I’m going to try to write a play-by-play of our weekend. In this post, I’ll write about our experiences at the revival meeting in Charlotte (well, really Fort Mill, SC but most everyone CALLS it Charlotte!)… and in the next I’ll tell of the miracle God did in keeping my daughter and her friends alive and uninjured in a serious car wreck.

If you want to read something REALLY cool, scroll down to the heading, “A Visit From Jesus”.

ARRIVAL

Thursday morning we packed up and headed down to Charlotte. Our hotel (Best Western Carowinds) was quite nice. They let us check in early. We got a bite to eat and headed over to Morningstar fairly early. We’d never been there before, so we drove around and saw the big field where Friday’s meeting would be, and sort of self-toured their campus.

I’d heard that Morningstar had bought the old PTL (Jim Bakker) campus, but since the whole PTL thing blew up years before I cared about what Christians did, I didn’t know about it. They sunk bazillions of dollars into the place, and apparently even though it was opulent, some of the workmanship was shoddy – especially on the high-rise apartment building that’s going in right next to the church (which meets in the former lobby of the big hotel). Opulent doesn’t even describe the hotel/indoor mall/church… it looks like something out of a fairy tale (and yes, there IS a castle on the premises too – but it seems to be boarded up for now.) Morningstar bought it for 1.6 million in terrible disrepair, and they’ve been fixing it up ever since. It seemed to us that where they were able to preserve the beauty of the place inexpensively, they’ve done so – but where that would cost too much they’ve opted for plainer and more practical.

PARTNER’S MEETING

After we registered for the partner’s meeting, we ate a nice and inexpensive lunch in the church’s Missions Cafe, then wandered through the bookstore and such. While we were eating, we got to say a quick hello to Rick Joyner. I gained a lot of respect for him over the two days we were there. Many senior pastors of important ministries expect everyone else to do the work, and the pastor expects to sit in the air conditioning and get the glory for it. Rick was out there talking with team members, making sure they had what they needed… and on Friday he was out driving a golf cart around working!!

Eventually we bought a book and got in the book-signing line. I highly recommend that everyone read Todd’s latest book – The Reality of the Supernatural World. He signed it for us, and chit-chatted, and shook our hands. I do admit that it’s nice to know that it’s possible to be touched by Todd Bentley and NOT end up on the floor!!

The partner’s meeting was nice. We weren’t sure what to expect. They talked a lot about the work in Uganda, especially with the child soldiers (made me cry!) and they took up an offering, of which 100% of it goes to that work.

IMPARTATION

Afterward, we had a healing/impartation prayer line. This time when Todd touched me I went out on the floor (most folks did) and I had an experience with God that was just incredible. I could feel the heavy weighty kabod glory of God, and peace and warmth and love flowing through me. I just lay there for a long time, just drinking in His presence. After it was over, no one wanted to leave!!

FRIDAY’S REVIVAL SERVICE

On Friday, we got up and found the Starbucks We eventually made our way over to Morningstar. It was a big open field, but fortunately the main building was open and air conditioned, so before the service started at 5, we were able to go in and rest a bit. We sure got sunburned! But interestingly the sunburn doesn’t hurt…

CARNIVAL?

I’m sure a lot of people who see it on GodTV or youtube will say, “It had a festival (or carnival) atmosphere”. Well, sure. If you get a coupla thousand people together in a big open field, and make sure their needs are met, it’s going look like the county fair minus the rides. People need to potty – and so there were portapotties everywhere. People need to eat, and drink, and so there were food vendors (most of which were reasonably priced!). People also brought in coolers with dinner and bottled water. Since it was in a field, most people brought lawn chairs or blankets to sit on. People want to buy stuff, so the bookstore had a tent with books and t-shirts and such. Music or video was playing. Was it a festival? Yes!

One neat thing is that it was 08-08-08 and it was 88 degrees (the temp dropped 10 degrees between Thursday and Friday — THANK GOD!!). Still hot but not enough to really cause trouble.

The worship was great, but it was a little difficult for us to get into because we didn’t know ANY of the songs. The musicians were fabulous, and we did pick up on the choruses of a few songs along the way. So, we just had to determine to worship the Lord despite that. It was good dancin’ music!!

A VISIT FROM JESUS

The first highlight of my evening was when Todd announced that they were going to have a special commissioning for ministry prayer for people ages 25-40. Bob Jones had given a prophetic word prior to the meeting about a “new breed” of Christians – which I took to mean the younger generation rising up and really believing in, and acting upon, God’s Word.

So I stood up along with hundreds and hundreds of others, and Todd prayed over us all. Mid-prayer I suddenly couldn’t really hear him any more. It’s not like I went deaf – it’s more that my focus changed and his voice became part of the background noise.

I had my eyes closed and my hands raised and I was praying to receive everything that God wanted to give me.

Suddenly my eyes were filled with light, and out of that light I saw Jesus coming toward me. I was filled with awe and holy fear and anticipation all at once. I started crying, because I could feel His love for me. He stretched out His hand (I saw the scars!!) and He touched each of my hands, and my forehead. I very nearly fell out on the ground!! Then He was gone from my vision…

I’m not sure how to describe what I felt in those moments, except that after He had gone from my vision I could sense His presence in a greater way than I ever could before. For me, that’s really saying something, because the instant I was saved I could feel Him there with me, and that sense of Him has been growing ever since. And yet Friday that grew so much more that… wow.

I also had a literal sense of commissioning, and a confidence in God and in His ability to use me, to strategically position me, to speak through me.

I’m sure the heresy hunters will have a field day with my vision of Jesus… oh well. I think I’m going to make a heresy-hunter-hunter’s site this afternoon They need to get over themselves and read the book of Acts. They might even get saved…

RAIN

At one point, Todd brought up a young man from the Morningstar school (they’ve got a K-12 school there apparently). He and several friends had been to Lakeland, got some, brought it back and kicked off revival services there – they’ve got meetings 6 nights a week! That was one on-fire kid!! During the offering, they played a video of revival services there… WOW. People giving glory to God and burning with passion for Him – healings and miracles – and twice, rain… you could see on the video that literally drops of liquid were forming out of thin air and falling from above. It was WILD!!

HEALING

Todd started to call out words of knowledge. One was for a pain in the side, which Ken’s had for months. He reports that it’s gone. There were several dramatic healings that night.

MINISTRY

When we sat down, a mom and daughter sat next to us. It was obvious that both had health problems, and that the daughter had some muscle problems. She didn’t move right, speak right, etc. God spoke to me, “crack cocaine”, torment, and the name Ashley, and several other things. We planned on praying for both of them during the healing ministry, but late in the evening the daughter took off. The mom told us she was laying down in the car, feeling really awful. So we prayed with the mom (who’s on dialysis), and went out to the car. We prayed with the daughter, confirmed the accuracy of those words of knowledge, counseled her about unforgiveness and a few other things, and ended up going out for a late-night dinner with them. Lovely people. It’s hard for me, when I do God-encounter ministry like that, because it’s rare that I find out what happened afterward. They’ve got our phone number, maybe they’ll call us one day.

CAR WRECK

We were just about to pay and leave the restaurant when my cell phone rang. Why would Kayti be calling after midnight? I answered and she burst into tears. She’d just had a car wreck… and I’ll continue about that in my next post.