Over the last 3 years airports have become a second home to me…I know I am well over 50 different airports—both international and domestic—and I could write a blog about opinions on each of them.   The funny thing is that some days I get confused about where I am.   I will be walking through San Francisco Airport and a smell will remind me of Port Elizabeth Airport in South Africa and then I will get a flash back and suddenly I am confused.   Its not that I forget where I am as much as it is that I want to stay with the flashback and remember all there is to remember about the other place.   This could also be because I think SFO is one of the worst airports in the world…

Today I miss Africa…I miss our friends there and the kids…I miss the 3 weeks of Fall they have during this time of the year…

Please don't be to quick to label me a hypocrit when I, a man with no children of my own, make the following statement, "Families are too small these days." 

I am a proud member of a family of 7, two parents and 4 siblings, and an active member of energetic extended family!  I grew up next to a family with 13 children.  I hug out with the youngest ones, so when the older ones would come to visit they would bring their massive families along as well.  Their family reunions were larger than some mid-west towns I have travelled through. 

So it may seem strange that I say that families are too small these days, but I mean it.  Why? Because I was deeply challenged tonight as I listened to an incredible man from India share how he was the father to 300 children! He began inviting orphans into his home about four years ago, and now his family has grown to over 300.  This man is not just a leader who tells stories to get money or make a point about how people should care about orphans.  He know each of them by name, and he knows all the details of their story.  He has suffered intense persecution on their behalf.  He is their father.

It is a similar story to Pastor Walter in Swaziland who has become a father to hundreds of kids in a rural community that is devasted by drought and HIV/AIDS.  When westerners design orphan programs we think systems, buildings, and finances.  We have opinions about how many children should be assigned to each care giver, and if the children should be educated in the public school system or on our property.  When my two pastor friends design an orphan program they open their homes to the any child with need, and make every sacrifice necessary to see that child is cared for. 

So I say that families are too small these days.  There are thousands of orphans in the world waiting for someone to show up, shut up, and love them...

I turned 27 yesterday.  Janeen spent half the day plucking grey hairs out of my head and applying joint medication to my arthritic knees, ankles, and hands.  I truly am old now!  I was blessed with great gifts and many phone calls and messages.  I felt remembered and that meant alot to me.  Janeen spent alot of time to make me feel special because she knows how important my birthday is to me.  I am so blessed by her. It was also a bonus to be able to see my family on my b-day, as that does not often happen.

I spent time reflecting on community again.  Bottom line: I am a better person in community or at least because of community.  I find that I am growing more these days, and I relate this to the presence of community in my life. 

Community is providing 3 important needs in my life: inspiration for excellence; passion for growth, and accountibility for attitude and character.  When I am around talented people who are setting apart time to be excellent at what they do and how they minister, that challenges me to do the same. 

When I see others going after God and finding him and getting breakthrough it challenges me to do the same.  I often allow myself to get lazy and lose focus, but in the context of a believing community this is challenged.  It is a 2-way relationship, because I go deeper the community also benefits from this.

When I am around people who challenge me in areas of attitude and character, I am forced to make a decision: love me or love others.  I have to analyze my humor, my critical nature, and even how I treat my wife.  Community brings accountability.  One can choose to hate this or embrace it! I don't like having to humble myself, but I know I need it to grow and be a better person.

Note: I don't think it is always necessary for those in the community to know they are doing this.  It can happen just by proximity if you are intentional with your own process.  

Day two of the Divine Healing class is complete and my mind and heart are a bit full at this point.   I have not been in such an intense learning environment for several years.   8 hours of sitting, listening, and processing each day is slightly overwhelming.

So far we have examined a model for praying for people (including healing prayer); the affects of our worldview on our healing theology; the theological overview of the Kingdom of God, spiritual gifts, and healing; Jesus’ use of the gifts and the commissioning of his disciples and us; healing in the Old and New Testaments; the C&MA history of healing (actually pretty interesting since the founder, A.B. Simpson, was a major pioneer in the current healing movement back around 1900); and finally, Spiritual Healing (next to come are Inner Healing & Emotional healing, demonic healing, and physical healing).

Here are a couple of things that I am now sure about:

1. There is no method to Jesus’ model of healing that we can simply imitate and design the 3 steps to getting a person healed.   He healed on sacred days. He healed entire crowds but then would only heal one in a crowd.   He would lay hands on people and they would be healed, and then he would speak healing from miles away and the person would be healed.   He would command sickness to leave.   He would say your faith has made you well.   He would say it was your friend’s faith that made you well. He would give forgiveness for sins when people asked for physical healing.   He pointed out once that a person’s sickness was not related to their personal sin or the sin of his family, but he did not say this was always the case.
2. Sickness is a result of sin.   Sin, pain, and death all entered at the time of the fall, and I will never experience full victory over these things here on earth.
3. I can study for the rest of my life about healing and I will never be able to give a definite answer about why some people get healed and others don’t.

The issue of why people don’t get healed is so big for me.   Is it a faith issue? Is it a timing issue? Is it my “fault” or is it God’s “fault” or is it the person’s “fault that they did not get healed?

I believe that faith is central.   I also believe that Galatians 5:6 applies, “that the only thing that matters is faith expressing itself in love.”   Praying for a sick person is an honor not to be taken lightly.   You are standing in as a representation of Jesus or a channel to Jesus.   Therefore, even if a person is not healed (for whatever reason), they had better leave feeling loved and valued by you or the prayer team.   Bill Johnson says that the best environment for healing is an atmosphere of love.  

We need to stop making people feel guilty if they are not healed. It may be that a person did not have the faith for their own healing, but even if that is true it is not our job to declare that to the person.   Often, people feel pressured to get healed so the prayer team does not look stupid.   The person praying puts the loss of the “no heal” on the shoulders of the sick person because he/she is insecure or unwilling to accept personal responsibility.   We need to stop abusing sick people like this!

I pressed the professor on this issue, and he said something that I am struggling with.   He basically said that when we pray for healing there is a spiritual battle that occurs.   We will not experience full release from death, pain, and sickness prior to the return of Christ.  If a person is not healed, it means that we lost the battle this time.   (I can hear some of you already formulating your comments.)

I don’t like this because it makes me uncomfortable.   A few responses quickly come to mind. First, it makes me not want to pray for people because I don’t want to be responsible for losing the battle if they are not healed. A possible answer: if you don’t pray then they won’t get healed anyway so the battle is still lost, just not by you (P.S. People do get healed outside of prayer times).

Second, it makes me wonder about the father not giving a stone when his child asks for bread passage.   A “no heal” seems like a stone when we asked for bread.   A possible answer: my understanding is not perfect and I see through a glass dimly.   It is possible that a “no heal” is bread but we don’t want to hear that.

Third, accepting personal responsibility for a person’s healing (though God is the healer) makes me want to prepare and train for healing ministry.   I want to have a pure walk. I want deep intimacy with the Father at all times. I want to stir up my faith so I believe in greater things.   I want be ready to pray for a person holistically, so I can challenge all aspects of healing, not just the physical ones.   A formidable enemy does not need to keep me from the battle, but it does mean I need to count the cost and prepare appropriately.  

So though this statement makes me uncomfortable and I am not sure I accept it, I will keep it as part of my theology because I want to push myself to “man up” and be ready to pray.   I also can live with the contradiction of accepting this and not accepting it at the same time and also still holding to a “God centered” theology of healing.  

I believe there is a mystery to faith that we are not able to grasp in the here and now.   As the professor says, “There is a tension between the here now and the not yet.”   I love that there is mystery that surrounds my God.  

God desires for people to be healed.   He has commanded that we pray for people’s healing.   Not everyone will be healed here on earth.   It is imperative that we understand our role in the healing process: pray; pray in faith; pray “correctly”; persevere; praise.   I come back to this: people are getting healed, and many in dramatic ways.   I believe the stories I hear from trusted friends and therefore I focus on the encouragement of the healings rather than the discouragement of the “no heal.” I would rather risk it all and see a healing every now and then (or often) than sit in a closet and not pray for those who are desperately asking for a touch.

Thanks for reading.   Please comment. I could use some feedback…

Ok, this is not a long review...I will only share a few topics:

Heroes: My Parents- My mom survived Cancer and my dad supported her every day through the battle

Scariest Moment: Thinking J was preg in September

Favorite Books from 06: Power Healing by Wimber; The Natashas; Tipping Point

Favorite Gift: The Pipe my wife gave me

Most Fulfilling event: Helping make two of Janeen's life long dreams come true (seeing humpback whales and visiting India)

Countries Visited: India; South Africa; DR; Mexico; Swaziland

Favorite Picture: Me in my Boy Scout days...

Enough said

I grew up in a culture of faith but I cannot remember much about healing.  The church I attended for several years, along with my family, was a very legalistic and conservative church but at the same time it was charasmatic.  As the Spirit moved people would get express themselves in certain ways; they would run the aisles praising God and when it was time to really pray, everyone would get on their knees and cry out!  We sang hymns but there was a bass guitar and trombone in the band...

It was during my college years that I entered into a "healing culture."  I started learning about inner healing and spiritual gifts.  I was blown away by Henry Blackaby's book, "Experiencing God."  God was still active in the world and he was asking me to join him in what he was already doing...that idea changed my life.

So several of my formative spiritual years occured at college as I was learning and experiencing healing, yet I did not really study healing or form a theology of healing.  I focused much more on inner healing than physical healing.  When it came to physical healing, I saw what I saw and took it for fact.  People get sick or have diseases.  You pray for them.  Sometimes they get healed and sometimes they don't.  This led me to develop a form of thinking that God does heal but you never know when and there is nothing we can do, besides praying, to influence the healing process.

Now that I am studing healing and trying to form a "theology" of healing, I am beginning to do what every good student does: struggle with the issue so that I can own it and verbalize it in my own words and then apply it.  The main point of struggle right now is the aspect of faith when it comes to healing.  (At this point I would like to say that this is my second version of this same blog because the first one was lost when my battery died, and I am re-writing this but in a very different way...weird?)

Hebrews says, "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."  As I pray for people I do hope for a healing and I do see what they could be like if they were healed, but how do I become sure and certain?  Phrases like, "Let faith arise" or "Stir up the faith that is within you" keep floating through my head, but what do they mean and how does one do them?

Here is a recent example of stirring up faith, but let me say upfront that I am not sure where the initial faith originated.  I was with a team in a slum somewhere in India and we were praying for believers in their homes.  Each person would inevitably ask us to pray for healing for either themself or for someone else in the home with them.  I was in the process of a Wimber book on healing, so I was excited to pray but I could tell the team was a bit hesitant.  As we went from house to house and people started receiving our prayer and being encouraged and it appeared that one person was possibly touched of a headache type of condition, it felt like faith was being stirred up in our group.  And then suddenly a boy with a cough was healed (by healed I mean the cough left...did he cough the next day? I don't know, but he was in healed for that moment at least and if he did cough the next day, then at least he had one day without the cough but it does make me ask why healings sometimes don't last?).  After this boy it was like we could not be held back from praying...faith was stirred up. 

I know that for me questions like, "Why doesn't God heal all the time?" or "Why does God only seem to heal other people, but he does not heal me or people related to me? or "How do I know if people are faking the healing?" really can affect my faith when it comes to praying for a person.  I remember it used to seem like the only people who were ever healed when I prayed were people who had headaches.  What is that about?

As I saw people begin to get healed during times that I prayed it began to raise an expectancy for the healing and to stir up faith.  Yet, I am still not batting 100% in the healing process...far from it.  A person asked me in an email how I really knew the motorcycle lady and heart condition lady were healed.  I have decided that I will do my best to follow up on these stories.  I think confirming these healings will help my faith grow.  I feel like it is a good policy to follow up on people who get healed when we pray for them.

So this is, as usual, a bit of a ramble, but basically I am trying to figure out the role of faith in praying for a sick person.   Any help?

Since I am taking the class with some friends, there has been a fair amount of discussion surrounding the topic of Healing.   I am going to blog some of my thoughts about this topic over the next few weeks.   For starters I want to lay out my own personal encounters with healing.

I prayed for a few people that were healed of headaches.  

I prayed several times for a particular person and seen healing or a “lifting” of the sickness or pain the majority of the time.   It was as if I had authority related to that person’s sickness.

I prayed for a lady with a spinal and back condition caused by a severe motorcycle accident.   She also was experiencing an inability to write new material for her books since the accident.   I, along with a group of people, prayed for the lady and the next day she danced in front of the church.

I, along with Janeen, prayed for a lady in South Africa who had a heart condition and she was healed.  

I also am surrounded by a healing culture of sorts.   It is not uncommon to hear stories of people being healed from any sort of sickness or disease.   Nor is it uncommon for people to not be healed, to even die, or for them to be healed through medical procedures or through medicine.  

After reading 3 of the books I am able to say that I believe this:

1. Faith must be present somewhere for healing to occur
2. We are commanded to pray for healing
3. There is no system to how people are healed…anything goes; short prayers or long prayers, lay on hands or don’t touch the person, the sick person be in the room or not, believer or not may not matter…
4. Physical healing and inner healing are often related

If anyone wants to share a story of healing or their personal experience please feel free to leave a comment.

I gave out this sheet of statistics in a church service I recently talked in...

As I was journaling this morning, I started writing about some differences in the idea of community that people have (or at least in what I think). I can see how the local church can be a community. I think God knew that we would need fellow believers to help us live (work out) our faith. Solitude is a discipline that we should all incorporate into our lives on occasion, but the discipline of community is something we should earnestly seek to live out daily.

Life is hard! I don't believe that we will ever discover a cure for PAIN or loss in life. A church community that has strong vision, a healthy balance of inward and outward focus, and desire to see ALL of the spiritual gifts active within their midst will be a community that will grow and naturally attract pre-Christians and Christians alike. Problem: once these church communities grow they lose intimacy and may stray from what caused the growth. Answer: sub-communities (more than cell groups that meet for fellowship, more like functioning sub-churches within the context of a larger church). I actually am not sure what I think about that, but for those that have said "my church is my community" then this is the way I can see that to be true.

A few people shared that friends and family are their community. I agree that family and friends can be community to one another, but only when they live in some kind of close proximity. I believe that gathering is a core value of community, and if you cannot often gather then you are more of an acquaintance than a community. Showing up for a baptism is great but showing up whenever there is a crisis, a hard day, or something to celebrate is closer to real community in my mind. I don't think that for family and friends to be community that they have to be believers. In fact, being a Christian is not a requirement for community.

I can also see that if you have chosen to live within your culture of origin (the USA in this case), that as you live out life there doing what it takes to live at the level you have chosen to live at and following Christ as he leads you each day; committing to a group of believers for support can be community. You gather outside of church meetings for fellowship, prayer, and encouragement. The group may even choose to help meet one another’s needs as they arise. The group may choose to open themselves people outside their fellowship, including pre-Christians, begin to fellowship with them, pray for them, encourage them, and help meet their needs as well. In the absence of a healthy local church that community could be called church (wink wink). IF you feel the obligation to be a part of local church- healthy or not- then this group could just be an extension of that church.

I think there is a difference between being a community and being community to one another. I think the same could be said for church. There is a difference between being a church and being church for one another. I believe that a community and church can be the same thing if they operate not as a community or a church but instead they community and church to one another.

I think J and I would make some serious sacrifices to be a part of a community that answered a call together that was international in nature in order to become what one person could not be on his or her own.In my mindthis is a missional community.Thousands ofindividuals through out history have answered a call to live missionally, andmany of thesepeople have accomplished great things for God. Their biographies could fillseveral shelvesof a library, and they inspire mebeyond words. Yet, I would rather launchout aspart of amissional community of believer with the intention towork out my faithwith the help of a body of radical people.

I think that I feelthis way because there is still asense thatJ and I are supposed tohave an international focus. I want to launch with a community thatis like a swinging sword that protects in members but also stands in the gap for the orphan, widow, leper,sex slave, and poor. I want to be part of a move of God that is spiritual innature, and I know that alone I am too weak to do this. I know that Ido not have all the gifts that I need to do this alone. Ialso believe that ahealthy community, the body of Christ manifested to the world that prophecies peace and love to those around it,will be more inviting than a solitary person...

Okay, now I am getting lost in my thoughts...I thought I had a point to make when I started and now I am confused again.

Help?