TT XXIII

“Attention Shoppers!”

e’ll know the next great move of God is at hand by the signs and wonders accompanying it. Last week, at a prophetic conference at Gateway Christian Fellowship in West Haven, Connecticut, I caught a glimpse of what it will look like. The conference was called “New England Aflame,” and for those four days, that corner of New England truly was.

            At various times during the worship segments, people would be overtaken by ecstasy, shaking and crying out. Being an Episcopalian (one of “God’s Frozen Chosen”), that sort of thing used to trouble me. Somehow in this context it didn’t, and I was reminded of how the Quakers and Shakers had gotten their names. Excesses have always marked the arrival of a major move of God, starting with the 120 who stumbled out onto the street at 9:00 o’clock in the morning, speaking in other tongues (to borrow the titles of two other Episcopal chroniclers of the Charismatic Renewal).

            There were wonders to accompany the signs. One of the prophetic teachers was Bill Johnson of Redding, California, whose young protégés have turned their local mall into a healing center. They go there looking for people to pray for and expecting God to answer their requests. They are seldom disappointed.

            Bill told of one instance where a young man entered a supermarket and noticed that a woman in line at Checkout Aisle #6 was wearing a hearing aid in her right ear. He asked her if he might pray her ear. She looked at him, saw that he was a nice-looking young man, and after a moment’s hesitation, agreed.

The young man prayed – and she was healed. Sobbing for joy, she explained that she had been totally deaf in her left ear and had lost half the hearing in her right. Now the hearing in both ears was completely restored.

The cashier was crying, too, exclaiming over and over, “It’s God! It’s God!”

Sensing that God was not yet finished in that supermarket, the young man asked if he might use the store’s intercom. The cashier, overwhelmed, showed him how.

“Attention, Shoppers!” the young man cheerily announced, “God is at Check-out Aisle #6!”  He prayed for a number of others that morning with similar results.

Hearing that story and others, our faith was sky-high, as Bill invited four young people trained in prophetic healing, to share their words of knowledge. One by one, they called out healings, and Bill asked for those were healed to raise their hands. I didn’t count, but there must have been more than twenty.

Then Bill asked everyone who had not been healed but needed healing, to raise their hands and keep them up. He asked the rest of us to go to one of these and pray for them. I prayed for Chris Funnell who had painful arthritis where her neck joined her right shoulder. Gingerly I placed my hand there and started to pray. I could feel the heat in my hand, and when we were done, she was healed – as were 176 others. I don’t know if they all stayed healed, but the next morning, Chris’s neck and shoulder were pain free.