Amazing Ministry During Earthquake

I grew up in San Diego and of course experienced many earthquakes, but in all the years of traveling to California since 1979, this was the first time I personally experienced an earthquake while visiting, and actually never even thought about it in the past.  More on that in a bit 

The trip was an amazing experience.  I was upgraded to first class on all four flights which was a treat and a blessing.  I was out in California for a personal visit, and a friend who attends a Vineyard Church in Corona decided to ask me to speak at his home group which usually has around 15 people, but the word got out and over 75 showed up – I preached a message called “Shine Baby Shine” which is extremely interactive – and then we had prayer ministry which I felt led to start by having the people imitate the guy in Acts 3 who went Walking and Leaping and praising God and the crowd began to jump and leap which brought on joy and laughter all over the place – the house was too small for the crowd so some were outside looking in or down the hall ways, or on the patio – but the joy and laughter lasted a long time.I then invited those to come up who had never fallen under the power of God, and scores of people came, the room was littered with people all over the place – healing started to manifest, the some of the children who were playing outside came in and began to fall under God’s power and then they began to pray and minister to others.  The home group normally ends around 8:30 but this evening lasted until way past 10:30.  There was a genuine hunger for the word, for ministry and for God’s presence.  The joy would come in waves all over the house and the people would rush to the new point where the joy was hitting so that they could be in on it – they were so hungry – it was like God was dropping Fresh Manna and they would run to the new location to get some, except it was coming in joy and laughter.  I do have a recorded CD of the teaching and ministry time including all of the joy being expressed.  You can’t listen to it and remain sad or discouraged.

Sunday Morning, I was at a Spirit Filled  Lutheran church (LCMS) in Orange, CA and I taught on “This is not my Recession” and the people ate up the word and the there was lots of prayer ministry and we really bonded and connected and the leaders of the church stated that they intend to have me return again, possibly this year for a whole weekend.

Sunday night I was once again at the Vineyard home group but at a different house – and this house was smaller than the first,, but a whole new group of people showed up and we met in the backyard on the lawn.  Again, the worship was sweet and soothing and invited Jesus into our midst.  I taught on “Do you need a Faith Lift” and the prayer ministry lasted for a long time – many wonderful things happened with more healings and powerful manifestations of the Spirit.  I felt like we were in some sort of underground church but here in America, with people getting the word out on their own, inviting friends and crowds showing up in people’s homes unannounced. 

I compared the two nights by stating that the first night it was like everyone was playing in a stream, kicking up the water and splashing about and having a party, while the second night we sat at the edge of the stream, and dangled our feet in the stream while we reflected on all that God had done for us.

Monday afternoon we drove to San Diego for still another home group meeting.  Prior to the meeting I had a vision of a vehicle rolling over several times on the freeway and I prayed thinking it might be a warning, but felt assured from God that it was not the car I would be riding in.  On the way there the traffic was terrible for awhile and we soon came upon an accident in which one of the vehicles had obviously rolled over several times.  Then shortly after that I had the thought about the earthquake, but kind of dismissed it just due to my previous experience with quakes from living in California for 22 years.

We arrived at the home group and there was again a large group of people, many of whom did not know each other, but had just heard about the meetings in Corona, and wanted to attend.  After some great worship, I taught on Transformation and City Reaching and then we launched out in prayer ministry, that included some words of knowledge in which I pointed at people in various parts of the rooms, and shared what I sensed God was saying.  The prayer ministry was similar to the first night with joy and laughter and people on the floor after falling under the power of God. 

There were a number of students and teens at each meeting and this evening was no exception.  At one point I had taken one of the teens up the staircase just to avoid some of the noise of all the people praying at once and as I was praying with her, there was a loud rumbling noise, but I just thought it was the prayer volume.  I later learned that we had prayed through two earthquakes, of 5.1 and 5.7 in magnitude.  So that was very cool.