PROPHETIC ACTS WITH IMPACT

By James Wilson, Coordinator

PrayNorthstate

The theme for this year’s second annual Pray California School of Prayer is “Faces of Transformation” and the intention is to provide practical resources for Christians who mean to be agents of transformation in their communities. In PrayNorthstate it has always been part of our mission to seek reconciliation between the prophetic and evangelical streams of the Body. The 2005 school is a golden opportunity to facilitate that move of God by sharing the practical aspects of prophetic activity alongside its dynamism and symbolism.

My contribution to the process will come as a workshop titled “Prophetic Acts with Impact.” It will explore prophetic behavior at ground level, assuming that if a word of prophecy is simply any word spoken by God before it was spoken by a man or woman, then any prophetic act is simply behavior grounded in that prophetic word. It will share the things to do and the things to avoid in obeying God for the transformation of our cities. It will equip the participants to recognize and respond to God in the mundane and in the dramatic manifestations of His inbreaking love for us.

Of course, any time we speak the Scriptures we engage in prophecy – so what activity could be more prophetic than the public proclamation of the whole Word of God?

Every year in Redding we read the entire Bible over the city – from the steps of the City Hall. We satisfy the demands of protocol – because the Jesus of the Bible stands on the privilege of relation rather than on the prerogative of even what He has won on the Cross – by requesting and receiving a permit for our reading from city officials. We involve more than three hundred people from more than forty churches in the three and a half day event. Even the camera crew from the ABC television affiliate who came to film and interview for the evening news was moved by the peace of God that permeated the area while we read this year.

There have been healings and renewed relationships with the Lord Our God on the site and in the shadow of His wings – spread over the speaking of His Word. There is little of the flamboyance that so often discomforts Christians who have not yet learned to live with the Holy Spirit unleashed; there is more of “Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles but to those whom God has called…Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” It is most assuredly a prophetic act with impact.

More in the style of the charismatic wing of the Body is the Paah-ho-ammi prayer project we conducted in late 2004. Approximately one hundred and thirty-five people committed themselves to pray daily as members of one of three teams – their commitment was for the last one hundred days of 2004. One team prayed for a reduction in the Shasta County Crime rate; a second prayed for a reduction in unemployment; the third prayed for a reduction in traffic fatalities and cancer admissions to the hospital. All of the teams prayed for protection of peoples from the violent deaths that were claiming about two young lives each month. The results were spectacular!

Cancer admissions and traffic fatalities were cut by more than twenty per cent during the period of intensive prayer – and there were no deaths in traffic throughout the entire northern sector of the state over the three most heavily traveled holiday weekends of the year – all of which fell during the ending season. But the most gratifying fruit was that only one young person died during the three-plus months in which people prayed every day.

And the name Paah-ho-ammi? It was given by revelation when God simply said, “Call it Paah-ho-ammi.” Some weeks after receiving this word I stumbled across it while checking my Bible concordance – it means, “Cry alas, My People,” in good Biblical Hebrew. Jesus said, “Again I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in Heaven.” We had more than a hundred in agreement – and another prophetic act with impact.

Authentic prophetic acts are rooted in the reality that charism transcends competence and revelation comes ahead of reason – but not by finding the two diametrically opposed to one another. On the contrary, charism – gifting – is refined into competence by its repeated exercise just as revelation is processed through our God-given reason. It is a question – for us – of remembering between these chickens and eggs which comes first, not which comes instead. Equally crucial is the reality that every time we think we have refined the charism into a competency the Lord will surprise us by exponentially increasing the gift. The same thing is dramatically true for every revelation we think we have processed into a reasonable and rational set of ideas. Our God is a God of surprises; truth is where He was but revelation is where He is.

He says it like this, “Behold, I am doing a new thing, and it is marvelous in your eyes.”

Both charism and revelation were at the core of what we call The Bible: Up Close and Personal and the Paah-ho-ammi Project. The former seems like such a garden variety exercise of faithful service that we don’t look for miracles there – although the atmosphere of peace that was so palpable and the immense favor that brought more than three hundred people and a city government into cooperative adventure is surely miraculous! And the latter is radically flamboyant in the way its vision was given through supernatural words of knowledge – yet it depended for its success on many people being faithful in a mundane commitment to lift their voices to God each day on the same old topics. The confluence of these qualities brings up a second point to be made in the workshop.

When we seek to be authentically prophetic, faithfulness trumps giftedness every time. By that I mean to say that it is not about how we pray – or minister – but about how regularly we go to the source of our life in prayer or ministry or worship. Do we pray in tongues? Do we compose elaborate, poetic, or ear catching prayers? Do we recite long and esoteric prophecies, or do we share extensive knowledge of the scriptures when we speak of God? If the Bible teaches us anything it is that God does not care about any of these things except inasmuch as He may give these gifts to be reflected back to Him for His glory. But He cares very much that we approach Him with consistency and focus. The Bible reading marathon features people whose offering to God is that they show up for their scheduled reading time – whether at Noon or at Midnight or anywhere in between – and read the Word out loud for fifteen minutes. Paah-ho-ammi is about people lifting their prayers every day – some for hours and some for seconds; some in tongues of angels and some in the most homely terms. He cannot resist His own impulse to provide the fruit of that faithfulness regardless of the circumstances in which it is delivered.

His Word proclaims, “He who endures to the end shall be saved.”

Some months ago I received a call from a friend whose property was being invaded each week by occultists. Within a hundred yards of the family home sacrifices and rituals were being offered to the enemy of all life. On top of the crawly feel to the atmosphere in the neighborhood that was quite obvious there was an exponential increase in the number of traffic accidents on the road that went past – influenced by that same atmosphere of death. I went to the location as part of a team that walked the ground, prayed, repented of sin committed there at the same time we declared forgiveness of that sin, and celebrated Holy Communion on the site of the satanic rituals. Our reasoning was simple: we addressed the blood guilt on the land with the blood of Jesus Christ.

The occultists have not returned to the site in more than seven months. Within twenty-four hours it was clear that the pattern of traffic collisions had winked out of existence. That kind of fruit is about as practical and pragmatic as it gets. That kind of practice is about as prophetic as anyone can be. The Lord says, “By their fruits you shall know them.” I just say that we need a whole lot more prophetic acts with impact.

PrayNorthstate can be reached at 530-941-3470, or at praynorthstate@charter.net