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Chapter 10: 10 Days Northfield (2007)
I was still young, but I was growing in wisdom in how I walked with the Lord and learning from my mistakes. Instead of just pondering this word to “call 120” on my own as I had done in 2005, I immediately sought wise counsel regarding the timing and location of what I had heard. I had questions. In my vision, the four rooms were at my local church. Was it supposed to be there? Or was that just incidental to the experience? The biggest question was timing. Was it for the upcoming Pentecost, or for the future?
In contrast to previous years, I found myself preferring that it be “for the future.” I was learning that ministering to the Lord always carries a cost. I wanted to be obedient above all, but if the choice was an “easier obedience,” I’d take that!
Before I wanted to do hard things to prove to myself and others that I was a real disciple. Now, I knew who I was and who I was following. I also knew the road ahead would be hard enough on its own. I was not looking for additional difficulty.
As I shared about this word with Jeff Marks, [JP1] he had an experience with the Holy Spirit.
“We need to do it this year.” He was adamant that this was the leading of the Lord.
Jeff was part of a nascent network of New England leaders who were passionate about uniting the church for revival in our region. This network included many prominent pastors and leaders in Boston and beyond. He shared with me their plan to host a regional “Global Day of Prayer” event on Pentecost Sunday in 2007. This 10 Days of Prayer with 120 people could be part of this larger effort.
I also spoke with my Aunt Martha. She also sensed that it was “this year” and encouraged me not to be passive or fearful, but obedient. She also sensed that the location was not necessarily at my local church, but that God had showed me the “Four Rooms of Prayer” in a familiar location.
Now, A Little Larger
Having taken wise counsel, I was resolved to move forward with the vision. I could see how this specific vision was a “next step” in terms of the larger vision of a global movement stopping cities for prayer and repentance. God was moving 10 Days out of a “small and simple” expression into something a little bit larger, something that would touch a region and would be closer to the original vision. It was still much, much smaller than “cities stopping” around the world, but it seemed like a massive leap forward. Most importantly, I wanted to see what happened when a group of people “stopped everything” to seek the Lord. I needed to see first-hand what happened when a group responded to God in that way.
Mobilizing an event for 120 people stretched my faith immensely. I had only recently moved to New England and did not know many people. I had also never done anything like this before. My one attempt to organize a larger 10 Days of Prayer had been a failure. However, this time I was determined to walk in faith, not trust in my zeal or self-sacrifice to make it happen. My confidence was that if God had said to do it, God would provide for it. I was hanging everything upon His word.[JP2]
Knowing that I would need a strong undergirding in prayer to remain faithful, I resolved to take a half-day for prayer each week just to support what we were doing. This was important to keep me on track amid the challenges ahead and would also be intercessory support for all that we were doing.
The New England Alliance
That winter, Jeff invited me to attend one of the first meetings of the New England Alliance. I was amazed to meet so many people who carried my heart for the church to be one, just as the Father and Son are one, and for revival and awakening. I had no idea there were so many like hearted people in the New England region.
Through the Alliance, I joined up with the GDOP New England team. Like St. Louis in 2005, I would lead the 10 Days of Prayer effort, while they focused on bringing thousands of people together for the final day, the Global Day of Prayer.
In the meantime, I needed two things to move forward: A location to do 10 Days, and someone to help me. I knew I couldn’t do this alone. God had to send someone to help.
A Well-Timed Phone Call
It was a cold Saturday morning in February. That morning, as I began work on a paper on Jonathan Edwards and the first great awakening, I received a voice message from Al Shimer. Al and I were working together on the Global Day of Prayer.
Al’s message was about a man from western Massachusetts named David McCahon. Apparently, David was interested in helping with the upcoming 10 Days.
Al shared how David lived in the same area where Jonathan Edwards had ministered, the part of New England I was writing about, but had never visited. He also mentioned something about a historic campus founded by Evangelist D.L. Moody.
Edwards I knew and loved. But D.L. Moody? I knew he was from Chicago, but what did D.L. Moody have to do with western Massachusetts? I was about to learn more than I could imagine.
A Most Amazing Story
When I talked to David, I quickly learned that he was a pastor, a prayer guy, a unity guy, and a historian. On top of that, he wanted to help with 10 Days of Prayer. So far, so good.
And then he told me a most amazing story.
That very morning, he had opened the newspaper and learned that the local Northfield school was planning a ten-day camp based on the TV show American Idol.
David explained to me how Northfield was founded by Evangelist D.L. Moody in 1879 as a school for girls. D.L. Moody and His wife were buried there. The campus Moody founded was currently up for sale for forty million dollars. And the American Idol camp would be performing right next to the graves of Mr. and Mrs. D.L. Moody.
When David found out about the camp, he was grieved. “American IDOL…at Northfield…for ten days?” he remarked to his wife Cindy. “Moody must be rolling in his grave.”
After some conciliatory words from Cindy, David prayed a little prayer.
“Lord, I wish you would do your own ten-day thing at Northfield.” Those exact words.
Thirty minutes after that short prayer, Al Shimer had called David. The two men had not spoken in more than five years. Al told David about the vision of 10 Days of Prayer leading up to the Global Day of Prayer. He also shared how we were still looking for a location and that I needed some serious help.
“Would you be willing to help this young guy pray for 10 Days?” Al asked.
“Help him? Are you kidding? I’m in. And I already know where we are going to do it.”
I knew it would take miracles to make this 10 Days event happen. I had been praying for God to give us a location and to send someone to help me. God had answered both prayers at once.
Northfield
As we continued to talk, David shared more about the history of Northfield. His passion for the righteous roots of New England’s history was contagious.
I knew a little bit about D.L. Moody, mostly from his years in Chicago. He was the Billy Graham of the 1800’s, a famous evangelist who won tens of thousands to Christ all over the world.
David explained to me how Moody had started two high schools in western Massachusetts in the last twenty years of his life, a one for girls and one for boys; Northfield and Mt. Hermon.
He would also host large summer conferences at the schools. People came from around the world to attend the famous Northfield Conferences. The most famous of them was in 1886, when a gathering of college students launched the famous “Student Volunteer Movement.” Amazingly, SVM would send more than 20,000 missionaries overseas in just thirty-five years. To put that number in context, up until 1886, the United States had sent less than 2,000 missionaries overseas in its entire history. Hundreds of millions of modern Christians in Africa, South America, and Asia could trace their spiritual lineage back to SVM and Northfield.
David shared how in the 1930s, the schools began to depart from their faith background. Within a few decades, they were just another elite and expensive New England prep school.
In 1986, on the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Student Volunteer Movement, he attended an international gathering of mission leaders at NMH. Ever since then, David had been praying for the two campuses, and especially Northfield to return to their “righteous roots” and to be used for the glory of God once again. Amazingly, in 2005, NMH announced that they would consolidate their students to the Mt. Hermon campus and seek to sell the Northfield Campus. The asking price was forty million dollars.
David was thrilled Northfield was for sale and was asking God to provide a Christian buyer who would return the property to its original intention.
David and Jonathan
After this auspicious phone introduction, we met in person several weeks later at the Northfield campus. I managed to get my car stuck in the snow, and David helped push me out—a fitting initial action for our friendship. David was twenty-six[JP3] years my senior. He had a kind face with grey-white hair, a white beard, and an easy laugh. This was the second “David” I would partner closely with. Apparently, the Lord liked having David and Jonathan together.
The Northfield campus was enchanting, like something out of a storybook. Each building was unique, some of them having spires, turrets, clocks and other whimsical design features. The campus was massive, with dozens of large, beautiful buildings and remarkable views of the surrounding mountains, river, and countryside. And yet, this beautiful campus built for thousands of people to inhabit was entirely empty. We were the only people there in the middle of the day.
As we walked the pathways, I was reminded of how Isaiah’s prophecy that the “desolate cities” would be inhabited once again. I had never seen a desolate city before, but the prayer certainly seemed to fit Northfield.
After our initial meeting, David and I reached out to the owners, and inquired[JP4] about renting the space for 120 people to pray together in May. Step by step, the vision was beginning to come together.
Working with God
One the biggest revival errors I made prior to my burnout experience, was “trying to make needful changes by force instead of waiting on God.”
Frustrated when people didn’t respond immediately, I had tried to force people to do things I thought God wanted us to do. When they dug in their heels even more, I was offended, angry, and wounded.
Painful experience had taught me this was a horrible strategy. My new plan was to share what I thought God wanted us to do with as many people as possible, allow them the freedom to decide how to respond, and then trust God for the result. I could be passionate about what God had called me to do and give people the opportunity to take part without coercion. It wasn’t enough to work for God, now I was determined to learn how to work with God at each and every step.
David and I began inviting people to join in the 10 Days of Prayer, and people started to respond. Using various networks and email lists, the word began to get out. People started registering from all over. A woman from Louisiana not only wanted to come and pray for 10 Days, but also volunteered to help us administratively. A woman from the west coast who attended NMH as a girl somehow found out about us and decided to come. While we weren’t approaching 120 registered for the entire 10 Days, we at least had some people coming. We also met with the owners of the Northfield-Mt. Hermon campus and agreed on a price for renting one of the dorm buildings.
In the meantime, my weekly, half-day prayer walks were essential to staying in a place of faith and encouragement. On one such walk, I brought up an issue to the Lord that really troubled me. Because of the cost of renting the facility, we had to charge a fee for people to join the 10 Days. I told the Lord “You should not have to pay in order to pray.”
The Lord responded, “I want those who come to pay to pray because together you will be to me like the woman who broke a vial of perfume at my feet. That is why you have to pay.”
My heart melted. The thought that we could move His heart in that way, to touch the heart of the King—what a tremendous honor. On another occasion, the Lord spoke to me out of Zechariah chapter 6:10ff, a rather obscure passage about a special offering taken to make “Yeshua” the high priest a crown.
“What you are doing will be like the offering of Heldai, Tobijah, and Jedaiah. You are making me a crown. The crown will be a reminder in my temple to those who give to make it.” [JP5]
Once again, it was clear to me that this time would be very special to the Lord. David and I, along with 120 others, would have the honor of giving an extravagant offering to the King of Kings. This 10 Days was going to be something that King Jesus would remember and cherish. The thought of moving His heart in this way was highly encouraging and motivating.
As happened with the woman who anointed Jesus with perfume, there was some misunderstanding about this extravagant offering. I insisted that the purpose of our 10 Days was to minister to the Lord, plain and simple. We’d pray about various issues, but at the core this was a love-offering for Him. Some leaders urged me to make the focus of the prayer time the battle against “gay marriage”, which was a hot-button issue in Massachusetts at the time. Wouldn’t that level of “prayer power” be better spent on this pressing issue? It wasn’t that I didn’t think the issue was important; it was. However, I knew I had to stand on my convictions—there were a lot of things to pray about, but the Lord was saying to give an extravagant, costly offering to Him. The heart of the time had to be what God had showed me in 2006: “Do it because you love me”.
A Devastating Setback, A Stunning Revelation
A month before the 10 Days of Prayer was to begin, I received the worst news I could imagine from NMH, the owners of Northfield. Our verbal agreement to rent the building on campus was off. They didn’t trust us and were pulling the plug.
I received the email while I was in between classes at seminary. I was stunned.
I told the Lord, “How can this be happening? I know that you want the prayer to be at this campus.”
The bad news was so upsetting, it seemed to short-circuit my system. I promptly passed out on a couch and fell asleep.
When I woke up an hour later, I sensed the presence of God around me. That is not normally how I wake up. Immediately, I picked up my laptop and composed a humble reply.
I apologized for anything we might have done wrong and stressing that I valued the relationship more than just the specific outcome of hosting the event. Maybe we could work together in the future, and if not, I was sending gratitude and blessing their way.
Within a few minutes, I received a reply thanking me for my email, and informing me that we were “back on.” Phew. And Praise God. As I had learned from studying the Proverbs, a humble answer had turned away wrath. God had rescued us from near disaster.
And on the other side of near disaster, came an incredible breakthrough.
A few days later, I received, a second email from NMH. One of their staff wanted to share a document with us. I had no idea what to expect.
As I opened the attachment, I found a letter written in the year 1880 by D.L. Moody entitled “A Call to Believers.” The letter was an invitation to come to Northfield for ten days of prayer based on Acts Chapter 1; exactly what we were returning there to do. Once again, I was stunned to silence.
(Include the Letter in the book?)
When my speech returned, I called David. “I don’t know what this means, but this is God. We are really onto something here.”
After researching the letter further, we discovered this 1880 ten days of prayer in Northfield was the first of the world-famous Northfield Conferences. Just six years before the Student Volunteer Movement was birthed, the conferences began with ten days of prayer. At the end of this gathering, the first building on campus was dedicated to God.
Northfield had started in a ten day [JP6] prayer meeting based on Acts 1 and 2. Now, 126 years later, the campus was for sale. And God had brought a bunch of misfits back to accidentally do exactly what they did when the campus was founded. Somehow, we had stumbled into something big.[JP7]
Like the Sons of Zadok
As 10 Days neared, I was learning by experience something that I had warned God about on the night I received the 10 Days vision. As I told Him,
“No one is going to want to stop everything for 10 Days to pray and repent.”
In fact, it was even harder than I expected to get people to stop everything to pray for 10 Days. While I had high hopes that we’d have 120 people living on site and praying as the Lord had told me, we ended up with just fifteen to twenty who would make the commitment. Many others would come and go as they were able, living off-site and commuting in to pray. This wasn’t what I hoped for and yet clearly God was with us even if it did not look exactly as I initially thought.
As we approached 10 Days, we sensed God speaking to us out of a very obscure passage, Ezekiel 44, regarding the sons of Zadok who minister to the Lord and not to men. Putting this together with the other words God had spoken, it made sense—God was inviting us to serve Him in a very special, significant way.
In the passage, there are very specific instructions given to the sons of Zadok. For instance, they do not have shaved heads or long hair, but close-cropped hair. They do not drink wine when they go to minister. They cannot touch a dead person unless it is a child, a wife, or close family member, and then they must wait seven days before they minister to the Lord.
As a prophetic act, I decided to do several of these acts of consecration seven days before 10 Days would begin. I would trim my long hair short, avoid wine, and consecrate myself to minister to the Lord.
As we arrived at the beginning of this special, seven-day period before 10 Days, tragedy struck our family. Cassi was pregnant again with our second child. Just seven days before the 10 Days was to begin, she miscarried.
I was angry at the devil and even somehow blamed myself for what happened but was not shaken in my relationship with God. Here we were, at the threshold of this God-breathed season, and the enemy was killing our children. As we wept and mourned, with my own hands, I buried our tiny, unborn child exactly seven days before the 10 Days of Prayer, bizarrely following these ancient, priestly guidelines to the letter. As with the first miscarriage, I cut my long hair. However, this time I did not shave it, but close cropped it. In the midst of tragedy, we were setting ourselves apart to minister to the Lord.
Waters Above, Waters Below
As 10 Days began, we made the beautiful two-hour drive to Northfield. As as we began to descend into the river valley where Northfield is located, I heard this from the Lord:
“The Waters above will combine with the waters below and create a great flood that will cover the earth.”
This was a reference to the flood of Noah, but God seemed to be speaking of a flood of His glory that was coming soon on the Earth.
Immediately, I felt the “waters above” had to do with our prayers that we were praying now and that the “waters below” spoke to the prayers of the Saints of old, prayers that were still speaking. The flood was a Habbakuk 2:14 flood, that “the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as waters cover the Sea.”
We needed to go and pray at Northfield, a historic “well” of revival, because God was bringing together the prayers of the Saints, past and present, to cover the earth in a flood of the glory of God.
“Your People Are Weird”
As we launched into 10 Days, I had a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. I had only the faintest outline of a plan. If God didn’t show up, this entire thing would be a disaster. He had faithfully brought us here, step by step. Now, I needed Him to come through when it mattered most.
In obedience to the vision, we had set aside four rooms: a worship room, an intercessory “boiler room” in the basement, a “silence” room, and a “Scripture” room. The worship room was the main room where all the forms of prayer converged. We decided against trying for 24/7 prayer, and instead had four prayer watches of three hours each from six a.m. to six p.m. plus a two hour evening service. Everyone was asked to be part of six hours of prayer during the day plus the evening sessions. In the remaining time, people could rest, but we also had various clean-up, cooking and other chores that we asked our participants to help with. We were all there to serve and pray together. In all these arrangements, we were trying our best to live out the original vision to “stop everything” for an extended season of prayer.
As the first evening began, I was pulled away from the worship and prayer to tend to a situation with Cassi and little Gabe. Since Cassi had just gone through another miscarriage, I wanted to make sure she was okay. After getting them settled in our bedroom, I returned to the prayer room.
When I returned to the room, our group of forty or seemed to have descended into total chaos. As I entered the room, a large black woman in a bandana was rolling back and forth on the floor.
“I’ve read about this,” I thought. “This is holy rolling.”
My eyes glanced to the right, where a red-haired woman was sitting on the ground and laughing like a hyena.
“That must be holy laughter.” I thought, clinically. I had read about it but never seen it happen.
My immediate instinct was to put a stop to all of this and bring us back to “order”. My mentor, Jeff Marks, was the one who was laying hands and anointing everyone with oil, which apparently was causing all of the insanity. Clearly, he would not be much help.
“Where’s David?” I asked myself, starting to get desperate.
I found David lying on the ground, his face glazed over with a blissful expression.
I quickly diagnosed his condition: “That’s being slain in the Spirit.” I had read about that too.
Clearly, David wasn’t going to be much help.
Everyone in the room could see I was uncomfortable with what was happening. I wanted to see Bible things happen, but this just seemed strange. Of course, I had heard about all of these things but never seen them in real life. I had never been in leadership where these types of manifestations were happening. In fact, the largest prayer group I had ever led was about ten people. If I had been more confident, I might have shut everything down. Thankfully, I was insecure and naïve. I had no idea what to do, so I did nothing.
That night, as I went to bed, I found myself thinking about all the strange things that had happened that night and laughing with the Lord.
“Your people are weird,” I told Him. “But I like them.”[JP8]
More Signs
After a memorable opening night, I woke up and prepared to lead the 9 a.m. to noon prayer time. With a ten-minute window before we started, I ducked into one of the other prayer rooms for some quiet time with the Lord. I opened my Bible at random, and read the second half of Isaiah 26, which seemed to be about the return of Jesus and the resurrection of the dead, and the first part of Isaiah 27, stopping at verse 3.
“In that day, sing to her. A vineyard of red wine. I the LORD keep it, I water it every moment lest any hurt it. I keep it night and day.”
As we began the prayer time, an older woman, Ethel Doolittle, who had worked at the Northfield campus for over thirty years, felt it would be appropriate to start the prayer gathering with the motto given to the school by D.L. Moody. The motto was from Isaiah 27:3 “I the LORD keep it, I water it every moment lest any hurt it. I will keep it night and day.”
My jaw dropped to the floor. Somehow my “random” Bible study at our first morning on campus had ended right on the school’s motto. Clearly, God cared about this place--history kept coming alive before our eyes.
A Taste of John 17
As the first several days rolled along, something incredible and difficult to describe was happening. We were experiencing a tangible measure of what Jesus prayed for in John 17. Supernatural love and unity in the Spirit were happening all around us. While at future 10 Days events, I and others would teach about this reality, there was no teaching of any kind at this event. People didn’t know the history of 10 days, or how important John 17 was to the “big vision.” In fact, I was slow to realize how this was an answer to those prayers. And yet, God had dropped a taste of John 17 unity on us as we prayed together.
Our core group was diverse denominationally, ethnically, in age, and economic background. And yet, all of us began to notice the unusual love for one another and unity that God was pouring out. We began talking about it as something we could protect and guard and thinking about how we could honor one another above ourselves. Love and good deeds flowed naturally from this place and all our conversation seemed to be focused on the Lord. Something incredible was happening.
As we were experiencing this unusual grace, I finally began to recollect those early experiences in Santa Fe. 10 Days had been borne out of asking God how I could be part of Jesus receiving the answer to His prayer in John 17. Somehow, God was releasing grace for Jesus’s prayer to actually be answered, and we were the beneficiaries.
For years I had marveled at Jesus’ words, “Let them be one just as we are one.” How could human beings experience the type of union that the Father and Son experience with one another? But now, we were not just reading about it, we were experiencing a measure of it firsthand. This was something else altogether—it was like heaven on earth.
What Does John 17 Feel like?
I like testimonies that can be easily communicated. Healings are like that—someone has a broken bone, people pray, and it is healed. This is very easy to talk about. On the other hand, it’s difficult to describe what it is like to experience John 17 unity. I’ll do my best.
First of all, it’s something inside of you and it’s also something around you, in the air. It’s in you and it’s in the atmosphere. This lines up with Jesus’s words in John 17:22 about the key role that His glory plays in unity. His glory is within us through the Holy Spirit, but also all around us.
It feels like all you can think about or talk about is Jesus. During those times, one of the things I noticed was that what we often consider “normal conversation” was almost non-existent. God was doing so much and people could not stop talking about Him.
I was completely surprised by the inner experience of my heart and mind. “Why do I irrationally love all of these people?” I kept asking myself. And yet, I did love them, deeply and from the heart.
It was almost traumatic to move from this dynamic experience of love and glory into what we often call normal life. I had to run out for supplies at one point during the 10 Days, and just going into a local drugstore felt painful. I’d compare it to culture shock—what I had previously considered “norma”l now seemed like spiritual oppression and darkness that was almost too much to bear. In the future, I would learn to carry what I was experiencing along with me, but those initial experiences were a look into the darkness of our world that we simply accept.
Finally, John 17 manifesting resulted in all kinds of love, good deeds, and miracles in the community. There were too many amazing things happening around us to record it all, but our love for one another was foundational, like a basin that was holding all that God was pouring out on us.
I have never been the same since this experience.[JP9]
Simply Pray…then God
All we were doing was praying and praising God, using the “four rooms” model of worship, intercession, Scripture reading, and silence. We started at six a.m. each day, and prayed until six p.m., took a break for dinner, and gathered again at seven p.m. for a corporate session with everyone joining together in the evening. There was no preaching or teaching; it was just us talking to God. In addition to our core group of people, new folks were driving in each day to join us. Our prayer room had become a hive of regional activity, with many coming to see and experience what God was doing.
As we entered each prayer time with openness to the Spirit’s leading, I was struck by how each session was completely different. There was no way to predict at the beginning where we’d end up. God took over, and each prayer set was totally new.
I was beginning to get to know personally the God who created billions of galaxies, and endless diversity of plant and animal life. I had known Him as the God who never changes, but now I was getting to know Him as the God who is always doing a new thing, the God who is endlessly creative and endlessly fascinating.
And, while I was struggling with some of the “weird” things that would happen under the power of the Holy Spirit, I was also beginning to experience some of the benefits. For instance, I had always been very skeptical about the idea of “Holy Laughter.” And yet, I began to experience an unspeakable and glorious joy inside of me. And when I experienced it, I would laugh! While I tried to be skeptical, the experience was clean, refreshing, and glorious—it felt good, made God seem real, and made problems seem small.
In this atmosphere, supernatural activity was greatly increased. Tracking what God was doing was like counting raindrops in a downpour. One notable miracle was a healing from terminal pancreatic cancer. I’m not even sure if we prayed for the woman who was sick, but she felt a change while we were there. When she went home and visited the doctors, she was entirely cancer free. She went from having a few months to live to continuing cancer free at the time of this writing.
One of our number, Steven, was a banker. About seven days in, Steve told me that he was counting all the attendees. Of course, the thought had never entered my mind, but Steve was a banker--good at counting things.
“I think God is going to bring 120 people just like he told you.” Steven said.
I was so focused on getting 120 people to “stop everything” for all 10 Days, so it had never occurred to me that the 120 could apply to all attendees and not just to people taking all 10 Days for prayer. But what Steven said made sense. On our final day, as we prepared to leave Northfield for the Global Day of Prayer event, Steven gave me our final total. Exactly 122 people had come to be part of 10 Days. “Call 120” had happened, just as the Lord told had said.
Aftermath and Next Steps
The Global Day of Prayer was good. 5,000 gathered for a prayer meeting in the middle of the state. Honestly, I was too exhausted from 10 Days to participate much in the large event. As in 2005, I had given absolutely everything I had to the Lord and to His people. However, this time the result was completely different. My only regret was that I didn’t have more to give.
As I left that 2007 10 Days of Prayer, my relationship with God was completely changed. Nothing would ever be the same again.
My faith had grown exponentially. The combination of experiencing God’s presence, with the Scripture, in community, with powerful signs and miracles confirming God was with us made a few things clear to me. God was alive and I could trust the Bible. I didn’t just believe it intellectually; I knew it deep down in my bones. Doubts that had plagued me for years now seemed small. The apologetic of God’s powerful, undeniable presence completely overwhelmed my skeptical mind.
John 17 Unity was no longer just a theory, an unbelievable prayer of Jesus. It was now something I had experienced.
I found myself incredibly gripped as never before by the mission of the church—to bring the gospel to every nation, tribe, and language. God’s desire to be known among the nations was now my deep heart desire as well.
I was growing in my experience and maturity in “charismatic” experiences like hearing God’s voice. It was incredible how in those type of charged environments, I would hear from God so much more often and frequently.
Unlike 2005, I had given my all to God and came out loving Him and His people even more than when I came.
10 Days Northfield 2007 was proof of concept that this idea actually worked. Taking 10 Days off from normal life to worship, pray, and repent was changing lives. And I was not only the purveyor of this message, I myself was personally transformed! Incredible unity was experienced, the heavy presence of God surrounded everything, lives were changed, miracles were normal.
It was still incredibly hard to get anyone to take 10 Days off in order to pray, but those who said “yes” had their lives turned upside down.
From a Catalytic Season to a Regular Rhythm
The other side of 10 Days was hard. I was physically and emotionally exhausted from those intense times of prayer. Pouring out everything before God comes with a cost and so as I landed back in “normal life”, I was at a deficit. Furthermore, “Normal Life” was no longer normal. It felt like hell compared to where I had become accustomed to living, in a worship saturated environment full of the presence of God. I was having a hard time adjusting, like a diver who comes up from the depths too quickly. I had grown used to a measure of the glory of God all around me and with it taken away life was almost unbearable. I was also worried about going back to the way I was before, that my personal transformation would be fleeting.
One night just a few days after getting back, I was complaining about this to my wife. Having had enough of my lament, she told me, “Take the baby, get out of the house, and go find a prayer meeting.”
“She’s being so unreasonable,” I said to myself as I pushed the stroller down the streets of our town. How was I supposed to find a prayer meeting in our small town? I barely knew anyone here.
As I walked, I felt the Holy Spirit say, “Go to Brian Barry’s House.”
I knew Brian as a classmate in Seminary. We had talked several times but we weren’t close friends. I also knew that he lived in a larger apartment building in town, but had no idea which apartment was his. With nothing else to go on, I walked about a mile from my home to Brian’s building.
As I arrived, I ran into a stranger coming out of the house.
“Do you know where Brian Barry lives?” I asked.
She helpfully pointed me to his door, first one on the right.
As I approached the door, the Holy Spirit said, “Tell them you are here for the prayer meeting.”
“No, I’m not saying that.” I responded in my mind.
I knocked.
As the door opened, Brian and a small group of was gathering in a circle, ready to begin their first weekly prayer meeting. I arrived exactly on time for prayer. The small group of us marveled at what God had just done. This prayer meeting would be our regular, weekly prayer meeting for the next several years.
God had taken me from a catalytic season of change and led me into my new “normal rhythm” of prayer and community. The breakthroughs that had been made in 10 Days would be sustained in a regular weekly rhythm of prayer and fellowship.