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, and pass copies out to all the spiritual leaders I knew at ASU.

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 (this small little chapel in the heart of the ASU Tempe campus where the students prayed 24/7 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 with the rest of us. I wish you were there.

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 benefits of its non-members" C.S. Lewis
• The spiritual battles going on right now with determine what the church looks 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, 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 room/places 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 prayer 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)
• 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 is 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 stumblingblock (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 on the night before Good Friday of how 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.

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 a yell. That's a conversation that needs face-time.... and coffee.

And its so exciting to see how the Spirit is going to move in the valley. Not only are the ASU students are going to start another 40days, but I know of several local churches that are also engaging ( Open Door and Living Streams) and I'm sure there's more....