Ministry Of Healing Quotes

Other people are going to find healing in your wounds. Your greatest life messages and your most effective ministry will come out of your deepest hurts.

The man who articulate the movements of his inner life, who can give names to his varied experiences, need no longer be a victim of himself, but is able slowly and consistently to remove the obstacles that prevent the spirit from entering. He is able to create space for Him who heart is greater than his, whose eyes see more than his, and whose hands can heal more than his.

Don’t let the enemy try to keep you bound with fear. The devil is a liar. Stay in faith and trust the process. Be still, God has a plan!

The tendency to view the holistic work of the church as the action of the privileged toward the marginalized often derails the work of true community healing. Ministry in the urban context, acts of justice and racial reconciliation require a deeper engagement with the other—an engagement that acknowledges suffering rather than glossing over it.

Mercy ministry always comes down to this: you can help, but only Jesus can heal.

Don’t miss this principle. The power for change is in your mouth. The power for prosperity is in your mouth. The power for health and healing is in your mouth. The power for a successful ministry, marriage, business, relationship, or whatever you need is in your mouth! God has a plan for your personal world, but it depends on you fulfilling it by first taking control of your mind and your mouth. You must fill your thoughts and words with light and truth. We define our lives by our words and thoughts.

Here at our ministry we refuse to present a picture of “gentle Jesus, meek and mild,” a portrait that tugs at your sentiments or pulls at your heartstrings. That’s because we deal with so many people who suffer, and when you’re hurting hard, you’re neither helped nor inspired by a syrupy picture of the Lord, like those sugary, sentimental images many of us grew up with. You know what I mean? Jesus with His hair parted down the middle, surrounded by cherubic children and bluebirds. Come on. Admit it: When your heart is being wrung out like a sponge, when you feel like Morton’s salt is being poured into your wounded soul, you don’t want a thin, pale, emotional Jesus who relates only to lambs and birds and babies. You want a warrior Jesus. You want a battlefield Jesus. You want his rigorous and robust gospel to command your sensibilities to stand at attention. To be honest, many of the sentimental hymns and gospel songs of our heritage don’t do much to hone that image. One of the favorite words of hymn writers in days gone by was sweet. It’s a term that down’t have the edge on it that it once did. When you’re in a dark place, when lions surround you, when you need strong help to rescue you from impossibility, you don’t want “sweet.” You don’t want faded pastels and honeyed softness. You want mighty. You want the strong arm an unshakable grip of God who will not let you go — no matter what.

This leaves us with the urgent question: How can we be or become a caring community, a community of people not trying to cover the pain or to avoid it by sophisticated bypasses, but rather share it as the source of healing and new life? It is important to realize that you cannot get a Ph.D. in caring, that caring cannot be delegated by specialists, and that therefore nobody can be excused from caring. Still, in a society like ours, we have a strong tendency to refer to specialists. When someone does not feel well, we quickly think, 'Where can we find a doctor?' When someone is confused, we easily advise him to go to a counselor. And when someone is dying, we quickly call a priest. Even when someone wants to pray we wonder if there is a minister around.

When we stand before Christ and He evaluates our ministries, He will not be asking us how many people sat in the pews, watched our TV programs, gave in our telethons or filled out response cards. He is not going to evaluate us based on how many people fell under the power of God or how many healings we counted in each service. He will ask how many faithful disciples we made. I pray we make this our priority.

Jesus’ life and ministry consistently reveal the humble character of a servant. Though he rightfully owned the entire cosmos, he, by choice, had no place to lay his head (Matt. 8:20). Though he rightfully should have been honored by the world’s most esteemed dignitaries, he chose to fellowship with tax collectors, drunkards, prostitutes, and other socially unacceptable sinners (Matt. 11:19; Mark 2:15; Luke 5:29–30; 15:1; cf. Luke 7:31–50). Though he rightfully could have demanded service and worship from all, he served the lame and the sick by healing them, the demonized by delivering them, and the outcasts by befriending them. This is what the kingdom of God looks like.

I have sometimes wondered why Jesus so frequently touched the people he healed, many of whom must have been unattractive, obviously diseased, unsanitary, smelly. With his power, he easily could have waved a magic wand. In fact, a wand would have reached more people than a touch. He could have divided the crowd into affinity groups and organized his miracles--paralyzed people over there, feverish people here, people with leprosy there--raising his hands to heal each group efficiently, en masse. But he chose not to. Jesus' mission was not chiefly a crusade against disease (if so, why did he leave so many unhealed in the world and tell followers to hush up details of healings?), but rather a ministry to individual people, some of whom happened to have a disease. He wanted those people, one by one, to feel his love and warmth and his full identification with them. Jesus knew he could not readily demonstrate love to a crowd, for love usually involves touching.

After Jesus' fast, he began healing, rescuing, redeeming. The Spirit filled up the emptiness Jesus created, launching him into ministry. In some supernatural way the abstinence from food was the catalyst for Jesus' unveiling; the real fireworks were next.

That’s the bittersweet joy of ministry. We see people healed, and then we watch them move on in victory. Sometimes, it means saying goodbye. We must learn to celebrate as our fledgling birds spread their wings and fly into freedom, even if that flight pattern takes them far away from us.

When toxic church or ministry leaders feel threatened by the truth being revealed, they attack. The perfect target is the messenger of the truth. Those are typically people who were once close to the leaders, but fell out of good graces when they began asking the wrong (but actually correct) questions.

True worship is the living human being, who has become a total answer to God, shaped by God's healing and transforming word. And true priesthood is therefore the ministry of word and sacrament that transforms people in to an offering to God and makes the cosmos into praise and thanksgiving to the Creator and Redeemer.

We must live a twofold life—a life of thought and action, of silent prayer and earnest work. The strength received through communion with God, united with earnest effort in training the mind to thoughtfulness and caretaking, prepares one for daily duties and keeps the spirit in peace under all circumstances, however trying.

Many theologians believe the Gospel writers include miracle stories in order to prove that Jesus is divine. But miracles are not proof of deity. Many Old Testament prophets heal people and even raise them from the dead, yet they are mere mortals. Jesus's miracle ministry is a demonstration that the kingdom of God has arrived.

Jesus’s final prayer was oriented around a vision for unity, and he commissioned his church to be the healing agent that brings the ministry of reconciliation into broken and fractured places in society. And yet an honest assessment raises more questions than answers. Is the church at large, and are we as individuals, currently making any contribution to healing the divisions? Or are we making things worse? Have we come to grips with our role in creating this divide, or are we stuck in a state of denial?

The testimony of revival history teaches us that very few men and women of God really learn how and when to do this. In case after case, the same person who carried a marvelous anointing that brought salvation, healing, and deliverance to thousands of people lacked the wisdom to see that he or she would not be able to sustain that ministry if he didn’t learn to get away from the crowds long enough to get physical rest and to cultivate life-giving relationships with family and friends who could reaffirm his or her focus on the Kingdom.

During His earthly ministry, Jesus was always moved with compassion and healed all them that had need of healing, and He is our faithful and merciful high priest today.

The tendency to view the holistic work of the church as the action of the privileged toward the marginalized often derails the work of true community healing. Ministry

In our machine-dominated society of megacities, countless people suffer some degree of what has been termed ecological autism.

Your greatest life messages and your most effective ministry will come out of your deepest hurst.

I hear with growing clarity, it’s that God is calling each and every Christian to personally participate in the healing ministry of Jesus Christ.

When I go to Europe to teach, I often am contacted by officials at the ministries of health in the Scandinavian countries, the United Kingdom, Germany, or the Netherlands and asked to

One remarkable characteristic of Jesus’ ministry, from beginning to end, is that He never made a hard and fast distinction between healing people’s sicknesses and delivering them from demons.

Reproof is unavoidable. God’s Word demands it when a brother falls into open sin. The practice of discipline in the congregation begins in the smallest circles. Where defection from God’s Word in doctrine or life imperils the family fellowship and with it the whole congregation, the word of admonition and rebuke must be ventured. Nothing can be more cruel than the tenderness that consigns another to his sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than the severe rebuke that calls a brother back from the path of sin. It is a ministry of mercy, an ultimate offer of genuine fellowship, when we allow nothing but God’s Word to stand between us, judging and succoring. Then it is not we who are judging; God alone judges, and God’s judgment is helpful and healing. Ultimately, we have no charge but to serve our brother, never to set ourselves above him, and we serve him even when we must speak the judging and dividing Word of God to him, even when, in obedience to God, we must break off fellowship with him. We must know that it is not our human love which makes us loyal to the other person, but God’s love which breaks its way through to him only through judgment. Just because God’s Word judges, it serves the person. He who accepts the ministry of God’s judgment is helped.

Many despise economy, confounding it with stinginess and narrowness. But economy is consistent with the broadest liberality. Indeed, without economy, there can be no true liberality. We are to save, that we may give.

This means we must choose to walk in humility, trusting the Holy Spirit to give us wisdom when we ask, discernment when we’re confused, healing when we need it, forgiveness for where we’ve sinned, and help for all the ways we use our hands to live.

This need not be the case. When Christians read the Bible through the lens of Jesus’ gracious life and ministry, they will be able to see lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people as their sisters and brothers, faced with all the usual human problems, and loved equally by God.

The Great Commandment—to love—must come before the Great Commission—to do. “I’ve stepped back from the ‘work’ of ministry, and now I just play with my Daddy. The wonderful thing is that I’m seeing more fruit than ever! God is love. When His love is released, healing comes—healing of every

Survivors are receiving very poor “counseling” from ministry staff and volunteers who have no professional training in mental health. Church leaders cannot be expected to give informed advice regarding the type of abusive relationships that many therapists struggle to recognize and treat.

We think that we have to take what’s broken and make it perfect in order to be used by God and bless others. But God thinks in a completely different way. He took what was perfect, his Son, and made him broken in order to bring us healing. So if you’re sitting there wondering if God can use you because your life is not as it should be, and your heart is aching—know that your greatest hurt will probably be your greatest ministry. Like the disciple Thomas who doubted until he touched the scars of Jesus, some people in your life need to see your broken places more than your victories.

Ultimately we may not be able to alter the struggles our friends, families, and fellow citizens face. But our faith in God's ability to heal all of us in the face of tragedy should not be underestimated. The model Jesus left us is one of love and ministry, of touching others' lives and bringing emotional, physical and spiritual healing

I got out of bed, off the couch, and rejoined the land of the living. Writing has been and continues to be therapeutic for my mind and spirit. Healing words flow as I look for ways to describe what God is doing in my life in spite of, and even as a result of, the appalling conditions of my life. Dismay that could lead to despair instead turns to hope.

Remember that Jesus only did what he saw his Father doing (John 5:19). The miraculous ministry of Jesus was absolutely dependent on his intimacy with his Father. Likewise, the ministry of the apostles was absolutely dependent on their intimacy with Jesus, for without him they could do nothing (John 15:5). Therefore, the loss of intimacy means the loss of power for ministry.

When asked about her involvements, Joni most often refers to her work at JAF Ministries, including Wheels for the World—a program through which used wheelchairs are collected, refurbished, and hand-delivered, along with Bibles, to needy disabled people in developing nations. Chuck Colson has stated, “My friend Joni Eareckson Tada is one of God’s choice servants of today.” Philip Yancey has added, “Through her public example, Joni has done more to straighten out warped views of suffering than all the theologians put together. Her life is a triumph of healing—a healing of the spirit, the most difficult kind.” You can read more about this remarkable woman in the twentieth-anniversary edition of her autobiography, titled Joni, published by Zondervan.

As Jesus showed us in his life and ministry, healing and transformation flow out of relationship—not the delivery of services. True love flows out of mutuality, where we blur the lines between those who are serving and those who are receiving, and where we humbly acknowledge that we all have something of offer and something to receive from one another...As Christians, we have become so fixated on our roles as servants that we miss out on relationships of mutuality that the Spirit wants to knit between people...This is the beautiful picture of mutuality...each one is invited to participate by serving others. When we allow those we have labeled victims or the poor to serve and participate in our acts of transforming love, we usher in the kingdom of God.

To justify their inability to cope with cultural change, they turn to the Bible and proof-text, that is, they take verses out of the context of the whole and make universal laws of them. Instead of reading the Bible through the lens of Jesus’ life and ministry, many have again tried to make the Bible a law book, which they then apply selectively, only to those with whom they disagree.

Man is a relational being. And if his first, fundamental relationship is disturbed- his relationship with God- then nothing else can truly be in order. This is where the priority lies in Jesus’ message and ministry: before all else, he wants to point man toward the essence of his malady, and to show him- if you are not healed there, then however many good things you may find, you are not truly healed.

In the PC(USA) Book of Confessions, A Brief Statement of Faith made explicit the equality of all people: “In sovereign love God created the world good and makes everyone equally in God’s image, male and female, of every race and people, to live as one community.”60 A Brief Statement of Faith also provided clear confessional warrant for the ordination of women, declaring that the Spirit “calls women and men to all the ministries of the Church.

Just as Rolland and I know that together with our team, God has given us the nation of Mozambique, our dear friends Brian and Pamela Jourden know that the Lord has a great revival to birth in Zimbabwe and across Africa. Many prophetic words have been released over their lives, and financial miracles grow their ministry. When they started Generation Won/Iris Zimbabwe in 2008, Zimbabwe had gone from being one of the most prosperous nations in Africa, called the “breadbasket of Africa,” to being the poorest nation in the world. God spoke to them that Zimbabwe, which means house of stones, was like the stone the builders rejected, Jesus, but it would become a cornerstone nation, just as Jesus is the chief cornerstone, and a house of prayer for all nations. They have over twenty churches among three tribes, and they have seen HIV/AIDS and cancer miraculously healed as they preach the gospel. God is also opening doors with national leaders.

In a toxic system, the toxic minister sets himself or herself up as having a special destiny or mission that can be performed by no one else. This special anointing or calling is often nothing more than the pathological need to be valued or esteemed. It also takes some of the power that should be attributed to God and gives it to the toxic minister. It is a way to usurp God’s authority, and it is a way to discredit anyone who disagrees with the direction of the ministry.

Jesus is not a doctrine, a theology, an abstract principle, a ministry, a church, a denomination, an activity, or even a way of life. Jesus is a person, a real person. And he demands that we put him above all of these good things. None of these things died for us; the Son of God did. None of these things controls our destiny; the Son of God does. Anytime I begin to give more attention to one of these things or pursue one of them more than I am pursuing the Son of God, it will become an idol in my life to take me away from him.

Others are more knowledgeable about the situation than I am. I must go along with their decisions. It is my place to be supportive, not to confront. My faith demands that I be obedient and loyal. These people are so nice, especially to me. Their motives must be pure. Perhaps I don’t really know the pastor well enough to discern whether he is right or wrong. Since they are closer to the situation, I will go along with them. He must be “special” with special needs. Who am I to rock the boat? I must be a faithful follower and not allow others to hurt the ministry.

When we encounter hardship, if God doesn't answer our first prayer-and our first prayer is almost always, "God, please take away the pain"-then we can pray: "Okay then, Lord, please use the pain for your purposes. Put me into ministry with others who need to know your comfort." We can pray, "I wish I had a job, but use me this week in the unemployment line"; "I pray for a relief of my loneliness, but use me to reach out to refugees who may be far lonelier than I"; "I'm praying that you will heal this cancer, but if you don't, please use me this week at my chemotherapy treatment.."7

The teachings of Jesus, of course, cannot be separated from the actions of his ministry. His teachings evoked radical energy, for they announced as sure and certain what had been denied by careful conspiracy. If anything, his teachings were more radical than his actions, for his teachings played out the implications of the harsh challenge and radical transformation at which his actions hinted. It was one thing to eat with outcasts, but it was far more radical to announce that the distinctions between insiders and outsiders were null and void. It was one thing to heal/forgive but quite another to announce that the conditions which had made one sick/guilty were now irrelevant. Of course the teachings cannot be separated from the actions, for it is the actions that give concreteness and reality to the teachings. The teachings, like the actions, are shattering, opening, and inviting. They conjure futures that had been closed off, and they indicate possibilities that had been defined as impossibilities. For our consideration it will be adequate to focus on the Beatitudes because they form an appropriate counterpart to the woes, especially as Luke has presented them (Luke 6:20–26).6

The environment in which we live and work plays a very important role in this practice. When we choose wholesome living and working environments (and that includes the things we hear, see, smell, and touch), they help us get in touch with what’s beautiful and healthy in us and in the world, and we will be nourished, healed, and transformed. We should do everything we can to choose—or create—wholesome environments for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren. If you are a political leader, if you work in a ministry of culture, or if you are a teacher or a parent, please reflect on this point.

Jesus understood the sacred texts and God’s intention for humanity. So when we read the Bible through the lens of Jesus’ redemptive life and ministry, we are better able to discern God’s revelation. Jesus welcomed every kind of person into God’s community—especially the outcast, the alien, the marginalized, the forgotten, and the foreigner. Reading the Bible through the lens of Jesus’ redemptive life and ministry we see over and over again, God’s radically inclusive grace that welcomes all who have faith. Let us examine three passages that show how Jesus’ teachings illuminate God’s extravagant welcome.

The Christos (from the Greek, meaning 'anointed') spent a lot of His time, while on Earth, healing people. I refer specifically to the fact that He spent a lot of time casting out what the Bible calls unclean spirits. These unclean spirits were Alien Parasites. Mark's Gospel is replete with examples of this aspect of the Christos' healing ministry. In Christianity, there is talk about good angels and evil angels; in Islam, the pious and evil jinn, in Buddhism and other religions, beneficent spirits and malevolent spirits. Alien Parasites have been attacking humanity since humans first walked on this Planet.

The greatest miracle in the universe is not the healing of cancer. It is that we Christians, who were nothing but flesh in a great mess, full of filthiness, temper, and evil, after believing in the Lord, receiving the dispensing of the Triune God, and remaining in the church life, praying and calling on the name of the Lord day by day, after a period of time have a great change in our inner being, in our essence and in our constitution, so that we are no longer like what we were before. What a miracle this is in the universe! This kind of miracle takes place every day and every moment in the church of the Lord.

Seldom if ever should we have to choose between satisfying physical hunger and spiritual hunger, or between healing bodies and saving souls, since an authentic love for our neighbour will lead us to serve him or her as a whole person. Nevertheless, if we must choose, then we have to say that the supreme and ultimate need of all humankind is the saving grace of Jesus Christ, and that therefore a person’s eternal, spiritual salvation is of greater importance than his or her temporal and material well-being. . . . The choice, we believe, is largely conceptual. In practice, as in the public ministry of Jesus, the two are inseparable. . .

Ripeness means coming to such vivid hatred of our sin that we are willing to let it go and are ready to pay the price of change, whatever that may be. Ripeness means wanting to become the good soil Jesus talked about in Luke 8:5–15, soil that can hold on to the seed of His Word and bring forth fruit with perseverance. Becoming ripe requires receiving enough love to stand and change. The toughest work of ministry in inner healing is to give unconditional love again and again until the other does become good soil. In another sense it is not tough at all, since it is Jesus alone who can love people to life, while we have the joy of participating.

In general, Matthew, Mark, and Luke—unlike John—follow the same order of events in narrating Jesus’ public ministry: All three begin with his baptism in the Jordan River, followed by descriptions of his tours through the villages of rural Galilee, where he heals the sick, expels demons, teaches the crowds, and debates issues of Torah observance with opponents. In all three, Jesus makes only one trip to Jerusalem (John reports many visits there), where he is arrested, condemned, and crucified. Because they present Jesus’ story from essentially the same viewpoint, they are called the Synoptic Gospels: They can be “seen together” and the contents compared.

there is a widespread notion in some of the most energetic contemporary Christian movements that the biblical call to reconciliation is solely about reconciling God and humanity, with no reference to social realities. In this view, preaching, teaching, church life and mission are only about a personal relationship between people and God. Christian energy is focused on winning converts, planting and growing churches, and evangelistic efforts. We have heard pastors say, “We appreciate the work you’re doing, but as the leader of my church I’m called to stay focused on the gospel and not get distracted by other ministries.” For them, Christianity is exclusively about personal piety and morals.

He who had known the ceaseless worship of angels came to be a slave to men. Preaching, teaching, healing the sick, and raising the dead were parts of his ministry, of course, and the parts we might consider ourselves willing to do for God if that is what He asked. He could be seen to be God in those. But Jesus also walked miles in dusty heat. He healed, and people forgot to thank Him. He was pressed and harried by mobs of exigent people, got tired and hungry, was "tailed" and watched and pounced upon by suspicious, jealous, self-righteous religious leaders, and in the end was flogged and spat on and stripped and had nails hammered through His hands. He relinquished the right (or the honour) of being publicly treated as equal with God.

Like many others who have gone into prisons and jails with us, Chuck and Carol Middlekauff demonstrate what our ministry is all about. We train Christian ‘teammates’ to share the good news and love of Christ with ‘the least of these’ so they can continue to do it with others they encounter as they go along. In this book, Carol has written the stories of some of those encounters so you can appreciate how easy it is to tell people about Jesus. It happens when you realize God does all the work, and all you have to do is show up. I hope you will be encouraged by reading the book and then join us soon for a Weekend of Champions to find out for yourself.” Bill Glass, retired NFL all-pro defensive end, evangelist, founder of Bill Glass Champions for Life prison ministries, and author of numerous books, including The Healing Power of a Father’s Blessing and Blitzed by Blessings

The evangelists and pastors mentioned in Ephesians 4:11 are then replaced in First Corinthians 12 with miracles and gifts of healings. These gifts of the Spirit are the primary ones that empower and qualify the evangelistic and pastoral offices. (The entry level into the fivefold ministry gifts is also at the level of working of miracles and gifts of healings because all five ministry offices — apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher — should be equipped with these two gifts of the Spirit.) Next is the operation of helps, which handles the physical and material aspects of the ministry. One very important helps calling is what I call the “entrepreneurship of the simplicity of giving.” A person called to fulfill this operation is someone of means who has the capacity in his character and his calling to be used by God to pour thousands, if not millions, into the Kingdom of God for the governments of the Church.

Peer into any corner of current American life, and you’ll find the positive-thinking outlook. From the mass-media ministries of evangelists such as Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, and T.D. Jakes to the millions-strong audiences of Oprah, Dr. Phil, and Mehmet Oz, from the motivational bestsellers and seminars of the self-help movement to myriad twelve-step programs and support groups, from the rise of positive psychology, mind-body therapies, and stress-reduction programs to the self-affirmative posters and pamphlets found on walls and racks in churches, human-resources offices, medical suites, and corporate corridors, this one idea—to think positively—is metaphysics morphed into mass belief. It is the ever-present, every-man-and-woman wisdom of our time. It forms the foundation of business motivation, self-help, and therapeutic spirituality, including within the world of evangelism. Its influence has remade American religion from being a salvational force to also being a healing one.

The most critical of these new religious developments for twentieth-century religious liberalism were a renewed and transformed emphasis on mystical practice and experience, the healing ministry known as mind cure, and the rise of modern psychology. These three interrelated spiritual innovations spread as significant components of popular religion in large part through the mass print media. Rather than religious movements dependent on revivalism or church life, these were first and foremost discourses, creatures of the printed word. Initially explored only by an avant-garde of liberal intellectuals late in the nineteenth century, the new books and ideas emerging at the margins of liberal Protestantism eventually reached a nation-wide middle-class audience. The mass media unleashed by nineteenth-century evangelicalism enabled the alternative spiritualities of the twentieth century to flourish, especially with the rise of religious middlebrow culture in the decades after World War I.

When Jesus tells the healed leper to go and show himself to the priest and to make the offering Moses commanded for a proof of the cure, the reason should be obvious. It is not that Jesus was submitting to the superior authority of the Temple. The cure had already been effected. But the leper needed to be readmitted into ordinary social life in the village, and if he simply told his family and friends that he had been pronounced “cured” by a strange wandering would-be prophet, they might well have remained unconvinced. What he needed for reintegration into his social world was the official rubber stamp of the recognized authorities. But in the other cases—the blind receiving their sight, the lame being cured, and so on—there was no need for anything further to be done. The cure was obvious. These actions and the forgiveness and welcome that they symbolized were part of the wider total ministry of Jesus. His kingdom-announcement, which we looked at in chapters two and three, carried at its heart the claim that Israel’s God was even now present and active

In the Gospels the sinfulness of all humans is assumed. It is neediness that is exceptional, and in Jesus’s ministry need clearly takes a certain precedence over sin. His kindness is best exemplified by his feedings and healings with no imputation at all of deserving. But the wealth of this idea of kindness is not exhausted by kindnesses to humans. It is far more encompassing. From some Christians as far back as the twelfth century, certainly from farther back in so-called primitive cultures, and from some ecologists of our own time, we have the idea of a great kindness including and binding together all beings: the living and the nonliving, the plants and animals, the water, the air, the stones. All, ultimately, are of a kind, belonging together, interdependently, in this world. From the point of view of Genesis 1 or of the 104th Psalm, we would say that all are of one kind, one kinship, one nature, because all are creatures. Much happiness, much joy, can come to us from our membership in a kindness so comprehensive and original. It is a shame, as I know from long acquaintance with myself, to be divided from it by the autoerotic pleasure of despising other members.

If you will study the history of Christ's ministry from Baptism to Ascension, you will discover that it is mostly made up of little words, little deeds, little prayers, little sympathies, adding themselves together in unwearied succession. The Gospel is full of divine attempts to help and heal, in the body, mind and heart, individual men. The completed beauty of Christ's life is only the added beauty of little inconspicuous acts of beauty -- talking with the woman at the well; going far up into the North country to talk with the Syrophenician woman; showing the young ruler the stealthy ambition laid away in his heart, that kept him out of the kingdom of Heaven; shedding a tear at the grave of Lazarus; teaching a little knot of followers how to pray; preaching the Gospel one Sunday afternoon to two disciples going out to Emmaus; kindling a fire and broiling fish, that His disciples might have a breakfast waiting for them when they came ashore after a night of fishing, cold, tired, discouraged. All of these things, you see, let us in so easily into the real quality and tone of God's interests, so specific, so narrowed down, so enlisted in what is small, so engrossed in what is minute.

Your Bible makes more than a hundred references to the Holy Spirit. Jesus says more about the Spirit than he does about the church, marriage, finances, and the future. Why the emphasis on him? God does not want a bunch of stressed-out, worn-out, done-in, and washed-up children representing him in the world. He wants us to be fresher day by day, hour by hour. But let’s be careful. The topic of the Holy Spirit seems to bring out the extremists among us. On one hand there are the show-offs. These are the people who make us feel unspiritual by appearing super-spiritual. They are buddy-buddy with the Spirit, wear a backstage pass, and want everyone to see their healing gifts, hear their mystical tongue. They make a ministry out of making others feel less than godly. They like to show off. On the opposite extreme is the Spirit Patrol. They clamp down on anything that seems out of line or out of control. They are self-deputized hall monitors of the supernatural. If an event can’t be explained, they dismiss it. Somewhere in between is the healthy saint. He has a childlike heart. She has a high regard for Scripture. He is open to fresh strength. She is discerning and careful. Both he and she seek to follow the Spirit. They clutch with both hands this final promise of Jesus: “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8 NKJV). God

Creed by Abigail Carroll, p.196-197 I believe in the life of the word, the diplomacy of food. I believe in salt-thick ancient seas and the absoluteness of blue. A poem is an ark, a suitcase in which to pack the universe—I believe in the universality of art, of human thirst for a place. I believe in Adam's work of naming breath and weather—all manner of wind and stillness, humidity and heat. I believe in the audacity of light, the patience of cedars, the innocence of weeds. I believe in apologies, soliloquies, speaking in tongues; the underwater operas of whales, the secret prayer rituals of bees. As for miracles— the perfection of cells, the integrity of wings—I believe. Bones know the dust from which they come; all music spins through space on just a breath. I believe in that grand economy of love that counts the tiny death of every fern and white-tailed fox. I believe in the healing ministry of phlox, the holy brokenness of saints, the fortuity of faults—of making and then redeeming mistakes. Who dares brush off the auguries of a storm, disdain the lilting eulogies of the moon? To dance is nothing less than an act of faith in what the prophets sang. I believe in the genius of children and the goodness of sleep, the eternal impulse to create. For love of God and the human race, I believe in the elegance of insects, the imminence of winter, the free enterprise of grace.

[THE DAILY BREATH] Blaise Pascal, the famous mathematician, once said: "To those who wish to see, God gives them sufficient light. To those who doesn't wish to see, God gives them sufficient darkness." Seeing the Truth is a choice. Listening to my words is a choice. Healing is a choice. If want scientific evidence about the existence of God, there is a wealth of data to support it. Dr. Jeffrey Long, M.D. used the best scientific techniques available today to study more than 4,000 people who had near-death experiences and found themselves face to face with our Heavenly Father. Read the book "God and the Afterlife" and you will find it. If you want scientific evidence about Jesus being the Son of God, Lee Strobel, an atheist investigative journalist discovered it. Read the book "The Case for Christ" and you will find it. If you want scientific evidence about Jesus still healing today, study the ministries of Dr. Charles Ndifon, T.L. Osborn, Kathryn Kuhlman among others, and you will find it. But most importantly, if you want to fill the emptiness within you, and experience the perfect love, mercy and forgiveness, if you want to live in the peace of our Heavenly Father, give your body, your mind and your heart to Christ. Give your life to Jesus. The empty place you feel in your heart is reserved only for the spirit of Christ and nothing from this world will fill it. Look up to heaven, behold Jesus and Live.

Teaching what Jesus commanded is something we have not always done well. In fact, I have asked many people in ministry what Jesus commanded, and few have ever answered beyond love of God and neighbor. However, Jesus commanded many things as recorded in the four gospels (i.e. “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” – Matthew 10:8) Peter says that the Holy Spirit is given to those who obey. “And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him.” (Acts 5:32) If we desire to operate in the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit, we must be obedient to the commands of the Lord. Virtually all of God’s promises are connected to obedience. John connects answered prayer to obedience and then makes it clear that we are not in Him, or He in us unless we obey His commands. “Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.” (1 John 3:21-24, NIV) We have taught freedom from “the Law” so zealously, that an entire generation has believed that obedience is somewhat optional, and God will love us and bless us whether we obey or not. This is not a Biblical concept. It is true that we do not win our salvation through obedience or good works. However, if we want to stay in the blessing flow – if we want the prayer of faith to be answered – if we want to move in the gifts of the Spirit – if we want the favor of God, we must live in obedience to the commands of Christ.

Reflection A child needs the affirmation of their father. But many times that affirmation is not there. The father may be absent or it may be that their father never told them how proud he was of them. He was quick to criticize, but slow to affirm. When that child grows older, they will continue to search for the blessing of their father. They may become a work-a-holic, believing that through accomplishment they can finally find the fulfillment they are looking for. But they continue to live with a void. In another scenario, it might happen that feelings of unworthiness and self-doubt would be so pervasive that they never pursue God’s calling on their life and settle for less. Maybe you can relate. You desire love, respect, acceptance, or approval. But you don’t feel worthy. You believe you are not accomplished enough. You believe you are not beautiful enough. You believe you are not able enough. You believe you are not __________ (You fill in the blank). But these are lies that come straight out of the pit of hell. You are worthy enough because Jesus died for you. He accomplished everything that needed to be accomplished. He makes you beautiful. His Holy Spirit gives you the ability to accomplish all things (see Philippians 4:13). Before Jesus began his ministry, he was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. And when Jesus was baptized, the voice of the Heavenly Father spoke from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Matthew 5:17 ESV The ministry of Jesus had yet to begin. He had not yet healed anyone. He had not yet preached any sermons of note. He had not accomplished anything worthy to be recorded in the Scriptures. But still the Father expresses his approval. Why? It was because of the relationship of the Father to the Son. The Father’s love and approval of the Son was not based on accomplishment. He loved the Son for no other reason than the fact that he was his son. You are so important to your Heavenly Father that he sent Jesus for you. The Heavenly Father made you and created you. He gave you your life and your being. He loved you so much that he sent Jesus to die on the cross for you. It is not about anything you have accomplished. You need to know that you are the most beautiful, the most precious, and the most prized part of his creation. Your Heavenly Father is proud of you. More than you realize! You are worthy because you are his precious child, redeemed by the blood of Jesus.

Everyone wants to be successful rather than forgotten, and everyone wants to make a difference in life. But that is beyond the control of any of us. If this life is all there is, then everything will eventually burn up in the death of the sun and no one will even be around to remember anything that has ever happened. Everyone will be forgotten, nothing we do will make any difference, and all good endeavors, even the best, will come to naught. Unless there is God. If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only life, then every good endeavor, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God’s calling, can matter forever. That is what the Christian faith promises. “In the Lord, your labor is not in vain,” writes Paul in the first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 58. He was speaking of Christian ministry, but Tolkien’s story shows how this can ultimately be true of all work. Tolkien had readied himself, through Christian truth, for very modest accomplishment in the eyes of this world. (The irony is that he produced something so many people consider a work of genius that it is one of the bestselling books in the history of the world.) What about you? Let’s say that you go into city planning as a young person. Why? You are excited about cities, and you have a vision about how a real city ought to be. You are likely to be discouraged because throughout your life you probably will not get more than a leaf or a branch done. But there really is a New Jerusalem, a heavenly city, which will come down to earth like a bride dressed for her husband (Revelation 21–22). Or let’s say you are a lawyer, and you go into law because you have a vision for justice and a vision for a flourishing society ruled by equity and peace. In ten years you will be deeply disillusioned because you will find that as much as you are trying to work on important things, so much of what you do is minutiae. Once or twice in your life you may feel like you have finally “gotten a leaf out.” Whatever your work, you need to know this: There really is a tree. Whatever you are seeking in your work—the city of justice and peace, the world of brilliance and beauty, the story, the order, the healing—it is there. There is a God, there is a future healed world that he will bring about, and your work is showing it (in part) to others. Your work will be only partially successful, on your best days, in bringing that world about. But inevitably the whole tree that you seek—the beauty, harmony, justice, comfort, joy, and community—will come to fruition. If you know all this, you won’t be despondent because you can get only a leaf or two out in this life. You will work with satisfaction and joy. You will not be puffed up by success or devastated by setbacks. I just said, “If you know all this.” In order to work in this way—to get the consolation and freedom that Tolkien received from his Christian faith for his work—you need to know the Bible’s answers to three questions: Why do you want to work? (That is, why do we need to work in order to lead a fulfilled life?) Why is it so hard to work? (That is, why is it so often fruitless, pointless, and difficult?) How can we overcome the difficulties and find satisfaction in our work through the gospel? The rest of this book will seek to answer those three questions in its three sections, respectively.

In Healing the Masculine Soul, Dalbey introduced themes that would animate what soon became a cottage industry of books on Christian masculinity. First and foremost, Dalbey looked to the Vietnam War as the source of masculine identity. The son of a naval officer, Dalbey described how the image of the war hero served as his blueprint for manhood. He’d grown up playing “sandlot soldier” in his white suburban neighborhood, and he’d learned to march in military drills and fire a rifle in his Boy Scout “patrol.” Fascinated with John Wayne’s WWII movies, he imagined war “only as a glorious adventure in manhood.” As he got older, he “passed beyond simply admiring the war hero to desiring a war” in which to demonstrate his manhood. 20 By the time he came of age, however, he’d become sidetracked. Instead of demonstrating his manhood on the battlefields of Vietnam, he became “part of a generation of men who actively rejected our childhood macho image of manhood—which seemed to us the cornerstone of racism, sexism, and militarism.” Exhorted to make love, not war, he became “an enthusiastic supporter of civil rights, women’s liberation, and the antiwar movement,” and he joined the Peace Corps in Africa. But in opting out of the military he would discover that “something required of manhood seemed to have been bypassed, overlooked, even dodged.” Left “confused and frustrated,” Dalbey eventually conceded that “manhood requires the warrior.” 21 Dalbey agreed with Bly that an unbalanced masculinity had led to the nation’s “unbalanced pursuit” of the Vietnam War, but an over-correction had resulted in a different problem: Having rejected war making as a model of masculine strength, men had essentially abdicated that strength to women. As far as Dalbey was concerned, the 1970s offered no viable model of manhood to supplant “the boyhood image in our hearts,” and his generation had ended up rejecting manhood itself. If the warrior spirit was indeed intrinsic to males, then attempts to eliminate the warrior image were “intrinsically emasculating.” Women were “crying out” for men to recover their manly strength, Dalbey insisted. They were begging men to toughen up and take charge, longing for a prince who was strong and bold enough to restore their “authentic femininity.” 22 Unfortunately, the church was part of the problem. Failing to present the true Jesus, it instead depicted him “as a meek and gentle milk-toast character”—a man who never could have inspired “brawny fishermen like Peter to follow him.” It was time to replace this “Sunday school Jesus” with a warrior Jesus. Citing “significant parallels” between serving Christ and serving in the military, Dalbey suggested that a “redeemed image of the warrior” could reinvigorate the church’s ministry to men: “What if we told men up front that to join the church of Jesus Christ is . . . to enlist in God’s army and to place their lives on the line? This approach would be based on the warrior spirit in every man, and so would offer the greatest hope for restoring authentic Christian manhood to the Body of Christ.” Writing before the Gulf War had restored faith in American power and the strength of the military, Dalbey’s preoccupation with Vietnam is understandable, yet the pattern he established would endure long after an easy victory in the latter conflict supposedly brought an end to “Vietnam syndrome.” American evangelicals would continue to be haunted by Vietnam. 23

DANCING ANGELS During October 2001, the Lord began to speak to me about traveling to Newfoundland, Canada. I had no desire to go there, especially in the middle of the winter! At this time I was still concerned about my inability to “feel the Lord” and began to press into God all the more. At times I locked myself into the little house and fasted and prayed for up to seven days, or until the presence of God fell. After many confirmations in the spirit, I pooled all of my earthly wealth and made the trip to the great white North. The night before I was to depart, the Lord instructed me to “pray in tongues all the way to Newfoundland.” Somehow through the grace of God I succeeded in praying in the Spirit for about 18 hours until I touched down in Canada. In Springdale, Newfoundland, Canada, the Lord began instructing me to complete a series of prophetic actions. I attended an intercessory prayer meeting on Wednesday, November 21. We were interceding for an upcoming series of healing meetings. During this meeting, I began to “see” into the spirit. As the Lord opened my spiritual eyes, I incrementally saw the heavens open over Living Waters Ministries Church. In addition to this, I also began to hear angelic voices singing along with the worship team. At one point during the meeting, I saw a stream of golden oil pour out from Heaven and land on a certain spot in the sanctuary. At the leading of the Lord, I knelt upon that spot. The glory and anointing began to flow into and over my body. The sensation and anointing was very similar to what I experienced when the angel put his hands upon me the night of August 22, 2001. As I knelt under the spot where the golden oil was beginning to pour onto the altar, I was praying earnestly. I could feel the liquid oil raining down on my body. I could sense and smell this heavenly oil as it rolled off my head. The Holy Spirit began to talk to me in a very clear and direct way that I had never experienced before. I collapsed onto the carpet in a pool of golden oil and laid there in the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Then I sensed angels dancing all around the pool and me. I felt an angel as it brushed its wings across my face. I had a “knowing” that the angel was asking me to raise my hands into the air. When I raised my hands up to about two feet, the angel would push my hands back down with its strong, warm hands. I tried again, and when my hands were almost totally up, the angel tickled my nose with the feathers of its wings. I laughed, and my hands fell. The angel and I continued to interact in this fashion for nearly an hour. I did not actually see this angel, but the force and reality of its touch was very tangible. There was no doubt that I was interacting with a heavenly being. This experience was both refreshing and real. SEEING IS BELIEVING On Thursday, November 22, the healing meetings started; they would last through Sunday, the 25th. In these meetings God began to open my spiritual eyes beyond anything I could have ever imagined. On the first night of these meetings, I began to see an “open heaven” forming in the sanctuary. I could also hear and sense the activity of angels as the heavens continued to open up to a greater degree. On Friday, I began to see “bolts of light” shoot through the church, and again the stream of golden oil was flowing from the open heaven in a greater volume. On Saturday night during the worship service, I began to see feathers falling around the church and

THE RIGHT RELATIONSHIP OF THE GOSPEL TO ALL OF MINISTRY There is always a danger that church leaders and ministers will conceive of the gospel as merely the minimum standard of doctrinal content for being a Christian believer. As a result, many preachers and leaders are energized by thoughts of teaching more advanced doctrine, or of deeper forms of spirituality, or of intentional community and the sacraments, or of “deeper discipleship,” or of psychological healing, or of social justice and cultural engagement. One of the reasons is the natural emergence of specialization as a church grows and ages. People naturally want to go deeper into various topics and ministry disciplines. But this tendency can cause us to lose sight of the whole. Though we may have an area or a ministry that we tend to focus on, the gospel is what brings unity to all that we do. Every form of ministry is empowered by the gospel, based on the gospel, and is a result of the gospel.

I believe that some people who advertise great healing ministries are frauds. I believe that others, at the beginning of their ministry, were used in a significant way by the Lord for healing and miracles. But along the way they allowed themselves to become deceived, and now they are promoting themselves more than the Son of God. That kind of promotion may get large crowds and bring in significant amounts of money, but it does not please the Lord. Eventually those who promote themselves will lose their ministries and their intimacy with the Lord.

it is possible to put almost any good thing above Jesus Christ without realizing what we are doing. We can put the Bible and its commandments above the Lord. We can put the spiritual gifts and even various kinds of worship above the Lord. We can put various forms of ministry—witnessing, caring for the poor, praying for the sick—above the Lord. It is possible to be seduced by all of these things.

You’re such an outrageously generous God. Your kindness and love appeared to me out of nowhere, like a giant full moon on the horizon of a very dreary night. I wasn’t seeking you, Father, but you were seeking me—running to me, running after me, not to harm me but to rescue me from both paralyzing guilt and foolish pride. I praise you for your multiplied mercies. And what a “bath” in the gospel you gave me—washing me, once and for all, through the new birth. Now you continue to renew, revive, and refresh me through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, poured forth like a healing waterfall. All of these blessings come so freely because you’ve given Jesus so fully.

Professionalism embodies the power to prescribe. Today it is the key to determining need, defining clients, delivering solutions, and deepening dependency—whether in healing identity, rebuilding inner cities, dispensing public opinion, or planting churches among baby boomers. The result, however, is not necessarily greater freedom and responsibility for ordinary people, because the dominance of the expert means the dependency of the client. All that has changed is the type of authority. Traditional authorities, such as the clergy, have been replaced by modern authorities—in this case, denominational leaders by church-growth experts. The outcome is what Christopher Lasch calls “paternalism without a father” and Ivan Illich “the age of disabling professions.”[1] The suggestion is that “The expert knows best,” so “we can do better.” But the “ministry of all believers” recedes once again. Even the dream of the “self-help” movement becomes a radical chic illusion that disguises the gold rush of experts in its wake. In most cases, all that has changed is the type of clergy. The old priesthood is dead! Long live the new power-pastors and pundit-priests!

The disciples were given power and authority because they entered the kingdom and became representatives of the king. They have been given authority to do what Jesus did as part of the ongoing ministry of expanding the kingdom until the glory of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea. We are each called, commissioned, tasked and empowered to do the same things until He returns.

I began to tell the Lord how beautiful His creation was. Of course He was already aware of that, so I described how marvelous were the works of His hands and how utterly fantastic it was that each tiny snowflake was different. I described how wonderful the colors of the rainbow were and how they represented His covenant with man. The Lord was patient and allowed me to carry on in this fashion for several minutes, but alas, I was not really able to accurately answer His simple request. Then He spoke to me and gave me the revelation to what I was seeing. The Lord said, “My son, what you are seeing are the souls of unsaved men and women of earth who are dying and going to hell at this very moment.” Those words penetrated my spirit like a sharp two-edged sword. I fell to my knees and began to weep as a passion that I had never known began to well up from some mysterious and hidden place deep within my spirit. “Oh, God, look at all of those souls,” I said, breaking the silence. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with a strange compulsion to watch for a long time as thousands upon thousands of tiny flakes fell through the bright sunbeam. Their short fall was full of spectacular color and glory, but when they hit the ground, it was all over. The Lord was revealing to me a prophetic picture of the brevity of our short lives on an eternal scale. Our days on earth are but a vapor! (See Psalm 39:5 and James 4:14.) I was pierced through to the very heart. “Lord!” I cried out. “What can I possibly do?” He replied, “Just do what I ask, and preach the Cross of Christ.” “I can do that Lord. I will do that, my God, but I will need Your help.” I stayed upon my knees for a long time gazing at this spectacle. During this encounter, God birthed within me a holy passion and hunger to witness souls saved and people totally healed and delivered. I was absorbed in witnessing the array of tiny cascades of colors that luxuriated in the glory of God. I contemplated the ramifications of what I had been told. What a beautiful and glorious God He is. How can we as humankind turn our backs upon Him and such a great salvation that is so easily ours? I pondered all of the events that had been unfolding over the past few days, realizing that I would never be the same. I also realized that God would have to bring all the things that He had birthed in my heart to pass. I purposed to surrender my life and destiny to His will, and to Him. I “altared” my destiny into the hands of God. It was also during this encounter that the Lord instructed me to travel to Africa as an “armor bearer,” to preach His Gospel there and to pray for the sick. I was actually terrified by the prospect of traveling to Africa. I couldn’t imagine that in reality I could go there, considering my current financial situation and my lack of training to preach or minister in healing. However, I soon learned that with God nothing is impossible. Perhaps my obedience to walk with God in minus 12 degree temperatures opened the door to Africa to me? It was still another seemingly bizarre and peculiar gesture of obedience to the Spirit of God. ENTERTAINING ANGELS IN AMERICA After my return to the United States from Canada, I was radically transformed. I could no longer settle for a form of godliness. I began to wait on God, and He began to release supernatural provision

How do we practice dependence in ministry? We know that the Lord always wants to rescue the lost, heal the sick, and set the captives free. So we might begin by asking him for his heart of compassion. Like Jesus, we can ask God where he’s working and how we can join him. Of course, the real test comes when we step out in obedience to what we see and hear him doing. The more frequently we risk trusting him to show up, the more he’ll prove himself trustworthy.

One of the hallmarks of evangelicalism, and by extension ex-gay ministry, is the vigilance with which it guards its own internal content as both normative and binding. One could say that a lot of energy is spent on boundary maintenance—discerning who is inside and who is outside of the boundaries of shared commitments. ... Anything that seemed to deviate from the commonly held beliefs and understandings about homosexuality and healing were considered invalid and potential deceptions from the enemy. To investigate or inquire beyond these commonly held assumptions was dangerous territory, where one would be vulnerable to error.

Being missional is a way of thinking about the church and how it relates to the world. A missional church understands that the church doesn’t go on mission, or send people out to do missions. Rather, the church is the mission of God into the world, in order to heal the world and reconcile people to God. As a result, the church is not so much entrusted with a message, but is called to incarnate a person. We aren’t primarily about proclaiming Jesus’ work on the cross to the world. Rather we’re about making the words, deeds, and life of Jesus visible in every corner of our city.4

wheelchair in the mall and bringing healing. Learning how to find people at work where you invade their space and minister to them. You go to the poor parts of town and feed people. Giving words of knowledge and prophetic words to the waitress. We do all these sorts of things that are very strong and bold externally. We have to train in that element because the overt ministry helps to displace powers that have influenced our cities. Once you start moving in the miraculous, you start driving out powers that influence the minds of people because you have brought in another worldview. Exposing a city to the miraculous shifts the people's consciousness. Covert ministry, by contrast, is more about getting into the business, into the Babylonian systems and bringing change from the inside because we are kingdom people. It’s realizing that everyone’s life on the ship is saved because

In God’s school, the teachers must be masters of the art of holiness. If we teach one thing by our lips and another by our lives, those who listen to us will say, “Physician, heal thyself.” “Thou sayest, ‘Repent.’ Where is thine own repentance? Thou sayest, ‘Serve God, and be obedient to His will.’ Do you serve Him? Are you obedient to His will?” An unholy ministry would be the derision of the world, and a dishonour to God. “Be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.” He will speak through a fool if he be but a holy man. I do not, of course, mean that God chooses fools to be His ministers; but let a man once become really holy, even though he has but the slenderest possible ability, he will be a more fit instrument in God’s hand than the man of gigantic acquirements, who is not obedient to the divine will, nor clean and pure in the sight of the Lord God Almighty.

Again, it is perhaps significant that the authority of his preaching can be said to derive from his sense of being Spirit-inspired (see above §g), but also from his sense of sonship (Matt. 11.27). `Father' as much as `Spirit' spells `authority'. So too is authority present in the realized eschatology note so distinctive ofJesus' ministry. It expressed his consciousness of that power of God reserved for the end-time and manifested particularly in his exorcisms. But it expressed also his consciousness of God as Father, he who had drawn near in forgiveness and healing to deliver the poor. In short, Spirit and sonship, sonship and Spirit, are but two aspects of the one experience of God out of which Jesus lived and ministered.

We should also point out the significance of the fact that Jesus' ministry differed so markedly in character from that expected of the Coming One by the Baptist. Why should Jesus so fully ignore the prophetic expectation of one so obviously inspired (cf. Mark 11.30) ? Why did Jesus not see his ministry in terms of judgment? How came he to be so selective in his use of OT prophecy? The most obvious answer is that he had found God in his own experience to be a God of grace more than of judgment. The power which he experienced working through his ministry was a power to heal not to destroy. The message given him to proclaim was the message of God's favour not of God's vengeance. His own experience of God, of divine power and inspiration, made clear to him what parts of OT prophecy were applicable to and descriptive of his ministry, and what were not.

Pure air, sunlight, abstemiousness, rest, exercise, proper diet, the use of water, trust in divine power—these are the true remedies.” White, The Ministry of Healing, 127.

At the same time as suggesting the language game we clearly do not have a change in the name of God as our only way to think in New Testament terms of an earth at peace. There is Jesus! It is very hard to attribute violence to the originator of the gospel, of the good news of God’s forgiveness and love, of divine healing and welcome. Despite the fact that people refer to his action in the temple in the last days of his life as an exceptional yet conclusive ‘proof’ of Jesus’ use of violence no serious bible scholar would look on these actions divorced from his whole ministry. And because of that we have to see them as a conscious and deliberate prophetic sign-action, taking control of the temple for a brief period to show how it stood in contrast to the direct relationship with God which he proclaimed, and to make the point with a definitive emphasis. The whip he plaits in John is used to drive the animals, probably with the sound of the crack alone. No one is attacked. No one gets hurt. And very soon the situation reverts to the status quo: the authorities take back control of the temple and decide on Jesus’ suffering and death in order to control him. Overall the event is to be seen as Jesus placing himself purposely and calculatedly in the cross-hairs for the sake of the truth, much rather than doing harm to anyone else. The consequences of his actions were indeed ‘the cross’, and supremely in the situation of crucifixion Jesus does not invoke retaliation on his enemies, or threaten those who reject redemption; rather he prays for their forgiveness. No, Jesus’ whole life-story makes him unmistakably a figure of transcendent nonviolence. The problem lies elsewhere, with the way the cross is interpreted within the framework of a violent God. It is unfathomably ironic that the icon of human non-retaliation, Jesus’ cross, gets turned in the tradition into a supreme piece of vengeance—God’s ‘just’ punishment of Jesus in our place. My book, Cross Purposes, is about the way this tradition got formed and it represents just one of a constant stream of writing, gathering force at the end of the last century and continuing into this, questioning how this could be the meaning of the central symbol of Christianity.2 I think the vigor of that question can only continue to grow, while the nonviolence of Jesus’ response must at the same time stand out in greater and greater relief, in its own right and for its own sake. And for that same reason the argument at hand, of ‘No-name’ for a nonviolent God, can only be strengthened when we highlight the nonviolence of Jesus against the traditional violent concept of ‘God’. Now

This book is about the human side of the divine-human interface. That is one reason psychological tools can be helpful. Yet the divine-human interface will always transcend psychology, as it transcends any human endeavor. The basic assumption of this book is that for effective ministry a caregiver must strive for clear understanding of a careseeker's experience of God.

A few years back I was the featured speaker at the Indiana Governor’s Prayer Breakfast. I found myself sitting with the then youngest (thirty-six years old) governor in the country, Evan Bayh. He’s also a very devout Christian. He turned to me and said, “Brennan, you’re in just about every nook and cranny of the United States. You’re in every college and university, from Campus Crusade to Young Life, and in an incredible number of churches as well. What do you hear the Spirit of God saying to the American church?” I said, “Well, Governor Bayh, if there’s one thing I hear with growing clarity, it’s that God is calling each and every Christian to personally participate in the healing ministry of Jesus Christ.

Interspersed within those meditations are reflections on issues important for both a spirituality of reconciliation and strategies of reconciliation: memory, healing, forgiveness, truth, and ministry.

What all of these stories point to is the pivotal role women play in suffering, violence, and reconciliation. They are frequently the victims. They are the ones left behind to reconstruct a new society. They are the ones who survive. And they are the ones who find a non-violent way out of violent situations. They teach others how to cope, to heal memories, and to move on.

Within South Korean Christian churches, there has been an explosion of ministries of pastoral care and counseling in recent decades. Every family has its own story of trauma to tell, and many people seek understanding of how they can find healing for their trauma. In situations of trauma, people seek religious answers to why things have happened as they have, and what resources will bring the possibility of surviving and thriving again. Within the interreligious context

clergy, and church leaders, teaching and travel in Korea, and study of Korean religion and culture. HeeSun Kim is a Korean who has done academic work and ministry in Korea and the United States. From our experiences we believe there are life-giving perspectives in Korea that need to be shared with United States and Korean religious leaders who are searching for God’s spirit at work for healing, liberation, and reconciliation. What Is Pastoral Theology? Christian pastoral theologians and counselors in the United States have produced some of the most creative ideas about the nature of human suffering and hope in the contemporary world. Experiments in new forms of Christian pastoral counseling started in the 1920s with Anton Boisen and Russell Dicks, who understood the promise of the new psychologies in dialogue with Christian theology and practices. In almost one hundred years these theologies and practices of care have spread over the world. Students from Asia, South America, Africa, Europe, and Australia have studied in the United

United States and transformed the vision of the healing processes in their local churches. Pastoral care specialists in many countries have likewise transformed the theories and practices of pastoral theology in the United States. Pastoral theology, care, and counseling is a ministry practice and academic discipline arising from reflection on the church’s ministries of care for persons, families and communities. Caring ministries are rooted in practices of the Christian church that emphasize healing, supportive community, and spiritual liberation in everyday life. Those of us who identify as pastoral theologians and caregivers seek resources that have practical value for sustaining people when their personal lives, their families and their culture face times of crisis. Pastoral Theology has a prophetic function as it gives public voice to the suffering needs of persons and families and develops a sustained critique of ideologies, institutions, and religious beliefs that oppress human persons and families.

United States and transformed the vision of the healing processes in their local churches. Pastoral care specialists in many countries have likewise transformed the theories and practices of pastoral theology in the United States. Pastoral theology, care, and counseling is a ministry practice and academic discipline arising from reflection on the church’s ministries of care for persons, families and communities. Caring ministries are rooted in practices of the Christian church that emphasize healing, supportive community, and spiritual liberation in everyday life. Those of us who identify as pastoral theologians and caregivers seek resources that have practical value for sustaining people when their personal lives, their families and their culture face times of crisis. Pastoral Theology has a prophetic function as it gives public voice to the suffering needs of persons and families and develops a sustained critique of ideologies, institutions, and religious beliefs that oppress human persons and families. Accountability of the Authors

The deeper irony is that the evidence of sin that are always found in and around the body of Christ may become indirect intimations of its holiness. It could not be a holy church if it had clean hands, as if severed from its task of saving sinners and healing human hurt.

But then there’s the voice of the Holy Spirit. Oh, how we praise you for that one voice that transcends and trumps every other voice—the gossiper of the gospel, the herald of our healing, the bearer of beauty, the messenger of mercy, the singer of sanity, the cantor of Christ—God the Holy Spirit testifying with our spirits that we are your bought, belonging, and beloved children. How we praise you for the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Please guard each word we say so we reflect You and Your love. Help our tongues speak words of healing and not harm.

We’re all here to be available channels for the love that heals all things. A job takes a form, but our ministry is content. Even

To be a disciple means to be a follower of Christ, committed to learning his ways; to be a worshiper, joining Christ and the community in praise of God’s wonders; to be a witness who proclaims the good news to the world; to be a neighbor by living mindfully of others’ needs and reaching out to them with compassion; to be a forgiver by practicing reconciliation, healing, and peacemaking; to be a prophet willing to tell the truth about the injustices that harm neighbors; and to be stewards of the creation, the community, and the mysteries of the faith. Disciples