I have this theory that every person represents a people group.  If you touch a person with the Gospel, it is possible to touch their whole realm of influence.  So when someone gets saved, we encourage them to immediately begin to work out their testimony and start inviting people to The Mission.

With Marcela, we went a step farther.

Marcella was a polite girl who seemed to be attentive during the word.  In all outward appearances, her life was really good.  But like everyone who is away from God, things were not so great beneath the service.  During the ministry time I walked up to her and asked if she was ready to get saved.  She responded and got free of something.  I did not know what.

Since Marcella was only connected to the person who invited her to The Mission, I know she had a realm of influence that had not been touched.  She was having a little trouble getting any of her friends to come to our meetings so we decided to bring the meeting to them.  We decided to made her baptism an outreach.  We had the baptism at her house and she invited her friends to “support” her at her.

We had a time of worship (above) then she gave her testimony.  Marcela told her family, friends, and new church family about her battle with sin, depression, and an eating disorder.  Through her tears she told about how her friend invited her to church and immediately she knew she was supposed to go.

She told about how at the end of the preview service, during the ministry time, she cried out to God and told Him, “I know you brought me here for a reason, please bring it to me.”  That very moment is when I walked up to her and challenged her with the Gospel.  The anointing was so thick in the room and there was barley a dry eye in the place.

After that I got up and shared the Gospel.  I preached about a risen Savior who forgives sin and fills with power.  I then gave an altar call right there in the living room.  I asked who was ready to give their life to Jesus and go down in the waters of baptism as a public declaration of faith.  One of her friends came forward.

We went out to the pool and I added him to those getting dunked.  I spent a few minutes with him and he shared how God had been preparing him for that moment.

The last person I baptized was Marcela.  She gladly affirmed that she had accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior and proclaimed to all in attendance that she was going to follow Him.  After she came up out of the water, I made one last invitation to those in attendance for salvation.  That is when I spotted her.

Marissa is Marcela’s sister.  Her face was bright red and she was crying her eyes out.  Right before our eyes she was being convicted of her need of a Savior.  She could barely contain herself.  Her heart was being rent for the Lord.  It was not because I am a great preacher or anything else in the natural.  The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters of baptism and people were being touched.  This girl needed Jesus and she happened to be where He was.  When the lost get around the anointing they cannot help but see their need for forgiveness.

She came into the pool and I talked to her for a few minutes, lead her in a prayer of salvation and declared the forgiveness of sins.  She was crying, and I wanted to run around the block and rejoice.

I prayed for her, laid hands on her, did a little housecleaning and dunked her in the waters.  When she came up I asked how she was feeling.  She said, “I feel free!”

Glory to God.

I talked to her a little bit and asked her sister to come back into the pool.  I prayed for them together and at the same time, they both got baptized in the Holy Ghost! Glory to God!

I hate to say it but a baptism in the middle of your Sunday morning or Wednesday evening service is not a public declaration.  Take people to their hood, gather their friends, let them declare the good things God has done.  Then take the risk of putting yourself out there and have an altar call.  You may be supprised how many people have been praying for God to bring an answer to them.

We do baptisms a little different at The Mission. See, we believe that water baptism is a means of grace in the Church. That means if someone gets baptized in faith, and the person baptizing them is doing it in faith, something should happen. Don’t tell me it’s just a symbol. To mush of what the Church has been doing is mere motion and not enough faith.

So when we baptize we are in the pool till the Holy Ghost comes and we minister till He shows up to baptize. With that in mind:

I have created a multi-step meme.

1. Watch the video at the end of this post.

2. Try to stop crying.

3. Post these instructions followed by your Cardboard Testimony.

4. Link back to this post and comment your testimony.

5. Tag 5 other people to do the same.

My Cardboard Testimony?

Pervertor of Women – Corrupter of Men (side 1)

Faithful Husband – Church Father (Side 2)

What’s yours? I tag these 5. If you are not tagged, go ahead and list your cardboard testimony in the comments or do yuor own post and link back here.

1. Patsy from Rahabs Place
2. Roy from Free Donuts
3. John Baw from Wild Ox Gilbraltar
4. Will Riddle from Church Revolution
5. Wesley from Global Revival (maybe this will get him blogging again)

ht chris reeder

I preached on living a double life and how Jesus never changes. I gave a warning about playing in the anointing and then playing in the world. I felt the need to warn the people who come and minister and then lead a double life on the outside. The Mission has become their God time break and then they leave and go back to nonsense.

Don’t fool yourself. Randomly pick 10 on fire young people in your church and visit the pictures on their MySpace page. I guarantee you you will find near pornography on many of them.

I talked about how you can probably live a mildly Christian life and make it to heaven but if you want to be part of the end time harvest it is going to cost you something. And if you throw your hat into the ring and seek the anointing of God, and turn back to the world, the devil will be waiting. Choose wisely I told them.

The conviction fell and I invited all those making the choice for Jesus to come forward for prayer. Among them was a guy I will call Jimmy.

Jimmy had come off and on. He has a (fallen) angel that visits him at night. Sometimes it tells him that he is Jesus. Other times it tells him to do really bad things. I am not making this up. about a month and a half ago he came and ran out of the house at the altar call. I later found out that the angel had told him to come to the meeting, listen to the message, and then kill me and two other guys. After the message he left because he did not want to kill us. Thank you Jesus! This guy is about 6′4″ and over 300 lbs (135 kg, 21.4 stone).

I was happy he wanted prayer . . . for a minute.

When I began to pray he almost instantly began to manifest. He began to grunt and growl. He clenched his fists and tightened his jaw and began to snarl. His eyes turned blood red and he began to stare at me as if I was a lineman on the opposing team. Apparently I had stumbled onto something.

I began to command the demon to stop manifesting and to come out of the man but it would not budge. When the manifestations would increase I would rebuke the demon and tell it that it could not put on a show. I would then command it to leave until it began to increase the manifestations again. There was a minute when the people kind of gathered around, stopped worshiping, and began to stare in wonder. Fortunately my disciple let them to begin worshiping God who is the only one who can truly deliver.

I have found that one of the keys to deliverance ministry is to establish that the enemy has no authority in the person. I normally lead the person in a confession regarding the birth, life, death, resurrection, and the second coming of Jesus. After this I tell the demon that they have no authority and that it has to leave. Sometimes confession of specific sins is required or the renouncing of sin, but you get the idea.

So I say to this guy, “Repeat after me, Jesus is alive.”

He says, “Jesus is a lie.”

Huh? Maybe I heard him wrong, “Repeat after me, Jesus is alive.”

“Jesus is a lie.”

Wow, that sounded pretty clear that time. That was a new one for me. Not exactly knowing where to go from here I say, “Say – Jesus – IS – ALIIIIVVVEE.”

“Jesus … IS … A … LIIIIIEEEE.”

Hmmm. I was a communication major in college so I can make a sentence more than one way. You want to play games? I can play games.

“Say, Jesus lives.” HAH! Try to mess that one up! Got you devil!

He looks me dead in the eyes and says,

“I am alive.”

Wow! Wasn’t expecting that one. We are now on uncharted territory for Carl Thomas Ministries (if there were such a thing). I pulled the ole ace in the hole and the devil trumped me with a joker. But now I was stuck. This thing was like engaging a pitbull. You can’t just attack it for a minute or two and then walk away. One of you is going down. And every time this thing would manifest this spirit of fear would try to jump on me. And I knew if I let it take root that this guy would split my head open.

And I really did not want that to happen. I like my head just like it is.

So I decided that since Jimmy asked for ministry, that was all the authority I needed. I grabbed this guys head with both hands and began to command every demon in his life to leave. I normally don’t use that language because it is not necessary. I normally just declare freedom and the devil has to leave. But we were way beyond niceties.

I told the devil to get out of him and leave in the name of Jesus. Then Jimmy began to cough so hard I though I might see his liver. You might not believe this next part but I then saw all these demons standing around looking kind of bewildered like, “What happened?” It was almost funny.

I had someone open the front door and I told them, “Get out!”

Needless to say a real soberness came over the prayer time and several others were delivered that night.

The devil truly is defeated and has no authority in the believer. We can all agree with that, right? But does he have authority in my appliances?

The next day my washing machine completely died. It seems every time I have some sort of spiritual breakthrough, something breaks in my house. Once I had a really seasoned minister who has been mightily used in revival come to dinner. The garbage disposal decided to die as they showed up. I have lost my microwave in these times, my refrigerator, my car has broken down as has my van and various plumbing issues. These regularly happen when I see these types of things. This all leads me to believe that the devil does not mind me so much but he hats my appliances.

Coincidence? Maybe so. But it is annoying none the less.

Remember that old Steve Martin movie, The Jerk? “He hates these cans!”

I have done lots of posts about a Tuesday night outreach I have been leading. last week a lady from my church wanted to come and see what was happening. She later confessed to me that t one point she was actually scared for her safety. I shouted Halleuijah! That means we are attracting exactly the crowd we feel called to reach. The young urban knuckle heads.

Last week we had almost 40 people in a living room and man did it get hot! I was there worshiping when the Holy Ghost said, “Why don’t you take off your shirt?” Mind you, I had on a t-shirt underneath, but I was thinking, “I am about to preach.” Thankfully it was a new shirt because I preached the Gospel that night in a wife beater to a group of young men who find that suitable attire.

Among the (many) people flopping around on the floor was a Mormon girl who missed her flight back to Arizona because of a traffic jam on the way to the airport. One guy who got saved was the roommate of a crack dealer that has been coming (we believe that this dealer is the gateway to nothing short of a revival so please pray for his deliverance and salvation).

This Saturday we are going to have a big blowout with performances and almost a real service. We are expecting over 100 to show up. Here are the flyers: (click them for a larger view)

click for larger view

click for larger view

Would you please pray for the lost to be saved? We have gone into every hood we can find inviting people. We really need the grace of God in this thing and are hoping for a real move of God. This is not going to be some Billy Graham crusade. We are praying for the supernatural to manifest. We want miracles, signs and wonders. This generation has heard the Gospel but has never experienced the full Gospel. It is my goal to make that an unavoidable fact.

Let me just get one down here.

There is a girl I am discipling that is about to be a senior in high school. She got a job at a large gym. One day her boss said that she could use the facilities if she wants to have a church meeting. The boss is not a believer and the girl had only been working there a few weeks.

I showed up to preach at this national chain gym at 10 a.m. this past Saturday morning. There were about seven people that showed up for her outreach and all got saved. I have preached lots of places. But preaching to a bunch of lost people in a XXXX’s gym on a Saturday morning had not been one of them.

When I finally had the “altar call” there were people bawling. I was simply amazed. I was driving home with a few of my disciples when I said to them,

One day you are going to be telling the story of the day you held an outreach in XXXX’s gym on a Saturday morning and a hlf dozen people got saved and one even got baptized in the Holy Ghost.

Some of the guys got really blasted. After devotions they are supposed to go to a morning class. Imagine you are teaching about 300 youth and a handful come in drunk in the Holy Ghost. I was not winning any popularity contests.

Anyway… in that little time of devotion there was a kid that grew up in church but got laid out under the power of God. At the end I asked him, “What happened to you?” He kind of slurred, “I don’t know.”

I got this today on myspace. He put it out as a bulletin to all his friends.

note:the mission is an outreach I am having on the 21st.

This jubilee endured into my highschool years but seemed to fade when I fanally encoutered my, “get real” phase. I began to doubt my very importance of a human being. I had veered awry from the ways of God which in turn left me broken hearted and my soul in peices. I quickly resorted to a suicide attempt by consuming 22 500 mg (extra strength) Tylenol pills and about 10 Advil headache relief pills. All that came of this was a sharp pain at my side and a 2 day trip to the hospital. I easily thwrated any thought of suicide to my parents and the doctors (including a hostpital shrink). So I thusly contunued my life vowing not to attempt this again knowing it would send me straight to the firey abyss (‘hell,’ excuse my colorful analogys). I then proceeded to do uncharacteristic things such as run from home seeking sanctuary. I would call to God and often hearing nothing through my clouded skies.

I recalled in scripture that God was with the broken hearted and I felt abandoned. I did, though, become happy for a season (a week, tops) but that immediatly fell as I again turned my back to God so his wrath continued to wreak havoc on my life. His wrath being the disconfort of being without comfort. I proceeded to condem his very existance and continued my selfish behavior. I later realized my mistakes and asked for forgivness but I was still drowning in this depression. I still, though, felt alone. My face had not been caught at church only very early on Sundays. I was without friends, those who could understand my torment. My only lament, my brother shows his lack of compassion towards only me. My mother exausted of my behavior.

Those friends of the world, whose words fell flat when they attempted to comfort me. I felt a great distain of everything of this world. Even when I fell to it’s temptations I would rebuke its existance. I pleaded to God to take me from this Earth. I felt a sense of worthlesness to even this world. Suddenly a grand opportunity arrose. An opportunity to get out of this box and away to seek solitude. Even though I had become distant from my friends at my church there was still a strong sense of familiarity and comfort.

One week in Lake Whales, Florida changed my life. For the first time I felt a sense of right and my abilitly to overcome and identify wrong. I felt the doors of my heart oven once again to be filled of Gods Earthly encarnation the Holy Spirit.

Though I still sometimes show scars of this hurting, now, in my spirit I am not thirsty, or hungry or ever will be again, but I still ache. My friends, I love you all the same. But I hurt for those living in sin and succumbing to temtation. The world accepts casual sex and achohol and drugs. Even worse some of you say you know the word of God and truth be told perhaps you truly do. But what is confusing to me is that you choose to deny Christ to follow the world.

With your lifestyle you make a statement to God sitting in his throne that you accept eternal damnation apposed to eternal life in heaven. I weep at the image of my friends of the world being torn apart in the abyss, all for a brief stint of pleasure on this Earth. Even if you feel no conviction or feel indifferent to this, I ask you as a friend, hey, what are you doing the 21st of this month, if your free let me know, I know an event that won’t make you feel awkward and I promise a great time. And if you can’t attend the 21st still let me know if your interested becuase there’s stuff going every Tuesday and Wensday.

I promise you, you won’t regret it and it’s not like ill drop you off and then leave you alone there. Seriously just give me one shot to show you the truth of what real joy looks like. And for those of you who really want to see me drunk, like wasted for real, this is the place for you. Oh, by the way this is actually Rich not some like chain letter. So give it a shot, I’ll give you a ride if you need one.

Pastor Mark Hadfield: Mark of Made to Praise Him is Senior Pastor of Inverness Community Church. Mark is leading a church into the glory realm. His writings are challenging and enlightening. I enjoy watching as his church finds its footing in the supernatural. Beyond this Mark has been a friend in time of need.

The first thing He said is “now, you take the land”.

Let’s rewind a little in order to understand that.

We’ve been blessed with this amazing sense of God’s presence on the streets ever since we started Healing On The Streets. Every Saturday morning we go to the busiest part of the city centre, set-up some simple PA, raise a 5 metre banner with the word “Healing” on it, and place 6 chairs for people to take if they’d like prayer. Then we all kneel in the busy street and pray, before inviting people to come for healing. The sense of His presence has been just astonishing. There have been times that some of us have been unable to stand under the weight of His glory and we’ve stayed down a little longer than intended. Then people come for healing – and they’re healed, either immediately or over a few weeks, but they’re healed, not merely comforted.

But this morning was different.

I guess it started last night. (Or maybe it started last week?)

A group of us went into town to pray and worship and we sensed an unusual spiritual oppression. We realised that it was outside of our immediate vicinity. I likened it to sitting in a bubble. We were in the glory, but not far beyond us it was oppressive. We walked around praying. We sat and worshipped. We sensed the bubble expanding and then we sensed a breakthrough.

Then this morning, in addition to the usual ministry, some new things happened. We had a teenage girl who was pregnant come along, wanting us to bless her unborn baby. I’m blown away that a girl that age doesn’t just want her baby on her own, but also wants the best for her baby. She’s precious and I hope we’ll see her again. We had a Muslim woman come for prayer, wanting her family to know God. Amazing! Finally, we had a really wholesome conversation with a kind-of-new-ager whose into reiki and has been preaching syncretism at us ever since we started. This morning he opened up a little. He’s actually very spiritually aware but still looking for a tangible connection with something higher. He talked about visiting our churches.

The “bubble” really had expanded!

God really impressed upon me that we need to keep stretching, pushing, expanding, taking new ground. He gives us an encouraging start and then asks us to build upon it. Isn’t that the heart of a good dad? To get you started, but then give you the experience of taking it further. Does God really need us to do His work for Him, or does He really love us enough to invest into us for our own joy and fulfilment?

Consider the parable of the talents, or the instruction through the prophet Isaiah to enlarge the place of your tents, and to sing for joy who are barren. He gives us the start (a talent, a tent, a promise). He gives us the equipping for the job (the supernatural anointing of the Spirit and His Son’s authority). He shows us what’s possible. He holds our hand. He says to us “you’re my children, you have the best possible start, now go and make something of it”.

I think there’s something squif with our view of God’s sovereignty if we just sit around waiting for blessing to fall out of the sky. There’s also something squif with our view of the Father heart of God if we expect to be jolted out of our comfort zones with an impossible and painful challenge, instead of taken by the hand, given a head start, and then encouraged to develop.

Come on church! How about it? What gentle prod has He given you and what are you going to do with it?

And the second thing God said?

I was standing in the middle of the street during a slack period when the chairs were empty, looking at the scene of people rushing by to do their shopping, and I heard the voice of the Father say very clearly “can’t you hear me calling to them, my orphaned children?”. I cried. I walked over to the PA, turned off the music, picked up a guitar and started singing “Come Through To Me” by Godfrey Birtill. And people came and sat in the seats and received healing.

He trusts us, He trusts me, He trusts you, with what’s dear to His heart. That’s staggering. So how does He feel if we shrug it off instead of doing something about it?

Come through to me €¦ naked heart €¦
Come deeper €¦ I know where you are.
Come through the storm €¦
Let it be still €¦ Come nearer €¦
Leap into my arms.
So let go, let faith rise.
Have no fear, you will fly.
So let go, let faith rise.
Have no fear, you will fly.
Come through to me €¦ broken one €¦
Come higher €¦ My daughter, my son.
My family €¦ I’m gathering €¦
Come closer €¦ I’ll make you as one.

Here is my list. It is definitely not all conclusive:

1. He is not of this realm. Though He did come here, He did not stay here and wants to take us where He is. Gal 1:3-4

2. He is focused on things I cannot even see yet. I was praying about my broken washing machine the other day and Jesus showed me a vision of a church I will preach in one day … in London. (thats about 4500 miles / 7100 km away) Truly my thoughts are not His thoughts.

3. When Jesus says He is coming to an event, He shows up. Every single word of knowledge I have had in conjunction with preaching has been fulfilled. I got two words of knowledge for my meeting last night a week ago. I pronounced them and Jesus came and healed.

4. He is always wanting to meet new people. I cannot tell you how many people I have laid hands on who have had a vision of Jesus. He almost always embraces them. That’s really really cool!

5. He is absolutely on fire for the Father’s business. I don’t have any lost friends. I don’t have any lukewarm friends. All my friends are focused on the Gospel and on fire for God. But Jesus stands out from all of them. He has more revelation to share, more testimonies to give, more prophesies to proclaim, more exhortation to declare, more fire to impart than anyone I have ever met by a long shot. Hanging out with Him is more fulfilling than with anyone else. When my friends get together we preach to each other all night each building upon what the other said. With Jesus, you speak once, then spend the rest of the conversation trying to get your mind around what He says in return.

Ok, I stretched that last one a bit but I only had 5 remember?

So now I am supposed to tag 5 others so here we go:

David – Sure to be something firey.
Michael – Sure to be something well thought out and doctrinally sound with that Vineyard flair.
Chet – Can you say graphics?
Rich - If he completes it, (remember that “imminent” post on Ted Haggard back in November of last year?) it will be in several months and contain thousands of words. Some pro-gay group will surely comment on it and tell how Carlton Pearson is the greatest man since Moses.
slw -  Don’t ask. I have no idea what slw stands for.

For some reason trackbacks do not work in this theme so make sure you comment here with a link to your post.

I worte in earlier posts about some young men that got right and are now doing some spirit filled hip hop.  Well I am leading their home group as a missions base.  Each week they try to get as many friends from their former life to come to a group we hold on their back porch.

The group starts at 10 p.m. and I leave around midnight.  In those two hours anything can happen.

Last night we had over 20 folks there with about four who had never steped into a church in their lives.  I preached on sanctification through the power of the Holy Ghost.  Some real Keswick type doctrine (I am pentecostal you know).  Then I had ministry time.  This is when it gets fun.

Last week I cast the vision for the group.  At the end, I said that everyone who was there was going to receive power to reach their lost friends and a burden for the lost.  I told them that I was not going to have an altar call.  The fact that they were there meant that they were in.  If they did not want God to use them to reach the lost for His glory then they would have to leave.  One girl did.  I saw her through the sliding glass door a little later crying.  Appearantly she was trying to get out of the house but she couldn’t.  The Holy Ghost would not let her.

She said, "I kept saying, ‘I gotta get out of here.  I gotta get out of here’ but I couldn’t."  She showed up back on the porch weeping.  She recommitted her life to Jesus, received deliverance and the Baptism in the Holy Ghost.  Needless to say, she showed up back this week.

This week all the lost confessed their need for salvation and many were touched.  To make a long story short, I left at midnight.  I wanted to leave before the police shoed up.  There were a half dozen young men rolling around on patio laughing and yelling under the power of the Holy Ghost.  We could not get then to quiet down.  The mother of the young men came out to try to get them quiet.  Her nine year old son followed.  We prayed for him and he hit the ground praying in tongues for the first time.

As Bill Johnson would say :Good stuff.