I’m releasing this part of my upcoming book to give more context to some of the things that we have experienced during prophetic ministry in small, alternative venues as mentioned in yesterday’s blog post… enjoy
From Chapter 7 of The Potential of God’s Presence
Sub-Chapter: Walking In the Word
After you receive a word from the Lord, and after waiting for what can be years of standing on that word in prayer, there will come a time for a breakthrough. There will come a time when what you’ve been believing for manifests itself on the earth. It is a time of excitement and joy. It is also, oftentimes, just another beginning. Since entering the public realm of music ministry, I have ministered through music in many ways. I have played for hours in various worship and intercessory ministries. I have led corporate worship gatherings for both my home church and while traveling throughout the United States in conferences and meetings. I have taken teams to the nations and done exactly what I saw in my spirit back in school when I told others that I would have a prophetic team of artists that would travel to the nations. At this time, with all of the ministry that I, my wife and those that joined us have done, I believe we are only standing on the precipice of what the Lord is going to do.
During the summer of 2007, my wife and I led a team of musicians on a month-long tour through The Czech Republic and the UK. During this excursion, I began to notice a trend consistently occurring through our ministry. We seemed to be carrying an anointing that would produce atmospheres of rejuvenation and refreshing for others wherever we would go. I recall one such time of ministry that took place in the home of our hosts in Prague. I felt led to get the band together and we had the entire ministry leadership team from Prague sit down on couches in the living room. We then began to just play and sing over them for over an hour. It was a refreshing time for the team from Prague, and I felt so honored to be able to minister to them in that way. One of the things I thought after this was, “I wonder how often this team of leaders actually receives ministry like this.” I knew for a fact that it was not very often, if at all. I also began to feel, through that experience, that to minister in that way as musicians was something that needed to become increasingly prevalent in the entire Body of Christ, not just in our ministry.
During the summer of 2008, we again were out ministering, this time in Honolulu, HI. (No “suffering for Jesus” jokes, please.) Our team had been ministering at a mission located in the area of the city known as China Town. Over the course of that week, we had ministered to people who came in off the streets. It was a great time, and we really bonded with the team that actually ran the ministry. I was impressed by the Lord that our team needed to gather the team from the mission into the office there so that we could minister to them. This team from the mission was amazing. Many of them were formerly in similar situations to those that they ministered to. By the grace of God, they were now at a place in their lives where they could minister to others. Over the course of the week, we saw how they poured out their lives to serve these people. This team ministered there week after week, some for years, and I knew they needed a time of encouragement.
I asked the leader of the ministry if we could get everybody up to the office. When everybody was there, we began to play music and sing over them. The prophetic unction began to well up inside of me and in others on our team. We began to sing songs of encouragement over the workers. My wife began to dance around some of the women on the team and tears began to stream down their faces. We laid hands on the men and encouraged them as brothers in Christ. Many of the mission team had never experienced anything like this. Again, I felt honored to encourage such laborers in the Kingdom of God. To be honest, almost anyone can come in for a week and minister at a mission like we did. But these were the dedicated ones who poured years of their lives into the ministry. We were able to strengthen and encourage them in what they were doing for the Lord.
The foundation of the prophetic ministry is to comfort, encourage and exhort others in the word of the Lord. There are so many teams of people like the leadership team in Prague, or the mission team in Honolulu’s China Town that need encouragement along the way. I began to realize that a major part of our minstrel’s calling was to use our gifts to encourage and strengthen others in the presence and word of the Lord. I figured that if I could not stay in a geographical location to make a long-time impact, the next best thing would be to strengthen those that could and that were.
Second Corinthians 1:3–4 says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” God had brought a team of prophetic minstrels into that mission to pass on the encouragement that God had placed in us to give. The cycle continued that next day when that team passed it on to those that came in for a meal. And we believe that the cycle will continue, as those men and women come from the streets of China Town to the place where they will be set free to minister to others in the way that they were ministered to.
It had been ten years since that spring night at Christ for the Nations when I first heard the calling to the minstrel’s anointing. In those years, I had ministered through music in churches, conferences and as a part of missions teams all across the United States and through the nations of the earth. But it had only been in the last few summers of mission tours that I really felt like I was tapping into the true minstrel’s calling and anointing. In that living room in Prague and that office in Honolulu’s China Town, we were able to freely flow in that calling and anointing.
I believe that in order to see the minstrel’s anointing flow, there are certain conditions that need to be in place. These conditions involve a venue for release, an informed and expectant people and an anointed minister or ministry team. When we ministered to the mission team in China Town, we had the venue of the mission office. We had a place set apart for us to be able to freely flow the way the Lord wanted to flow through us. We also had a group of people who understood how we were about to minister and had their expectations set to be ministered to in a prophetic way. We told them that we were going to play our instruments to create an atmosphere conducive to the moving of the prophetic. They sat in chairs, closed their eyes and prepared their hearts for what was coming. They received from the ministry because they expected to. And, obviously, we were the team ready to minister.
