The last half of this week and what has happened during the weekend so far had been amazing. Jesus Culture was an amazing experience. Before I get into detail, I might as well talk about other things that happened over the summer.
I have been going to Ian’s house every Tuesday over the summer for worship nights. One of the nights we went camping, and I had an amazing time worshipping out at Lake Del Valle. That has been one way God had been encouraging me. Daisy Love Merrick’s cancer also came back. Although it is a terrible thing, it encouraged me to pray more often. Reading blog posts for different people on different summer projects has also been encouraging. It is also nice going to both Wildfire and T4 and seeing the teenagers there. I also started attending Roots, the young adults group for Valley Christian.
Preparing to come to Jesus Culture has also been a learning experience. I found out it would start right before I took my finals for my summer cultural anthropology class, so I had to ask if I could take my final early. God provided and I was able to take it the day before leaving for Jesus Culture. Then I had to ask my parents for permission to pay fifty bucks for registration. God gave me the courage to ask, and my mom let me go since I did not have school during it. Then the hardest challenge was to find housing. I asked some friends I knew who attends or attended Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry whether they knew of places to stay. They all said that their friends would be out of town, or in Adam’s case, he is not allowed to house me because of a contract and a roommate. They recommended I stay at Simpson University’s dorm. I called and they were booked. I finally asked a couple people I met while down at UCSB. Kelsey (who went for two quarters) said she could not house me because she would be on vacation. Christa on the other hand was able to let me stay at her grandma’s house. I finally found a place to stay from July 28th to July 31st.
However, I still needed to find a place to stay until August 1st so I could attend Bethel that Sunday. I asked Adam and Misha if they knew of a place. They told me to search Bethel’s site, but since I was not a student of Bethel, I would not be able to find a bulletin. Adam also asked if I could find a place for one of his friends, Alex. As time got closer, I continued to pray about it. On the Sunday night before Jesus Culture, Misha sends a message through facebook chat to me and sent me a couple of contact information for places she found on Bethel’s website. I contact both places, and finally decided Alex and I would stay at this one apartment with two bedrooms. We split the cost so we only had to pay $30 for the 31st to August 1st. The owners even said they usually had a 2-night minimum stay, so I feel blessed to even stay for one night. I also decided to provide a ride for Alex, which some people told me was a huge blessing. While on the way up to Redding, Alex got a call for a place he could stay until the 31st. Through all this, I see how God provides when we ask.
While up in Jesus Culture, I learned quite a lot from the messages. Actually taking notes helped me stay awake through most of it even though I was exhausted by the end. I loved the worship there. I also went on Sundial Bridge Thursday night. From here, I’ll split into paragraphs by sessions.
July 28th, Wednesday night, Lou Engle talked a lot about revival and how we can’t waste our time since we are called to do greater things. He also said that we should care more about how far we can go and not how little we can do. We don’t take prophetic words seriously enough. Lou Engle also said “Let the Bible dictate the doctrine of truth.”
Thursday morning, Jake Hamilton led an awesome worship time. He then talked about how we have bought onto a bunch of lies and that we should worship for God and not for people. One of the things he stated was “If you want to be a great leader, go somewhere worth following.” We need to stop worrying about making people happy and worry about making people holy. He also changed my thinking when he told us that the moment when we think we don’t need denominations is when we are rebellion. It is the same when we think we are right and leadership is wrong. The world does not reject us for laying hands on the sick; it rejects us for not being part of its system. We tend to linger on what people in the past did instead of what we can do. Jake Hamilton talked about how we lead worship in rebellion sometimes because we are afraid that if we make our own worship, others would judge us. We all have our own sound even if it’s not singing. Instead of copying others, we need to make our own sound when we worship. That does not mean to stop singing well known worship songs. If it really expresses what’s in our hearts, we should go for it. God wants worship that brings justice and righteousness. Jake Hamilton’s definition of worship is “sacrifice that displays love”. The words better move you before you put chords into it. Nowadays we base worship on what we like instead of what God was doing. It should not just be “let’s sing songs”. Worship is a mystery, and we would never have intimacy if we just fill in the blanks. There are some other things he goes on about before saying God doesn’t need us to defend Him.
That last part where God doesn’t need us to defend Him was tested on Friday. Brittany, who has been trying hard to defend God on formspring, decided God can handle it. During lunch, we decided to go to Mt. Shasta Mall. Brittany decided we should go pray for a random guy, so when we went over to ask if he needed prayer, he took out a receipt and tried to convince us Jesus didn’t exist because Caesar would have killed him earlier with all the followers he had. Brittany decided that God doesn’t need her to defend Him, so we walked away when he was done talking.
Thursday afternoon was my time to go treasure hunting. I went to Cypress Starbucks/Safeway. I was on a team with the leader of our group in the area. I also met Oleg and Alina, both from Sacramento although Oleg was originally from Russia. It was Oleg and Alina’s first time treasure hunting. I felt that we were supposed to go to Starbucks, so we walked there. On the way there, I thought of a cow, so I wrote down cow. While in there, Oleg noticed a boy drinking milk with a picture of a cow on the carton. We decided to talk to his family, and it turns out they have a ranch. They were in Redding on vacation, so we just prayed for them about that. While in there, Oleg was focused on a guy. When we went out, he thought of “smoking”. Then the man he was focused on earlier came out smoking. We talked to him for a good thirty minutes. Originally he was skeptical about us. He asked why God can’t be a girl and talked about how Bethel people prayed for him before but he didn’t get healed. As we prayed for him, our leader and Oleg kept getting words and told him how they feel he has issues with his son and it’s caused from a not so great one with his father. There was more detail to that, but as he was told them, we could tell he was paying more attention to us when he took off his sunglasses and looked at us. He told us how he just found out he had a son for 18 years he didn’t know about until now and that he was going to visit his dad whom he didn’t see for 40 years. Then he talked about how he was praying for signs from God if he existed. It was great knowing we planted a seed in him.
That night, Sean Smith spoke. He also spoke Friday morning. It was great seeing Brandon and Brittany Smith there as well. Sean spoke about how we should know our spiritual identity and how it’s a big problem that many people have no idea who they are. He also talked about how we should not be afraid to stand up. Friday morning he talked about how there is nothing that could ever take the place of the Holy Spirit in the church and 75% of our generation experience supernatural in the wrong ways. The enemy is stealing from us what God created us to represent. God wants His people to have an encounter which is meant to equip them. He wants us to be blown away. Sean then asked if we are being led by intellect or the spirit. He talked about how doubt neutralizes our faith because we tend to rationalize things. The greatest skill believers can have is being able to be in the presence of God. Sean talked about how a Christianity that only affects the surface is ineffective. The point in seeing something in the Spirit is to seize it. The Israelites who left Egypt associated fear with God. We should not have to wait to receive.
During the Friday morning service, God’s presence was definitely felt. Everyone was filled with the Holy Spirit, and some people received tongues for the first time. I felt wrecked by God, but I express it by laughing. It wasn’t that I wanted to laugh; I just couldn’t control laughter coming out of me. I also fell on my knees, then fell to the ground and couldn’t get up. I haven’t felt the Spirit so strongly in a while. I also hadn’t spoke in tongues in a while. It was an amazing service.
When I went to the Words of Knowledge workshop with Jerry Niswander, he talked about when you get words of knowledge and gave examples.
1.You will be able to feel the Holy Spirit
2.Seeing things/visions
3.You can read it
4.An impression/thought will come into mind
5.Words of knowledge can come through speaking/conversation
6.Have a dream or vision
Then I went to the Moral Revolution workshop by Kris Vallotton. He talked a bunch about purity stuff. He was definitely an awesome speaker, and I learned a lot from it. He also talked about how the modern church tends to show sex as a bad thing when God created it for us to be a good thing. It’s just that we need to learn to manage it and save it for marriage. He talked about how we should make our stances earlier instead of by circumstances. If you aren’t sure you are going to lose your virginity before marriage, chances are you will. You need to make the stance and say yes to keep it if you want to. Guys need to have plans and to protect girls. Marriage is “I give myself to you” while co-habitation is “I’m here to get as much as I can”. Co-habitation is more out of fear.
Friday night service, Cindy Jacobs spoke. By that time, I was so exhausted I kept dozing off and didn’t really pay attention. All I got from it is “Where is the Justice League” and God has been waiting for a generation to be super heroes. She talked about how Christians need to stop being relevant to the culture, and it should be relevant to us. We need to have a foundation. Also, we should have “Not on my watch” in mind. She invited different nations to pray on stage. I definitely experienced the Holy Spirit that night.
After it ended, Wildfire started a fire tunnel. I was part of the fire tunnel and was waiting until everyone got through to go in line. The line was so long that security had to kick us out before I even got a chance to go through it. It was an amazing experience.
Saturday comes…I went into the healing service at Bethel in the morning. That was awesome, and I felt the Holy Spirit move there. Around 6, I decided to go to Taco Bell to get dinner. Alex had to go with me because I was his ride. When we got there, I noticed a homeless family sign with a lady and her son sitting on a sidewalk. We decided to get dinner for them, so we walked over and asked if they would like anything from Taco Bell. After Alex bought what they wanted, we went over and started talking to them. The mother’s name was Casey and her 10 year old son was DJ. They talked about how they had been homeless since March, and how her husband basically abandoned them and came back to still have issues. Her daughter was sleeping over at a friend’s house, and her oldest son was with the father. They lived at a hotel, but now they are locked out and can’t get their stuff until they pay for it. We listened about her hardships and how she wants to keep custody of her children while her mother-in-law is trying to take custody. A lot of people judge her as being a bad mother since she’s homeless, but we could tell she is trying her hardest to be there for her kids. We prayed for them a bit and ate with them. We also noticed how some cars actually stop to give cash to them, and a girl even gave her a bag of burritos for later. Casey saved the burritos for her daughter because the daughter loves burritos but she doesn’t. Spending some time with them was definitely a highlight of this trip even though there’s no reason I have to. I enjoyed keeping them company although Casey and Alex did most of the talking.
Well, it has definitely been an awesome trip. I think I’m going to end with a quote Alex got from a book he’s reading now.
“Do you know what it means to be filled with God? It means you have no fear, for when you are filled with God, you are filled with love, and perfect love casts out fear.” –Smith Wigglesworth
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