November 2023 Monthly Summary

Receiving but not Controlling the Move of God

In November, God really proved himself to me as the source. As the active portion of my doctoral research came to a close and I allowed myself to rest, God brought me into freedom. Through informal conversations with peers, silent reflection, active ministry, and the in-between times, God invited me to notice patterns of what his Holy Spirit is doing amongst both my Christian and nonChristian friends. I became aware of ways God is preparing the Church in Seattle to work in apostolic teams, modeling the unity and diversity of the Holy Trinity. God’s light is being revealed to the hungry, lost, and broken through prophetic evangelism ministry and inner healing that causes purity of heart and spirit. He is revealing Jesus as the Bright Morning Star (Rev 22:16) that rises above all the trials and tribulations of this world and brings us out of darkness. As we behold the glory of Jesus and point others to behold him, God will wash off every false identity and assignment over the people and land.

Preparation This month, I saw Jesus forming people’s hearts to receive the good things he has for them in 2024. I saw him organically giving rise to solutions and grace for the needs I already noticed. Some people stood up, some people sat down to rest, and others simply listened. I saw individuals step back to hear his voice, surrender false yokes, and enter into the mystery and expectation of this Advent season. Among my open-hearted non-Christian friends, I saw them more actively relating to me than ever. I saw them accept the stories I shared of miracles, signs, and wonders at face value without trying to disprove them, engaging with the ideas and shared emotions because they have love for me. In choosing to relate to me so gently, I sensed them suspending their disbelief and leaving room for the possibility of wonder. I am praying that God would kindle their desire to taste and see his Kingdom for themselves, sending even greater signs as a demonstration that he isn’t just present, but wants to know them personally.

Transcendence In a season where the Church remembers how God chose to do life with us through the Incarnation, God is clarifying that he is in the world but not of it. He is inviting us to behold him.

Beholding his transcendence is teaching us a right reverence and respect for his holiness. Though God relates to our humanity, we give him credit for being beyond our comprehension. God is inviting the Church to rest and lay down our striving so that he can reveal Himself in our weakness. His is our light, our common purpose, and our communal identity. In individuals, God’s “otherness” will create a sense of clarity of identity, wash off false labels, and set people free to flow in their created purpose. As individuals rightly relate to one another and to God, greater freedom in identity will allow the emergence of creative teams that flow together in the Spirit to establish new expressions and ministries.

Just Watch At this point, it is a privilege just to watch what God is doing, receive fresh grace, and collect what he is speaking over this coming Emergence season. I love how God sends clarity far in advance. He is proactive and intentional and will share insight about directional next steps so that we can enjoy the process and steward our present timings rightly.

It is still too early to rush into production mode. The Lord has so much to strip back and purify still in how individuals relate to him and one another. It would be unwise to rush into planning or long-term decision-making because God is loudly speaking about new puzzle pieces that must be added or aligned to create the ministries and teams. It isn’t time to set the agenda, but rather it’s the time to tune in, receive, and take notes. The structure of new opportunities must correspond to the fresh purposes God is revealing right now. The logistical details can be sorted later, but clarity of vision must come first.

Freedom and Ease

Life and ministry became more fluid than ever this month! It really felt like gliding (Isaiah 40:31). Through receiving and ministering in the love of God (Ephesians 3:19), the spirit of peace (Philippians 4:7), and the light yoke of Jesus (Matthew 11:28-30), I was able to both be honest about my limits and offer my time to the Lord. Some of the time I felt the invitation to sit with the Lord and play worship music, letting him minister to me. In the in-between times this month, the Holy Spirit organically brought prayer concerns to my mind. As I inquired of these loose threads, he created conditions for me to bubble up with prophecy over individuals, situations, or land. Having a greater degree of relational safety in the Youth Leaders ministry team, in Sarah Wren’s Healthy Prophetic Mentoring group, and in other informal friend circles allowed me to organically flow in my created purpose more than I have been able to do in the past. Because I feel so supported and accepted, I have a greater sense of freedom. This degree of support feels luxurious, as so much of my experience with ministry so far has been isolating. Instead, this feels like a time of receiving what I’ve needed all along.

This past calendar year, I chose to walk at a deliberate pace and do less. I sensed that by going at the right pace and engaging more deeply with a smaller circle of people, I would be able to engage more deeply with God. Now, prophecy and being in tune with God feels pretty fluent because of the safety of those relationships. Opportunities to prophesy over people and groups are bubbling up in both secular places and in ministry, locally and at a distance, formally and informally. This wouldn’t have happened if I had remained in the wrong relationships, if I had forced myself into ministry before it felt organic, or if I had failed to personally surrender and receive.

Healthy Collaboration Furthermore, because I have the right people in my life right now, flowing together in the spirit is as simple as hanging out. For example, earlier this month, I was with a friend whom I met in our church’s “Praying for the Nations” group. She is a pure-of-heart evangelist who loves seeing people walk in freedom. As we walked together, I noticed signs in the land that God is causing the stripes Jesus bore to heal the land and residents here. When we prayed together, her standing in the gap with me in prayer was powerful. I recognized that while I don’t have to be the evangelist, it can be enough to support her when she feels led to talk to someone knew by asking God for a prophetic word for them. I don’t naturally have any evangelistic bone in my body, so recognizing that I don’t have to play that role but can simply support her and enter into an evangelistic grace through our friendship really set me free from fear.

Ministry Developments

  • Greater internal strength rising up, sense of solidity
  • Greater mirroring of and partnership with Heaven in worship
  • Understanding that God defines nobility in Psalm 16:3 as holiness
  • Freedom from fear of man. Recognizing that courage that comes from genuine love is enough for ministry. Seeing the many ways God has made me an heir of the graces that are on my family and redeemed them for right use in ministry.
  • Able to minister and bear the fire of God again because I know that it’s not mixed with anything impure or demonic in the contexts I am receiving from. Able to minister knowing Jesus as the Tree of Life and the Burning Bush at the same time.
    • Knowing that pure fire ignites passion, kindles creativity, opens up a godly sense of wonder and engagement, provides conviction that resonates in a clarifying way, gives life, revives the heart, and equips us to carry inherited and fresh mantles so that others can walk in freedom.
  • Understanding how to pray to break off the heavy yoke over people, to command wells of living water to be opened up so they can drink, to proclaim grace, ease, and freedom over them
  • Greater freedom to use fewer words to prophesy, both in speaking and in print. Greater range in general and ease in language use.
  • Increased Ease in setting priorities for Youth and Youth Prophet’s Network (YYPN)

Worship

Names of God

  • Jesus, My Elder
    • As I walked with God early this month, this name sprang to my understanding without much clarity as to why. As the month progressed, I recognized how greatly God has been using elders to help me receive the right expectations, timings, and limits for myself in prophetic ministry. In observing their lives, he helps me notice what the light yoke is meant to feel like. I’m grateful for the people and external scaffolds God is giving me so that I know how to integrate and balance all the areas of my life. He is giving me the grace to fluently hear from him on multiple levels.

Worship Music

Verses

 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”

John 11:41-43

Turn from evil and do good;
    seek peace and pursue it.

Ps 34:14

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Eccl 3:11

He mounted the cherubim and flew;
    he soared on the wings of the wind.

The valleys of the sea were exposed
    and the foundations of the earth laid bare
at your rebuke, Lord,
    at the blast of breath from your nostrils.

He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
    he drew me out of deep waters.
17 He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
    from my foes, who were too strong for me.
18 They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
    but the Lord was my support.
19 He brought me out into a spacious place;
    he rescued me because he delighted in me.

To the faithful you show yourself faithful,
    to the blameless you show yourself blameless,
26 to the pure you show yourself pure,
    but to the devious you show yourself shrewd.
27 You save the humble
    but bring low those whose eyes are haughty.
28 You, Lord, keep my lamp burning;
    my God turns my darkness into light.
29 With your help I can advance against a troop[e];
    with my God I can scale a wall.

Psalm 18:10, 15-20, 25-29

 I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong— 12 that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.

Romans 1:11-12

He grants peace to your borders
    and satisfies you with the finest of wheat.

Ps 147:14

The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
    surely I have a delightful inheritance.

Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
    my body also will rest secure,
10 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
    nor will you let your faithful[b] one see decay.
11 You make known to me the path of life;
    you will fill me with joy in your presence,
    with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Psalm 16: 6, 9-11

Media

Books

The Interior Castle, by Theresa de Avila

“Believe me, reflecting on the virtue of God will carry us to much greater heights than if we were to tie ourselves down to our own little land of misery.”

pg 46

The First Night of the Crescent Moon: My Journey from Palestine to Iowa, by George Khal

I read this book, written by my uncle George, to understand both his experience as an immigrant to the United States and to see the history of the Middle East through his eyes. Understanding his view of the Middle East from the 1950s until the 1980s was powerful, giving me a richer perspective on current events between Israel, Palestine, and the Arab states. George’s description of his boarding school in Jerusalem, exploring Lebanon, Jordan, and various other holy places was at times beautiful, powerful, and intense. I feel lucky to know other elements of his story that came after this narrative, of interactions with my dad’s side of the family and the stories of my aunt and cousin. I’m so grateful for George’s influence on my life through joining our family. The Thanksgivings we celebrated with him and my aunt’s family often featured baklava, grape leaves, and other Middle-eastern elements, along with things like pickles, olives, coleslaw, and traditional American Thanksgiving food. His influence paved the way for my sister-in-law to join our family from Sichuan province China, stirred my interest in other nations, and steered me into working and relating across cultures.

Youtube

I enjoyed the imagery of light, life, and celebration woven into this video, as odd as the Tudor period seems.

Prayer Requests

  • Continued ease, peace, growth, and right timings
  • That God would kindle my coworkers’ desire to taste and see his Kingdom for themselves, sending even greater signs as a demonstration that he isn’t just present, but wants to know them personally.
  • Joy and even more freedom in the Holy Spirit
  • Strength and endurance to last until God uproots wrongly placed individuals from the land.
  • Ease to continue flowing the spirit in doctoral thesis writing, starting in January

October 2023 Monthly Summary

Explaining October in Pictures

This month, I’m taking advantage of the nonlinear, abstract way God is currently speaking to me to share some updates in the form of pictures and stories. I’ve selected a handful of the pictures above to explain some general trends in how God is moving in my life and the life of my city.

We Must Make Room to Receive God’s Ease, which is coming like a Light rain or Mist

In September, my Youth and Young Prophets (YYPN) team met to prophesy over the generations of the Philipines. When we were pressing in, God gave me an image of intergenerational worship and encounter springing up like mushrooms in the mist. This image powerfully ministered to me this month, forming me to begin to receive God’s ease as he led me to develop curriculum for my church’s youth group. In the abundance of gentle rain and mist Seattle has received this month, I am in awe that God forms me through the times I prophesy over different nations and people.

Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak;

hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

2Let my teaching fall like rain

and my speech settle like dew,

like gentle rain on new grass,

like showers on tender plants.

3For I will proclaim the name of the LORD.

Ascribe greatness to our God!

4He is the Rock, His work is perfect;

all His ways are just.

A God of faithfulness without injustice,

righteous and upright is He.

Deuteronomy 32:1-4

Beyond natural rain, the spiritual ease God is beginning to send to our region this month is palpable. I believe that in order to receive this ease, we as individuals must develop habits of greater dependence on God. I am going to tell a story that illustrates how making room for God will lead to the capacity to receive more of Heaven’s help in a way that is more sustainable for the coming move of God than human effort ever can be.

This month, my youth group director asked me to design a 20-minute training on “Hearing God’s voice” for our youth group. In my morning walks with the Lord around a nearby lake, I asked the Lord to draw my attention to where he wanted me to focus, and show me how to make the training age-appropriate.

As I engaged in conversation with God and passively reflected, he sent fresh ideas about how to present the material, down to even the layout and formatting. He sent tremendous support through our youth group adult leaders team, my Youth and Young Prophets team prayed for us from abroad. While I facilitated, God began to give several students pictures or prophetic for their peers that relate to how he wants to restore them. While the majority of the training focused on intercession and preparing our hearts in love to receive revelation for others, I was amazed that Heaven made it easy for the teens to engage. They could each name at least one person that they had struggled to love. Along with adult leaders, we each reflected on what God celebrated about that person, how the enemy was trying to malign them, what God was trying to reveal about his character to them, and other questions. In discussing these questions in small groups and discipleship groups that met later in the week, Heaven had so much to say!

That same Sunday, I launched the applied thesis portion of my doctoral research. Across five weeks and until Thanksgiving, I will be leading a group of about 8 teens through open-ended discussions about the nature of encounter and the prophetic. Earlier in August and September, I interviewed adults at my church community, asking them to describe an encounter (ex: vision or dream) they had with God and what it taught them about his character. I have now written these stories into one-page case studies, and am using adapted thinking routines from Project Zero to create engaging discussions so that teens can notice patterns in the stories and develop their own understanding of the prophetic and Christian mystical encounters.

When I pray for my church, I pray that all of us will have the grace and courage to reorganize our lives to make room to depend more on God. I pray that we will willingly surrender any yoke that feels too heavy and invite Jesus to help teach us how to rely more greatly on Heaven’s help. I pray for an awareness of our needs, a desire for deeper rest, and clarity in hearing and responding to God. God is setting a banquet before us and preparing us for Harvest, but we first must eat before we are able to collect everyone else. In the Spirit, I have seen Harvest banners in the spirit over our auditorium and banquet tables in the room where the youth gather. The opportunity to thrive, heal, and be restored starts in us and will work its way outward as we receive the grace, ease, and restoration God is sending to our region in this season.

Heart-Searching, Repentance, and Humble Intercession as City-Wide Keys

The keys that my housemate handed me as a result of being in right relationship to her through prayer. Throughout October, I had prayed for myself and for our house to come out of pride, for God to send conviction for wrong actions, repentance, awareness of individual worth, and for people to be motivated by how God sees them as precious to invest in the wellbeing of the home. I prayed that individuals’ eyes would be opened, I asked God to send humility and help us recognize the strengths of each member of the house. I asked God to remove any source of pride in our house, including people if they were unwilling to receive. I spent time alone with the Lord, contending to have more love for my housemates. I chose to surrender anger or offense to God when occasions arose, asking him to be the one to help us receive. Aware that this season is about learning how to relate to Seattle and other indirect cultures, and because direct interactions had been strained, I prayed in hiddenness and used my separate side entrance to the house.

Several weeks later, I felt led to come in through the front door. One of my housemates whose name means “Sunlight” started a conversation with me. She told me that lately, she had felt stirred to settle down more, after having considered the house more of a landing pad for the first 6 months she lived there. She admitted that she had been noticing things that were in need of cleaning and repair, and felt stirred to buy a mop, paint her room, and organize the rest of us to create quarterly deep cleaning days. I mentioned that sometimes, choosing to invest in our living quarters is a representation of choosing what we want better for ourselves.

After our conversation, I realized that the sounds of late-night vacuuming coming from the upstairs several nights in a row were evidence of God changing her heart. I repented further for not understanding how heart change and transition in our house would be messy and judging the process. Our conversation helped me remember how generous God has been towards me in my formation process. Since then, I have continued to pray for our house, the individuals and the work of true community God is doing in it.

A Strategy for Seattle in General, the Ministry or Organizational Context Doesn’t Matter

When Youth and Young Prophets prophesied over Seattle in August, God left me with a clear portrait of timings for the move of God. He told me to contend for genuine expressions of humility and teamwork, and that as adults humble themselves, it would produce oneness that would sweep the generations up in a restoration-focused move of God. I have now seen that contending for these prayer points is effective in my house and youth group team.

At work this month, God showed me that this prayer strategy is actually effective for Seattle in general. I chose to avoid a power struggle with a coworker and simply pray for heart change. God opened up an opportunity for me to share the experience with my boss, and we both agreed that healthy teamwork and humility are the strategies that have been bearing fruit in our retail context, as she works to expand her leadership team. She is not a Christian, but she expressed her approach of genuine love, contending to see the best in people, and forgiveness. While I have seen her capacity to sustain this approach wax and wane because of the complicated environment of our neighborhood and because continuously maintaining this perspective is hard as humans, I recognized that her heart attitude is what God has been using to form this workplace for himself. I am amazed by how God has allowed her to discern an approach that feels like Jesus and am praying for her to have an experience with the Holy Spirit that reveals that this is who Jesus is.

Dressing for the Weather: Birthing New Expressions

At work, God used joy to invite me to demonstrate the work he’s doing in me in this season. As Seattle dipped into the 40s this month, God had already inspired me to have cold-weather gear and pantry goods on hand. One day as I was at work reflecting on being dressed for the season, I had the opportunity to participate in a Halloween celebration that involved wearing glitter. I normally am not a fan of the occult and dark influences mixed into Halloween, but the use of glitter appealed so much to my sense of sanctified joy that I decided to join.

Naturally, I began to consider how to incorporate glitter into a Harvest celebration that my church’s Youth group would be hosting. I decided to focus on one color, and then add more layers of blue so I could dress as Water. Only after the fact did I realize that the imagery of washing, water, and meeting with God under the service relates to a work he’s been doing through my dreams to help me yield to the leadings of his spirit. He has shown me imagery of what my Spirit looks like to become more comfortable with surrender and more flexible to receive new expressions of ministry. Since my spirit was reflecting on these things, I organically chose to dress similarly to the imagery of water I had been internalizing. It was really funny!

I believe that water and washing are significant to the move of God happening in Seattle because it relates to inner healing ministry and restoration. I believe that God is causing deliverance ministry (which I often see symbolized by the imagery of fire) to combine with this thread of inner healing and restoration to create new expressions of worship, both here and abroad. We must be humble and intentional to work with others who are operating in different streams in order to see those new expressions birthed.

Meeting the Lord in the Kitchen: Personal Reflections on Ministry Development

One of the most frequent ways I meet with the Lord in this season is through cooking. During the day, time spent in the kitchen or in my current storehouse retail work context has been both healing my fear of lack and a time of meeting with the Lord. At night, dreams of cooking, being in God’s storehouse and serving at a banquet help me spiritually participate in the greater works he’s doing in me, in Seattle, and in our world. He often uses imagery of ingredients from different nations as well as preparation styles to speak to me about curriculum development and prophecy. These are three main ways that God used my interest in cooking to form me this month. When possible, I’ve included a picture of the dish(es) that caused me to reflect on each point.

  • Partnerships and the Table of Nations: In general, God uses my appetite to direct me to new partnerships he’s forming amongst my ministry partners. For example, he had me adapt a Moroccan dish in September as I polished a national prophetic word for my ministry friends in rural France, only to discover that God has been calling them to increasingly reach out to Middle Eastern and North African refugees there. Though it may sound weird, God often uses my cravings to direct me to which nations to focus on (ex: lots of Vietnamese food lately). As I invent new recipes that combine ingredients from different regions (ex: spicy olives from Palestine and potatoes from the US), I feel God drawing me into conversation about possibilities and even asking for my input.
  • Increased Clarity and Ease: Early this month, I noticed that my executive function and timings carried more clarity than in past months, and I was able to create familiar but complicated recipes with refinement in half the time it normally takes me. God provided grace to respond to timing challenges and streamlined opportunities so they would remain in his light yoke. In order to step into this grace, I had to believe that the time God has given me for preparation, both before work each day to cook lunch and also more broadly in this season, would be enough. Trusting that I will be ready enough and have received enough by the time the next season starts is hard, but God keeps making things easy. Seeing the favor and ease he’s adding to different projects makes me less scared and more able to trust that the same God who provided resources, friends, mentors, ministry partners, time, land, freedom, and joy in the past will continue to increasingly provide these things.
  • Fresh Bread vs. Staleness: In November, I asked God how to navigate the danger of accumulating more ingredients than I need. I wanted to avoid hoarding because Jesus teaches us to rely on fresh bread (Matthew 6:11). If we fail to continuously receive, we will eventually be consuming decayed food which may kill us. In response to my inquiry, God told me to use what I already had prepared in order to meet the majority of my needs this month. This symbolizes not trying to hoard too much knowledge, training, or insight, and trusting that God will keep providing as we go. It also symbolizes trusting the adequacy of what he’s already taught me instead of feeling like I have to rush to accumulate more to prove myself.
  • Flexibility: By challenging me to use what I already had stored, God showed me that he wants to increase my flexibility in the kitchen, now and in the coming months. Later this month, God reminded me that creativity isn’t just about learning to apply new ingredients but expanding my application of the same ingredients to new contexts or demands. Good recipes (strategies, blueprints, curriculum) meet a need while still being familiar enough to not overwhelm their audience. This relates to working with individuals in my ministry context to suit the needs of the church and region.
  • Local Collaboration, Helping Process Raw Materials, and Provide: Yesterday, a friend from church gave me some fresh apples that were growing on her land, including some varieties that the previous owners had specifically, locally cultivated. For those who don’t know, Washington state is famous for its apples, and I happened to be at the right place and right time when she and her husband had plenty to share. I used the apples to make some slow cooker applesauce with apples, a little sugar, water, cinnamon, a lemon, a little salt, some double bourbon vanilla extract, and a dash of vanilla whisky. Right now, God is calling us in Seattle to create new expressions that will nourish our neighbors. It was exciting to me to be able to share extra portions with my housemates, who are not Christian but noticed the quality of food is worth receiving. To me, this relates to how Jesus is revealing himself as a Tree of Life to our region and city, and how his health, wholeness, holiness, and beauty will meet the deep needs of the people who are eager to receive it.

Decorating the New House: Celebrating Jesus as a Tree of Life

This week, I decorated my door windows in honor of how God is beginning to reveal Jesus as a Tree of Life here in Seattle. In 2020, the enemy planted the first seeds of COVID-19 in the US in Northern Washington state, using this region to multiply death and sickness. In 2023, it’s such a great delight to see how God is releasing a fresh wave of his spirit over this region that is related to life and wholeness, resulting in inner healing ministries increasingly beginning to form and bubble up now and in the next five years. I love how this particular move of God is both intergenerational and restoration-focused and is spiritually opposite to the occult, cursing, and other forms of evil. I love how God is using churches and other integrity-focused organizations to promote humility and true expressions of teamwork, rightly ordered individuality, and expressions of community. Amazed by our emergent, genuine desire for repentance and holiness, and how it is forming here as a pure influence on America, causing American Christian spirituality to be associated with purity abroad. Excited to see how this specific experience of God’s character will combine and intersect with the unique ways God is revealing Jesus to the nations.

Ministry Development this Month

This month with Youth and Young Prophets Network, there were several celebrations and strategies worth sharing!

  • Sifting the Timings for Nations: This month, God has been teaching me to discern when to have YYPN meet to prophesy over the youth of different nations. It has to do with recognizing the degree of urgency when there is a quickening in my spirit as God highlights a region. While God is leading us at YYPN to generally prophesy over Asia right now, I have a list as long as my arm of nations that God has highlighted in dreams. But God in his kindness is helping me learn to rightly order the nations in terms of priority and his present work. For example, a few weeks ago, I was at my Church’s pre-service prayer with two friends. We were standing by the woodcut map of the world in our lobby and I sensed so much of God’s yearning for Malaysia. For YYPN’s November meeting, I initially felt to focus on Vietnam, but couldn’t shake this sense of absolute *yearning* for the church in Malaysia to be established. It had led me to pray in tongues while walking in the morning, even causing tears from the sense of burden, which I then had to surrender back to God. I made the decision to switch YYPN’s November meeting to Malaysia, but was waiting on confirmation. This Friday, I still recovering from a head cold and wasn’t able to attend my church’s separate Friday morning Praying for the Nations meeting. Autonomously, someone else in the group felt led to have them focus on Malaysia.
  • Sifting the Timings for People: As I’ve managed to surrender to a greater degree this month, God is also directing my attention to notice details about the season of sonship, transition, maturity, and eldership he is bringing people through. It has been useful in my local context and with YYPN, because it has helped me understand what role to play in conversation (the friend, the elder, the sister, the role model, the daughter, the mentee). I believe that God is doing this fine-tuned discernment training so that I can operate more easily in my ministry contexts.
  • Understanding Synchrony: Due to this synchrony, I’ve asked the Praying for the Nations group to be praying for YYPN to have exceptional clarity of vision during our November Malaysia meeting. As per their interest, I will also be sending some members a copy of the YYPN Malaysia word once it’s processed. Due to the synchrony, I’ve also invited YYPN to join the fast that my church is leading from November 7-9th, which overlaps our meeting. I also asked them to pray for us to be able to receive more of God. I truly believe that by choosing to join us in prayer and fasting, God will equip them with the same spiritual food, a portion of what he is pouring out in Seattle at this time.
  • Ease in Bubbling Up Personal Prophecy: In addition to curriculum development, multiple times this month I have unexpectedly bubbled up with words to share with friends who were yearning after God for fresh water. Through interactions with them, it’s been as though I’m aware of a sense of yearning, and their desire for more of God nearly pulls the revelation up and out of my senses. When I am unexpectedly bubbling up with a word, it’s different than times I intentionally inquire of the Lord by seeing in the Spirit. I get a sense of pressure or clarity on my forehead, and it makes me squint or have this sense of something passing through my mind, like a strainer. And then I start to distill what I’m sensing into words, starting with just a few words as I begin to speak and then increasing in clarity and complexity. I’m so grateful for the mentorship I’ve been receiving from Sarah Wren’s Healthy Prophetic ministry, which has made operating in my prophetic gifts much more lighter and fluent.
  • Clarity and Levels of Influence: For my own sake, I developed an organizer that helps me identify different levels of how I am hearing God for regions and movements. Doing this exercise was necessary to help parse where to focus my attention. This exercise helped me synthesize what I know about how God is moving in my local context, in my studies, and in the different prophetic groups I lead or participate in.

I’m aware that as God expands prophets, it’s helpful when we can do exercises like this to focus our attention. While I won’t have the capacity in my schedule to teach using this activity yet for several months, I have included a blank copy of the organizer so that individuals can reflect on their different remits and responsibilities with the Holy Spirit.

Blank “Levels of Responsibility” OrganizerDownload

Prayer Requests

  • Last month, I asked God to help me synthesize and weave together all these skill sets and new opportunities. This month, I’m praying for a greater work of oneness, that God would be further weaving together Seattle and other regions together in order to partake of the same graces.
  • Prayers for greater peace as God brings me into maturity. Less fear of making decisions, greater freedom, and greater trust that God will redeem even my mistakes.
  • Prayers for even more joy and freedom in this season! To believe that increasing responsibility means greater joy instead of obligation. For God to redeem experiences of manipulation or control by showing me that he will keep causing the light yoke, opportunities to receive and not just give, and freedom in leadership instead of constriction as I trust him to make the way straight.

September 2023 Monthly Summary

September was a month of building projects as I designed my room and space. In choosing to live closer to my church, September was a month of increasing collisions and connections. As I built furniture, put hardware into walls, and formed new routines to carry with me into the new academic year of doctoral study, God worked with me to build relationally too. In passing at work, in the park, and out getting coffee, there were unexpected conversations, continuous expansion in meeting new people, and moments of deepening friendships.

As I built physically and relationally this month, it became clear that I am living the second stage of the “House Reformation…” word that I published last spring.

House Reformation: Receiving the Second Wineskin of the Prophetic Movement

In crossing into September and into the new house, God has given me a deeper sense of where we are going. Through signs woven into the moving process, he’s clarified both what he’s doing locally, but also how it relates to larger trends in him releasing a new wineskin of the prophetic movement. At the same time as God is knitting me closer to my church, he’s also revealing the obstacles that keep Seattle’s heart from him, through conversations with nonChristian coworkers and roommates. It’s a time of paying attention to the desires of people’s hearts and asking God how he wants to meet them there. By the end of this process, I believe that God will have made me a bridge to help connect these two parallel cultures and other future contexts.

America the Pure: Holiness, Seattle, and Inner Healing Ministry

This month, it’s been a joy to be a prophet in Seattle. My local church, Mosaic Community Church, is corporately pressing into holiness. The leaders love our congregation and city so much that they want nothing but the best for them, and the Spirit of God is steering in increased ways because the people are making room for dependency. I see this church started to emerge as an Apostolic Center, and working with them feels like having lots of open space. I believe that God is going to use the Pacific Northwest and Seattle in particular to develop a level of purity in prophecy that will cause America to be renamed, “America the Pure.” In spite of our nation’s legacy of impurity abroad and at home, God is making his spirit available to a community who have been unwilling to compromise. In my portion of the process, that has meant being unwilling to partner with ministries who do not have the same values of purity and relational ministry, and holding the standard so that our children and our children’s children will inherit more than what they may have received in the first wineskin of the Prophetic movement. By creating resources that demonstrate that prophesy is about revealing Jesus rather than promoting people, I hope that these young ones will be set free to run with the Lord in abundance and the fullness of God’s life, in wisdom, purity of heart, genuine love, and passion. I believe that God will use our intergenerational church and our youth to make his abundant life available to the nations, starting here.

This month, I have been collecting interviews from adults about stories of encountering God, and in October, I will be walking with a focus group of teens through these stories, to explore their questions about the prophetic and define some characteristics of healthy encounters. I will use this research as both an applied section of my doctoral thesis, and to continue to develop resources that support these teens. As someone who started writing and developing resources to support teens in prophecy in Spring 2022, I am thrilled to *finally* get to tangibly outwork this portion of my calling.

Preparation and Partnership: Maturity and Open Space

In my private time this month, the Lord took me on an arch of revelation with themes of restoration, rest, and the beginnings of inheritance. God emphasized that in my relationships, I have been grouped with special people, and together we are invited to rest and receive before he takes us into an even more extravagant stage of the process.

As human beings, we often tend towards striving or procrastination. Fear causes some of us to act too quickly or in a state of anxiety, and others of us to avoid engagement altogether.

This month, I realized that God has given me more freedom than I realized in this season. I realized that told me the timings for this season as a range instead of as an exact amount because he’s giving me permission to determine the exact times. He is alerting me in advance to opportunities that may be coming, and preparing me to be able to rightly receive them.

God continues to reveal himself to me as a Nurturer, and a mother figure who knows how to get me to where I’m going. He is inviting me to relax into his right timings, both holding me back and simultaneously carrying me into place. Every time I get intimidated or worry that the resources, time, or people support I’ve received in this season won’t be enough, God just keeps consoling me, just keeps showing me more and more details as he invites my soul to be carried. In attending to the needs of my soul and ignoring paying undue attention to my anxious thoughts or feelings, he is allowing the path to be made straight organically, and showing me how to partner with him in the outworking of the process.

Earlier this month, I needed to know how much authority he’s delegated to me for Seattle as a city. Off of just 5 minutes of prayer for my workplace the day before, Heaven backed me with right-timed music, visitors, weather events, and God-conversations. While this episode happened, I couldn’t help but laugh because God wanted me to see how easy it will be to partner with him as he moves in our city, that there will be such joy! These signs and wonders had the effect of ministering to my coworker and simultaneously demonstrated that he has indeed given me the grace to prophesy and build in Seattle, breaking me out of fear.

In seeing the power of God on display through this experience, I’ve been in awe. It is obvious how little God needs me. In spite of that, it’s awesome that he still not just wants to include me, but partner with me to a relatively high level. It’s wild that he needs us so little and yet wants to give so much power and authority away. I’ve been walking with him for months as he teaches me the many ways he is my Provider, yet only recently have known him as the provider of supernatural power. How much power must this Almighty God have to give away so much and have nothing subtracted from him? I am in awe.

As I have followed my church in pressing into increasing holiness lately, I also notice that prophesy is bubbling up increasingly frequently. The glory weight of God often feels like a weight on my head and forehead, causing me to blink and momentarily stagger as I listen and obediently start to pray or prophesy. It feels like pipes that are being cleared out to bubble up with fresh living water with increasing ease.

Not a Word, but a Mantle: Prophetic Words that the Nations Can Wear

Since about October 2022, I have gathered and supported a cohort of 6-10 prophets who regularly meet together once a month to prophesy over the youth of the nations, called Youth and Young Prophets Network (YYPN). In September, we met to prophesy over the Philippines. This month, I connected with future missionaries in my local church who will be headed to the Philippines and start growing relationally with them. I have been receiving dreams about the Philippines for about 2 years and regularly think about this nation more than the others. I’m so looking forward to helping declare and build what is on God’s heart for this region!

In September, YYPN members practiced summarizing our revelation in 3 minutes or less and asking each other clarifying questions. The structure of our calls lasts 90 minutes, with the first third dedicated to team building and the remaining time devoted to two rounds of prophesying and discussion-based sharpening.

As we look to finish polishing prophetic words for France and Denmark, and start scribed words for Seattle and the Philippines, we will be turning our attention next month to China. As I juggle responsibilities for research, coursework, volunteering in my church’s youth ministry, working 34 hours a week, and doing my own processing, I have been immeasurably blessed by the support of my YYPN, who have taken turns volunteering to help scribe prophesies. At this point, I turn over the reigns each month to a different leader, coaching them in scribing, supporting them with the writing process to the point where they need to resubmit the word back for final polishing.

Samuel Dedicated by Hannah at the Temple by Frank W.W. Topham

As YYPN prepares to send the words to our internal ministry partners and network, the Lord most often has me focus on the tone and timings. As a mothering leader who is protective over the nations and as a prophet who often gets multi-part words about timings and processes, this final stage is precious to me. I often feel like Hannah tailoring clothes for Samuel, careful to only give the part of the revelation that will be the right mantle to fit the ministers who serve in these regions, conscious that my team and I will need to prophesy periodically over them again when God says that the nation is ready for something new. As a mothering leader, I recognize that the words are actually mantles that invite the people into the embodiment of a particular kind of grace. It is essential to make sure that the mantle fits well: not so heavy that it will stop them from receiving Jesus’ light yoke, not too long to slow them down when they need to move, or too rough to be received by tender skin.

As I consider the needs of the nations, I have to apply the same mindset to the needs of my team. As we continue to grow into a relational network that can authentically share the grace that is on our regions, I am careful to not put more pressure on my people than they can handle. As they press in, God is causing them to become bridges and solutionaries for their regional contexts. God highlights how their nations’ sins and shortcomings may be affecting how they prophesy, and I keep encouraging them to overcome, affirming their strengths so that they can be a light to the nations. As we keep growing up together as a cohort, I’m so excited and proud of all that God is doing in them, for them, and through them.

In November, I hope to spend some time putting together a website for Youth and Young Prophets Network, and will be able to share more about these brilliant people then. At that time, I will also have an option to subscribe and have the words and declarations delivered to your inbox so that you can join us in prayer.

Worship

Here is a summary of ways I met with God this month.

Celebration and Joy

  • Having time to walk by the lake most days, the crispness of fall air and changing leaves
  • Getting IRB board permission for research with minors, ease
  • In him backing me with right-timed music, visitors, weather events, and God-conversations at work to demonstrate that he has indeed given me the grace to prophesy and build in Seattle
  • Realizing that God is giving me authority to determine times and seasons for what he’s building locally
  • Resting in my new space/room, setting up a station for dates and research, my hammock to rest, my desk to write, a makeup station, outdoor weather gear station, bookshelf, and more
  • Finding the right rhythms, not rules for this season

Questions

  • What did Moses feel like as he rested in Jethro’s house? What did that period of restoration look like for him?
  • What did Elijah do when he was with the Widow in Zarepath? What was the Lord forming in him or showing him?

Names of God

  • God, my Sustainer
    • In this season, there isn’t abundance, but there is enough. As God removes fear of lack, he is demonstrating how much he’s given me in people, time, and peace. He keeps saying that he will provide enough as I need it.

Worship Music

Verses

  • Psalm 23 and walking by the Lake, being carried
  • Luke 1:46-55 The Magnificat, my soul tangibly rejoicing in all that God is beginning to do. God who makes is so so easy.

Media

Books

Movies

  • Grace of Monaco (2014)
    • Watching this fictional movie about Grace Kelly’s decision to pivot in order to receive authority and role change. Reflecting on the transformation and changes God calls us all to make in order to receive more of God.

Prayer Requests

  • For the wellbeing of my Youth and Young Prophets Network team, the teens at our church, our city, and the outworking of God’s goodness for the nations
  • Continued depth and breadth in relational movement, both within my church and with Nonchristians in my city
  • To have even less fear as I begin to flourish
  • To have peace and fully grow into the authority God has assigned me for our region. Good conversations with God as I explore the options he’s making available.
  • Rest and deep joy

August 2023 Monthly Summary

Crossing Over: Transition to The Month of the New House

After a relatively extreme July, God designed August as a time of crossing over and looking to the future. As I prepared to physically move into a new house, God positioned me internally to step across old ways into new family patterns, roles, and placement for ministry. God in his kindness took the time to show me which things needed to be replaced, which needed to be discarded, and the specific roles that he would use to bless me, starting in September.

In sharing revelation, God continued to use imagery of house reformation, emphasizing that a specific time of cross-over has started. As someone who often lives the prophecy as she is receiving it, God made it clear that this time of entering into the new is a corporate word, even though he has bundled together my personal and familial redemption at the same time that the Church is experiencing reformation.

House Reformation: Receiving the Second Wineskin of the Prophetic Movement

The fact that the Prophetic Movement in the church is now visibly moving into new expressions is so exciting! As someone who has been getting revelation for this move for about 2 years, I’m really thrilled to get to be part of it.

Role Change

In August, God used imagery in dreams to encourage me to enter into the New House not as a Shepherd, but as a Curriculum Developer. When I first came to Seattle in August 2022, I was still in the middle of a Spherd-Gatherer season that God had initiated in February 2022. That mantle came with increased mercy and co-identification with Seattlites’ weakness, which allowed me to love the city well in spite of its many identity issues.

God made it clear that while those gifts of mercy and a shepherd’s heart are still available as necessary, he is calling me into the New House as a Curriculum Developer instead. God is directing my attention both by supporting the prophets I’ve gathered who are developing resources to increase young people’s access to revelations of Jesus and through my doctoral research. He is multiplying what I could do independently by putting me as a leader and follower within strong teams. In the consulting words and documents we produce, he is crafting a heavy emphasis on releasing life, redemption, and hope to the Nations. We carry a vision for intergenerational ministry and young prophets training that is rooted in purity, releasing purifying effects to regional land and territory, liberating the land from curses of sin and restoring their inheritances back to the generations (Isaiah 49:8-13).

Redeeming the Nations: Identity Change

In Hebrews 3:1-3, Jesus reveals himself as the Rebuilder of the House.

Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. 2 He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. 3 Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. 4 For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. 5 “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,”[a] bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. 6 But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.

Hebews 3:1-6

Just as God rebuilt a way for Israel to be reconciled to himself through Christ, God is coming in this era to redeem the history of the nations: every inheritance of times past, every lost destiny, and every missed opportunity.

God is Merciful, and he demonstrates his mercy by calling the nations into identity change. As prophets and apostles align to what the Holy Spirit is doing in the nations, now is a good time to examine the failed opportunities within your own life and lineage, and ask God how he plans to redeem them.

Jesus will receive praise from every nation on the Earth (Psalm 86:9). God is preparing the nations with new, purified identities so that he can habitually visit them in this era. Just as God gives people permission to change and grow, Prophets must ask God how he wants to bless individuals and nations to receive new stories (redemption). The ministries that embody these redeemed national identities will carry the best fruit and cause outstanding worship in the coming years.

So what are these new identities? Here are a few that I have seen.

  • America, The Pure
    • God will redeem America’s international legacy as a nation that produces pure living water, serving less powerful nations by helping them tap their own wells
  • Ireland, The Nurturer
    • God will purify Celtic Spirituality’s mixture with witchcraft that has spread cursing, bitterness, and violence. God will purify the speech of Ireland and Ireland will be a nation that blesses itself and the nations.
  • Canada, The Beautiful
    • By celebrating beauty in diversity, Canada will come to see itself as beautiful and beautiful to others.
  • Scotland, Redeemer of Families
    • God will inspire Scotland to demonstrate a truer reflection of his family unit and intergenerational story than the nations have previously seen. Scotland will be a place known for redeeming and healing broken family legacies, restoring people and nations to their proper place.
  • France, The Brilliant
    • The purity that Jesus develops in the hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits of France will demonstrate to the world the beauty formed in a nation when its people respond to God with complete devotion.
  • England, The Merciful
    • England will speak truthfully but without harshness to demonstrate Jesus who comes close and can identify with our weakness. God will use England to heal the bodies and spirits of his people.
  • Germany, The Just
    • Germany will become a leader in economic and ethnic justice, relying on the strengths and protecting the rights of all its citizens. God will use Germany to financially restore nations that have been exploited and they will see him as God of all Kindness.
  • Philippines, The Equal Yokemate
    • God will celebrate Phillipnes as the apple of his eye and will raise up a fledging, diverse, pure Church who can rule with him as an equal yokemate. God will demonstrate his heights and depths to a people who have made themselves ready.

These are just some of the roles God is making available to the nations and Christians within them.

Prophecy as a Building Tool

He who speaks in a tongue edifies [builds, builds up] himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.

Ephesians 14:4

Ultimately, prophecy is a tool that helps edify [build up] an individual. On a national level, prophecy is a tool that helps build up a nation. God thinks of nations like he thinks of people (Isaiah 13-23). Though prophecy has been used for impure financial and political gain, God is reclaiming it for the development of ministries, nations, or people groups.

Prophecy should be instrumental. Prophetic words should be blueprints that present a sequential strategy from Heaven about how to release living water in a group, organization, or region. Apostles should oversee the building process as prophets release rightly-timed follow-up words to support further development. As wells are established and nations are engaged, children will learn how to use the faucets and seek revelation themselves. God wants all people to have access to his living water through Jesus.

Ministry Update

Positive

  • Signing a new lease on August 12th (8-12), a felt sense of saying yes to God on a date that numerically symbolizes “a new, divine beginning”. Being conscious that as Heaven watched my choice to move closer to my Church in July, I was really choosing to be an active stakeholder in this community. Consciously recognizing the ripple effects of that choice and trusting in how God is leading me.
  • Local Seattle Ministry Context, Mosaic Church: The Way of the Heart as a Strategy for Partnering with God
    • Being honored by Heaven in dreams about being rightly grouped, being shown how to indicate what I want from a buffet, being served, and permission to enjoy receiving as God prepares the people I’ve been grouped with to enter into a greater portion of blessing
    • Asking in Secret: Based on imagery of indicating what I need and being served, praying silently in my heart about what I want, asking God for things and an increase in receiving the specific help I need. Emphasis on the right way to receive, covering, waiting to be served, going through the right protocol.
    • Worship for being Rightly Grouped: Seeing God gradually transition my ministry context to be able to hold a new expression, seeing the beauty in how people are leaning in and how God is gradually developing teams.
    • No longer needing to focus as much on filtering what I sense in others (ie, no longer feeling overwhelmed), but focusing on aligning and sorting people, skill sets, gifts, and timings (imagery of sorting different colored skittles).
  • Prophet Training:
    • Closure: Bringing to a close a teaching series on Identity and National Prophesy that I have led and developed within a private group of Prophets. This series was the first time distilling and packaging revelation I have received into a series, and God provided the right amount of support through leaders.
    • Room to Receive: I am transitioning out of teaching right now in order to focus on receiving and research. As I rest in the Lord, he will show me more layers to support more teaching in January. I know that I need to continue developing a training on times and seasons I need to share, but am leaving room for God to share additional insight as I rest. I’m grateful for the raw material we’ve mined that I can use in future sessions.
    • Experience of Tailoring Trainings: Figuring out what prophetic trainings are best released in closed group versus those that require less relational safety. Being more apt to respond to the needs of different cultures in order to enlist everyone’s participation.
  • From the Right Heart Posture: Joining a “Praying for the Nations” group in my local church that is pressing in for God’s love for different regions. Feeling strongly that this group will help me make sure that God’s love is the source and motivating factor as I move into a new season of national prophesy.
  • Youth and Young Prophets Nework: August Update
    • Prophesying over Mosaic Seattle Youth Group: Having the support of my family of prophets to prophesy over my ministry context, so that we will be rightly aligned to the move of God. Through prophecy, having a clearer sense of direction for how God is calling me to contribute, a sense of release from false burden because it’s so clear how he will use the strengths of the entire team, and just in awe that he will make it easy.
    • Customizing the Support Offered to Individual YYPN Members:
      • Excitement for new pathways opening up to our team from a lack of hurry and gentleness
      • Asking God to help each member to take ownership of the mission and customize it for their context. Seeing us move forward as each individual begins to take risks to own their call. Growth as an apostolic organization originating from the heart and application choices of individual members.
      • Opportunities to have prophesies translated into the languages of the regions they correspond to, ministry partners willingly volunteering to help
  • Learning Easier Ways (receiving the Lighter Yoke)
    • Owning my limits, allowing God to strip some false responsibilities off, and bundle opportunities together so that it is easy. Excited to see the fluency of the Holy Spirit, sensing that the quality of the fruit will be so good. Grateful that I didn’t compromise.
    • Example of this: Somehow I’ve made it to 29 years old without ever relying on frozen meals. I have been so intent on good nutrition that I didn’t know that there were r sometimes easier ways (shortcuts) for meal prep that would turn out just as good and provide an easier way forward. Heaven is teaching me that not everything has to be so hard.

Challenging

In this section on “Challenges”, I’m going to include how God redeemed each struggle experience in August as we kept journeying together.

  • Exhaustion from the Moving (read: Transformation) Process, fears, insecurities. Unsure if I can physically or emotionally take any more pressure. Resisting manipulation and draining interactions with family or others.
    • Discovering that I am stronger than I thought (including more physically strong)
    • Gratitude and praise over having chosen rightly
    • Grateful for Right Placement: Meeting God in Nature
      • Having chosen to live near a lake/water source soothes and brings out the contemplative side of me, and aligns with the imagery of water sources and washing that God is doing in me and sending regionally
      • Having a soothing contemplative retreat is counterbalance for a season that feels very active
      • Laughing at the weirdness of being a Prophet who lives near a lake and is helping leaders in the nations learn how to dig new wells or refresh old ones
    • Feeling discouraged by the amount of effort required to build up relationships at Church. Fear because of past hurts, needing to step forward regardless.
      • Accumulating Community: Seeing investment beginning to pay off, the decision to move closer added the relational ease I hoped it would. Seeing the choices that I made while scared in accordance with wisdom bearing the fruit that I had foreseen. Grateful that I was right, because it felt somewhat like a shot in the dark in the moment.
  • Aware of the necessity of finding new ways of curating scribed prophesy both locally and within YYPN
    • Leaving room for Jesus to show me an easier way. Unsure of what that will be yet, but confident we’ll find out.

Worship

Names of God

  • God of Right Timings
    • Facing the Unknown, Remembering a series of times when God was perfect and faithful in his timings
      • When I needed confirmation to move YYPN’s focus outside of Europe, you were there
      • When I needed assurance that you would continue to walk with me in the long process, you were there
      • When I needed clarity about how to approach this season of transition, you showed me what I would need and encouraged me to wait for it. You confirmed that another direction was off because it lacked good fruit, and showed me that you had better things in mind.
      • Learning at a deeper level not to panic when I face the unknown because of a deeper felt recognition that God will be there.
  • God, Our Counselor
    • Reflecting on how Hell harasses, intimidates, and sows fear,  but God’s ways are different.
    • Instead,
      • God uses revelation to show us important details
      • God exposes our deep emotions and internal conflicts
      • God provokes us to articulate what we need, challenging us to ask for more/better
      • God says that he will support us to receive those things
      • God provides new opportunities
      • By grace, God helps us pivot to have the right posture for new things
      • God provokes and enlists our help by being faithful to us. Invites us to respond to his goodness through a mirroring.
      • God allows us to go off in the wrong direction, but it usually corresponds more to what you think about yourself (identity) and what you believe you deserve rather than the nature of God. God always wants to progressively give good gifts. He helps us go on the journey it takes to receive new things in the right way, giving us just the right amount without overwhelming us.
  • God, My Personal Assistant
    • Due to the amount of clarity I needed from God this month about how to step into the new thing in international ministry partnerships, in my local context, in housing, and across the board, God felt like my personal assistant in the constancy of his support and updates. As I chose to retreat into rest, the increasingly Holy Spirit felt like an angel with a clipboard, saying “Focus on this, ignore that, let go, this is actually what you need to do today”.
    • I still have to seek clarity and choose dependence, but he is right there.
    • I still can’t believe all of it is working. In awe of how the long process and narrow road are becoming both better quality and somehow faster than the easy way.
  • God who Restores

Worship Music

Verses

  • Psalm 116: Redemption Imagery
  • Judges 5: Deborah’s Song, Gathering the Table of Nations
    • Importance of Willing Volunteers, calling “Who will stand in the gap?”
    • God chooses new leaders (v8)
    • Imagery of watering places

Questions

  • In Judges 5, why does Deborah name the nations that stayed behind? What is the significance of telling the stories of failure?
    • Maybe the bad stories are included not just so that we can learn by mis-example, but to offer the tribe and their descendants a chance at re-writing the story (redemption)

Media

Books

Movies

  • Warcraft (2016)
    • In this movie, the characters must defeat a kind of witchcraft/corrupted power that has a draining, death-releasing effect (“Fel” magic in the movie). I initially watched this movie because I wanted to better understand nerds and gamers, but enjoyed how the message of the film fit with the gospel.

Prayer Requests

  • For all logistics with the research process to come together as I journey through September to December
  • For an abundance of joy, rest, creativity, purified passion, and right relationships within community
  • To enjoy the process
  • To have genuine love for my new roommates

July 2023 Monthly Summary

July 2023 has been a month of transition and preparation. While I have spent time getting to know a handful of friends, I took fewer pictures this month in order to focus on what God has been doing at the moment and navigate an intense season day by day.

This month, I spent a lot of time out of doors…near lakes, gardens, and quiet places. Meeting with God outside has been a constant reminder that no matter where I am or what is happening, I can enter into his rest.

Leaving the Old House

As I arrived at seminary for a week in June, I noticed several things were special about my accommodation. First, I realized that I was able to worship freely in the space, instead a culture of silence or praiselessness. Secondly, I noticed that the water pressure in the shower was much higher than my living arrangements, which made it easier to get clean. In my heart, I told the Lord that I would love to be in a place where I could have more peace to worship and receive. I also felt that this imagery of water, purification, and healing was related to John 7:37-39, Revelation 7:13-17 Rivers of living water that God wants to pour out over Seattle as a city. These waters will release life and flourishing, redeeming the city from every wrong identity and curse associated with it.

Prophetic Storytelling: Fall 2022-2023, Prophets of the Blank Page
Lord of all the Spirits: The Purity of the Holy Spirit among Mystic Traditions, Past and Present

As I came back to Seattle, God made it clear that in order to receive a truer expression of community, I would need to leave the shared living, rental situation I have been in and allow him to take me on a new journey to the new house. As imagery of construction workers, contractors, real estate agents, and landlords being a constant theme in my dreams over the past 3 years, it didn’t surprise me that God would use events in my personal life not just as a sign of the inner healing and reformation process he was doing in me, but in my family, region, and ministry. The number of dreams God has sent about how he wants to strategically restructure relationships between Apostles, Prophets, Shepherds, and the Church has been an ongoing vehicle for prophecy. In these dreams, he’s been showing me not just what it means to leave old methods of ministry, but what it means to receive new expressions that will become a tree of life.

House Reformation: Receiving the Second Wineskin of the Prophetic Movement

Courage to Receive the New Story

Early in the process of moving, I did not think I would have the strength to go through so much more adjustment. Having just returned from Seminary with my research proposal approved, I was hoping to simply rest and delight in a month of more relaxed writing. But in order to get to a more secure position where I would be able to receive more from God, I had to choose to give God permission to take me on a journey that may lead me to new land, new people, new levels of cost, and new challenges. Would God really give me the strength?

God found various ways to encourage me. He sent me exciting dreams about going on an adventure, reminding me that he still loves exploring with me. He sent a check in the mail for $13.22, reminding me not to fear the cost.

A good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children,
    but a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous.

Proverbs 13:22

He sent a customer to the store where I work, who fully checked out and then asked me to name anything in the store, that he would buy for me. While the customer was definitely flirting, it made me smile but I didn’t take it too seriously. Instead, I received a large package of strawberries and the reminder that God really will go out of his way to provide and give me joy.

In the last year, God lined up various emerging and established leaders, and he asked each one what they were willing to receive. As the Father lined his children up to receive their inheritance, we each had to decide how much we wanted to receive from Heaven, and what price we were willing to pay in the long process of refinement. Though some people decided to receive a simple measure, I wanted more for myself and more for my children. I wanted higher quality food than popular fast food and recognized that I would need to plant a garden myself. God has continued to help me establish this garden, and he’s bringing in experts and colaborers to continue what he started. My ministry children and biological children will receive nothing but the best from Heaven, and God will give double honor to me.

Free to Choose

In the process of looking for housing [this month], God told me that I could choose anything I wanted. In the beginning, that much freedom frightened me, as I am so used to living in narrow places and narrow seasons of life where I’ve had to make do with what has been available. In my current day job, the experience of working in a storehouse where there is constant provision has gradually given me practice in choosing what I want and rejecting what I don’t. I’m still not perfectly strong, but my internal filter and voice is getting gradually stronger since about April. As I’ve taken steps forward, life and ministry have started to move faster again. In the beginning, I was worried that it would be as intense as in 2022 when I was following God as a whirlwind. In 2022, I never felt worn out because there was grace to move quickly and a specific assignment. However, I know that I am in this season not yet ready for full intensity. God has told me that will quicken my spirit and send greater angelic activity when that time of increased movement comes. In the meantime, God keeps showing me that I can trust him in this current season. He won’t give me more than I can receive. As things have picked up slowly, God keeps bringing people around me to help. He has brought mentors, intercessors, and cheerleaders from various nations and their unique personalities have been a gift.

Free to Share

God told me that he’d send additional resources from Heaven if I wanted to live alone, but also cautioned me about the cost. I decided that I wanted to live in a place where there was a larger kitchen. God gave me the courage to believe that I would be able to resist false responsibility for others. He showed me that I would be able to identify and share with those who could share resources with me, and allow me to share my food with them. But to be very selective about who I bring into an Acts 2 expression of ministry and that I’d know intuitively. Instead of being afraid of rejection or loss, God put me in some extreme situations this month where I was able to hold my ground, use compassion, and ultimately protect my boundaries, revealing that my internal filter was stronger than I thought. As someone who still sometimes gets overwhelmed by the darkness that I see in others, he taught me how to acknowledge times of horror, press in for compassion, and hold the standard in myself to know how to respond (or ignore and get distance from) others’ limits. This capacity to have a stronger filter aligned with words he’d given me about being so pure that I could go into any dark situation, fearless and with wisdom, completely unaffected but shining a light. I believe that this year, he is allowing me to take progressive steps toward that vision with the guarantee that none of Seattle’s darkness or perversion will ultimately intimidate me.

Free to Rest

He prompted me to explore a shared living situation that was similar to the intergenerational, gentle, land-stewardship, shared building that I see him establishing in the Global Church, but challenged me to ensure that I was building with people who truly valued purity. When individuals in that house interrogated me about my politics and beliefs about sexual purity, he made it clear that I needed to build elsewhere. He also wanted me to not have to do a lot of shared cooking or cleaning for other people (as would be required) but has wanted me to focus on receiving for myself and only share my gifts with people who are worthy.

Though I was initially attracted to that house because I saw ways it paralleled God’s current activity in the Global Church and Prophetic Movement, God told me that he’d teach me things about land stewardship and intergenerational community through friends and mentors I already have. Similar to when he told me to stop learning Portuguese or Italian in May, he told me to conserve my strength and allow him to add more people who could provide support, instead of trying to do too much myself.

God wants me to be able to rest, receive, and to some extent, give in right measure. My favorite place in the city to rest in Seattle is Green Lake, a circuitous route of trails, ducks, and water. Just like when I used to visit the Zoo on my days off in DC, I always feel drawn to be near Greenlake on my days off in Seattle, which may be a reflection of the work of cleansing God is doing regionally.

One day when I was circling Green Lake, I felt my spirit yearning for the opportunity to be closer to this area a more significant portion of the time. At the same time, there has been a landlord I’ve been getting to know and respect. While the first two places haven’t been clean or healthy enough for me to feel comfortable, he has been patient with me. He shared a third option in a nicer house that would open up in September. I would have an enormous 10×20 foot downstairs space to myself, live in a quiet cottage with roommates, and be just a 10-minute walk from Green Lake. I was also excited to find out that the location is just a 15-minute walk from my church, which would allow me to keep receiving and gradually investing in the community.

Initially, the proximity to the church made me excited, but scared. As someone who has been taken advantage of by previous employers or churches and has internalized pressure to give too much, I wanted to be closer geographically and relationally but wasn’t sure they would honor my limits. As I kept meeting with pastors and friends to get prayer for the moving process, it became clear that these people would be gentle enough to receive what I am able to share, but strong enough to not expect too much. In having more confidence that they would shelter and honor me, I have felt the freedom to accept the proximity and continue to let God show me what he wants for the new house, whatever that comes to mean.

Accepting Transition

Part of what makes it hard to summarize July is the reality that even still, this house may not be the right fit. The Lord may continue to extend this process, and he may have better fruit to bring out of it than I currently know about. He keeps reassuring me that his spirit is with me, that he will help, and not to fear (Haggai 2). He reminds me that even if he adds more to this process, he will save me and deliver me into the new, more glorious thing (Malachi 3:17). God is aware of my practical needs, and he cares. Even still, he says, “Rest. Trust.”

Am I willing to continue going on the journey, if this is only a pit stop? Will I have the humility to continue being led, the courage to rest in uncertainty, and peace that still allows me to enter into his joy?

At a time where it’s not possible to project confidence, is it enough that he is God?

Removing Every Wrong Storyline

Regardless of where we end up, the lessons of the process can’t be taken from me. In giving me choice instead of obligation, individual responsibility and careful co-laboring instead of usury, and rest in community instead of isolation, God has positioned me to live out the February 2023 prophetic word he gave me on house reformation in the Prophetic Movement. To be honest, this is probably for the best. He never obligated me to live out this storyline, but is making it a tree of life and a fruit of the personal process I’ve been walking out to pursue him and community. I believe that this move is ultimately about what I need to receive personally, but that God will use the fruit from it in ministry.

House Reformation: Receiving the Second Wineskin of the Prophetic Movement

When God invites you to live a story, he will take you on a journey of discovering what that story is. He will remove every false storyline like ill-fitting clothes and dress you in a plot that is more consistent with what Heaven is singing. He makes our lives into celebrations, and he himself comes down to celebrate with us.

That being said, we all have a choice about what we will receive from Heaven. God has so much he wants to give to his children, but many of us are fearful. We are afraid to give up control and allow God to take us on a journey because we don’t trust who he is (Parable of the Talents, Matthew 25:14-30). In my life, Heaven keeps reminding me that God wants my life story to be “Favored Child, Favored Daughter.” He is protective and will keep my heart safe, but I have to let him be the one to advance me.

The perfect will of God is a Cloud that Moves. God is looking for people who are willing to go on the journey and live with him, as a protagonist, so that he might be reflected in their lives. He will always make it worth our while if we are willing to allow him to take us on a journey. We will face increased challenges but magnificent rewards, and he himself will be the one who is guiding. To love God fully, you have to be willing to move as he is moving, whether that means slowing down, speeding up, changing geography, etc. He wants the very best for our lives and challenges us to go on the journey that will allow us to receive it.

Remaining in Transition: Knowing the Time, Geography, and Scope

Overall, I am sensing that the timeline of me moving into the new house God is building in ministry wont happen in the Spirit until October. I still get the sense that I’ll be moving into a new place in the natural in September, but that October will be an intense season of increased visitation and some wild experienecs with God. Right now, I’m trying to get myself in order and not move too quickly. I’m grateful that God is giving me August to transition. Like the rest of this year, I am far from arriving, but God is encouraging me to eat a full meal on the bus. While I still sometimes get afraid and take on false responsibility for the reformation process, God keeps inviting me into his rest, and transforming me from a place of relaxed union. As of today, slowing down and making sure that I have what I need to move inot the new season is my goal for August. It requires things like routine wardrobe updates, a new haircut, going to routine medical appointments, catching up with friends, and investing in my ministry team. I’m hoping to have a delightful time and take myself to the zoo and some other places because I need some joy to make this season less of a gauntlet.

As I went through this “looking for housing’ process, I asked God to give me clarity about my specific scope and season. I know that I will be in Seattle atleast until August 2024, if not another year on top of that. I know that in this season, God is still challenging me to prioritize quality of life and balance, focus on how I relate to community, expand my skill sets, develop maturity, and develop resources. I understand that at this time, God doesn’t want me near full time ministry, but is giving me a season of preparation so that I can absorb various important pieces that I need to make my career in ministry and my future organization(s) successful.

Beyond just this season, I understand my age. I know that 29 is an important transitional year for me in a lot of ways, and I need to respond wisely to the challenges God puts in front of me so that I can emerge properly. I am aware that God is doing a work of inner healing specific to my maternal line, and that the ripple effects of what he does in me are having the effect of changing that sides’ legacy. I am aware that God is using me and my family as a litmus test of grace for inner healing that he is pouring out over the region.

I recognize that in the Global Church, God is focused on aligning and restructuring relationships, releasing life, and for that reason uses a lot of garden imagery. However, here in Seattle, God is focused on using purity, inner healing ministry, and worship as a means of tapping into the global grace he’s pouring out for refreshing and life. In my local ministry context, I am watching as individuals choose to opt into God’s work of House Reformation by choosing to align with people that might not normally have anything in common with, but for Jesus. I’m grateful for my Church and pastors, who care so much about the people’s well-being that they are pushing the Church into holiness and increased visitation.

In the Global Church, there is a season of war and increased warfare coming, but it will only take place after the garden season has come to full stature. God is wooing people with this garden season so that they will develop such deep roots and strong relationships that the Church will be ready. God is after true expressions of community and is dismantling comfort in order to invite people into shared vulnerability and dependence on him. He is increasing the pressure through the end of the year so that we will make decisions that we would never otherwise make.

I am aware of the ministry groups where I can simply be myself, and other opportunities that will require me to learn a new skill set. I’m becoming more aware of how to approach leaders and ministries, but I will need to keep practicing over the next few months to fine-tune my responses. I need to practice saying less and watching more, as well as being very careful what I disclose as to not endanger myself, my people, and the mission God has in specific situations. I absolutely have to be a good steward of this current season by becoming more observant, letting God purify me, not moving too fast for my team to thrive, and learning the cultural norms of rnew regions so that I will be in shape for the next season. Operating out of God’s grace/compassion and Romans 12 genuine love is meant to be my motivation, which is not hard to do because I genuinely like people. However, in order to move from this place, I need to take it slow and so that I am not stressed out and distrracted/striving. My next season relates to a faster pace and more intense circumstances, so if I botch this opportunity to rest and receive I will feel overly fragile later on.

Ministry Update

In addition to the stress of navigating finding housing, my family got some bad news this month. One morning as I was at my mom’s house, I noticed that our dog Molly looked very sick. I warned my mother, “If you don’t take that dog to the [animal] hospital, today, she is going to die.” My mom left the house, the Holy Spirit sent conviction, she turned back around, took the dog to the animal hospital, and just like that, we found out that Molly (age 7) has lung cancer.

As I’ve prayed over the dog, cried, and considered her energy levels, I’ve tried to understand what is in her best interest. While I would love it if God to heals her so that she can have a rich and full life, I don’t want to pressure her to stay with us. I’m praying that God gives her the will to live and her body the grace to be fully healed from the illness. She’s currently on pain medicine and steroids and has made some improvement in terms of energy levels and interactions. However, she’s struggling with incontinence and balance. While I would love to see her healed, in how I pet her, talk to her, and pray, I’m doing my part to make it clear that she has my permission if she needs it, to go. I believe in the resurrection and the sacredness of life, but I also believe Molly should have some choice. I hate feeling so helpless in the face of death, but just want to do what is in her best interest.

Positive

  • Being more vulnerable with friends at Church and at work about the housing search process and Molly’s cancer has strengthened our friendships. Out of the overflow of what I’m already processing, it’s also been an accurate model to coworkers about the realities of suffering and loss within Christians’ lives. I’ve found a lot of solidarity with people and they are more able to relate to who God is in the process than if I dressed things up or failed to include them in this. I’m not always great at asking for help, so it’s progress.
  • Continuing to show up to volunteer with the teen’s ministry despite still feeling awkward with this age group. Finding slow moments to make personal connections, making dumb jokes, playing football, learning names, and being more myself.
  • Setting up a timetable of 2023-2024 monthly meetings for Youth and Young Prophets’ Network (YYPN)
  • Beginning to plan YYPN’s first core team retreat in Western France (for next year). Asking people at my church for help, to share stories and whatever wisdom they have about retreat planning.
  • Friends who love me and let me off the hook, covering my responsibilities when I need to rest
  • The quality and patience of my network of people

Challenging

  • Spiritual warfare. Specifically, the enemy using squeezy pressure to try to strangle new life out of this regional move of God in Seattle and among youth. Encounters where I’ve had to command the enemy to release me, my family, and my church.
  • Waiting
  • Fear of the Lord in getting my life together so I can respond well to the opportunities of this present season

Worship

Questions

  • How nerve-wracking was it for Moses to be trained by God to work increasing levels of miracles in preparation for the parting of the Red Sea? How did he feel when it started? How did he manage to trust God in the middle of the process and keep his eyes on the mission instead of the obstacles?
  • How is Jesus inviting the Church into Embodiment through his light yoke, instead of a lens of pressure and obligation?
  • How can we in the Church truly choose one another?

Names of God

  • Jesus, who gives me the Courage to Choose

Secular Music

This song always reminds me of joy and the courage to take risks.

Worship Music

So freshly grateful for how in this season, the Lord is not rushing me.
God who in nurture invites me to come and receive.

Media

Youtube

Considering how aggression is learned and replicated, thinking about nonverbal communication

Books

  • Perelandra – C.S. Lewis
  • The Culture Code – Daniel Coyle
    • pg 54 “Food and wine aren’t just food and wine. They’re [a] vehicle to make and sustain a connection.”
    • pg 55 “One misconception about highly successful cultures is that they are happy, lighthearted places. This is mostly not the case. They are energized and engaged, but at their core their members are oriented less around achieving happiness than around solving hard problems together. This task involves many moments of high-candor feedback, uncomfortable truth-telling, when they confront the gap between where the group is, and where it ought to be…”
    • pg 55 “What is the best feedback made of?”
      • “I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them.”
      • pg 56 “That’s it. Just nineteen words. None of these words contain any information on how to improve. Yet they are powerful because they deliver a burst of belonging cues. Actually when you look more closely at the sentence, it contains three separate cues.
        • 1.  You are part of this group.
        • 2. This group is special, we have high standards here.
        • 3. I believe you can reach those standards.
    • pg 54 Belonging cues
      • “1. Personal, up close communication (body language, attention, and behavior that translates as I care about you)
      • 2. Performance feedback (relentless coaching and criticism that translate as We have high standards here)
      • 3. Big picture perspective (larger conversations about politics, history, and food that translate as Life is bigger than basketball)”

Movies

Prayer Requests

  • Courage to continue in the refinement journey and to have a strong heart/internal filter
  • Wisdom to navigate new opportunities well, humility to stretch and grow
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