A summit liberating experience

NIAGARA FALLS, ONT.

What happens when 15 MB pastors get together for a 24-hour prayer summit? The Holy Spirit shows up and nothing is ever the same! On April 23-24, 13 MB pastors from the Niagara region of Ontario, along with the Ontario and Canadian MB Conference ministers (Rudy Bartel and Reuben Pauls), met together at Mount Carmel Spiritual Centre in Niagara Falls for our first prayer summit. There was no agenda. Some came with expectations. Some came with fears. God came in power and brought healing to wounded people and hope to discouraged pastors.

Our retreat began at 2:00 p.m. on April 23. After some introductions, we just started praying. One of the pastors had a migraine headache. We took authority over the headache and welcomed the Holy Spirit to work among us. Within minutes, another pastor was asking us to pray for him. The "prayer chair" was put in the middle of the room, and we rallied around one of our co-workers who was living in fear of what men would say. We encouraged him to fear God alone as he confessed his fears.

Over the course of the first day, almost every person took at least one turn sitting on the chair. We prayed over those among us who had been hurt in previous church experiences and over those who had been cursed by people who said they would never amount to anything. As we confessed, we claimed God's Word, and the chains of fear, depression, anger, unforgiveness, loneliness and despair were broken. Some of us had to make the choice to forgive people in our past who had hurt us deeply. We prayed to break the power of lies about our need to perform and meet certain expectations. We cried together as we prayed for children who had turned away from Jesus. We asked God to draw them back. We reclaimed joy for our ministries, despite the heartaches of lost children and dashed expectations. We were encouraged by stories of prodigals who were returning home.

After supper, we worshipped together and then began to ask each other how healing could ever take place among our churches. There was such unity among us, and it broke our hearts to know that there was pain and unforgiveness among our congregations. We talked about the possibility of working through Neil Anderson's Setting Your Church Free in our individual congregations and as a conference. Good ideas came forth, but talking was not enough. We knew that the time to start forgiving was now. The pastors of one of our newer churches began to ask for forgiveness, first from their mother church, then from another more established church, and finally from the conference leaders. They confessed pride, rebellion and criticism of more mature congregations. Forgiveness was spoken. Our song for the evening seemed to be "Mercy is Falling". It fell big time!

We went to bed exhausted by 10 hours of confession, prayer and spiritual warfare. Many of us slept in rooms without heat, on old, sagging mattresses. We did not wake refreshed, but the victories of the previous night were enough motivation to continue in the morning.

We gathered in a circle again, this time to pray for pastors who needed new joy. We witnessed healing and forgiveness between two pastors, one who had been carrying a hurt for months. God gave these two men an opportunity to start over in their relationship with one another. We also spent time dealing with the disunity that has arisen because we have chosen to argue about the way we do things. We confessed that we had offended God by arguing with our brothers and sisters and by criticizing other churches that belonged to God. We agreed together, in Jesus' name, that we would bless each other and encourage our congregations to do the same. We also asked God to forgive us for our attitudes towards the critical few in our churches. We thanked God for the many men and women in all of our churches who encourage and who work to build God's kingdom. We asked God to deal with those who seek to tear apart what God is trying to build.

Soon our time was over. We were tired, but amazed at God's goodness. We agreed that we had only just begun and that we needed to ask God what He wants to do next. We do not know what the future holds, but we do know that God will be faithful to complete the work that was begun among us.

Jill Morningstar-Janzen, Associate Pastor, Westview Christian Fellowship

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