The Call - a day with God's people....

A group of folks from VWS pilgrimaged to US Bank Arena on Saturday for a much anticipated day of intense prayer and fasting. I wasn't sure what to expect - I hoped that it would be an awesome day to join in corporate prayer for the nation and any and all other things that the Lord placed upon our hearts.

It largely delivered but a friend described the experience quite well. He said. "I had my ups and downs with it".

I'll get the downs out of the way:

It started out on such a high intensity level that I felt overwhelmed and off kilter at the start. I wasn't even sure I wanted to stay after 5 minutes. The Call's founder, Lou Engle is a passionate man of God...And when he gets started he quickly escalates into street corner preacher-mode. I had to put tissue in my ears! We were all invited to become radical "nazirites" who embraced the disciplines of prayer and fasting as a lifestyle. I'm all about those disciplines and I practice them but I'm not really down with being a radical anything (except maybe radically in love with Jesus). and please, just call me a Christian. Despite the connotations that can come with this term it's what I am. Nothing fancy and in your face, thanks.

With all that said, I have come to embrace the truth of the term "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater"...Brotehr Engle's style may not be what I prefer, but I do respect him as a leader called by God. And I stand behind him as a fellow believer and a man who will do what it takes to get the message of Christ out there. He and his team emphasized the importance of focusing not on THEM as humans but on God...Hence the logo of the arrow pointing UP.

The Call was overall a really cool experience once it got started.

Now for the Ups!

This is a Shofar...It's a ram's horn. They used it in Jesus' day to call people to worship.

The worship time at The Call was awesome...

After some praise and worship we headed into prayer...We prayed about abortion, violence, pornography, sexual issues, we got into small groups and prayed for one another's personal struggles.

We prayed for race relations to improve in our city. A white pastor prayed for forgiveness for his own racism and a black pastor prayed that there would be a letting go of bitterness in the black community. Then Lou Engle asked for anyone 25 and under who had never known their father or who had limited relationship with their father to stand...And that an adult please go and stand with them and pray for them.

These few hours brought me to tears more than once. I could feel the healing rippling through the building and in my own soul. There was compassion and a sense of unity busting out all over. Sometimes I just stood there in God's presence...sometimes I prayed, sometimes I sang along and danced..Sometimes I shot video and took pics.

I could only stay for part of the day and I left after about 5 hours. I was WORN out! But in a good way. It was weird to go back out into the "real" world. I had been in the concentrated presence of the Holy Spirit for most of the day. Part of me wanted to find myself a prayer cloak and lose myself in Him again. But the worship at big Vineyard had extra sweetness because I was able to lose myself again in worship.

The Call was a call for revival...And I pray that all of us who were there have been touched with this longing to see our families, neighborhoods, cities, states, nation and world to come to know our Creator God in all of His wonderful grace and mercy.