to Christ through the power of the Spirit. But that time was not yet. It was for sometime in the future. In the meantime we were to pray for healing and unity in the Spirit.

This split would soon cause a deep division in the church, with many families leaving. With the exception of the one on the board who was in deep sin, most of those who eventually left the church loved the Lord but were hurt by the open wound of sin and rebellion that was tearing the church apart. Who it was is not relevant. But it certainly confirmed that Godless men can pollute the whole body making it ineffectual for God's kingdom and work. When I did get back home from Houston, people were already taking hard sides and pointing fingers, focusing on men rather than God and forgetting Paul's warning in Ephesians 6:12, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." 

But God was clear: love everyone and do not attempt to separate the "weeds" from the wheat, just as Jesus taught in the Parable of the Weeds in Matthew 24-30. I was to support the pastor and his family through this period, and God was going to do the weeding. Over the next months many families did leave, most of whom received healing in other church bodies and are now serving the Lord, graphically illustrating why we are not to attempt to do the weeding!

It took for God several years to bring healing to the church. During the spring of 2001 as I was listening to our District Superintendent share his annual report he focused on why he was deeply troubled over the ineffectiveness of the church in our District and in America. While God was moving in powerful ways in other places in the world, even in some places in America, the overall evangelical and fundamental church was stagnating or growing slowly. There seemed to be one common denominator for the churches that were supernaturally exploding and moving in the Spirit, he said, and that was a commitment for total obedience to Christ. The words hit me with the force of a howitzer shell, and I knew it was time to start this program.

I didn't know how God was going to structure it, but when I was finished I couldn't believe how simple it was. God was not asking for perfection. He is not asking for super-spirituality or for us to become super-Christians – where we are so spiritually minded we are no earthly good – but instead He is asking for imperfect people who are willing to focus their lives on Him in obedience. The program was not designed to force participants to demonstrate their obedience by painfully going through all the hoops, but rather let those hoops be a constant reminder of our need for Christ and to be in a constant state of prayer. 

A work in progress

I was hoping to have between 6 to 10 people willing to take this journey. We had 12 out of a congregation of about 150. Immediately, those who were participating were besieged with a variety of problems that sometimes kept them from fully accomplishing all their commitments. Out of the 12, 2 had to drop out immediately because of circumstances beyond their control. They want to do it again in the future but just couldn't right now. Two others had their lives turned upside down within two weeks. They too wanted to continue, but just could not. We wound up with 8 imperfect Christians who wanted a closer walk with Christ through faith and obedience.

Expect spiritual warfare and the sufficiency of Christ

At the same time our Worship Team was also seeking God in a somewhat different way. Led by Kristie Snyder, former editor at large of Discerning the Times, the Worship Team basically had the same goal as ours. So did others in the church who could not be involved in either effort. Not surprisingly, both groups came under immediate spiritual attack – in two cases the attacks were life threatening. One of the mothers on our worship team had a near fatal asthma attack while celebrating her anniversary with her husband 200 miles away from home. As near as can be reconstructed, she passed out and suffered extreme oxygen depravation for well over ten minutes. She was in a coma for a week, and like many of the athletes and others that died of the same problem in recent weeks and months, the doctors cautioned it would take divine intervention for her to live, let alone recover. 

Thanks to a lot of prayer by hundreds of people God did intervene and a real miracle occurred! She has all her cognitive abilities and her speaking difficulties and involuntary spasms caused by oxygen depravation are improving with the help of some drugs. Her name is Jacquie and she still needs a lot of prayer that her progress towards full recovery continues. True to the promise of Romans 8:28, God has turned Jacquie’s tragedy into a blessing as the church has drawn together and more people are seeking God as they recognize that it had to have been a miracle. 

The second is my wife, who, six hours before the first plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center, told me she had a chest pain that radiated down her left arm. Expecting the worse, I rushed her to the emergency room where she started to slip into unconsciousness. It was a time for prayer, and pray I did. The first blood gas lab test came back negative for heart damage. So did the second and third throughout the day. It was not a heart attack, but an extremely low and potentially life- threatening level of potassium. It was very fortunate that she had those symptoms and went to the hospital. Most of the time potassium deficiency symptoms do not follow this exact pattern and some people wait to long. We just praise the Lord for her quick recovery and for the prayers of the saints.

A host of other, "unusual", spiritual attacks have been experienced by the Worship Team and the Walking with Jesus participants. I mention this because such attacks should be expected by anyone who sets a goal of drawing closer to Christ and being more effective for God's Kingdom.

God is moving

God touched our lives in many ways. As we focused on how bitterness hinders our walk with the Lord, another of the participants was miraculously released of bitterness that had gripped her for over 20 years. As she was praising God, she had a desire to fast for more than the one or two days a week the program asked for. The longer she fasted, the more she sensed there was a underlying reason. She sought God and prayed that God's hand would remain steadfast on those who would need it. She fasted for over 19 days, drinking lots of water and taking in electrolytes through natural fruit juices. On the seventeenth day, terrorists flew three passenger planes into the World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon, and a fourth plane crashed, most likely the result of heroic passengers overcoming the terrorists. Afterwards she was convicted that she was fasting for those involved in that heinous tragedy. As heinous as it was, it could have been far, far worse. God had many of His people praying, not knowing exactly what they were praying for.

More exciting things are also happening! We had started with ten people on July 23 and among other things focused our prayers on revival for us and the church, that we could effectively reach out to the US Job Corps Training Center next to our church, and five teen girls who were in rebellion against their parents and God. 

By the end of the six weeks up to twelve Job Corps youth were attending our various services. Four of the five teen girls had run away from home and gotten involved in drugs, sex and other things of the world during the past year. During our focused prayer time, four of the five teens are softening. Though they have a long way to go, four have returned home and two are even attending church occasionally of their own free will! The parents of one of the girls saw her reading her Bible when she didn't think anyone was looking! This teen also agreed to go to another high school to break the influence of "friends" leading her into greater deception. Another is now refusing to go out with her "friends" because she knows she would get into some kind of trouble – a decision she made herself. None were aware that they were the focus of intense prayer.

We have also had three serious salvations and a host of testimonies by our church membership of people who are now asking them about Christ! One of the salvations was a coworker of a Walking With Jesus participant who was curious about Christianity and asked to come to church with he and his wife. The message that day "just happened" to answer every troubling issues she was dealing with and she was deeply convicted. The other was a walk-in mom whose sons were in our Vacation Bible School. She said that when she stepped in the Church God’s power overwhelmed and convicted her – something she’d never experienced before. 

The all-night prayer and share vigil

The first effort of our Walking With Jesus program has concluded but the participants want more people to experience what they experienced. They are not quitting! All want the church to be walking in the power of God so that we are even more effective! We concluded the first session of Walking with Jesus with an all night prayer and share vigil on a Friday night in which 23 attended, five of which came from the US Job Corps Training Center next to our church. We prayed and shared for eleven straight hours during which we prayed down strongholds that were deceiving our kids, hindering our ministry to the community, and preventing us from loving one another. One disruptive person tried to keep us from praying by asking an endless stream of pointless questions. Realizing what was happening, two of the participants left the circle to pray privately that his disruptive spirit would be bound. At the same time we went ahead as planned and started praying in spiritual warfare for the church and the community--not against him. Only concern was shown to him. God moved so powerfully that the person could not stand it and left. 

At one point we were praying against the dark forces that have kept us from sharing the gospel effectively with those who do not know Jesus in our community. At exactly that time, one of our church members, David, was leading one of his employees to the Lord as they were returning to Bangor from a meeting. He told us later that evening she was so convicted she actually said, "What must I do to be saved?" She had never heard the gospel before, and with proper discipleship, the gospel will indeed set her free. The next morning, Saturday, our Pastor went to visit a Jewish couple who had attended our church with some other members two Sunday's previous, and the wife came under such strong conviction that she committed her life to Christ. God is working on her husband as well. The next day, people flocked to the alter during prayer time and during the service another person gave her heart to the Lord. I talked to two more who were were being strongly convicted, but did not come forward. In the two and a half months since starting the program twelve people have accepted Christ as their Lord.

We are now starting a second Walking with Jesus Program and as long as we are obedient and put our trust in Jesus Christ, we expect God's powerful move to continue to build. Like Paul said in Philippians 3:7-14,

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.