Late Night Ministry to the Broken

We had a corporate worship gathering at the end of the night yesterday. 5 student leaders from NAU joined us! We felt led to give God the highest praise that we could.

"Even as we worship, God is going to touch people who are drunk, high on drugs, depressed, suicidal, and many others."

Sure enough, 2 men came into the chapel drunk during this time. One man stayed for over an hour, on his knees with his hands lifted up to God. He had tears coming down his face. The other man stayed for over 3 hours, and told us that thought he was going to be drunk all weekend long but God has given him hope now. He proceeded to tell us that he's never been in a fellowship quite like this before!

We continued encouraging and praying over everyone until about 3:30 a.m.!!


Scott's Account:

"The night began in some good, quiet worship. As more people came, we played bigger and praised louder. The Spirit so filled that place it was amazing. People were dancing, shouting for joy, singing praises, praying over each other, and some were just joyful to be talking with the brother or sister in Christ sitting next to them. It reminded me of what Heaven might look like."

Muslim Man Drawn Into Chapel

This past Monday, a Muslim man was drawn into the prayer chapel by the music (and the presence of God)!

Kristin's account:

"(He) came into the prayer room and sat down and you could see him just starting to relax. Scott started to talk to him and I think they started to talk about where (he) was at spiritually.

"(Afterwards), he was still hanging around at the door. You could tell he was sensing Jesus and he just couldn't leave!

"...I had no idea what to say to this guy and God blessed me with the right words. I remember talking a lot about what God's grace meant in Jesus and sharing with him some of my/my families personal struggles and how the Lord has brought us through...and then after a while I asked him if he wanted to take the first step of faith to accept Jesus and trust Jesus to help him believe and he said yes!"

3 Receive Jesus In First Week!

On Monday, the opening day of 24 hour prayer, a man named Tommy walked into the prayer chapel. He literally was drawn into the chapel by the music, and led to Jesus that night!

Friday morning, Ashley (Intervarsity) went to the prayer chapel in the morning. She met a girl named Wendy, who was unsure about where she was spiritually, and wanted a relationship with God! She prayed to receive Christ!

Later that night, Kristin brought her co-worker named Sashine, who asked if she could come with her. She had many of her questions answered that night, and left with a new relationship with God!

LoveASU Video Promo-ish Blurb

This video was edited and played at Christ's Church of the Valley for the greater glory of God. Enjoy
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red moon rising....

Two years ago I read a book that totally changed the way I thought about prayer... actually, it totally changed me. When you read Peter Greig's stories of what has been happening all over the world, you get this feeling, deep in your gut, that this isn't some guy trying to sell an idea--but a bird's-eye view of something that's happening inside thousands of people all over the world... a connection that couldn't be driven by anything man could produce. After I read it, I couldn't help but give it to all the people I love...

Well, last weekend Peter came all the way from England to talk with a bunch of us here in Arizona. Friday morning a small group of us met in Danforth Chapel (our little chapel in the heart of the ASU Tempe campus where a group of us prayed for 56 straight days last semester). After we had this beautifully intimate time of worship together, someone mentioned that we had distinguished guests among us. But to be honest, as much as I love Peter's heart, it really felt like the distinguished guest was the Spirit of Christ... He was so present, you could feel him in the room. I absolutely fell in love with Wendy, David and Peter as they shared their hearts and what they were seeing happen all over the world. If you weren't there, I wish you were...

But one thing I just learned from theLongbrake, is that you can almost take people with you if you share: your experiences, the things you learned, and a good set of notes. So here's my attempt....

The Church:
• "The church is the only organization that exists for the benefit of its non-members" C.S. Lewis
• The spiritual battles going on right now with determine what the church looks like the next 50 years
• No personality, product, or brand is going to get the job done
• The only place that things really start to happen is in our brokenness, our need, and our longing (in prayer) especially when we are really honest (Peter talked about being "naffed off" at God) ;) I love Brit-slang.

Peter told stories of people he knew that lived through the spiritual awakening that happened in Scotland in the early '50s. And when that occurred, many of the life changing experiences happened to people when they were by themselves (they would wake up out of a dream, or have really intense feelings of the Spirit moving inside of them). Man wasn't controlling it, the very living presence of God was just moving.

Prayer
• "Hell is an eternal church service without the presence of God" His presence is the most important element.
• He's seen prayer rooms where the presence of God is so real and thick that non-believers are drawn to it and can actually feel it
• God doesn't always speak to us with words - we don't have to limit our conversation to Him to just words
• The way that people from all over the world have been drawn to come together and pray is a movement of the Holy Spirit on the earth. Peter said with fear, "no one can claim this or take credit for it"
• We aren't creating this wave... we are just catching it.

What we are being called to: Isaiah 62
1. Unity (coming together across denoms and ministries)
• Continually asking God to make the church beautiful (vs1)
• "Pray like it depends of God, live like it depends on us"
2. We are called to be watchmen on the wall (vs 6-7)
• Ascend this "wall" (in prayer) so we can see things from God's perspective, learn to hear His voice, and can recognize what God is doing in the world and in our culture.
• Sometimes when people are looking for revival they are thinking of the way it happened hundreds of years ago. Its probably going to look a little different. We have to be really open to how the God is going move (when Simeon was told he was going to see the salvation of Isreal, he probably wasn't expecting a baby)
3. Go out of the gates and remove the stones (vs10)
• Lets get out into the world and serve and bless other people
• Take the stumblingblocks (sterotypes) out of their way - be Visible and Accessible
• Lets be both intercessors and activists (combine prayer and justice to bring the needs of the world before God, and the bring the love of God to the world)

Wendy then spoke of how her and David were amazed at what was going on across the universities. She had this beautiful epiphany about how the night before Good Friday Jesus was in the garden asking his friends to stay up with him and pray. And now 2000 years later, students were rising up to answer that -- nearly 70 universities were engaged in 24-7 prayer last spring.

The rest of the weekend Peter spoke at the Take My Life gathering (I hate to call it a conference, because it felt like more than that). I expected a couple hundred people to show up, but over 500 students from NAU, UofA, ASU, our local colleges, and even LA were there. Some really beautiful things happened that almost feel too sacred to talk about here. If you're interested, give me (or someone that was there) a yell. That's a conversation that needs face-time.

And its so exciting to see how the Spirit is going to move. As we join together next week for another continual season of prayer, so are other universities around the state as well as several local churches....

come'on.

-cindi


ps. And I know all of us would love to hear about how God is moving... feel free to post your thoughts/stories here or on Facebook