Growing In The Apostolic

Growing in the Prophetic
In my early days of ministry in the middle 1970s, I was a conservative
evangelical doing youth ministry, hoping one day to attend Dallas Theological
Seminary. I was anti-charismatic and proud of it. However, by 1983,
I found myself surrounded by a group of unusual people whom some referred
to as prophets. I had no experience with the prophetic ministry; however,
I became the leader of these ten to fifteen prophetic people. “Why me, Lord?”
I asked many times in the years that followed.
The Vineyard conference where I spoke in July 1989 was mainly attended
by conservative evangelical church leaders who had been blessed by John
Wimber’s teaching on healing, but who for the most part had not been
exposed to prophetic ministry. They represented a rapidly growing number
of believers in Jesus who have a great longing to hear more directly from
God in a supernatural and personal way.
I had finished my morning session and was leading the ministry time
when John Wimber came up on the platform and whispered in my ear,
“Would you pray and ask the Holy Spirit to release the gift of prophecy
to people?”
For those of you who have had the privilege of being around John Wimber
before his death in November 1997, you know that there was not an ounce of
hype or showmanship in him. He would invite the Holy Spirit to move over
an audience and touch thousands of people in the same tone of voice that he
gave the announcements. It was in that matter-of-fact way that he asked me
to pray for the people to receive what I had just been describing.
With four thousand spiritually hungry people watching us, I whispered
back to John, “Can I do that since I’m not prophetically gifted myself?”
John responded, “Just go ahead and pray for the release, and let the Lord
touch whomever He touches.”
“Why am I praying for these people?” I thought. I looked around for help
from one of the well-known prophetic ministers who were also speaking at
the conference. They should have been the ones praying for the people to
receive more grace for prophetic ministry. None of them were in the auditorium
at that moment, so I was obviously on my own.
“Well, OK, John, if you want me to,” I said. It would be a harmless prayer.
John announced that I was going to ask the Holy Spirit to release the gift
of prophecy in people’s lives. So I prayed. I noticed one of the leaders from