Growing In The Apostolic

Growing in the Prophetic
long time, increased my irritation. It was also a bit embarrassing. Richard
laughed when I said to him, “I’m not a prophetic person! A terrible mistake
has been made today.”
Yet, the stir that day was insignificant compared to the uproar that was
to come a few years later related to the prophetic ministry that I was related
to. It seemed to me that God had picked the wrong man to pastor a team of
prophetic people.
A Reluctant Introduction to
Prophetic Ministry
Many people know about God only in the context of things far away and
long ago. They are hungry to know that God is involved with their lives in an
intimate way in the present. When that knowledge is dramatically awakened
for the first time, people often overreact for a short season and often become
overly zealous. There is a great hunger in God’s people to hear directly from
Him in a supernatural way. I see this hunger increasing even more as the
years go by.
Many people involved with prophetic ministries have been brought into
it kicking and screaming because they had been taught that the gift of
prophecy had passed away. A good example of this is my close friend Dr.
Jack Deere. He was formerly a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary and
a committed cessationist before he met John Wimber and experienced the
demonstrations of God’s power. (A cessationist believes the supernatural
gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased after the Book of Acts.) He also went through
a difficult, soul-searching journey as he came to embrace the prophetic
ministry. Being a brilliant Bible teacher, he had to make sure that it all was
100 percent scriptural.
We value seeing ministry of the gifts of the Holy Spirit operate in relation
to the written Word of God. This is a nonnegotiable aspect of the IHOP
Missions Base quest to grow in the prophetic. Eight leaders of our missions
base have master’s degrees, plus another four have doctorates—mostly from
conservative evangelical, non-charismatic seminaries. Another five men
earned law degrees before joining our missions base staff. The personality
profiles of these men and women are usually in strong contrast to those who