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Spiritual Cleansing Moves Church Out of Stagnation |
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As pastor of The Crossing in Colorado Springs, Colorado, I struggled for three long years to lead a congregation that was generally apathetic. Our numbers never grew above 30 people in average Sunday attendance. The members weren’t receptive to my teaching and they didn’t show up with any sense of anticipation. Our worship services were dull with singing that was bland and uninspiring. The general lack of participation appeared to be the fruit of a high degree of strife, complaining and “simply whining.” Those three years were a continual battle to get the church to move beyond apathy into activity.
We meet in a building in downtown Colorado Springs that is probably 100
years old. It has housed a variety of tenants over the years including
a liberal university. To help with expenses, we share the building with
another congregation.
I was at a complete loss as to what to do for my church. My wife and I
began crying out to God for spiritual breakthrough. We were broken and
terribly discouraged.
It was in the middle of this desperation that I opened my church to a
city-wide prayer meeting. Pastors and prayer leaders from churches all
over the city meet regularly to pray across denominational lines for
the needs of our churches and community. The meeting location changes
each week, and on this particular Friday night, I agreed to host the
prayer meeting at The Crossing.
About 20 minutes into the meeting, a brother from another church
approached me with something rather unusual. He had been praying by our
church altar. He said that the Lord had showed him a dark, demonic
presence in the building located right at the altar! Then he added, “I
believe this evil force is trying to hinder your church from receiving
God’s Word and experiencing His presence during worship.” I was
shocked. This man didn’t know anything about the three years of
struggle we had just walked through or that he had just pin-pointed the
exact nature of our problems.
Taking this impression to be direction from the Lord, the prayer group
gathered around me to pray. The group members symbolically held up my
arms like Aaron and Hur did for Moses (Ex. 17:11-12). At one point the
Lord led me to take authority in the name of Jesus over the evil
presence and command it to leave. Out of great unity and focus, the
entire group began to fervently claim Christ’s victory and power by
faith. That night, the multi-denominational group came into agreement,
and boldly petitioned God for a new day to come to The Crossing. It was
a transcendent moment for our church.
Sometimes results of this type of spiritual warfare prayer are not
immediately evident. But that wasn’t the case for us at The Crossing.
The very next Sunday the atmosphere had changed. It was lighter. That
familiar heaviness we experienced was gone. And it was as if the
attitudes of our members had shifted.
The results were tangible as well. During the next six months, a total
of 20 people came to Christ—eight at that very altar! That’s a
significant number for a church that averaged 30 in attendance. Our
church has grown to 80 now, and people come with an attitude of
expectancy as they give themselves more fully to worship. They even
seem to receive my teaching now! I’m incredibly grateful.
I know that my church is not unique in the struggles that it faced.
Sometimes, conditions exist that hinder the flow of ministry and the
move of the Holy Spirit. A spiritual cleansing is required to propel
the suffering church forward and out of its spiritual lethargy. But it
takes more than a one-time, powerful prayer meeting to make a church
live happily ever after. In our case, I believe God heard the desperate
prayers of a pastor and his wife as we cried out for spiritual
breakthrough. This laid the groundwork for a gracious move of God. Then
the timing of a powerful prayer meeting helped to push it through.
Since our struggles began from day one, it seems that the demonic
entity identified in our building may have been there when we arrived.
We will never know for sure. Previous occupants or activities in the
building over the past 100 years may have invited its presence.
Sometimes, the groundwork for a spiritual housecleaning requires
delving into past sin issues in the history of a church. Sometimes it
requires an investigation of the physical meeting place including past
occupants, or situations that have occurred on the land or in the
surrounding community. Whatever it takes, I can attest to the fact that
it is well worth the effort.
What are the benefits of spiritual cleansing? Restoration of God’s
glory, freedom in the Spirit for God to touch lives, liberty to
worship, and an atmosphere of warmth and welcome for visitors are the
goals. Cleansing prayer can help to establish this—remember, He is
“able to do abundantly beyond all that we ask or think” (Eph. 3: 20)!
--Pastor Danny Garrido is the senior pastor of The Crossing, an inner city chruch in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
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May 2006