​The Gospel for this Sunday, the Ascension of the Lord, Year B, comes from the concluding verses of St Mark’s Gospel, Chapter 16, a direct continuation of verses from last week, and contains the instructions Jesus gives to His disciples before His ascension, and what happens afterwards.

Although they aren’t so much instructions, as regal commands. This is Jesus functioning as King of the universe and conqueror of death.

Our task is to proclaim the good news of Jesus everywhere.

How people respond to that proclamation will determine whether they enter His eternal kingdom or not.

Jesus tells us the signs that will distinguish believers from un-believers. These signs are certainly not associated with the timid; but are associated with those who dramatically extend the kingdom of God.

Only those who have complete confidence in the kingly reign of Jesus can cast out devils in His name, and can expect the sick to get well when they invoke the healing power of God.

This is warrior stuff, and not for the faint of heart, nor for wimps.

It is quite a challenge, isn’t it? Most of us fall a long way shot.
But this is what was considered normal in Gospel times.

Jesus then ascends to His place of kingly power and authority, seated at the right hand of the Father on the throne of heaven.

When the disciples do their part and preach, the Lord Jesus provides the evidence that their preaching is true through the signs and wonders that accompany the preaching; working together to extend the kingdom of God.

There are those for whom this is still happening today, eg Sr Briege McKenna, Damian Stayne, Costandi Bastoli, and those of recent memory, eg Dr John Bonnici Mallia, Fr Emelien Tardiff, and many others.

There are still places on earth where signs and wonders are expected when believers preach, and where if there are no signs and wonders, credibility is lost quickly eg Fiji, Uganda.

This is what the Gospel and the Lord Jesus consider normal.
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May God grant that we, too, will return to considering this as normal. Amen.   

Knowing how to sift true from false prophecy is something that everyone needs. It may be easier to understand if some case studies are used.

This need came to my attention through a friend who had been sent an unsolicited prophetic word by an email. The friend had no idea where the prophet had obtained the email address from. However, it was a lengthy piece, and it spoke into all the hopes and frustrations this friend was experiencing, ie it was exactly what the friend wanted to be true.

Thankfully the friend had the courage to share it with me.

The very first thing after reading the prophetic word and ascertaining that it contained nothing specifically pertaining to the life of this friend, ie there was nothing in it that couldn’t easily be applied to the life of just about anyone else (warning flag 1) was to search the internet for what could be learned about the prophet.

The website had a pleasant feel, and a link to what must be a very inspiring conversion story, and some very basic Christian teaching without any perceived denominational biases. But it did contain a few things that gave me significant pause; a few very general prophetic words that were undated, no contact information or details, and no affiliation with any faith community.

It is so unusual for a prophetic word to be undated (warning flag 2). No address, no social media links, no email address, no contact form where you would expect it to be (ie an easily visible Contact page), but given bit by bit under a ‘please support this ministry’ sub-page that begins by asking for donations (warning flag 3). There is no indication on the website that the prophet is part of a faith community, in leadership of a faith community, or anything other than a lone ranger. Ideally a prophet should have a regular small group to which he/she is personally accountable, and should also be under some form of leadership to whom he/she is also accountable. Otherwise there are none of the normal and natural checks and balances that come from community life where people are invested in you enough to ask the odd quiet question if you are looking like going off the rails, or when your walk doesn’t match your talk. (major warning flag 4).

If something is exactly what you want to hear, (eg in order for the destiny God has for you to unfold, don’t let anyone box you in to their mindsets) and it doesn’t contain any invitation to transformation that leads to a deeper relationship with God, that should put up a warning flag too. It is a hallmark of the Gospel accounts that Jesus always invited people to the next level of relationship with Him, requiring either a change of heart or a change of life.

There were enough warning flags to safely dismiss and delete that email.

Around the internet at present there is a set of major ‘doom and gloom’ prophecies going around. The prophet is not a regular prophet, but is in leadership with a Christian community, and has had some vivid dreams that were felt to be prophetic for a national and global scale.

Can God call anybody to deliver a message? Yes, He can, for example the prophet Amos. However, it is more usual for an important wake-up call kind of message to be given to someone who is mature in the prophetic gifting and widely recognised as such, with a reasonable track record for accuracy.

There is also a difference between a Jonah-like warning message that invites to repentance and a Daniel-like message declaring that God’s judgement on bad behaviour is going to manifest in specific ways. Neither are certain; the former can be mitigated or even avoided by repentance (Ninevah); the latter can be mitigated by intercession (2 Sam 24). But even the most dire of messages warning of austere times to come contain an inkling of hope, that after punishment and exile that there would be restoration and return (Jeremiah).

However if the prophet reveals that his/her consumption of news media is greater than his/her consumption of God’s word in scripture, then extra caution is required.

Many years back this lesson was given to me. It happened like this. The community I was a member of at that time was receiving lots of apocalyptic sounding prophecy. It somehow happened that I was able to have a chat to one of the most accredited prophets in that community about all this apocalyptic stuff. His response was that many in the community had been reading the same spiritual/devotional literature that contained that kind of language. The ideas you consume eventually come out again, and often get processed in dreams and can be expressed in prophecy. And that was what had been happening in that community situation. You can see it too in less mature prophets who drink in what a lot of other prophets are releasing online. Sometime down the track, all of that prophetic soup will emerge in a very generic prophecy (and very sincerely given) that is a reasonable summary of the main flavours of the soup.

Such known human weaknesses do make it less clear to discern whether God is telling everyone the same message (in which case, Pay Attention!!!), or whether everyone has collectively gone off on a non-God inspired tangent. For this reason, keep aware of times of the liturgical year that various messages arise.

Sometimes they are collective wishful thinking born of deep desire to see God act in powerful ways, as what often happens as Easter, Pentecost and Christmas draw near or something related to the Jewish liturgical calendar. You see this big crescendo of expectation, and then as the special date passes, there is a lull until someone comes out with a statement that the date was still very important, and we will find out why in due time things didn’t manifest in the natural and there’s even bigger and better things coming in a month or 3 months’ time. Yes, it is easy to become cynical, but we do have to fight against that lest we dismiss a true message from God. That’s why growing in discernment is so important and so necessary.

Discernment can take time. And it is easy for us to get it wrong.

Just recently I have had to sadly acknowledge that someone I had on my short list of trusted online prophets was no longer worthy of being on that list. When the messages are exactly what you want to hear, and those messages get picked up and promoted by others and there are online followers in the order of tens of thousands, then of course you are biased towards the messages being true prophecy. But slowly some question marks began to arise. The first question marks happened when some of my cautionary comments that had logical merit were rejected out of hand. The second question marks began when there were more lists of how to do this or how to respond to that, which were all just human thoughts. The third set of question marks began when ‘sign up for my online course’ appeared at the end of prophetic messages, and it was an almost seamless segue. The final question marks were due to the disclosure by way of sharing personal background that this was, despite friendships and recognition from other prophets in good standing, very much a lone ranger ministry although it was couched in pioneer terminology. So I went back and took a more detailed look at the associated website, and the lack of accountable relationships became apparent.

It is like this, as far as possible there should be no conflict of interest between the ministry of a prophet and the way a prophet earns a living. The whole ‘God showed me how to deal with issue X in a whole new and effective way, but you need to pay $$ before I will share it with you’ thing flies in the face of ‘you received without charge, give without charge’ Matt 10:8. At the same time, a labourer is worthy of his hire, so there is no objection to a Donate/Give page. But when the prophet’s main source of income is online mentoring courses or similar, how can the prayers and natural desires for a good sign-up rate not transmute consciously or unconsciously into the prophetic messages, particularly when those messages are squarely aimed at hidden and forgotten ones who have a big destiny in God’s plan? Isn’t this what we all long to hear when we feel that life has passed us by, thus making us very vulnerable and susceptible to exploitation?

Then again, some things are presented as prophecy, when in fact all they are is teaching or preaching on some topic of the life of faith. Weigh it for what it is, not what it purports to be.

In this age of prophets with some celebrity status, it is well to remember that popularity is not a guarantee of accuracy. In the time of Jeremiah there were plenty of prophets announcing times of prosperity ahead, and only Jeremiah repeating God’s warning that the punishment of exile for their sins was coming. Of course the people of that time wanted to listen to the other prophets who spoke what they wanted to hear, and of course they wanted to shut Jeremiah up by any means necessary.

There will be times of restoration and refreshing, just as there will be times of trial and testing, therefore the maxim, ‘test everything, and hold onto what is good’ has to be our guide, as well as frequent prayers for guidance and discernment.

Why is the accountability thing so important? Because a true prophet is going to have enough humility to mistrust his/her own judgement, and be open to correction and submission/obedience to leadership. Even the best of prophets don’t get it 100% right every time (1 Cor 13:9). Obedience to lawful human authority despite what the prophet believes God has told him/her is the ultimate test of legitimacy. If it is of God it will come to pass, despite setbacks, delays and misunderstandings. Any prophet who thinks that everything they receive is always 100% from God is deluding themselves, and a big danger to themselves and others. Do you know what the worst punishment is from God? To be let drift into error. Because unless someone intercedes for you, there’s no way out. (read St John of Avila’s ‘Listen Daughter’ a.k.a. ‘Audi Filia’ for the best ever explanation of this.) Even Moses had his father-in-law Jethro as someone willing to speak truth into his life.

Now should a prophet make a grand prediction, and it doesn’t come to pass, eg a major share market crash during the visit of a specified world leader, then said prophet is automatically and completely discredited.

Particularly when it comes to dreams and visions, it can be crucial to separate the raw material of the prophecy from the interpretation of the prophecy. Quite often the raw material is correct, but the interpretation is incorrect or immature (ie the prophet has only grasped the first layer of the interpretation and not yet the underlying layers of interpretation.) In essence they are similar to parables. With time and diligent prayer, usually the full meaning comes to light.

Sometimes a prophecy (particularly to a community) is an invitation to go deeper, and the ‘more’ that God intended doesn’t happen because the response to the prophecy was mismanaged. For example, someone in that community who has been growing in the prophetic gifting shares that God has shown a vision of angels, surrounding the prayer meeting, who are waiting to be sent on assignment. Responding with a call to those at the prayer meeting to present their petitions to God is level 1. If you took that word seriously you would them get the prophet back and ask if there were any angels left, and if so, how many? (level 2) and if the answer wasn’t zero, you should then either get the people to petition some more, or better yet, ask the community to pray for wisdom in order to petition according to God’s desires (level 3) and delegate a leader to question the prophet about any details not disclosed in the initial message (ask if the angels were all the same size?, were they perhaps in groups?, was there anything to distinguish the groups eg colour, what they were holding?) which might give clues to the How to pray. If there is any sense that this might be a more significant word than first ascertained, then and there, or soon afterwards, get the prophet to have a go at drawing what they saw in as much detail as possible, and then share both the verbal and drawn parts with leadership and other prophets to pray over, discuss and ask further questions. After all, if it was God’s intention to lead the group into prolonged and specific intercession for local political leaders and business leaders, or for the bringing down of some stronghold that was preventing the conversion of the region, and everyone prayed for those they knew in personal, financial or family stress, then that was a comparatively poor outcome.

Some prophecies don’t find fulfilment for a year or several years, some don’t find fulfilment in our lifetimes. Because of this, some interpretations take a while to become clear. For example, St Catherine Laboure was convinced that much needed funds would appear if an area was dug down to a certain level. Everyone else thought she was crazy to keep insisting upon it. Yet in the years ahead, that area was the place where her body was buried, and not too long after a very sizable donation was anonymously placed on her tomb.

Care should be exercised when reading prophecies from years past and seeing in them relevance for today. That can indeed happen. However it is also possible that the mindset with which you read it today prejudices you into believing that it is solely about the current times. For example the pandemic situation the world has recently found itself in has seen a lot of re-evaluation of past prophecies. Many of them read like they were written for us today, and some of the phrases that were glossed over back then, now seem to carry increased meaning (eg A great shaking happening among the nations, and peoples locked down by a spirit of fear). ‘Lockdown’ carries a whole new level of meaning now that it didn’t pre-Covid19, as does ‘lawlessness’ in the wake of the George Floyd riots. Yet there is no guarantee that this is the only era it was meant for, or even if it was the primary era it was meant for.

We do know that God never takes back or revokes His gifts, and that He always invites us to grow. The intended life cycle of a prophet is that as they grow in experience, they also grow in holiness, and weightier and more important prophetic words can be given through them. However this doesn’t always happen; what started out relatively pure can become increasingly sullied with human frailty and error; or what started out pure can go through a wilderness period away from the moral life and then re-emerge stronger than ever after a sincere conversion. Sometimes there will be only a single season of profound revelation, and then no more, if that is God’s plan for them. St Bernadette is an example of this; and saw herself as a broom that was used by God for a while, and then put away. Always the revelation is firstly for the prophet, and then for others. If the prophet is growing in response to the revelation, and growing in holiness and in moral character, it is an indication that what they are receiving is God inspired.

If God is trying to get a message across, He will use more than one messenger, and probably from diverse sources. Therefore, if a message is of a personal nature, it will confirm something He has already called you to do, or in time to come it will be confirmed via other sources. So never change your life on the strength of a single unconfirmed word. Write it down, store it somewhere, refer back to it every 3-6 months, it may make more sense then. If it doesn’t, and there haven’t been any confirmations of it, you can safely forget all about it.

These are only general guidelines born of experience for sifting out the questionable. For every general guideline there are exceptions, because God is not limited and He sometimes chooses to use the unusual or discredited to get our attention and loosen our pre-conceived ideas.

Here are some scriptural reminders that the gift of prophecy is a good gift from God, and needed, and worth the effort of time in discernment and interpretation:

1 Thess 5:19-21 Never try to suppress the Spirit or treat the gift of prophecy with contempt: think before you do anything – hold on to what is good.

2 Peter 1:19b-20 You will be right to depend on prophecy and take it as a lamp for lighting a way through the dark until the dawn comes and the morning star rises in your minds. At the same time, we must be most careful to remember that the interpretation of scriptural prophecy is never a matter for the individual.

I Cor 14:3 The man who prophesies does talk to other people, to their improvement, their encouragement and their consolation.

1 Cor 14:32 Prophets can always control their prophetic spirits, since God is not a God of disorder but of peace.
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For more detailed guidance on prophecy, interpretation and discernment, please read the attached document, particularly pages 11-16 and pages 18-20.

Towards a new paradigm for conferences
Something has been niggling at me for at least the last 10 years when it comes to conferences of all kinds, be they professional, community or church based. The prevailing model is that you get a well-known speaker, or group of them, and then get lots of people to listen to them. Up until the advent of YouTube and Livestream the prevailing model made sense. Now it no longer makes sense. Why gather a group of people together if you are only going to provide something they could access on YouTube?

Far too often we gather people together to listen to a well-known speaker, and the vast majority of people arrive and leave without ever making a meaningful connection with any other attendee or leader or member of the organizing team. Follow up beyond a feedback form is non-existent. As long as they came, and either paid for entry or gave a donation or offering, purchased books and merchandise related to the conference and thereby enhanced the reputations of the speakers and the organization putting on the conference (and their social media followings), that is considered success. Positive testimonials, healings and conversions would be a bonus.

This is a consumer driven model, not a participative or collaborative model.

It is definitely not tapping into the wisdom and experience of the people present, nor permitting connections to be made that could move careers, ministries and relationship networks to a whole new level.

This has to change, even though there are many vested interests that will resist such change.

And the change has to be well beyond the addition of a few discussion groups into the conference mix.

I believe that the Divine Renovation team are thinking along these lines, because when the DR20 conference had to be foregone due to the coronavirus pandemic, they didn’t rush out to replace it with pre-recorded video since they had been planning more ‘hands on’ experiences than guest speakers.

So here is my vision for how a conference could be very different:

At the time of registering for the conference, participants would need to fill out a reasonably detailed survey. The survey would require answers to where participants
* feel that God is most active in their lives (to get an idea where charisms might be, and there would be long lists to choose from),
* experience burdens or callings (eg Pro-life, mental health, evangelization, prison ministry, helping people with addictions, helping people in domestic violence situations, youth ministry, ministry to the homeless, political activism, etc)
* have creative, artistic and musical talents
* write about a project or ministry that is on their heart, but currently unattainable due to lack of funding, co-workers and prayer partners
* and provide their top 5 themes from the Gallup StrengthsFinder questionnaire

Each part of that survey will assist in the planning of the conference, and in developing groups with the greatest numbers of shared interests and experiences. If there is enough prayer in the preparation and planning parts of the conference, the groups will fall into place with the Holy Spirit’s fingerprints all over it.  
 
The conference facility would need therefore to have a large room where all participants can gather, as well as at least 6 smaller rooms for groups to meet in.

Each day of the conference participants will get the opportunity in groups to interact and collaborate with people with whom they have shared interests, callings or abilities.

As far as possible such a conference would be open to all age groups, and the more inter-generational the better.

The conference would start on a Monday, in time for lunch for those who have top 5 themes in the Influencing domain and in time for 5pm Mass for other participants. Day 2/Tuesday would be devoted to charisms, Day3/Wednesday to burdens and callings, Day 4/Thursday is a combined creative day and lectio divina day, Day 5/Friday is a vision day (or start up day), and Day 6/Saturday a half day to pause and reflect on the whole week, with time alone and with opportunities for free ranging conversation and swapping of contact details.

The idea is to have some basic structure to each day, and yet have plenty of opportunity for God to move as He wills.

A live-in location for the conference would be best, however a blend of live-in and 9am-10pm participants sleeping at home is possible if they live within an hour’s travel of the venue and have sufficient stamina.

The timetable for the full days would be something like this:
7.00am Morning Prayer, followed by personal prayer
7.40am Rosary
8.00am Breakfast
9.00am Praise & Worship, with outline of the vision/plan for the day
9.30am Break into groups, give more specific vision/plan for the day, and get to know each other
10.40am Morning Tea
11.00am Seeking God, what does He want to do with us, say to us today; praying for each other
12.00pm Mass
1.15pm Lunch
2.30pm Major work of the day
5.30pm Evening Prayer
6.00pm Dinner
7.00pm Team meeting
7.30pm Night session
9.30pm or 10pm Night Prayer and end of the day

Day 1 Monday
After lunch, special sessions with those who have top 5 themes in the influencing domain, because these people will be called on to lead at least one group during the conference. These special sessions will provide a vision for how we want the leadership of the groups to function during the conference, and a bit of additional leadership training. Before the others arrive to register, we will pray over these leaders asking God to help them.

Then the conference begins in earnest with 5pm Mass followed by 6pm Dinner and the first Night Session at 7.30pm. The Night Session will start with Praise & Worship, a short keynote talk of encouragement, followed by housekeeping information and guidelines for how prophetic words and words of knowledge are to be discerned, and only released when permission from the discernment team is given. That way there can be a small team of people assisting in the interpretation and praying about the best way to act upon and release the messages. As far as possible we need to avoid and discourage undiscerned messages of personal prophecy. In groups, the group leader will facilitate group discernment procedures. At the end of the Night Session participants break up into groups of around 4 people and pray for each other. Night Prayer ends the day.

Day 2 Tuesday
This Day is foundational, because the more the charisms of the Holy Spirit are activated in us, the easier it will be to co-operate with His leadings and promptings throughout the conference.

Today we want to group those who have similar charisms, so that they can share their experiences and learn from each other.

Ideally there would be a group for prophets, a group for intercessors, a group for evangelists, a group for those with the gift of discernment, a group for those with the gift of healing, a group for those whose charism doesn’t fall into these categories, and a group for those who have no idea what their charism is.

In the introduction part of the day, participants would be invited to share how they experience that charism (eg an urgency to stop and pray for a particular person or situation, tingling and warmth in the hands, dreams, changes in senses of smell etc), a story about a good outcome from the operation of that charism, and a challenge they are experiencing with regard to that charism.

Obviously if several people are experiencing the same challenge, then this is a sign that dealing with it is on God’s agenda. Before the next session starts do a bit of research, consultation and prayer for resources and wisdom on this challenge. This topic will then become the first thing the group does in the main afternoon session.

Then after Morning Tea each group spends time seeking God for what He wants them to do as a group. After a time of seeking such guidance, group members share any impressions they have received. There should be enough, ‘I felt that too’, to chart a course of action. Otherwise start with the first impression, give it ago, if it feels anointed continue with it; if not, try the next impression. Some groups may feel like God wants them to lead them in a time of repentance, or to seek God’s mind about a particular topic, or to pray for a particular group of people, or to just rest in stillness before Him for a while.

The main thing is to get a bit of consensus about what God wants to do with the group in the main session, (at least to start with) and then to pray for each other for deeper releases of the charism they already share. What to do is one thing, how to do it is another, so until the main session starts everyone should be seeking God individually for specifics. For example, if the general impression is to pray for Japan, is it for the leaders of Japan, is it for protection against natural disasters in Japan etc and how to pray, eg in song, in tongues, with the Rosary, with a map of the country etc. Where you start in the main session may not be where you end up, allow God to lead you step by step. It is OK for the leader to ask for feedback from time to time, eg should we go deeper here, or do you feel that the Holy Spirit is changing our direction? Is the anointing as strong as when we started? Or has it lifted? Remember to follow good spiritual hygiene principles before and after the main session.

At the after dinner team meeting, group leaders give a brief account of the day. Are there any common threads between the various groups? If so, then go deeper with that in the ministry part of the night session. Otherwise the night session will be a full on ‘whatever you want to do with us God’ prayer meeting, expecting God to give people practice in the various charisms.

For the group of people with less common charisms, the group times of the day should be very similar, just needing extra levels of open heartedness to listen to the experiences of others that are so very different from your own.

For the group of people who have no idea what their charism is, they will have more of an input day than a collaborative day. For them, bring in guest speakers who describe their own experiences with charisms, and growing in them. Some of the day should be one-on-one conversations about how group members have experienced God’s guidance in the past; from those conversations some nascent charisms might be recognized. If so, pray for them to become more manifest. By dinner time everyone in this group should be better equipped to recognize and respond to charisms, and have had a time before the end of the main afternoon session where everyone prayed for the release of God’s charisms within each other for the welfare of the church.

(For a conference made up of people mature in the use of the charisms, you could add a similar day breaking into groups of those with similar offices, viz, apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher. We say people have an office if there is general recognition that a person has been used by God consistently in this area for several years, and with much fruitfulness.)

Day 3 Wednesday
This day is designed to bring people with similar burdens, callings and ministries together. The purpose is for mutual support and encouragement, the improvement of relationships between people with similar God-given passions, and the sharing of ideas. If at the end of the day people have been helped to avoid common pitfalls, if solutions to common issues have been shared, if a bigger vision for what God is doing in this ministry area is received, if mutual collaboration begins between ministries, then the day has been a success.

The break up of these groups will be determined by the answers to the registration questionnaire. Likely groups would be pro-life, youth ministry, ministry to the poor/disadvantaged; less likely but still possible groups could be catechists, prison ministry, drug & alcohol rehabilitation, social media apostles/evangelists, protection of religious freedom activists etc. The emphasis is on the burden of the heart more than where someone is currently in mission. For example, if someone goes to state schools as a catechist every week, but God wakes them up on a regular basis to pray for those tempted to suicide, then that person should be in a group with people sharing a passion for mental health rather than with the catechists.

The first group session of the day begins with prayer, and then time for group members to get to know each other through introducing themselves, how this calling or prayer burden first manifested itself in their lives, a story about a good outcome from this ministry, and the sharing of a challenge arising from the calling, prayer burden or ministry. Only if time permits, group members can share how they have dealt with some of the challenges the others are currently facing.

If there appears to be commonality among the challenges, then we see God’s hand in bringing people together with a common challenge, and the group leader in the break goes to seek out wisdom and resources through research and consultation with team members. This will be the first topic for the main session in the afternoon, and a videoclip for discussion starting, or role play, or bringing in an expert speaker, may be the way to start it off, but then collectively pray for God’s wisdom for the challenging situation, and share any impressions, ideas and scripture quotations that come. It could be as basic as producing a budget, or as nuanced as exploring ways of setting boundaries and saying no to those who are demanding more than can be given.

The second group session is about seeking what God wants to do with the group. So this will involve prayer. It could very well be that God would like to give the group a time of restful, soaking prayer to refresh and bring healing in this session, as a prelude to what He wants to do with them in the main session. It may become a time of collective repentance for the occasions that we failed to respond to His promptings, and/or failed to serve the people sent to us. If group members agree, it could also be about sharing solutions to challenges, and respectfully learning from each other. At the end of this session there should be general agreement as to how the main session will start. Before the session ends, pray for each other and for each other’s ministries.

The main afternoon session will start by dealing with all the things that arose from the previous group sessions. But this should take up no more than one third of the main session. Then the rest of the session is turned over to God, letting Him direct what happens next, with the group leader facilitating group discernment. It is likely that the various groups will be led into times of intercession for those for whom God has already given them a burden (eg youth, those who don’t know God, those bound in addictions etc). It is also likely that the various groups will be led to seek God for fresh vision and fresh strategies for their ministries, and for the deeper release of charisms with which to serve in those ministries. If a time of repenting for obstacles placed in the way of unity between ministries begins, flow with it. Allow God to share his heart with you, and to broaden your vision for what He wants to accomplish through you. Begin and end this time with proper spiritual hygiene practices, since the possibility of intense spiritual warfare is high. If God wants to use your group in prayer to help bring down spiritual strongholds that are holding back His floodgates of grace, do not resist and do not be afraid.

The group leader’s debrief after dinner is again crucial. If in the debrief and sharing you find that many of the main sessions prayed for the nation, or were led to pray for financial help to be released, then the night session should devote time to praying for these things as a whole conference body. On the other hand, if groups were led to pray for boldness, or for those in political leadership, then do more of that. So the night session starts off as a prayer meeting and covers those areas that came up as themes in the groups, and if time permits at the end, there will be a time of sharing of good outcomes from various ministries. To make that happen each group leader will go and invite the person who shared the best story in the group to share it with everyone, so that the evening ends with collective praise and thanksgiving to God.

There will be a group for those who have less common callings, for whom there aren’t enough to have a specific group for those callings. With extra patience and openness of heart to each other, there is every possibility that their group may be led by God in deep and amazing ways. Be on the lookout for any indication of being drawn together into new multidimensional or multidisciplinary forms of ministry. For example, it might be discovered on sharing, that while each has their own calling, many of those callings may have a ‘calling within a calling’ such as an interest in First Nations peoples or a tug towards South East QLD.

Then there will be a group for those who don’t yet think they have a calling, a prayer burden or a ministry. For them, at the first group session they will introduce themselves and share a bit about either the context for the strongest spiritual experience of their lives or about what they have seen God do in their lives recently, and then share something about what they are currently struggling with, be it having a regular prayer time or a fracturing relationship or a health battle etc. At the second session there will be input to help them understand how a calling, prayer burden or ministry begins to manifest itself. Group members will then recall and share about the top three intercessory prayers in their lives, about the kinds of charities that they give more willingly to, and why, and about the type of injustice that spurs them most to action. From the time of sharing in the first two sessions it might be possible to see patterns emerging in individuals and in the group. If so, work with that. The main session will be about asking God to reveal more of His plan for each of the group members, and lingering in prayer waiting upon Him to speak directly to each heart. Pray for each other, and over each other, and if all else fails use the remaining time to pray against the injustices shared and for any top 3 intercessions that some of the group members had in common.

Day 4 Thursday
By now conversations at break times and during meals should be well beyond small talk. Today is creative lectio divina day. For today everyone gets a copy of the Gospel passage for the coming Sunday, and groups are made up of people with similar creative gifts. So there will be a good of musicians (vocalists, song writers, those who can play musical instruments), there will be a group of artists/illustrators, there will be a group of wordsmiths (writers, bloggers, poets), there will be a group of dramatists (actors, playwrights, dancers), a group of digital artists (photographers, videographers, meme makers), a group of cooks/chefs, and if there are any who declare they have no creative talents, they will make up the intercessors for the day. Comedians can choose whether they prefer wordsmiths or dramatists. If perchance there are potters, sculptors, wood workers, people who create scenes with Lego, or anything else ‘hands on’ (eg knitters and those who can make amazing things come out of sewing machines) then they can form a group too – if they have brought their equipment with them.

For the first session of the day, group members share about the creative talent God has given them, and what they have been doing with it (eg hobby, volunteer, career, ministry), and a blessing they feel when they use that creative talent and a challenge they face (burn out, barriers to success, rejection, finding the time to practice/hone skills etc). Pray for each other.

The second session of the day is where each group seeks God and prays through the Gospel passage in a lectio divina way. Group members share what struck them afresh about this Gospel passage. Then members talk about how they could convey that message through the medium of their creative talent, and whether they want (or feel called) to do that solo, or in collaboration with others. It is time to brainstorm, and to help each other develop the initial ideas they have been given. The cooks will each be given an amount, say $20, to go shopping for ingredients with, in order to produce Gospel inspired nibbles to be enjoyed at the night session. By the end of this session everyone should have a plan for what they will be creating in the afternoon session.

In the afternoon session the intercessors will be praying while the creatives produce what they can in the time available, together with a written explanation if necessary (eg for art, instrumental music, nibbles).

Then in preparation for the night session, the creative work that can be displayed will be arranged around the room. Creative work that requires performance will go onto whatever stage-type arrangements can be made, like a variety concert, and the nibbles provide a celebratory feast afterwards. Those with computer/technical skills will be called on to help set things up for viewing where necessary, or to help get them printed. It should be an absolutely amazing night seeing the Gospel coming alive and depicted in so many various ways and mediums. Of course, someone will need to fill the role of M.C. for the night, and someone else will need to schedule the various performances into some semblance of order.

Writers can choose whether to read out their short story, poem, limerick, blog post, or article, or whether to print it and display it instead. It may even be deemed worthwhile for all of the displays to be photographed and uploaded onto a computer, and then projected onto a big screen while the artist/creator explains his/her work. If that is done, then you would need schedule a few displays followed by a few performances, and then a very short time for conversation and continue with that pattern until all of the creative individuals and groups had presented. No performance or display explanation should exceed 5 minutes. At the end, the intercessors should be called up to take a bow, because they were the powerhouse of prayer calling down God’s creative inspiration upon everyone and obtaining the grace of creative flow. Then God Himself should get a big clap for the gift of His Word and for the wide diversity of creative talents He has bestowed upon His people.

Day 5 Friday
This is Dare to Dream day, or Vision day, or Start-Up day. For today people will need to be able to set up their own computer technology in working groups. In preparation for today the team will have needed to contacted diocesan leaders, business people (eg lawyers and accountants), local political leaders and others who have links with entrepreneurs and large donors. These people are to receive invitations to the night session. The more that come, the better.

By now there should be a good level of trust and working relationships between the conference participants. The more there is of that, the more fruitful the day will be.
 
The first session of the day is the ‘Pitch it to me’ session. Anyone who wishes to pitch a project to the group has to notify the team the night before and be given some cardboard to write out the essence of the pitch upon. People can give multiple pitches if the ideas or projects are significantly different. Each person gets no more than 2 minutes to pitch their idea or project to the entire group. But they have to be ‘big’, ie they need to be well beyond the scope of one person to achieve (funding $10K+, require an ongoing team of at least 4 people, and prayer partners). Effective pitches generally present a community need and a solution to that need.
 
Some of the pitches will be pre-existing dreams that currently seem too far out of reach, others will have arisen out of the experiences of the conference. Catholic hospices, family-friendly retreat centres, initiating a new faculty at a Catholic university (eg Australian Catholic history), a project to translate a classic spirituality text into English, setting up a travelling troupe of dramatists to perform Passion plays are examples of possible pitches.

In the break between sessions, the cardboard pitches are set up around the room. Each person is given two red sticky dots and a green one. The red dots are to vote for pitches that you think are particularly worthwhile, and the green dot is to indicate which pitch you would actively like to work on. At the start of the second session, people go and place their dots. During this time of milling around, you can ask clarifying questions of the people who gave pitches.

The more dots a pitch receives, the more likely it is that a working group for that pitch will be formed. Hopefully this process of ranking pitches will take no more than 30 minutes, less if at all possible. The number of working groups will be determined by the number of smaller rooms for those groups to meet in, with one room set aside for those who have no passion for any of the selected working groups.

Once the top ranking pitches are chosen, people gravitate to the one they wish to work on and form working groups. The rest of the session is spent in the smaller rooms doing introductions, and learning about each other’s skills and professions. Each group will require someone with themes in the influencing domain if those giving the selected pitches do not already have an influencing theme. If any working groups discover that they don’t have all the domains covered, then they need to find someone who has themes in that domain to join them.

The main session for each working group begins with prayer, followed by a more detailed pitch from the pitch-giver. Group members ask questions. Then the group decides what needs to be done to improve the pitch, and works on that. Each group will get 7 minutes at the night session to deliver a better pitch, and 3 minutes to answer questions from the floor about the pitch.

Statistics, business plans, research, graphics, budget size, possible locations, any limitations via legislation and government regulations, staffing, legal and privacy restrictions considered, plans for how to attract both funding and clients/those in need of the project will all be required in preparing the better pitch. Also needed will be information about why this project is different to others already in existence, and whether or not it could be co-partnered or grafted onto an existing entity/ministry.

Since the 3 hours for the main session isn’t a lot of time for work like this, the group leader/s need to quickly set tasks for each member. They work as hard as possible for 30 minutes on those tasks, then the group reassembles and reports, and then refines what is needed, and sends members away for another 30 minutes. After the second re-group they will need to decide whether more information is needed, or whether the group has enough to begin preparing the presentation, or to let a few pursue more fact finding and the rest begin work on how to present the upgraded pitch. Allow enough time to practice the presentation. Prepare a handful of contact cards to give away to any invited guest who shows interest in the project.

Pitch-givers are encouraged to let the original vision for the project grow, be enhanced, and even be diverted. For example, a pitch might begin as a scheme to find employment for young people, but during the work the group discovers plenty of similar schemes for that age group, however there is almost nothing for the over 50s, and they decide to keep the basics of the idea and project but change the age group for whom it is targeted.

Remember to do due diligence. Contact actual people for whom you have the vision or project. Ask them whether it would actually help them, or whether they have more pressing needs. For example, the initial project may be to improve ramp access for wheelchairs and walkers at the local cathedral, but you may find that while that would be well, good and appreciated, what they really need is trained people to help them fill out National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) paperwork.

Groups may decide to continue working between dinner and the start of the evening session.

Simplicity of presentation is better than complexity. Include what the need is, what the vision is to meet that need, why that vision is unique, and then detail that vision with plans and rationales for those plans. Don’t forget to include estimated budgets for the whole project, for each section of a project, or year 1, year 2 etc budget projections. If time permits outline the risks you are aware of, and your plans to deal with those risks. Make the vision as compelling as possible.

The night session begins with prayer, and the introduction of the invited guests. Then the detailed pitch sessions and associated Q&A begins. It would be better to have a random order of the presentations instead of a lowest initial interest to highest initial interest order. When the detailed pitch sessions are over it is time for a celebration to begin, and for invited guests to mingle and ask further questions about the pitches that most interested them. At the end of the evening, conclude with prayer asking God to bring into being those projects that most align with His will.

For those who ended up in the group without a selected pitch, they will do a similar skills and professions introduction to each other that will be led by a group leader. As part of that introduction, people will also include what topic would have motivated them to take part in a working group. Should there be any group members who have the same motivation, they will work together for the rest of the day. The rest get divided up into smaller groups that have all the theme domains covered, and then get to choose which of the non-selected pitches they would like to work on. Before the end of the main session, each smaller group presents a pitch to each other. Of them, the one considered by the group to be the best pitch will be presented as a ‘wild card’ pitch at the night session.

Day 6 Saturday
This is the final day, which finishes with Mass and lunch. The primary task of this day is to provide a time of prayerful reflection upon the experiences of the week. So after the morning praise & worship there are only two sessions.

For the first session everyone gets a small exercise book to take with them and to write down what they want to remember from the whole conference. Of primacy would be everything that they felt God speaking to their hearts. Questions that people may want to answer in this time are: What did I hear? What did I learn? What touched my heart? Where was God for me in the experiences of the week? What is challenging me? What questions do I have that I need to follow up on? What do I feel God is inviting me to do as a response to the experiences of this week?

For the second session everyone returns to the main room. This is a time to mingle with the purpose of going up and saying a personal thank you to those who helped you during the week, and for saying words of encouragement to those in whom you see great potential, or whom you have seen grow throughout the week. It is also a time to swap contact details with those you would like to keep in contact with. At the end of the session we gather for 5 minutes to stand and pray for the person next to us, that what God has done in them during this week and begun in them would be brought to perfect fulfilment.
​
www.societyofsaints.net   
Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, 19 Jun 2020  

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A print friendly version is available below:
10 x A4 pages

​In my roving internet travels I came across a post that grabbed by attention. The gist of the post was that an intercessor wanted a seat at the leadership team table, and the response was 'No', with the major argument being all leaders are intercessors but not all intercessors are leaders.
 
It struck me that the situation was handled poorly, when it could have had quite positive outcomes if handled better. The context seemed to imply that the leadership felt a bit threatened and weren't too keen on the personality of the intercessor.
 
So I want to come at this situation from 2 angles. The first angle is where intercession sits in the body of Christ, and the second angle is 'Why would a request like this be made in the first place?'
 
Each believer in Jesus Christ who has been incorporated into His Body through baptism shares in the priestly, prophetic and kingly ministry of Jesus. The priestly ministry is offering up prayer and sacrifice for others, the prophetic is telling of God's good news of salvation, and the kingly is service of the needy and vulnerable (eg traditionally widows, orphans and strangers).
 
We know that Jesus is continually interceding for us. Heb 7:25 'His power to save is utterly certain because He is living forever to interceded for all who come to God through Him'. We know that we are to follow Him and to imitate Him, our leader and Head.
 
This means that intercession for others is an expected and normal part of being a Christian. But just as with the prophetic and kingly ministries of Jesus, we share in them in various degrees according to the call of God upon our lives.
 
There is the ordinary call as given in 1 Tim 2:1-2, 'First of all, there should be prayers offered for everyone – petitions, intercessions and thanksgiving – and especially for kings and others in authority so that we may be able to live religious and reverent lives in peace and quiet'.
 
To some the Holy Spirit gives a charism of intercession, which can take the form of a gift, ministry or office.
 
The gift normally manifests itself in an impulse or nudge from God to pray for a certain person or situation, and that impulse or urge lifts when the breakthrough is obtained. These tend to be short in duration and carry a degree of urgency eg You get woken up in the night with the need to pray for your nephew, you pray until peace comes, and the next day you find out he had been in a life and death situation. God can operate a gift like this in anyone at any time. You have a certainty that God wants you to pray for this person or situation, to pray right now, and even an understanding of how you are to pray – including what tools in your prayer arsenal you are to use in prayer. This is far beyond sitting in a circle and praying one after each other for your best guess at what the greatest needs are and your best guess at what prayers are aligned with God's will.
 
The ministry is the next level of charism where the Holy Spirit places prayer burdens upon a person, with some regularity and frequency, and involves responding with fasting and commitment and can include the experience of travailing in prayer. Generally the community catches on that when this person prays, God seems to answer quickly and powerfully, and those with a ministry of intercession get invited to intercessory prayer meetings.
 
The office is the next level of charism where it becomes increasingly obvious to the person and to the community that there is a special anointing upon their lives to pray for 'big stuff', think John Sanford and his intercessory metron for weather patterns and natural disasters. Other metrons could be for a city, a region, a nation or for particular groups of people (law enforcement, catechists) or particular situations or causes (cessation of abortion, conversion of teenagers, prayer partnering a ministry of the community). Those with an office like this usually develop mentoring and impartation roles to others less experienced in being used by the Holy Spirit with this charism.
 
If we recall the parable of Jesus about the persistent widow and the unjust judge, Luke 18: 1-8, then you can expect those with this charism to be people of perseverance, 'pester power', a bit intense at times, and maybe even a little pushy (think Abraham in Genesis 18:22-33). But if you remember that God made them this way for His special intercessory purposes, then you won't take too much offence at them, and give them a bit of leeway because you don't know just how heavy a burden God has placed upon them, and such a burden makes a person less able to see the big picture and wider perspectives. That is why they need good and understanding leadership which takes time to really listen to them - when the temptation is to fob them off at the first opportunity because they feel like an annoyance.
 
All leaders have a duty to intercede and pray for those who have been entrusted to their leadership. It is part of the job of a leader. Often those prayers are at the ordinary level unless there is a major threat or opportunity coming towards the community, when the charism at gift level will manifest. Leaders with prophetic gifts will have associated intercessory gifts because many times the promises of God require long term intercession in order to come to fruition.
 
Frequently a prophetic charism will lead to growth in intercessory charisms and an intercessory charism will lead to growth in prophetic charisms.
 
Why would a request like this be made in the first place?
 
It could be a genuine request according to the Will of God.
It could be a symptom of something lacking in the way leadership is conducted.
Or a bit of both.
 
A good leader will know whether the person claiming to be an intercessor has the charism of intercession and at what level he/she has it. If you don't know, then you will have to ask questions, listen carefully, and pray for discernment. It is part of the task of a leader to see the beginnings of ministry level charisms, to notice them, to nurture them, and to put boundaries, protections and communication channels in place to enable them to grow safely.
 
A wise leader will have communication channels in place so that regular updates of what God is doing in and through the prophets and intercessors in the leader's community are received. If independent reports from your intercessors show a shift to several intercessors praying for unmarried mothers, then that's probably a heads up from God about where He wants to develop the community's next outreach ministry.
 
If your leadership pipeline has stalled, and there have been no changes in senior leadership team in the last 5 – 10 years, then this request could be a symptom of not raising up the next generation of leaders.
 
If there has been a leadership emphasis and community culture of honouring those in visible positions of ministry leadership (preachers, pastors, worship leaders, youth leaders, administration) and not giving honour to the invisible positions of ministry (intercession, street evangelism, caring for the infants, sick and elderly, hospitality), then there is going to be various levels of frustration and not feeling valued among those in invisible positions of ministry and corresponding desires to be seen and appreciated. There is a human tendency for this imbalance to happen, and it has to be consciously fought against on a regular basis.
 
The request could be a disguised plea for help in discerning where God wants them to serve and/or the manifestation of a desire to be more involved and committed.
 
Therefore the first thing to do when a request like this comes to your leadership is to see it as a gift and opportunity, and not as a hassle.
 
Then you do your due diligence and work out whether at what level of charism the person is experiencing God's action in his/her life. The higher the level, the more likely God is in the request.
 
Then you do your due diligence and determine whether there are other charisms of the Holy Spirit regularly active in his/her life. The more there are, the more likely God is in the request.
 
Then you obtain some objective assessment of leadership potential. The StrengthsFinder questionnaire is a very good tool for this. The presence of influencing themes means that he/she should be in some form of leadership. Your task is then to work out where that should be happening, and the other theme results will give good clues to that answer. For example if the person is high in empathy and harmony, and has a theme from the influencing domain, then leadership of a hospital visitation or aged care visitation group might be the answer.
 
However the absence of influencing themes doesn't let you off the hook. You then need to look at the mix of themes of everyone on your senior leadership team and compare them with your intercessor requester. If the themes of the intercessor requester fill in the domain weaknesses of your senior leadership team, then God is in the request and you need to at least give it a 3 month trial and see how it goes.
 
If there no influencing themes and the themes they do have will not bring greater balance to the senior leadership team, then that's not where they are called at the moment. But there could be other ministry teams in the community for which they are a perfect fit. Work out where that is and plug him/her into it, reminding them that every leader is only as effective as the team they have around them, and every 'supporting the leader' role is important.
 
The bottom line is that if a person comes to you with a request to join your leadership team, you do them, yourself and the community a grave disservice unless you help get them into the ministry role that God has uniquely equipped them for.

From the Acts of the Apostles and other writings in the New Testament we learn that the charisms of the Holy Spirit were in widespread daily use by the early Christians for evangelisation and building up the body of Christ and extending the kingdom of God.

In our own era we have seen the beginnings of a return to that 'normalcy', and as we expect grace to superabound where sin abounds, Romans 5:20, it means that as our world slips deeper into moral darkness, manifestation of the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit will increase.

It is therefore prudent for information about how the charismatic gifts operate to become more widespread in the church, so that if God starts working in your life that way then you can embrace it and co-operate with Him more fully, and if He starts working in someone else's life and they come to you bewildered you will have the knowledge to bring them peace, encourage them and give them effective guidance.

That's why the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Service (ICCRS) ran a Charism School in Melbourne in March 2019. Presented was a compendium of what has been learned about the revelation and power gifts of the Holy Spirit over the past 52 years.

A 32 page transcript of that Charism School is provided below. For those who prefer video or audio, contact the Melbourne CCR office for details https://www.ccr.org.au/ or centre@ccr.org.au

The titles of the talks given are:

Charisms, Gifts and Fruit
Co-operating with the Charisms
Workers in the Harvest

Gift of Tongues
Gift of Wisdom
Mass Homily: Spiritual Warfare
Spiritual Maturity and Inner Freedom
The Gift of Leadership

Gifts of Revelation and Inspiration
Prophecy and the Word of Knowledge
Mass Homily: Mercy and False Guilt
Hearing the Voice of God
Discernment

The Charism of Faith
Healing
Mass Homily: Surrender to God's Will
How to Pray for Healing
Deliverance

Mass Homily: Interior Life
​
Please read the document and share it widely, especially with former and current members of prayer groups and people in Christian leadership. Fluent readers will take around an hour to read it, unless they digress down one of the hyper-links or wish to compare bible translations.

Upon this document, dear Holy Spirit, we seek your unction.
May the prayers of Mary, the mother of Jesus, who prayed so ardently with the Apostles and Disciples as they waited for the promised gift of the Father, accompany it.
May Blessed Elena Guerra, Pope Leo XIII, St Philip Neri, and all the Saints who had special devotion to the Holy Spirit, intercede for each person who reads it.
May the holy angels guide the distribution of this document far and wide, especially to those who most need it.
​Amen.

Session 5, Sunday 20 Jan 2019 with Jim Murphy, president of ICCRS

Sometimes even when we know what to do, it is still not easy to do it.

Sometimes we feel we can't jump that high – that's why He gives His Spirit.

When Jesus says, 'Take My yoke…', we know that the yoke goes across the shoulders of two animals. Normally an older more experienced animal is joked with a younger animal. The older one calms the younger one down and communicates, 'Just walk with Me, I know how to do this.' On our own we are not capable of doing what God is calling us to do.

How does the Spirit work? It starts with you and me.

God is responsible for the great revival – no one else – and He will deal with us first. Pay attention to your own piece of real estate, and only then together look at the big picture. However if you wait until you are perfect to help anyone else, you will die of old age before that happens.

This is a both/and, not either/or, and we need to seek balance. God wants to give you the power to do the things of the kingdom, and also to be and to become holy. Both are essential and necessary.

Charisms flow from the generosity of God; they are undeserved gifts from the ridiculous generosity of God. God knows how to give good things to His kids.

Have you ever sat in a car-park of a hospital, nursing home or funeral place and said, 'I don't want to go in. God help me.' and you eventually got up and went in. That was His grace at work.

Priesthood is a special example of this; God working in the man, with the man, beyond the capacity of the man.

There was a farmer's wife who came to a prayer meeting with her very reluctant husband. He had a speech problem that made putting a sentence together a laborious effort. He was prayed with for the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and nothing seemed to have happened. However at subsequent prayer meetings, he would be prompted by the Holy Spirit to stand up and speak – and out came this divine poetry. The farmer had been given an extraordinary prophetic gift that only operated under the influence of the Holy Spirit. At all other times he continued to have speech difficulties. This was an unusual charism chosen to show forth the surpassing power of God.

So don't limit God by saying, 'I could never do that', because we put our faith in the God who can do it in us.

Human effort cannot fix the world – only God can save us now.

Do not count yourself out – let Him use you to do something extraordinary – that the rest of us really need.

If God calls you to do something – do it. But you don't have to go it alone, seek out and talk to experienced people about ways to move forward in responding to that call.

Prayer groups are not the only place for charisms, they are for the water cooler interactions too. If someone at the water cooler shares what they are struggling with, seek the Lord for that person, and if there is openness and permission from him or her, take the opportunity to pray together about that situation.

Don't ever be afraid to minister in the Spirit anywhere.

The Spirit gives us the power to be something else – to be the sons and daughters of God.

Galatians 5:22 give us the fruits of the Spirit which flow from the Isaiah 11 gifts of the Spirit. When the Spirit of God fills and dwells in you, His personality starts rubbing off on you. Then the Holy Spirit's capacity for courage, wisdom etc start becoming our qualities, forming us into the likeness of Christ.

You are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Can you believe that?

When we think gift, we normally think of objects, but 'the' gift is the person of the Holy Spirit.

With some people, the room changes when that person walks in, and that person – just by their presence – brings everyone closer to God.

More people are converted by character than by charism: pick both!

This inner work in us cannot be done except by the Spirit of God.

We all need to be more open to the Holy Spirit. Ask Him, 'where is the bulls-eye on my back?' He wants to shine light on it. He will show those areas of weakness to you for the purposes of love and healing.

Human beings don't co-operate well together – but the Holy Spirit can make unity happen and can make team-work happen.

Without the Holy Spirit, there is no vision to unite us.

I invite you to journey with the Holy Spirit. Ask Him, 'what do I need to pay attention to from this weekend?' Reflect on it, but keep inviting the Holy Spirit into the process.

The only way restoration happens is by the Spirit of God.
There is no other way, no other option.
We have been called by God, to be with God for this great restoration.
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When all the talks are transcribed and blogged, a printer friendly version will be provided. There is still the Homily to go.
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My thoughts

There is outward and inward work to be done, and all under the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit. As missionary disciples, the charism gifts are the missionary part, and the character gifts are the discipleship part, and we should earnestly desire both types of gifts from God's goodness.

To think that we can do anything (prayer groups, children's liturgy, parish leadership, soup kitchens, evangelisation through social media, teaching as a catechist, youth groups, welcoming ministry, raising a family etc) without the Holy Spirit and His charisms – is sheer lunacy. But with Him all things are possible, fruitful, and effective.

If there isn't room for the Holy Spirit's charisms to operate in your corner of the restoration work – make room. Get your team together, collectively surrender your whole ministry to His leadership, beg the Holy Spirit together for the charisms your team needs, and spend time in prayer each time you come together seeking His guidance and direction, and be open to changing your plans according to His.
​
Make room in your hearts and minds too. Get hold of resources that have experiential knowledge of how charisms operate, and study them. Visit ministries in similar fields to yours where charisms are operating, and let the possibilities of what God can do get you on your knees seeking Him with all your heart.

The Gospel for the weekend of 8/9 September 2018, 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, is taken from the end of Chapter 7 of St Mark. It tells the story of a group of people bringing a man, who is both deaf and unable to speak clearly, to Jesus. In response Jesus takes the man well away from the crowd, to where he can have a very personal encounter with Jesus. As part of this encounter Jesus sighs as He commands 'Be Opened'.

This is a much longer and detailed reflection on this Gospel passage than was possible via Instagram. (@pcav3473)

Jesus is back on home turf in the ten towns of Galilee after an absence. Are the people who bring the man to Jesus hostile or friendly towards Him? Either is possible, but the more we understand what it meant to be deaf and unable to speak clearly in Jewish culture, the more the balance swings towards friendly.

Being deaf is a very isolating experience at the best of times, but it was even worse for someone living in a culture based on oral tradition. To participate fully in the religious life of a Jew you had to be able to hear: in particular to hear the sound of the shofar, the blowing of the ram's horn that is part of several important feast days, and used to sound warnings. You also had to be able to speak: in particular to recite the Shemar at the prescribed times of the day, (viz, 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the one Lord …). Some rabbinical teachings said it was enough to try to recite it accurately, others said it didn't count unless it was recited perfectly.

There were special laws that decreed that those both unable to hear and unable to speak clearly were to be treated as minors, ie without legal status. Think about how much haggling was part and parcel of most business transactions and you can begin to understand why. Thus unless you were able to find a sympathetic advocate who took the time to question you in the approved manner, a person deaf and unable to speak clearly was unable to buy and retain property and unable to marry.

Even if this man had somehow been able to learn who Jesus claimed to be, having no legal status he would have been unable to request healing from Jesus. That is why people had to bring him to Jesus and he could not approach Jesus on his own. To do that for the deaf man, in the absence of any obvious axe to grind eg healing on the Sabbath, would require a significant level of compassion. Hence the likelihood of friendly.

Due to these known difficulties of life for a deaf person, it is no longer a surprise that Jesus does not hesitate to come to this man's assistance.

What is interesting is that Jesus takes him somewhere private. It feels like there is more to it than just needing to be away from eyes that might class these actions of Jesus (putting fingers in his ears, and spittle on his tongue) as weird. There is a layer of intimacy and personal encounter that feels just as essential as the weird stuff.

Here's the kicker.
What if this story doesn't only relate to the earthly realm, but also relates to the supernatural realm?

The citizens of the supernatural realm are able to hear God in that realm and to speak forth from that hearing for Kingdom of God purposes. These are people we would class as having prophetic gifting (prophecy, visions, dreams, word of knowledge, discernment of spirits etc). God regularly shows them His mind, His heart, His plans, His secrets. They co-operate by speaking forth these things according to God's timing and thereby bringing the active power of God to bear in the earthly realm. For example, in the passage from Ezekiel 37:1-14 about the dry bones, God commands that the prophet speak to the bones in His name.

What if access to the supernatural realm was supposed to be normal, as normal as hearing and speaking in the earthly realm is?

We know that Moses desired that everyone prophesy and be filled with the Holy Spirit (Num 11:29). We know that God promised through the prophet Joel (Joel 3:1-5) that a time would come that everyone would prophesy, dream and have visions. On the day of Pentecost St Peter declared that this promise from Joel was now a reality. Could this sigh of Jesus be an expression of His longing that this be true for everyone?

The adage 'sheep make sheep, and shepherds make shepherds' has had fresh resonance recently. Sheep making sheep is the laity going out into their daily tasks and evangelising and making new disciples of Jesus. Shepherds making shepherds is the role of leaders to not be bottlenecks but to notice those with leadership potential and to call them forth and train them to be good leaders and to surpass their mentors.

Consider the normal way people come into a living relationship with the Holy Spirit. It is person to person, a person (or persons) infilled by the Holy Spirit praying over someone who hasn't yet been filled with the Holy Spirit. But there could be around 5-10% of people for whom God acts sovereignly, infilling them with the Holy Spirit without any active human co-operation. Consider Ananias praying over the future St Paul vs the Holy Spirit coming down on Cornelius and his household while St Peter was still speaking.

Is it possible that prophetic gifting is transmitted in a similar way? For sure there are still sovereign acts of God, a la Amos and his prophetic call, and young Samuel under Eli the priests's care. But what if the usual way is for someone with prophetic gifting to pray over someone without prophetic gifting? What if the usual way is how it is described in this Mark 7:31-37 passage?

Those of us deaf to the ways of the supernatural realm have no legal standing there. We are helpless unless a group of people with prophetic gifting have enough compassion to bring us one by one to the Lord Jesus in prayer, asking Him for citizenship for us. Then knowing His ways, taking each one to places of prayer and quiet where that profound personal encounter with Jesus can happen in His timing. Extended times of personal prayer with Jesus precede the activation of those prophetic gifts and flow from those prophetic gifts.

Why is this so important?
Because in order to come into alignment with God's will, we need to have some certainty of God's will, and that comes from the prophetic gifting. Otherwise we are like deaf people trying to lip read what God is trying to communicate to us, and unable to release the kingdom power that flows from that alignment. Even the best of lip-readers only catch around 30-45% of the message through lip-reading alone.

If this is God's usual way of doing things, then it makes sense for those young in prophetic gifting to have those mature and experienced in prophetic gifting contactable during the journey to maturity in those gifts.
​
But it begins with groups of those with prophetic gifting having deep compassion for those unable to function as citizens of the supernatural realm and praying for them, one by one.

This blog-post is a compilation of a few off-line emails about the topic of the charismatic gift of tongues. Maybe they might go some way to answering your own questions on this topic.

Firstly, here is some recommended reading.

The first book I’ve recommended is They Speak With Other Tongues by John Sherrill
It is a classic book, which he recently updated for its 40th anniversary. In the early 1960s he began to research this phenomenon, and obtained interviews and information and put it all together in the book. Because it is written as an outsider looking in, you can follow along and make your own conclusions. If you have read it before, go back and re-read it. I re-read it last year and have recently finished rereading it again, and I am appreciating nuances of it today that even 12 months ago would have gone over my head.

The second book is As By A New Pentecost by Patti Mansfield Gallagher
It tells the story of how the Catholic Charismatic Renewal began, and how it was preceded by the actions of Pope Leo XIII and the various Pentecostal movements of the first half of the 20th century. I have yet to read it, because it is only available in hardcopy, but I have watched a few video-clips of Patti telling the story, and it is both an inspiring and a sad story. Sad because the Catholic Church would have received this gift much earlier if it had responded to Pope Leo XIII’s requests with vigour; inspiring because it shows that God responds magnificently when we call out to Him in faith.
Here is one of those video-clips https://youtu.be/twizOkRIzLo

Primarily the Catholic Church provides holistic support for the gift of tongues because in Council under the guidance of the Holy Spirit the canon of Scripture was put together by the Church in the 3rd/4th centuries, which includes the New Testament writings about speaking in tongues. If this gift wasn't considered real and relevant we wouldn't have the Gospel of Mark, the Acts of the Apostles or 1 Corinthians in the canon of Scripture.

How do you know it’s the Holy Spirit? Usually it is an act of faith and trust, and sometimes there is evidence of God’s fingerprints. The same can be said for any method of prayer.

In the ‘They Speak With Other Tongues’ book there is a story of the author making recordings of people praying in tongues and one woman said that for her she needed to pray about a specific situation in order to do so. The author knew his wife had been having trouble writing an article with a deadline, and he suggested this situation, and the woman used the author as a proxy for his wife. She prayed over him in tongues, and he felt something spiritually and emotionally, and his wife completed the article in record time. Whether the praying woman felt anything is unknown. God's fingerprints are all over this situation.

There is an effect that St Paul talks about in 1 Cor 14:4, ‘The one with the gift of tongues talks for his own benefit’, but there are other translations eg ‘Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves’ or ‘A person who speaks in tongues is strengthened personally’.

Patti Gallagher Mansfield talks about praying in tongues as refreshment for the soul/spirit, and others writers speak about health benefits. This effect is one way you can tell that the Holy Spirit has been at work in addition to the classic signs of the activity of the Spirit of God in Gal 5:22, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control.

The gift of tongues is one of those situations where the adage applies, ‘For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe, no explanation will be sufficient’. That blessed leap of faith is the gap between.

John Sherrill talks about an interesting experiment in his book. Together with the recordings he made from people who believed they had the gift of tongues, he added in two recordings that were pure gibberish, and then asked some linguistic experts to comment. The former mostly had discernible structures of language, the gibberish did not, and it was quite obviously different.

Do people when they pray in tongues know whether they are praising God or interceding for a situation? Not for sure they don’t. If they have formed an intention to do one or the other, then the expectation is that language will flow according to that intention. If no intention has been formed, then sometimes the rhythms and cadence will give a clue. But do we know for sure? Not unless someone is around who can interpret.

I think this is what St Paul meant when he said that you have to be willing to look foolish before you can truly be wise (1 Cor 3:18). There are few things as foolish looking as someone taking the early steps of yielding to God and letting Him control the vocal chords. But it is extraordinary and necessary training, because the same willingness to look foolish and to yield to God is necessary for the gifts of prophecy, miracles, healing etc to happen.

In preparation for the 1967 weekend at the Ark & Dove, the student group read through the first 4 chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, and also ‘The Cross and the Switchblade’. David Mangan was drawn to the Greek word used by St Luke in Acts 1:8 that gets translated ‘power’. In the Greek this word has the same roots as the word we use for dynamite. David wanted to see the dynamite power of the Holy Spirit in action, and he prayed for this.

David Mangan had reasoned it out this way. He wanted to experience the dynamite of the Holy Spirit, and he wanted to hear someone speak in tongues, but he was intelligent enough to know that he’d never believe if it was someone else, there would always be some doubt if it was someone else, so he wrote down in his notebook, ‘I want to hear someone speak in tongues: me’.

The charism list in 1 Cor 12:8-10 are all gifts that have the power to change lives dramatically: preaching with wisdom; preaching instruction; faith, healing; miracles: prophecy; recognising spirits; gift of tongues; ability to interpret them.

The gift of tongues is in that list. It wasn’t left out.

There are plenty of gifts of prayer (vocal, mental, contemplative) and many acceptable forms of prayer (liturgy of the hours, lectio divina, rosary, prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, spontaneous prayer, the Jesus prayer, singing hymns, novenas etc) and they all have their impact according to the mysterious co-workings of our efforts, His will and His grace.

But there is something about the gift of tongues that aids a connection with the dynamite of the Holy Spirit that has no comparison. When individuals and groups pray this way, the spiritual climate changes, and in some way access to the other charisms in the 1 Cor 12:8-10 list becomes easier.

Re-reading Romans 8:26-27 in the light of the gift of tongues is worth doing:

The Spirit too comes to help us in our weakness. For when we cannot choose words in order to pray properly, the Spirit Himself expresses our plea in a way that could never be put into words, and God who knows everything in our hearts knows perfectly well what He means, and that the pleas of the saints expressed by the Spirit are according to the mind of God.

This is true of all prayer, but it is especially true of the gift of tongues.

Any prayer that God Himself prays in us is going to be according to His will, and is going to have a swift answer.

The gift of tongues underlines in a dramatic manner that it is the Holy Spirit who prays in us, who causes us to call out ‘Abba Father’ (Romans 8:15)

We see human analogies of this gift in families, both with youngsters who communicate their needs quite well without words and sentences, and with adults who with insider family jargon can communicate with a specific grunt and gesture a whole page worth of meaning.

I thought the story from John Sherrill’s book was instructive, where someone gets called to a hospital to pray for a seriously ill girl, and this person has no idea whether to pray for death or for complete healing, so the decision is made to pray in tongues, because God knows what is needed and what is perfect. This person prays for a while and as the prayer continues the impression that the girl will make a full recovery grows. She indeed made a full recovery. The praying in tongues was the equivalent of praying ‘May Your kingdom come in this situation’.

We know that the pleas of the saints as expressed by the Spirit are according to the mind of God, so God is not going to curse Himself, and likewise when under His influence we are not going to curse Him either. Sons and daughters of God don’t do that.

You could say that prayer in tongues is more effective at getting God to answer the prayer the way God thinks it should be answered, especially in emergency and spiritual warfare situations.

Each of us has a multitude of weapons of prayer in our private arsenals. We turn to some forms of prayer when seeking discernment. We turn to other forms of prayer when praying for healing. We turn to other forms of prayer when we want to study the life of Jesus more closely. We turn to other forms of prayer when praying for big miracles.

You can think of the gift of tongues as just another weapon in your prayer arsenal. Like any weapon in that arsenal we can choose to use it, or ignore it. We can use to learn it well and skillfully, or bumble-footedly.

To use the same prayer weapon for every situation would be loopy, just like using a bread knife is loopy if you need to carve meat and you possess a carving knife.

If you are still on the outside looking in, the arguments boil down to:

Is God good? Mark 10:18

Does He only give good gifts? Matt 7:11

Why would God give the gift of tongues to so many people as described in the Acts of the Apostles (eg Acts 10:44-46, at Pentecost and elsewhere) if it wasn’t a good and necessary gift for the Matt 28:19-20 mission?

Are speaking in tongues a gift of the Spirit? 1 Cor 12:10

If the answers are Yes, then we have to believe that speaking in tongues is a good gift, and a worthwhile gift to have, otherwise it would not have been so widely prevalent among believers in the early Church. We know for a fact that St Paul spoke in tongues, (1 Cor 14:18), and that he thought it was a good gift, otherwise he would not have provided teaching on it. We also have him saying, 'Imitate me as I imitate Christ' (1 Cor 11:1).

If you are willing to let God be God, and to let Him be able to do things in you that are beyond your ability to comprehend, then all you have to do is ask and wait:
 
Holy Spirit I believe in You. I believe that Your power to save is mighty indeed. I believe that You bestow good gifts for good purposes among the members of the Body of Christ. Although I struggle, I believe that the gift of tongues that I have so much trouble wrapping my mind around is also one of Your gifts. If You want to give it to me, I want to receive it. I don't want to be without Your heavenly weapons in the battles that I must face against the enemies of our souls. You know my fears, You know my reluctance, but You also know that I am willing to trust You and follow where You lead me. Help me. Amen.
St Paul, Apostle of Jesus, pray for me.
 

Some of you may have been at a talk by Patti Gallagher Mansfield or watched one online. Quite frequently if the day has been long she will get everyone to stop, and to stand, and then invite the participants of the day to pray in tongues so as to refresh their spirits.

Interesting, yes?

There is scriptural back up for this idea. St Paul says (1 Cor 14:4) 'The one with the gift of tongues talks for his own benefit.' Other translations use the word edification, but the net result is the same, using this gift of God is good for us and beneficial.

Patti obviously understands this at a level that the rest of us don't. But don’t dismiss it. Recently I read a short tract about the gift of tongues written from a Protestant perspective, and it contained a story about a sick person who had been asking God to heal them for a long time. However it wasn't until that sick person prayed in tongues that the healing happened.

Interesting, yes?

It is something that surprises us, but it shouldn't. When we open ourselves up to the Holy Spirit in that way, our spirit aligns with the Holy Spirit and our spirits, our souls, our emotions and our bodies benefit.

I recall Colin Sutton (may he rest in peace) often inviting people to pray in tongues for 10 minutes every day for a month and to compare their lives before and after. Take his challenge, and compare your well-being levels before and after. At minimum, the things that currently send you into an emotional pit won't nearly have as much effect on you.

If we believe that God only gives good gifts, then we shouldn't be surprised when this much maligned gift actually has far reaching impact.

What do we fight against most? Discouragement, tiredness, anxiety, monotony, feelings of abandonment by God? This charismatic gift of God is an effective weapon against these attacks. Use it regularly. Use it daily.

As Damien Stayne says "We have to pray to move beyond the idea that the charisms are an optional extra, like having a sunroof in your car or tinted windows. Charisms are as essential as the steering wheel and the accelerator. There is no work of God, so spiritual work of God among the people of God that is not a charismatic act. Without the charisms, the mission of the Church is over".

Take the situation of a group of people with strong prayer lives. They gather for prayer each week. Just about all of them have been baptised in the Holy Spirit, and yet none of the charisms are being overtly used. They are praying with holy hearts. Of course God is listening to them. But they are still largely in control, and the options for God moving in and through them are very limited, as limited as a group of bricklayers trying to build a wall with both hands tied behind their backs.

The charisms of God are good; they are beneficial,
they are necessary.
Let them out, let them flow, allow God to take control.
Only then will we see more than we could ever ask for or imagine happen.

This is a transcription of the workshop held in Rome on 1 June 2017 with this topic as part of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal #ccrgoldenjubilee2017
 
The speakers were Deacon Christof Hemberger and Jim Murphy, with translations in English and Portuguese.
 
Deacon Christof Hemberger is part of the ICCRS leadership team http://www.iccrs.org/en/dn-christof-hemberger/
 
Jim Murphy is the new president of the ICCRS Council http://www.iccrs.org/en/james-murphy-president/
He is the founder and president of Vera Cruz Communications, and has been involved in youth ministry on parish, diocesan, national, and international levels. In 1992, inspired by the American Bishops' letter 'Heritage and Hope', Jim undertook a 4200-mile journey on foot across America, carrying a six-foot cross in an effort of prayer and evangelization.
 
This is the link for the video recording: https://youtu.be/H68UKXNat4E
 
Deacon Christof Hemberger: Welcome to this workshop. It is a great pleasure to see so many of you, especially – and we know this – it is very early in the morning for many of us. I want to make, use a little while, to ask, where do you come from? Asia and Oceania? Africa? Northern and Southern America? Many Brazilians! Europe? Welcome home. Welcome everyone to this workshop. It might be that some of you – sorry I forgot – Middle East? Who have never led a prayer group. With this workshop we would like to encourage you to learn how to do it. Some are leaders of prayer groups for a very long time and would like to learn how to get the group vibrant again. You will also get some tools and hints to do this. Jim and I are involved in leadership since many years. But still we are learning. And it is not, and we can never come to a stage where we can say that we know everything.
 
But we are going to use this time ahead of us to share with you what we have been learning and experiencing in the last years. I will start with some basics, some general outlines that every leader needs to know about and Jim later on will give some more practical experience.
 
No matter whether you want to start or whether you are already leading for a long time, I think the main task of a leader is to know the vision of the group. You need to have the vision clear in order to reach your goals. What is the purpose we are meeting for?
 
In every prayer group usually there is two end groups. One part is searching for a spiritual home. The people are coming and they are asking for teachings, for good prayer times, for experiences to grow in the discipleship. They are searching for 'koinonia', for community, and they regard the prayer group as a discipleship training centre for their spiritual journey.
 
But there is also a second end group, the people who are not there yet. Prayer groups also have a goal to evangelise, to make a space for those who can be brought along. Many years ago I had a conversion experience and my sister who was a member of a prayer group just told me, 'Come along'. I didn't know anything about how to live with God in my daily life. I needed teaching, I needed experience, I needed training, explanations, before I was actually able to become a disciple.
 
So when I speak about we have two end groups, leaders and those involved in prayer groups need to understand there is discipleship and the purpose of evangelization always in a prayer group. When we only focus on the first, we will start pleasing those coming for many years and we will become a cozy club. But if we only focus on the second we will not give food to those who are coming and after some time they will search for other places where they can get food.
 
Maintaining living charismatic groups means to be open for discipleship and evangelization.
 
A second aspect: Know Your Identity. 10 years ago my wife and I have moved into the village we are living now. Some man came to us, approaching us, and he said, 'Well I am responsible for the rabbit club in this village' and I said, 'What's this? What rabbit club?' And he said, 'Well, we are the ones that raise rabbits. But we are also open for those who have horses and chickens, open for all, but we are the rabbit club.' Well, I didn't have rabbits, I didn't have chickens, so I never became a member of the club. But I was thinking, why is he inviting everyone raising anything if he is the chairperson of the rabbit club? Sometimes our prayer groups look the same.
 
There is lots of space in the kingdom of God and the Church is wide and bright, but if we are Catholic charismatic prayer groups your prayer group needs to have a Catholic charismatic identity.
 
Some prayer groups have lost their Catholic identity. They do a lot of Holy Spirit things but they don't teach and live anymore Catholic identity.
 
Some prayer groups have lost the charismatic identity. They are very faithful, true followers in the Church but you can't hardly see anything charismatic in their meetings anymore.
 
I encourage you to live your identity in fullness.
 
Personal relationship to the living God. You need to teach about this and you need to live it, the reality of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit. Teach and speak and share about this.
 
Receiving and using the gifts of the Holy Spirit. So often I come to prayer groups. Somebody is there who is sick and the people say, 'let's intercede and when we go home during the next week we are going to pray for you. No! Interrupt your meeting. Take this person to the front, lay hands on, and pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit for healing and deliverance, and for everything else.
 
Praise and Worship. In the Church the Renewal is known as the movement that is known for praise and worship. Ten years ago I was involved in the preparations for the World Youth Day that took place in Cologne (Koln) Germany. There was a meeting of many, many people in the Church and I had to introduce myself and I said, 'I am Christof, I am from the Charismatic Renewal'. One person said, 'What's this? I have never heard about this?' Another person gave the answer. 'Oh, those are the people who are always singing when they start their programs'. It is part of our identity to praise the Lord, to have praise and worship.
 
The love for the Word of God and the Sacraments. So many people say, 'After I found a renewed relationship to the Lord I suddenly understood the bible in a personal way; the sacraments became important for me.'
 
Evangelisation and Mission. If we focus on ourselves we will forget the task we have been given by Jesus. We are called to evangelise. We are called to bring in our friends, neighbours and colleagues.
 
And also part of the Catholic charismatic identity is the heart for the whole Body of Christ.
 
Why am I saying this? I say this because I want to encourage you to live your identity in fullness. If you are a member or a leader of a Catholic charismatic prayer group, make sure your program is Catholic charismatic and is seen as Catholic charismatic. Don't only know about the charisms, use the charisms. Don't only know about the personal relationship to the Lord, live the personal relationship to the Lord.
 
Some people ask, usually in those meetings, 'give us a structure of a perfect prayer meeting'. I can't. You need to find out your perfect structure for this evening.
 
But I can give some recommendations:
 
Have some time for welcome. A prayer meeting is not just a program we are running. It is a time of relationship and community. Make sure people feel welcomed. Draw in those who are new and don't know how to behave. Explain what is going to happen.
 
Usually we start with some time of praise and worship. We focus on the Lord. We give Him our honour and our glory. This helps us because we come from our daily life to focus on the greater thing that is been given to us.
 
Usually afterwards we have some time of bible study, teaching or preaching. We want to learn from God.
 
I usually ask the people in my prayer group, 'What is the Lord saying to us today?' for our situation, in our time, for the next week?
 
You can follow by a time of sharing of your experiences. Some people will have experiences with God and can give a testimony, or you can share experiences that you have been doing long ago but can help others understand what to do and how to live. I spoke about that prayer groups is community is koinonia, it is not that the leader is standing in front telling the others what to do. 90% of the things that I have learned for my Christian life I have learned by the testimonies of friends.
 
Never finish without having a time just for the Lord. Sometimes this is related or lined to the praise and worship time. Sometimes it is linked to the preaching or to the intercession time, no matter, but don't leave without having a time asking the Lord to speak to us, speak into our situations. What shall I do now personally? What do You want to tell me?
 
I would like to speak one minute about the tasks of a leader.
 
Of course we need to prepare and moderate and lead the prayer meetings. Did you hear properly? Prepare the meetings. This is some work. It is very easy to say, 'O the Holy Spirit will do everything'. Maybe the Holy Spirit is using you as a leader to do the things. You don't need to do everything by yourself and you don't need to take the tasks that are the Holy Spirit's but you need to take your tasks, and your task is to prepare, moderate and lead the prayer meetings.
 
Be an example to the others. You are not responsible for their personal lives. You are also not their spiritual directors. You are not responsible for the decisions they are doing in their personal life, but you should be a good example as a disciple of Christ.
 
One topic we could spend a whole weekend about is establish a team that can support you, and establish a next generation of leadership. It is a bit naughty when I say a good leader makes himself not needed any more from the same day he took on leadership. Those leaders after many years don't find successors have not done their job in establishing new leaders early enough.
 
A last task of a prayer group leader. You are the watchman of the vision. Keep in mind the charismatic and Catholic identity and division of your group and once in a while take some time asking yourself, 'Are we still living according to our vision?' 'Are we still open for new people to come in?' 'Do we still help others to grow in discipleship?' 'Are we still living our charismatic identity?' 'And are we still living our Catholic identity?'
 
My last thought, because I think it is essential for many, many prayer groups. The use of the charisms. Know and teach and use the charisms in your prayer group. Charisms are not medals for personal holiness. They are gifts to us for the sake of building the kingdom of God. They don't fall from heaven like apples. Ask for the gifts. Use the gifts. Make space for the gifts in your programs. Once in a while go to the music ministry and talk to them, 'How can we establish charisms in praise and worship?' Try to find out what is the charisms of my people? And find possibilities where they can bring them into the group.
 
Teach and train the gifts and their use. And ask for the charisms. Pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Foster a mature use of the charisms among your people. When you are thinking about the program of the next prayer group evening keep times of silence during the evening. So often we do this and this and this, and sometimes the Lord doesn't even have the possibility to talk to us. If prophecies and words of knowledge are coming, find a way how to discern them. Is the prophecy a real prophecy? Is it for everyone or just for a few? How do we need to react to this word of God now? One practical hint, singing and praying in tongues helps to open for the other charisms. Teach and use the charisms in your prayer groups.
 
And I am very happy now that Jim is with us. He is a very experienced person and I am very keen on listening on what he is going to say about practical aspects of a prayer group.
 
Jim Murphy: Before I begin I would just like to share a personal note. I feel it is a great honour to be speaking to you today, because I really believe in the value of Catholic charismatic prayer meetings. I believe that prayer meetings are one of the foundational pieces of the Renewal and I sincerely want to thank all of you who have invested so much of your life to building up good prayer meetings. I know many of you have invested your life into this and at times it gets difficult, but what you are doing is important and it is an honour to speak to you today.
 
I'm also honoured to speak with my good colleague Deacon Christof. He's a very good teacher and he's a good friend. Our time is very short today and I wish we could talk about everything but we can only cover a few basics. But Christof has written an excellent book* and a lot of the material he has covered today is found in his book. And this will be on the table later if you want to find out how to get it. Also you can go to our ICCRS website and find out more about our various leadership training programs, which I hope could give you a lot more information. (* 'Living Charismatic Groups: A Handbook for Leadership Formation' by Christof Hemberger, 2016, New Life Publishing)
 
Deacon Christof gave us some very important foundational aspects of vision. I'm just going to focus on two points this morning. One is how to maintain dynamic praise and worship at a prayer meeting and the second aspect is how do we give a good teaching. Due to time constraints I am going to leave out most of the theory and just talk about practical points.
 
So let's first talk about dynamic praise and worship. In my estimation praise and worship is the most essential part of a prayer meeting. To me everything flows from praise and worship. And when the praise and worship is weak everything else falls down. In this conversation when I use the word worship I am not speaking of quiet adoration before the Blessed Sacrament but dynamic praise and worship. There is absolutely a place for quiet adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, but in this conversation we are talking more about a charismatic experience.
 
So where do we start? One thing that I believe is essential to praise and worship, we need to educate people on the biblical principles of dynamic praise and worship. We have to be fair to our brothers and sister fellow Catholics, as Catholics many of us were raised using very traditional prayers. Look the prayer style of Catholicism is usually quite rote. They are more used to a traditional style of prayer. So when people join us in these very dynamic meetings they're really not quite sure how to respond. One of the first times I went to a prayer meeting I turned to the person next to me and said, 'Is this Catholic?' And I think we have to be careful, we've become very comfortable with this, but this is a new experience for others.
 
And I believe it is essential that we teach people what is the scriptural background and even in Catholic tradition where this fits in. Wouldn't you love to go to a prayer meeting led by St Francis of Assisi? So charismatic praise and worship is very much in scripture and in tradition, but that's not known by many Catholics and even some charismatics.
 
Our time now does not allow me to exactly give this teaching, but I would urge you to study on this topic. There's a lot of good material out there. As a prayer group leader you have to help people understand why we do it this way. It is not enough to lead praise and worship, but we have to become advocates of praise and worship. We have to be able to explain it to others.
 
So the first step is to be an advocate for and to teach people about praise and worship. Prepare good teachings to give your people on why we do it this way.
 
The second step is we need to get people engaged in prayer and worship. A prayer group leader is not supposed to praise and worship for the people, but the leader's job is to encourage and aid and help the people praise the Lord. A leader doesn't praise God for the people. A leader praises God with the people.
 
So how do we get people engaged? A very practical way is the physical proximity of the leader to the people. In a situation like today, because of the nature of our program, this is how things are arranged. If I was leading a prayer meeting here I'd be out there with you, and we'd all be close together. A leader helps by making eye contact with the people, by literally reaching out to the people.
 
In too many prayer groups there is a group of people leading and everybody else is just watching. We have to change that. We have to connect with the people and then encourage them and lead them. 'Come one, let's do this together'. The people are not there to watch you pray. You are there to help them pray. Don't let the group become passive spectators.
 
Now music can be a great way to help people praise God. But let me offer a caution. In some places prayer meetings have turned into concerts. The music is great, but it has almost become a performance and they're fantastic, but we all sit there and watch them do the music. It's really a nice event, but it's not praise and worship because the people are not engaged.
 
Don't just play one song after another, after another. There should be music, but then the leader should be encouraging spontaneous praise and worship. And the leader should be saying, 'Come on, come on, let’s go', encouraging people. Usually when a group of people start worshipping God we often experience praying in the Spirit, praying in tongues. Encourage people to keep going with that, because when the whole group is praying or singing in the Spirit, then they're engaged; they're invested; they're doing something. And then when that dies down we do another song and we start the process again.
 
And usually when we enter into this kind of prayer we start receiving prophetic words or scriptures, and the job of the leader is to keep all these things in balance. So when a scripture is given, maybe there is a song that is perfect as a complement to the scripture, or maybe the leader feels we should respond by standing and praising together.
 
But a prayer meeting leader has to be able to focus on many things. It's not just music. It's not scripture only. It's not a particular dynamic. All of these things are happening at once. And the leader has to be discerning this. It's a dynamic process, you can't just do it off a schedule.
 
It's also important as a worship leader to be able to summarize what the Lord is doing. Maybe there was a strong prophetic word, maybe somebody had a scripture, there is a particular song that really moved people. It is the leader's job to make all of these connections and present to the people what it seems the Lord is doing. And then encourage the group to respond.
 
There's a main principle here that we have to keep in mind. A leader of a prayer meeting has to be connected to God and connected to the people at the same time. Sometimes as a leader you just want to pray and get lost in heaven, but you are leaving the rest of us out. And some leaders are so busy keeping everybody happy they're not even paying attention to what God is doing. So you have to keep these two things in balance. What is the Lord doing or saying? But how are the people doing? And to keep these two in balance is important.
 
So let me summarize this section:
1. We must be advocates of praise and worship. We want to teach people the principles but also the methods.
2. We must engage the people. We stay close to them. We stay connected to them. We work with music and encouraging the people.
3. A worship leader must be able to manage many things at the same time.
4. A worship leader must be attentive to God but also attentive to the people.
 
Let's take a few minutes now to talk about giving a teaching. There's three things necessary to give a good teaching: Proper discernment of what teaching to give; Preparation of your material; Proper delivery of the teaching. These three elements are essential.
 
If you look at our friends with their cameras, the cameras are sitting on tripods. One of the jobs the cameraman has is to ensure all three legs are extended. If all three legs are not correct, the thing tilts over. It's the same with a good teaching. You need these three elements to make the thing stand right. We'll quickly go through these three elements.
 
The first one is proper discernment of what to teach. Why do we give teachings? Are we just trying to fill in the time? Hopefully not. We're giving teachings because we are trying to impart the word of God. We're trying to share a word with our brothers and sisters. So it is very important that we know what it is God wants us to say.
 
So how do we know what God wants us to talk about? I think there's three normal ways that we understand what to teach on. Sometimes people in authority give us the assignment. And if you are part of a group and the pastoral leadership says, 'Would you give us a teaching about this?', well then, do it. Sometimes we just get – we sense what the people need. They might need some encouragement in an area, or perhaps they need some correction. So sometimes a theme is not given to us by divine revelation but our pastoral instincts show us what the people need at this time. And sometimes, the third way, God puts in our heart what we need to teach about. An idea starts forming in your mind, and then you go to Mass on Sunday and the scripture speaks to that, and then you hear a song on the radio that fits with that very thought. God's probably trying to tell you something.
 
So whether somebody is telling us what teaching to give, or our pastoral instincts give us some direction, or we just get a sense in our heart – these are three common ways we know what to teach.
 
Now the best way to prepare your material is what I do is I keep small pieces of paper with me – an index card – and I always carry these cards with me. And I find a scripture that speaks about that teaching, I write it down on a card. I'm having a conversation with a friend and they say something that fits in with that teaching, I write it down on that card.
 
So I am constantly looking for how the Lord might be speaking to me. And I keep collecting these cards with these ideas. Then I sit down at home. I take all my cards and I put them on the table. Lord, what are You saying with all this? In my cards I have many different scriptures. I might have a particular story. And I just pray with this material. And then I start organizing the ideas.
 
One of the problems most of us have; we try to put too much material in. You can't use everything. But all these things help us to prepare our material. And then I take a blank piece of paper and just put down my key points. So when I give the talk I'm not reading all these cards, but they just help me remember what order to go in.
 
And then finally when we actually give the talk, be sure people can hear you. Be sure people understand what you are saying. Be sure to stay connected to the people. Be sincere. Be focused on Christ and then when you are done, sit down. I'll sit down.
 
(A third person then gave a rough summary of both talks, thanked both men, and invited them to give a final prayer before a final song.)
 
Christof: Thank You Lord, thank You Lord for this morning. Thank You for everyone who came. Thank You for everything we have been learning this morning. And Holy Spirit I ask You to come and to fill everyone who is here. Help us to become leaders and members of the prayer groups that You have intended us to be. Help us to be watchmen of the vision. Teach us and worship us according to Your Heart. Holy Spirit we can learn a lot of things but most important is to receive everything from You. And so we ask You Holy Spirit, Come. Come and fill this place with Your glory. Come and fill our hearts with Your presence and grant us everything You want to give to us.
This workshop took place in a church, and as always in a church we will get the final blessing and the final song.

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