Weekend of ministry in Teesside.

I am very grateful for the welcome we received in Jubilee Church Teesside. A church we actually started about 11 years ago. We (Theresa and I) spent Saturday with their leaders group of about 30, and then did the Sunday morning (a gathering of about 250 people).

I went into the weekend wondering what would happen, could we bring something of the new fire burning with us to a new setting? Would anyone get healed?

We were asked to speak to the leaders about what we had learned in leadership over our many years of experience. I said we were best qualified to talk about heart issues and that they would do better with others for stuff on strategy and leadership tools. So Theresa and I spoke on 2 themes 1) we spoke about how we had learned that the absolute priority for any leader and church was the presence of God. This is our number one thirst and focus. Theresa talked about her love for worship, because it’s where she meets God the most 2) We spoke about being secure in our identity as sons, and how many of our problems stem from a lack of appreciating the A’s of our adoption as sons ( I almost felt like a Bible teacher with all the alliteration!) acceptance, affirmation, access, availability of heaven’s resources and God’s affection for us.

Then we prayed for people! 80% of the folk seemed to be affected by God in a powerful way. 2 people said that their back pain had eased (which continued to ‘no pain’ on the Sunday morning), and loads were being affected by God’s love and power. The place was looking very ‘untidy’ by the time we had done praying. Theresa was like a powerful missile being launched at people. She ended up so overcome herself that she had to lie down, and all further contribution from her happened from the floor!

Sunday morning was amazing. I called out a word of knowledge for repeated tonsillitis, 2 guys responded and one got instantly healed in front of us, he had come with lots of symptoms and checked his healing by eating a donut! 2 people with knee problems got healed, and the 2 people with back pain from Saturday confirmed they were still pain free. I felt we moved onto a new level of healing because I just called stuff out and didn’t pray directly with folk, also the words of knowledge came with increased force and persistence in my head, a strange experience as I was trying to read a Bible passage to everyone for my preach.

As seems to be my habit at the moment I was ‘twitching’ most of the way through the message. I explained my desire for dignity and respectability, but that I would rather have more of God than those 2 things. Theresa and I then did a fire tunnel, using the leaders who had been thoroughly intoxicated the day before as the tunnel. We prayed for them again and they immediately started to receive from God, then, most of the church came through the tunnel. It took about an hour with loads and loads of people getting touched. Some went through 3 times. A bunch of students got so imparted to I asked them to join the tunnel. One of them had just been healed of tonsillitis. Some people didn’t make it all the way through! Our daughter, son in law and grandson (Elijah) came down to be with us and joined in; Elijah (12 months) laid hands on people he liked. It was so fun!

People were coming up to us afterwards saying things like – ‘you change our church today’ and ‘ I saw an angel behind you as you ministered, just over your left shoulder, I think that’s why you only ‘jerked’ to the left’. Wow, we are amazed! God is powerfully on the move in the UK and we are privileged to be a part of it; as Theresa keeps shouting when she prays ‘More!’

Andy