Redding roadies and unexpected gifts
As the first school road trip, Redding seemed a pretty epic choice.
Detouring via Sacramento, the four of us met Jamie and Natalie (post-Disneyland birthday adventure), at Jesus Culture's Skyler Smith's new skate shop, East Side Ride (Kim W-S' husband). Having opened two weeks ago, the super cool interiors were urban meets hipster, complete with low slung lights hanging from a warehouse-look ceiling, with wooden beams around the store. We had the opportunity to pray favour over the store and encourage him in his new adventure - as well as check out some awesome snowboards and dream about the nearly-here Winter!
Shortly after arriving after dark at Carol and Tom's ranch just outside of Redding, we found ourselves connecting with their daughters and Bethel student friends over S'mores and an epic fire. Sharing stories, we made new connections and had invites to stay on in Redding. Being such a small group, offering to pray for people and bless their land just seemed so natural and casual; it was so cool for it to just become a part of what we did. We were able to release prophetic words about the stunning wedding venue that they recently took over and we can't wait to see the provision that God has for them!
Not only did we get to explore a bit of Redding, we had the opportunity to see more of Bethel and the huge campuses. A sneak peak into the stunningly designed Bethel Media studios (with Kylie, the Bethel Music Creative Director) was particularly special for a few of the musos in our group - seeing the equipment and the rooms where the artists record. That night's Friday evening service was overflowing - with a live link up with the Awakening Youth conference and Robert Madu from Dallas, TX.
Prophetic words were flowing, worship was free, and for some of us, it was the first time we'd witnessed first hand the expectation in the room that seems to set Bethel apart in many ways.
After sampling some excellent church coffee at The Stirring the next morning, we set out for The Healing Rooms. Not quite sure what to expect, we were hit with the fact that it was initially such a normal environment - with people just loving on us completely and truly wanting to see our breakthrough. After writing down what we wanted physical healing for and then hearing a short talk about what God says about healing, we walked through to an amazing room of expectant people, prayer, worship, artists painting large canvases of prophetic art and the opportunity to soak in His presence, and be prayed for. We all had our own revelations, with God speaking to us in the quiet of our heart, and to be prayed for by people who had genuine love in their hearts to see us healed (rather than their prime motivation being to serve). One of us even felt God say that one of the artists was going to give her a prophetic painting (she supernaturally felt as if the painting was actually created for her) - and she is leaving the weekend taking that painting home, as a symbol of God's free gifts to us, and how much he cares about us!
Two of us chose to have Sozo prayer - and had heaps of breakthrough, with God peeling back layers of lies and replacing them with his own truths! A quick visit to the tattoo shop, an interesting visit to Walmart and a stunning sunset later, we were curled up with pizza at our new friend's house testing out the prophetic. For one of us, it was the first time they'd given a prophetic word for someone - it was so detailed and spot on, we can't wait to see how God is going to use her in that gifting to encourage others!
So pumped for time with Michael Dalton this week after an amazing spiritual infil at Redding!