A couple weeks ago my wife and our two-year-old son went with some good friends of ours and their two-year-old daughter on a mission to find those who did not believe they were worth being found, and to share the radical life changing truth of who Jesus is, and who He says they are. Our journey over the next five days stretched us far more than we could have imagined, and we saw the power of the love of Jesus tear down spiritual walls hardened by decades of pain and loneliness.

We went on a journey YWAM Redding calls a Faith Outreach.

Faith Outreaches are a week-long mission to solely focus on spreading the gospel of Jesus, see people healed and set free and minister to people from all walks of life – all the while trusting God for housing, food, and transportation. Some say we are crazy, we think that living by faith in this way is God’s original design for His provision and guidance to work and for Holy Spirit to move.

Our adventure started with a word from the Lord to begin in San Francisco, we felt Him specifically say to start in Golden Gate Park and at Fishermen’s Wharf. Early Monday morning, we loaded up our families and hit the road. Upon arriving in San Francisco we made our way to Golden Gate Park, where we had the opportunity to worship, pray and minister to several individuals and families who were there. Our friends got to share their testimony and pray for healing from drug addiction for one man they met, and saw a significant change in him as they prayed!

Our obedience to God is always matched by signs and wonders, and His provision.

From there we split into two groups, one group going to Fisherman’s Wharf, and one driving across the Golden Gate Bridge into a town just North of San Francisco. The group at Fisherman’s Wharf got to share the Gospel with several individuals, and delivered some powerful prophetic words from the Lord. One girl they spoke with was in tears as they explained the love of Jesus, and affirmed her worthiness and the purpose and plan Jesus had for her life. My group felt lead to a gas station and McDonalds, where we got to share the Gospel and pray for healing with two men and then share a meal with a family at McDonalds. Both men we met had been in the church at one point in their lives, but had slowly fallen away from Christ. Each of them were incredibly encouraged and we are continuing to pray that they press back into the arms of their Heavenly Father.

The next day as a group we felt that our mission was complete in the San Francisco area; we had found the lost sheep, and we were ready to move on.  We traveled to a small rural community a couple hours North of San Francisco. The area was well known within the new age community, and was home to many cults, Hindu and Buddhist temples, and individuals seeking a revelation of life’s purpose and meaning.

We spent the next four days sharing the meaning and purpose of life, we shared the pure goodness Jesus offers, and the simplicity of the Gospel message.

We shared in coffee shops, parking lots, parks, various businesses, really anywhere we found someone willing to listen. One of my favorite parts was seeing our kids consistently opened doors for ministry opportunity. Jesus used them to soften the hearts of everyone they encountered. Their child-like spirits and innocence disarmed individuals who otherwise would not have had ears to hear the Gospel!

My biggest revelation from the week was the power the name of Jesus carries. When we spoke His name with love and an intimate understanding of the authority we carry as Christ’s ambassadors, nothing was impossible. The Gospel is really much more simple than I sometimes make it.

While there is wisdom in planning and strategy, these things must never replace our reliance on the Holy Spirit to fill us, and give us His wisdom that surpasses human understanding. Sometimes it is the small things that make the biggest impacts. As we shared with one young barista we met, “Jesus loves you. He wants you to know that you are beautiful, seen, and heard.”

This blog was written by our past School of Supernatural Frontier Missions student, John Powell. If you are interested in doing your own Faith Outreach and/or would like to know more about what the school entails, we would love to get a hold of you. 

 When we follow Jesus, He invites us on the adventure of a lifetime.

Before following Jesus, I’d never have signed up to go into a yet-undecided nation to share about Him and His love and salvation with complete strangers… many whose language I didn’t speak.

But following Jesus gave me courage to say yes to His invitation, and I wound up in Greece for two months on my DTS outreach, sharing the gospel with some of the sweetest people – Greeks and people from many nations who’d come to Greece seeking refuge from the danger and difficulties in their own countries.

Jesus saves us and then He sends us. After His resurrection, Jesus appeared to His followers with an eternity-changing invitation. “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15; see also Matt. 28:19-20). Jesus invites us into His ministry, to go to those who are far from God and bring them near to Him, and He promises us His presence, the Holy Spirit, to be with us always as we go (see Acts 1:8). This invitation, known to us today as the Great Commission, has been calling generations upon generations of believers on mission to the ends of the earth… as well as to the end of the street, wherever those who are lost may be found.

After two months of partnering with Jesus in His ministry and seeing lives changed (and mine being changed in the process), I was totally unprepared for the next commission God would give me:

The Commission to Rest.

I sat in a coffee shop in Athens, sipping a Greek cappuccino dusted with cinnamon that warmed my winter-chilled hands. My outreach leader was helping me debrief the past two months of ministry and dream with God for the future.

“I feel like this is the Scripture God is giving you for the next season,” she said. The bustling café seemed silenced as I prepared for the weight of the Word to fall:

“Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act” (Psalm 37:5).

The Lord promises His people rest. But was I willing to receive it? Coming off a season of what looked like (and sometimes felt like) doing a lot for God, I wasn’t sure I even knew what it would look like to “dwell in the land.” That sounded like “staying put,” and I was unprepared to do that. Our outreach team was called the “Greece MOBILE Team” for crying out loud! Being on the move, eager to go wherever the Holy Spirit would lead us, was at the core of our identity as a team. Yet now, God was calling me to sit and “enjoy safe pasture.”

How fitting then that I was flying back to farmland, moving back in with my parents in a rural country town… single and unemployed… my own demographic as the only twenty-something in my parent’s church.

I felt guilty about the Commission to Rest I’d received. I felt guilty now having my own room and bathroom – instead of a dorm (and single bathroom) shared with 8 other women like during DTS. I felt guilty that God was giving me a safe pasture, that He was giving me a place to rest for a while. I felt guilty that I wasn’t so externally “dying to self” (that’s what DTS stands for, right?!). Surely I wasn’t living for Jesus if I was now living, by comparison, in the lap of luxury. (Interested in knowing what YWAM Community is like? This blog is for you: 6 Perks of Living in Community.)

But in that post-DTS season, the Lord started showing me that “befriending faithfulness” looks like delighting in the Lord and seeking to live for Him wherever you are and whatever you are doing. During DTS and on outreach, that looked like washing dishes for teammates, or lighting up the city as we prayer walked and worshiped through darkness. Back home, it looked more like loading up the dishwasher for my family, or singing along to a worship playlist and declaring God’s truth and identity over the little country town I’d now been dropped in.

Now finding myself in another new season – an office job, an apartment with a roommate, a church, and new friends – the call to befriend faithfulness still stands. A few months into it though, I sat on the floor sharing with my new small group how I was struggling to feel content in this season where it seemed like I’d be “stuck” for a while. It felt like there was no “next big thing” on the horizon to look forward to.

The next day, my friend texted me: “I read this verse this morning, and it made me think of you.” There it was, Psalm 37 again, and the invitation to “dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness,” to rest.

Just as important as being ready to go is being ready to rest when God calls us to. But the Commission to Rest, to dwell and put down roots in a place, I’m realizing, is just as challenging for me, if not more so, than God’s commission to go.

Instead of “doing,” the Lord wants “dwelling.”

He desires to refresh His children with the gift of rest (and because it’s a gift, that means no feeling guilty about receiving it!). When we’re refreshed in His presence and filled with Him, we’ll be better prepared to go when the time arrives again.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens… a time to plant and a time to uproot” (Eccl. 3:1-2). Maybe this is a season to root down. Maybe it’s a season to pick up and go. Whatever the season, may it be one of rest in His unchanging presence.

Jesus, I pray that you would help me and all my brothers and sisters to rest in your presence. Help us to dwell, to put down roots wherever you have planted us for this season, and to bear fruit as we rest and grow in this land. May we be “like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither” (Ps. 1:3). Thank you for your love and kindness toward us, the care you show, your provision of a place to rest and your promise to refresh us there. In your name I pray. Amen.

Whether you’ve completed a school through YWAM before, known someone who has, or you are looking into becoming a ywamer yourself, community holds some sort of importance to you! Community is entirely crucial in the kingdom, as it opens doors to new ways to see God, know God, and make God known in every area of our lives! Here’s 6 Perks to full immersion into YWAM community living!

Community is an Integral Part of The Kingdom

God’s heart is completely relational! In fact, the first problem God noticed in creation was that, “it is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). Since God’s at the core of His character is relational, we are created to be that same way! Each and every breath we take is a product of God wanting to recklessly love us, pursue us, and enjoy His creation — aka other people. “For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.” As We each have been given such unique giftings and passions, and we all make up the body of Christ. Each part is as integral as the other, needing to function in perfect harmony supporting others and being supported by others! Therefore, when we gather as a community in numbers greater than one, God is present (Matthew 18:20). When we gather as a community, we give ourselves the opportunity to unlock more important characteristics of who God is through displays of His beloved children around us.

Living As A Servant

Living in a community is a little taste of heaven on earth: new life stories, personalities, habits, and culture, which of course leads to differences in everyone’s way of life! While living in a confined space overflowing with people, sometimes things can get a little messy, but this only unlocks new opportunities to serve those around us! When we 100% immerse ourselves in community, we give ourselves an incredible opportunity to remove all of the focus from ourselves and set our eyes on humbling ourselves and serving others!  As Jesus says, “Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:26-28). We are declared set apart from the world, and the world desperately seeks to serve itself. So if it’s through washing the dishes, vacuuming the floors, cleaning the bathroom, or even folding clothes for another person, it all glorifies the one we’re living for — Jesus!  “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love” (Galatians 5:13).

Open Door to Discipleship

The word, “discipleship” can seem intimidating at first, as it hints towards vulnerability which easily makes our hearts skip a beat. But, discipleship can take on many forms! It can be as simple as cooking someone breakfast or talking over coffee! All in all, discipleship involves openness, seeking advice, and LOTS of Scripture. “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!” (Ecclesiastes 4:9–10). We really need each other, even though we try to sometimes walk through valleys alone. It’s healthy to seek advice and instruction from others who have previously walked the same paths we are walking! Discipleship stems through the trials that come along with life, which gives us choice to choose to press into Jesus or not. Living in community creates infinite and unending paths to have those same opportunities to CHOOSE Jesus, seek Him, and find Him as He speaks through those around us. “Let the of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts” (Colossians 3:16).

Power of Vulnerability

It’s not a secret, DTS can be an emotional time as we learn to grow our roots deep in the Father heart of God and we grow in Him, we learn who we are — and that isn’t as easy as we think. Discovering who we are entitles us to shine light upon circumstances from our past that may bring forth some hurt and surrendering them to Jesus. Therefore, we receive a new joy, peace, and healing — which of course, comes with emotion. While all of this is happening in community, other people will begin to pick up on our emotions and this ISN’T A BAD THING! So much healing comes from vulnerability, in fact we “overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony” (Revelation 12:11). Sharing about what’s going in our lives with others, is key to defeating any attack against the enemy. The enemy wants us to think we are alone and that we have to keep quiet about our struggles because he knows the healing power that comes from vulnerability. Our burdens become weightless as we are open, prayerful, and honest about them! Galatians 6:2 calls us to “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

Finding Rest in God

Of course, living in a vibrant, diverse, and buzzing community 24/7 is wonderful in endless ways, but without balance, it can be draining for our spirits — especially for our introverted friends! The key to this balance is filling ourselves and finding rest in God! The Father loves to spend intentional one-on-one time with His children! This time doesn’t only have to look like dead silent prayer times before the sun comes up, but simply having fun with God. Be that through quiet walks through creation, listening to worship music, drawing, or even writing out our prayers, God will rush in and replenish our souls! Filling our hearts with Him, enables our cup to overflow into the lives of others!
Jesus says “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

Home Away From Home

YWAM is family. In any YWAM community, you are lifted up and loved for who you are and who God originally made you to be! Family supports, loves, encourages, and holds each member accountable through each valley and each mountain top. That accountability is the key to personal growth. While in the YWAM community, you’ll be naturally surrounded by people who want to keep you accountable to your word and your walk with The Lord. When you find yourself always around the presence of God, and with people who love the presence of God, you’ll find your second home.

Even though life in community can be stressful, overwhelming, and tiring, living life alongside like-minded people shapes you to become more like Jesus — and you get to create lifelong friends friends amidst the process!

It’s way too hot for an early October morning.

I’m sitting at a plastic table under a tent where people are worshiping Jesus, praying for one another, and collectively sweating off the dust we gathered during yesterday’s events of nonstop prayer and worship at the Washington, DC National Mall. My mind is still spinning from the previous day, moment following moment of the explosive Presence of God while surrounded by joyous crowds swarming around over 50 tents that have gathered from all over for one purpose—to worship. Not too different from a YWAM worship night, I think, laughing to myself. But this morning I’m with a group of fellow creative lovers of Jesus getting to do something a little different, something I’ve never done before. Sure, I’ve told strangers about God’s love before, but not like this.

My group’s contagious mood of messy, creative experimentation fills me with an energy I normally wouldn’t have at this muggy hour of the morning. On the table we have a wild assortment of bottles of half-empty acrylic paints and plastic cups full of paint-swirling water and soggy brushes. As a young woman I’ve never met before sits across from me at the table, I lean forward, smiling as I take her hands.

“Tell me your name!” I shout over the noise of the crowd singing and dancing in the tent and on the grass around us. She tells me, and then even though she’s already approached the table knowing why it’s here, I explain what I’m getting ready to do, “So I’m going to do some face-painting on you, but first I’m going to ask the Holy Spirit what He wants me to paint. And as I paint, I’m going to tell you what I hear Him saying about it. Are you ready?” She gives a small smile and nods, and after a quick prayer inviting God to speak, I reach over, grab a paintbrush, and dip it into the first color that catches my eye. I’ve found that I often hear His direction best during activities like this—I just pick a color and let it speak through the brush, allowing my mind to simply follow and translate what I see happening into words.

While I talk to her, I study her features and silently invite the Holy Spirit into my imagination. As soon as the bright blue paint touches her face, I get a picture in my mind’s eye of her as a girl—sitting at a school desk, or at a cafeteria table, or wandering a playground… surrounded by classmates and friends, but feeling alone. As I continue to paint, I see that same loneliness planting a seed in the little girl’s heart that suggests she should feel timid, afraid and unnoticed. I see her growing up into a woman with that seed still lodged in her heart. But I’ve learned to see these pictures through the lens of love—this loneliness and fear are not who she is. My heart feels drawn to her large, clear eyes and hesitant smile. It’s the hesitancy I see that causes my heart to feel a little tug—one of the ways I’ve found that I can notice when God’s directing me to a certain aspect of His thoughts about her. The next picture I see is the Lord standing in front of her, His great unabashed Jesus-smile bathing her in sunlight and causing her to radiate with a newfound understanding of who she is in His eyes. Rather than hear Him whisper, I feel Him say, “Wow—look at My daughter! She’s so confident.”

“I feel like Jesus says you’re really confident,” I say aloud as I create strokes of color around her eyes and along her cheekbones. And as I speak I suddenly feel a rush of warmth run through me, and as I refocus on her features I suddenly can almost “see” confidence radiating from her skin like a subtle glow. Whether it was there before I spoke the words or not, I noticed it now. Jesus’s presence starts to feel stronger, so I continue to paint. Pictures of His relationship with her flooding my mind, I speak out both the thoughts and feelings that I’m perceiving: “I feel like the Holy Spirit is giving you a taste of adventure and bringing it out in the personality He gave you”, “He sees you as someone who’s wild and brave”, “You have this God-given confidence and wildness about you that lets you follow the Father wherever He leads, and it’s always an adventure to you and Him”. After I finish, she quietly thanks me and stands up so that the next person in line can sit and get their skin painted with bright colors and (I’m hoping) God’s thoughts. I feel a twinge of frustration with myself that my words hadn’t seemed to affect her more.

After the last person in line leaves, we all put away our art supplies and disperse, then, I see the girl approach me out of the corner of my eye. As she walks closer I notice that there’s something different about her than just a few minutes ago. At first I thought it was just the colorful face paint, but it takes me a moment because the change is so subtle. She’s standing straighter, her eyes more intense yet comfortable, her smile sure and no longer hesitant.

“I wanted to tell you what happened while you were painting my face,” she says. “As you were getting ready to start painting after we prayed I was thinking to myself, ‘She’s probably going to see how fearful I am and then pray for the fear to go.’ Because I’ve actually always been just a really fearful person, I’ve never really felt that confident. And when instead you said, ‘God says you’re confident,’ I sort of shut myself down on the inside saying, ‘No God, I’m actually afraid.’ But the more you spoke, the more I started to realize that that’s actually the way God sees me. He doesn’t always see me the way I see myself. I am confident, I am brave, I am adventurous with Him. So instead of calling out my fear you called out the truth. You called out the truth.” Then she hugged me and left the tent.

As I stood stunned, I felt the Holy Spirit come in close beside me. I felt His rushing excitement and His words tumbling over into my thoughts like a waterfall, “See? See?? This is what prophecy is!”

Ray Hughes says, “The prophetic is not so much about telling people what to do, but it’s about awakening who they are.” And although I already knew it in my mind, my heart finally caught up with the meaning of that statement. Where the “prophetic” is becoming more and more of a catchword in the church today, it can be easy to complicate it into this vague future-telling gift that only the most spiritual of Christians attain. I used to think it was. But I’ve discovered the spiritual gift of prophecy is actually a gift we are all meant to have. To prophesy is to hear what God has to say, by feeling what He feels and thinking what He thinks about someone, and to relay that information in a way that His love and mercy can shine through our words into that person’s heart. That’s why Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 14: “Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy… The one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging, and comfort” (verses 1 and 3 NIV).

To maintain this spiritual gift and to steward your gift of prophecy, does not look like practicing telling people their future so much as it looks most like becoming absolutely obsessed with what the Trinity is really like. The more you understand the character of the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, the better you’ll recognize His voice when He talks to you about someone. Yes, you will discover as your gift grows that it will sometimes come with a word God may have for someone’s future—but more often than not I’ve discovered that true prophecy simply reveals who He already wants to be for them. Everything else you speak out of this beautiful gift—strategies, the future, answers to unanswerable questions—is meant to be an extension of that core expression. Then a prophetic vision for their life will have a healthy starting place of seeing the way He already sees them.

To give this gift away is to allow God to speak His love notes through you to the world.

To call out the God-intended identity He’s placed as the innate gift of significance in every human being. Practice your gift of prophecy by asking Him what He thinks about everything in your inner and outer world—God is so relational in the way He wants to speak to you. Let His kindness and joy challenge your concepts of your everyday life, of events that have marked you, of His character, and of people, including yourself, until you are helplessly erupting with His personality. Every word you speak will begin to be more and more prophetic (“strengthening, encouraging, and comforting,” remember?) as it becomes a reflection of the nature of God inside you. Immerse yourself in Scripture. Become a lover of the Word and the Holy Spirit, and you will grow in hearing the Word being spoken all around you.

There is a revelation of Truth that comes from the heart of God that all of His followers have access to through the Holy Spirit. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts; they transcend simple facts or what we can easily observe from looking at the exterior of a person. It is not fooling ourselves into believing only whatever we can imagine—we need the Holy Spirit to show us this higher truth. It is looking past someone’s layers of shame or failure, beyond the dirt we know any fool could see at a glimpse, to the gold that God placed within them. No matter how deep down it has been buried and ignored, gold does not lose its value—it is still precious. Where we might see fear, the Father sees the confidence He wants to replace that fear with. Where we see deep loneliness, He sees a human heart that He can fill permanently with the friendship of His Spirit. Where we see regret and shame, Jesus sees what He paid for on the Cross and the purity He won back for every person. And the list goes on—as far and deep as the facets of His loving character and the bounds of His boundless mercy.

Your authority in using this gift lies in your capacity to let the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit fill you with their thoughts and compassion for humankind.

You are going to see people be transformed into the work of art the Savior saw from the very beginning. It might seem as small or invisible as a planted seed when given, or the Father’s love may bring them into wholeness at once. Either way, God’s love letter to humanity will never return to Him empty (Isaiah 55:11). Your responsibility is simple obedience by following His voice. You will see the fearful stand with confidence when they realize they are brave. You’ll see the bitter become soft again as the Lord gently teaches them about reconciliation. You will watch orphans find their hearts at home again by encountering the Father. You can experience the illogical, perfect joy of witnessing someone’s entire broken world be made whole in a moment that outside of the Holy Spirit’s work would take decades to heal. You will get to see love notes from God planted in every life you and He touch together—including yours.