Kingdom Creativity Released

       Well I have gone and done my first ministry trip as an official 2nd year student!  I can't believe it's already come and gone a week and a half ago.
       So last weekend I went down with a group of 14 to Santa Rosa, CA.  The event was a creativity conference with Theresa Dedmon, so I already had an inkling that this was going to be a trip where I would get stretched and activated.  For those of you who don't know, Theresa heads up anything and everything that has to do with the arts at Bethel.  She has an incredible vision to redeem the arts as something that God created for us as an expression of His creativity as well as ours, and to invade all realms of society with that art and creativity.  She is also known as one who will give her team nice big nudges into things that they have never done before:  prophetically singing over people, painting on stage, prophetically dancing over people, etc...  I have a huge passion to see dance as well as other forms of creativity to influence society, so it has been in my heart to travel with Theresa.  I also knew I wanted to be stretched and activated.  So I was more than thrilled when I got accepted to go.

Prophetic Painting Sunday Morning

       You know that God is going to stretch you when you feel your stomach drop and your mind starts going a hundred miles an hour thinking of how you can escape to anywhere else.  It's like the "wanna get away?" commercials.  Well I first felt that feeling when, in our meeting, Theresa announced that her main dancer was unable to make the trip and she needed someone to teach a dance workshop at the conference.  First of all, this was 2 days before we left.  Second of all, the workshop was called "DUI - Dancing Under the Influence".  Great...  Don't get me wrong, I love teaching and I love dance, so to get this opportunity was totally a God thing.  But I have only ever taught technique and choreography.  I'm still learning what it looks like to dance in the spirit.  In fact, I gave up dancing for a year and only just recently gained vision for it again.  Really God?  You want me to teach?  Well, praise be to God, I said yes instead of hiding.  And He was so gracious to me.  The whole ministry trip was such a safe environment to step out.  It was such a beautiful time ministering to this church body and allowing the Holy Spirit to use the gifts that He has given each of us.

Prophetic Dance over Woman

       The first night I was pretty much pushed up front during worship to dance.  I'm still learning what it looks like to put aside my inner-rationalizing that keeps me from getting up in front.  My mind likes to spiritualize my reasoning for disobeying the leading of the Spirit.  It's frustrating to me that the enemy tricks us into thinking that Spirit is actually our flesh speaking, and our flesh speaking is actually the Spirit speaking.  It's sick that we fall for that over and over.  But I know that I have said yes to God, so I want to get over the rationalizing and spiritualizing my compromise.  It's always nice though when someone gives you that nudge when you can't figure it out on your own.  All that to say, I did a lot of dancing up front... dancing in worship, dancing a prophetic word over a woman and over the church leadership, activating others in dance up front, releasing freedom through dance etc...  It was so freeing to just do it without thinking about it.  And the workshop I lead was so fun!  I just shared from my heart what dance is to me and then I lead the group in different exercises of worship and prophecy through dance.  Many of them came up to me afterwards sharing how they experienced so much freedom.  One woman even started crying as I shared with her that her dance is a sacrifice of praise to the Lord!
      Honestly, it's hard for me to really share what God was doing in me over the trip.  I saw amazing things happen - 3 people healed from my word of knowledge, countless people touched by the love of Jesus, etc...  But the most influential thing to me was just His radical goodness towards me.  He cares so much about my love for dance that He continues to set me up for growth and increase.  Sometimes it just overwhelms me to think about.  That's just who He is.  Psalm 81:10 "Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it."