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| Star Lake Conference Center outside of New York City |
Linda and I are at a beautiful conference center outside of New York City today. We arrived Thursday. The conference is called 23inMe, meaning, Psalm 23, inside of me.
We've met many new friends. And, God really gave us a great day yesterday.
After breakfast I explained my Psalm 23 exercise to the attendees, and sent them out to pray for forty-five minutes. The fall morning was stunning, and we were all talking about the glory of God reflected in his creation.
When the praying people returned to our class session I broke them into groups of four to five, and there was sharing around the question: What did God say to you while you were praying? The sharing was profound and electric. God was doing great things in us!
Last evening I gave my presentation "Leading the Presence-Driven Church." Plus, there was more sharing around what God was doing. And some beautiful worship led by a very gifted pianist/vocalist.
The highlight for me was a beautiful, non-programmable move of God. This illustrated my teaching in ways I could never have planned. God began doing inner healing in people, especially in one pastor. Linda and I saw the people do something we've never seen in all our years of ministry. This woman was restored spiritually. She, and we, will never be the same again.
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I'm now writing my book Leading the Presence-Driven Church. In the P-DC the "services" are not planned out to the minute. That's the Program-Driven Church, even the Entertainment-Driven Church. These latter do not allow for unexpected moves of God. The goal is to entertain, and then get the people in and out. The Welsh Revival could break out in an Entertainment Church and it would be quenched, even seen as a hindrance, perhaps because "the service went on too long."
My new book is: Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God.
