Beats Bobbing for Apples in the Sewer

I keep praying for God to cause the Holy Spirit to take over my church’s services, and he keeps doing it. I feel like I owe an apology to the minister who has been trying to speak for the last two weeks.

Last night we got into praise and worship, and the first thing you know, a new lady who moved to New Dawn from El Rey Jesus started prophesying and praying for healing. After a while, a whole bunch of people went up to the front, and we had a prolonged outpouring of prayer, and a whole bunch of people got baptized with the Holy Spirit.

This has been happening a lot lately. It happened on Sunday, and while adults and teenagers were up at the front crying and praying, I noticed the eight-year-old daughter of my friend Alonzo, all by herself. Her name is Ayanna. I prayed for her, and then I noticed that my friend Brenda was available, so I pointed her in Ayanna’s direction, and I took this picture.

I put it on Facebook, and Brenda left this comment:

Steve – you don’t know how this pic has impacted me – as I prayed for her I felt The Lord lead me back to my callin of workin with children which I haven’t done in almost 5 years … Breathtaking …

Of course, I didn’t know what I was doing.

Ayanna is a wonderful kid, like all of Alonzo’s children. This one–Gabriella–is my goddaughter:

I thought it was great that Ayanna went up without being pushed. We have kids do that all the time.

Alonzo and Brenda are like me. They are refugees from Trinity Church. Brenda was not accepted by the Inner Circle, even though her husband Tracey was in charge of the armorbearers. At New Dawn, Tracey and Brenda play huge roles, and they are blossoming.

Last night another refugee family blessed us. I have a friend named Eric, and he’s a former Trinity armorbearer. We got him to visit New Dawn a few times, but he was loyal to Trinity, so it took him a long time to do what he needed to do. Eventually, the starvation at Trinity got to him and his wife, and they made the move.

He has a stepdaughter named Danielle. While they were attending Trinity, she was miserable. She did not like church. She didn’t attend much. She suffered from depression and anxiety. People didn’t know it, but her life was hell. Even after they moved to New Dawn, she was not happy.

Recently, she went to the front, and our pastor prophesied over her, and one day she went up to receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit. These things are not unusual at our church, so we didn’t get all that excited.

Last night our pastor asked her to come up and talk about her experiences. I figured she would go up and say, “I love Jesus. Things are getting a lot better. Thank you.” Was I wrong! She started telling us what had happened to her, and she practically tore the roof off the place!

She must have preached for half an hour. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen at church. She told about the problems she had had. Suicide attempts. Insomnia. Prolonged crying sessions at home, while her family was in church. Then she told us how God had changed all that. Suddenly she understood what God could do, and how much he loved us.

She called us out for being lukewarm. She said there were people who raised their hands in church and then went home to porn and drugs. She said God couldn’t work in our lives if we didn’t give ourselves to him. She called up the lady who prayed for healing and started prophesying over her, telling her that her husband was going to grow and change. Her boldness was shocking. She kept saying, “This isn’t me!”

We were all completely freaked out. Everything she said was right and true. Three months ago, she wouldn’t have known what to say, but last night, she did a better job than anyone you’ve seen on TBN or Daystar. I asked her mother what she had been feeding her.

We didn’t get out until after 11:00.

Another young girl had an encounter with the Holy Spirit, but she was too overcome to speak. Even after the service, she was in a back room groaning while one of the women looked after her. This young lady comes from a very messed up family, and God has done wonderful things for them. She’s only 18, but she has been in college for quite some time, and she competes in pageants in order to support herself. Her sister raised her. Now her sister is receiving the harvest.

What’s going to happen next? God has infinite depth. He always has something better in store. How much better can it get?

I lit into Trinity last night. I wrote this:

People get mad at me when I criticize Trinity Church. They say I’m bitter or unforgiving. That’s what they WANT to think.

I’m not a totally pure soul; I can’t say I never felt any bitterness or unforgiveness over the bad treatment I received. But that’s insignificant, and it would not drive me to comment. THIS PHOTO shows why I speak up. I have friends who are still being harmed.

This young lady’s family went to Trinity. She was miserable. She did not know God. She did not like going to church. A while back, she got baptized with the Holy Spirit at New Dawn Ministries, and tonight they called her up to testify.

It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen at church. Nobody saw it coming. She tore the place up. She operated in the spiritual gifts of faith, prophecy, and the word of knowledge. She preached perfect doctrine. She called people up and spoke God’s words over them. She corrected our lukewarmness and hypocrisy. I have never seen anything like it. It changed lives.

How many of my friends at Trinity would be doing this, if someone had told them about the Holy Spirit instead of filling them with motivational garbage or Steve Munsey’s laughable lies about money? How many kids there have committed suicide, gone to prison, or sold themselves into prostitution because no one felt they were worth introducing to the Holy Spirit?

This young woman is like a bomb that went off when the Holy Spirit lit the fuse. We have no idea what a person’s potential is, until that person receives the baptism with the Holy Spirit and becomes transformed. How many bombs has Trinity Church disarmed?

NEVER tell me not to open my mouth. Never again. If there is one child over there whose spiritual life has been aborted, then I am obligated to speak up, and nobody but God himself has the right to say one word to me.

Anyone who wants to be baptized with the Spirit is welcome at our services. I will personally pray for you, and we don’t care if you give us money or not.

What if this girl’s parents had stayed at Trinity? That church has a big homosexuality problem among the youth. There are kids using drugs and getting in trouble with the law. Where is their hope? Trinity gives nothing and takes as much as it can. They pour people full of lies about God the ATM Machine, and they teach useless motivational techniques which only work as long as Satan permits. They underpay people. They brainwash them into thinking God will be angry if they disagree with anything the leaders do. That place is full of death, because they sacrifice new generations in order to feed the pastor’s family.

And they’re never going to get what they’re trying to buy. They will never have a big TV ministry. They don’t have the talent or even a good gimmick. They will always be stuck in the local church, feeding off the flock. People like Joel Osteen and Steve Munsey will remain at the top of the Ponzi pyramid, and the folks from Trinity will stay on a lower level. They keep their congregants on the bottom, and the Osteens and Munseys and Crafts do the same thing to them.

Satan never gives you what he promises.

Before I left, I told them they needed to put the Holy Spirit first, instead of whoring out to fill seats. I said it would draw people to the church. They wouldn’t listen, so I left without hesitation. I told my new pastor the same thing, and he listened. Now we’re full on Tuesday nights, and we had to rearrange the seats in order to accommodate bigger crowds. God is in the process of providing a bigger building, which, unlike the one at Trinity, will not have a mortgage.

Am I saying we’re going to be a megachurch? God forbid. I’ve had enough of that idiocy. I’m just saying we’ll be able to sit down in comfort and peace.

I can’t even guess what I’ll be telling you a month from now, but I know it will be good.

Keep praying in the Spirit. Play soaking music in your home and workplace. Get away from the greedy and the stupid. God will bring you a harvest of peace and rest.