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I serve as pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church in Annapolis, MD. I'm married to beautiful Paula, mother of my 4 sons and one daughter. I was a systems engineer before entering ministry 29 years ago.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

People Were Being Healed All Over the Place

You had to be there to believe it. People were being instantly, miraculously healed all over the church.

During special services last Friday and Saturday nights, and after the two regular Sunday morning services, at least twenty people I can identify personally received what John Wimber used to cautiously call “significant symptomatic abatement” immediately after receiving healing prayer. Many more from other churches reported being healed as well.

I haven’t contacted anyone for permission to use their names, but anyone familiar with Trinity Church can identify most of these folks.

One woman had not been able to kneel for ten years. After prayer, she was kneeling at the altar and rejoicing.

Another woman well into retirement age suffered from stress fractures and compression in her back. After prayer she was not only pain free, but touched her toes! – something she had not been able to do, in her words, “for a long time.”

At least three people came into the meeting with one leg shorter than the other. We watched as the legs grew out to the same length in front of our eyes. One reported the next day that it was the first time in years that she had been able to finish a worship service in normal shoes without her feet hurting.

A woman was healed of a deviated septum – she kept going around sniffing to demonstrate!

A woman had broken her wrist some time before and it had healed into a “frozen” position, unable to pivot back and forth. After prayer it had the same range of motion as before it was broken.

A woman I have known very well for a long time wore hearing aids in both ears, and had been almost completely deaf in one ear. After prayer she regained her hearing in both ears without hearing aids.

These are just some of the amazing things God did for us.

For me, perhaps the most exciting thing about it was that Dan Mohler, the Pennsylvania Bible teacher who led the meetings (www.neckministries.org), did not personally pray for most of them. Instead, he led the ordinary members of the church to pray for each other. It was their prayers that resulted in these healings.

In fact, one man was part of a group praying for a woman’s back and neck pain. She received healing. Then the man noticed that his own back no longer hurt. When he told me about it I asked how long he had suffered from the back pain. He said, “Ever since childhood” – which would mean about fifty years!

Jesus said, “Those who believe in me will do the same things that I do, and even greater things” (John 14:12), and, “These signs shall follow those who believe . . . they will lay hands on the sick and they will recover” (Mark 16:17-18). This weekend proved that those promises are still good. True, not everyone received immediate healing, but that does not invalidate what did happen.

Our task now is not to let this become something we look back on as an exciting event that happened once, but as the beginning of a new exciting ongoing ministry. I am open to ideas for how we as a church can encourage each other in stepping out in this ministry, not only in church services, but everywhere we meet people in need. I also urge you not to wait for the church to come up with some program. Go pray for someone!

God is good, God is faithful, God doesn’t change. There are people in need all around us. Let’s go out and demonstrate God’s love and power.