It's been a long time since we went on an outreach, but we finally did this past weekend. Our schedule was to go to the MetroWest Bridge church in Natick for a youth impartation night, then an evangelism primer at the Olive Branch bookstore, then application of the previous by going to mall to practice, then the Fusion event at the North Shore Bridge church. A loaded weekend for sure!
For new intern Ann Giddings (Port Perry, ON), it was her first time going to Massachusetts. On the drive down I-95, we pointed out the Boston skyline to all the interns who had never been. Obviously nothing like being in Boston for real, but gave them an idea of how looked, at least. Anyways, after several hours of driving (plus the usual bathroom stops for certain interns who need to pee every 5 minutes) we made it to Natick. We had a few minutes before we needed to be at the church, so we stopped by a deli for dinner. Me and Amber Cranfill (Illinois) figured there would be a lineup ahead of us, so we went into a specialty piano shop to kill a few minutes. I got to play on a piano that was selling for $74000! It sounded so nice, but I just couldn't see how it was worth that much.
Most of us were curious as to what the youth impartation night was all about, but we didn't get much clarity on that, even after asking pastor John Thomas. His response, coupled with a mischievous smile, was, "We're just going to do what God wants; we're going to be lead by the Holy Spirit." Definitely a faith building experience! The night ended up being a mix of speaking prophetic words over others, intercessory prayer and fellowship. One of the biggest surprises of the night was seeing Long Islanders Jeannine Adipietro, Christine Konior and her daughter Sarah show up; it was totally unexpected! Turned out they were in town early for the Olive Branch mini-conference. During last year's intern program, they were gracious enough to house us while we visiting Long Island. Since then, their church, the Lighthouse, has become a Streams Bridge church, making them even closer linked to us now. Hopefully that means we get sent New York cheesecake, mmmmm...
The next day saw us going to the Olive Branch bookstore (click here for a previous blog entry explaining what it's all about). I was dismayed to discover that they are going out of business at the end of the month; I have grown to love the store and any time we've gotten to visit. With a 20% discount on everything, I decided to load up on several books and CDs. I have enough reading for several months now!
Former intern Anton Luse is now on staff at the MetroWest Bridge; he does a lot of speaking with John Thomas regarding street evangelism. Both of them spoke at the Olive Branch about street evangelism, including different techniques, general no-nos, and knowing your level of favor with a person. During one of the sessions, I went downstairs to the Ugly Mug cafe to grab a few snacks. There I found fellow staff member Sharon Felder (South Carolina) with the two store owners, and they were getting hit with the Holy Spirit! They one by one fell down under His presence, yet still holding hands the entire time. I couldn't help but chuckle...clearly they didn't care if anyone walked in and saw what they were doing. How I envy that level of confidence!
When it came time to go to the mall, I was paired up with Beth Giobbe, a member of the MetroWest church who I've ministered with before. We went to the nearby Solomon Pond Mall to practice some 'street evangelism'. At first, I really honestly didn't want to evangelize; I've always had trouble with forcibly presenting God to anyone. However, the two of us found a solution. Both of us are comfortable with relational evangelism, which as the name suggests, involves relating to a person before evangelizing. We got to pray for an exasperated cell phone salesman, and an information booth attendent (her brother had cancer). The coolest part (at least for me, anyway) was getting an idea while walking by Abercrombie & Fitch. There were two female store greeters, both about 18, and I thought out loud, "Wouldn't it be cool to interpret a dream for them? I bet no one's ever asked!" Beth agreed it'd be fun, so we went up to them and I asked. They thought it was cool, but couldn't remember any dreams. They asked us to check back with them in 10 minutes once they remembered. When we came back, one girl managed to remember a dream. It was a fairly simple one to interpret (she dreamt that her hair was falling out), but as I've been learning, what might be simple to me is profound to someone else. When she heard that God had given her a great anointing & a lot of gifts, and that the enemy was trying to take it from her, it wowed her.
After the mall outreach, me and the other interns headed off to the North Shore Bridge for Fusion. Basically, the event's premise was to connect closer to the Lord than one would in a regular worship service. Streams recording artist Josh Young lead worship for the event, and was joined by a host of other talented musicians from various Streams churches. Past intern Brandon Crummer (Maui, HI) surprised us when he arrived; having him there, along with other former interns and ex-Streams staff, I felt briefly like I was part of the old internship again. I have had a hard time during this intern year with the massive change from the way the program used to be to the way it is now, and this provided some relief from those feelings.
We spent Sunday morning at the North Shore Bridge, where John Paul Jackson was guest speaking. He spoke on the different spiritual 'ranks' of churches, and in it, he gave a prophetic word about the church being an Apostolic Resource Centre, which happened to be the highest spiritual 'rank' of church. He spoke of the early church in Acts, and how they were stuck in Jerusalem for so long, until God intervened and scattered them all throughout the known world. It was exciting to hear about what God has waiting in the wings for their congregation.
After the service, various interns were assigned to teams to give prophetic words, and me, program director Ali Johnson (New Brittain, CT) and Dustin Zupancic (Abbotsford, BC) were formed together to be a dream team. The consistent theme for us was very abstract dreams. One woman in particular shared this dream with us:
"I was with my son at a service in a church I didn't recognize, but knew was our church. He told me that there were 4 people we had to kill. He pointed at one and said to start with him. I was very uneasy about it, but because of the confidence in his voice, I agreed. The two of us sat on either side of the man he had pointed out, and both of us, with a knife each, stabbed him through his sides. We dragged the body down the aisle and into a bathroom. I was standing guard at the door, watching for anyone coming, while he disposed of the body in the bathroom. I was worried when I saw the blood on the floor, scared that someone might notice. Suddenly, a man dressed in desert army fatigues walked by, asking if everything was ok. I said yes, so he walked on. After that, my son came out of the bathroom with a big wad of money, and he was really excited. I knew that he hadn't stolen the money from the man, but that it had somehow appeared after disposal of the body was complete. He ran into the pastor's office excitedly, slapping the money down on the table and all smiles. Suddenly, the church elders came in and said, 'That's the one who did it!' and grabbed him. Still smiling, my son was being tied up. The elders commented, 'We'll take him back to the United States where he can get some help.' Until that point, I had no idea we were somewhere other than the United States."
I had a few ideas almost right away, but not a complete meaning. Ali stepped out by interpreting some of the first part, and then I added, and Dustin added. We kept playing off each other until the full interpretation came together. Basically, she had a dream where the Lord was showing her that He wants to bring about a new creative expression in his church, and that the old mindsets and preconceived ideas of the church needed to be 'put to death'. During that purging of the old, it will be uncomfortable for her, but she will know that it is right, and that some of the church in general will be upset with change, even to the point of her facing persecution/judgment; they are more comfortable with traditional Western thinking, as is evidenced with the comment 'We'll take him back to the United States...' She was blown away by the dream and received a lot of peace from getting the interpretation for it.
That marked the last weekend outreach that I will be on with Streams, as I fly home to British Columbia on the 27th. Only a week left in my time here...it is going by so quickly!
