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For a church that makes a commitment to become a Healing Church, the truth is that everything will change. First, it will probably lose members. Every church I know of that made this commitment has gone through the process. “Such foolishness” members will grumble as they leave. “Why raise people’s hopes falsely?” they will add, or even darker mutterings about the church having joined the “name it and claim it crowd!”
The complaint against raising peoples’ hopes falsely is one I’ve heard again and again. Actually, Jesus heard it too when he went to raise Jairus’ daughter in Mark 5,
38 When they came to the home of the synagogue ruler, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. 39 He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” 40 But they laughed at him. After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was.
It says, “they laughed at him”. This is not mirth as in watching a comedy show. It is more a bitter, sardonic laughter. They were probably thinking, “what nonsense… what a cruel thing to do to Jairus, raising his hopes in this way”. Jesus then did what you have to do sometimes when praying for a sick person, namely He put them out. If folks bring unbelief to a specific battle, just put them out. It’s better that way.
It is good to know what lies ahead. For some churches, it is not a great stretch if they believed along such lines initially, but for most North American and Western European churches, such a renewed focus in a church would be disruptive. This renewed focus must therefore be preceded by prayer and fasting. As I wrote in an earlier post, healing is hard, not easy. It is easy for God of course, but challenging for jars of clay to see through. Mindsets and training must change, and you will surely initiate a spiritual battle in seeking the release of captives from sickness and oppression. In Acts 10 we see,
38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.
Threaten the enemy’s work and you’ll get some pushback. You will win because Jesus already defeated him, but there will be a battle. Ok then, the first step is the choice to go down this road, the second is to invest time in prayer as you begin the journey. In my next post, I’ll share my thoughts on the role of intercession, teaching and training in creating a Healing Church.
