Can Church Handle a Revival?

COMMUNITY MONDAYS

After the Covid lockdown and with services resuming, some church congregations have shown signs of repentance and revival. Is this just a spark that will die down, or will it be fanned into flame?

Much of it depends on the leadership team. From my perspective, reflecting on a previous revival in the late 80s, most church leaders are unprepared to handle the manifestations, both human and demonic, that can occur during a move of the Spirit.

The main issue is lack of discernment and because of that, lack of confidence. Humans can act in a very out of the ordinary way when the Spirit is on them; sometimes, it’s an unholy spirit that’s on them and leaders struggling with both fear of “quenching the Spirit” and fear of man, fail to act and inadvertently cause the work of the Holy Spirit to be questioned; humans who have been struggling with low self-esteem can suddenly find a new sense of purpose when the Spirit comes upon them, and wielding their gifts as a way of achieving some recognition for themselves can overwhelm others not only with their gifts but also with their brazenness. So leaders are challenged.

Charismatic churches which have some kind of healing and deliverance ministry have a slight edge over traditional ones — I say “slight”, because too many of the healing and deliverance people I have met lack self-awareness. Most healing and deliverance ministries that have any calibre make it mandatory that all volunteers should go for their own healing once issues are surfaced. Sometimes, they can’t discern that there is an issue.

I recall a volunteer who would repeatedly go into bouts of near-hysterical weeping during team prayer– clearly it wasn’t the Holy Spirit, and that she was using the prayer time as an outlet for her own unresolved hurts. I spoke to her privately about getting some ministry for herself. She declared that she was being used by another deliverance ministry as an intercessor and offended, immediately resigned. All of us heaved a sigh of relief.

Most traditional churches sideline the prayer ministry; the “team” would consist of a handful of dedicated volunteers who are tolerated rather than welcomed. I was fortunate to have a Pastor-In-Charge who was spiritually aware enough to sense that oppression over the church increased exponentially without regular intercession, and backed me in my efforts to recruit volunteers.

All this is to say that without a team of spiritually mature leaders, those who not only know the Word but have experience working with the Spirit, a revival is very challenging to steward.

Photo by Bree Anne on Unsplash

How I Got Involved in Deliverance

You don’t choose to get involved in deliverance ministry, God chooses you.

My first deliverance ministry came about involuntarily. I was with two others who were part of my prayer group, having fun and fellowship and dinner at the KFC that momentous night. Someone we knew came up to us, and said God told him to look for a group that was in unity, and ask them to help him get rid of a spirit. And he spotted us.

We already knew he had a spirit — we could see it in his eyes — what we didn’t know was whether we could deliver him. But he was keen, and I was the leader, and I thought, ‘Well, no harm trying’. He led us to his office. I asked him to sit in the centre, while I sat behind him and the other two were at his side. We started praying very fervently as we didn’t know what else to do.

Then, I heard the Lord say, “Lay hands on him.” At the same time, Jenny, sitting on my right, looked at me with big eyes and said, “I think we should lay hands on him.” I didn’t really want to, but I obeyed, putting my right hand on his back and uttering the first words that came to mind: “Spirit, be gone!” To my surprise, power shot out from my hand, he fell from his chair and lay crouched on the ground for a number of seconds while our prayer volume increased immensely! After a while, he opened his eyes and said with astonishment, “The spirit is gone!”

He explained he had tried to command it to leave by himself, but nothing happened until he sought God, heard from Him and found us. He also told us that when he fell from the chair, he blacked out for a while as the spirit left him.

Many years later, I bumped into this man in a gathering and I could see that his eyes were still clear. He confirmed he had remained free from that issue and in the meantime he’d gotten married. His wife definitely got a much better man.

I also learned a key lesson from that eventful night: In order to have an effective prayer ministry, the group has to be on good terms with one another and united in purpose before His power would flow. God works in the midst of love.

Introduction and Update 2022

I grew up in a non-Christian family and at 31, had a life-changing encounter with Jesus that resulted in a full-time call to ministry. I studied at Trinity Theological College, obtaining an M. Div before starting work in Wesley Methodist Church Singapore in 1997. I was in charge of the newly-formed Prayer Ministry and subsequently recruited a team of 40 to pray for the services on a rostered basis, introducing Conversational Prayer as the modality.

Amongst many other activities, I introduced courses from the Lifeway series such as Disciple’s Prayer Life, Experiencing God, and Spiritual Warfare, and spear-headed an overnight Concert of Prayer, the first of its kind in Wesley.

I also began a search for inner healing and deliverance modalities.

In my explorations, I went through different types of training, both locally and overseas. In 2008 I came across Restoring the Foundations (RTF) that was just beginning to set up in Singapore. I saw it was a good introduction to believers seeking freedom, and was subsequently trained in Issue-Focused Ministry. In early 2014, a spiritually sensitive and intelligent woman mentioned in a session that she saw an ancestral spirit following her. This was new to me. It did go after she told it to go, but the encounter stayed in my mind.

Later in the year, I attended a seminar on physical healing led by Dr Frans Cronje and realised he knew something of the phenomenon. Dr Frans then introduced me to Sapphire Leadership Group (SLG), founded and headed by Arthur Burk. Through his teachings, I learned to get to the root of spiritual strongholds, both in people and on properties.

In 2018, the Lord called me out of the church to set up Tree of Healing Ministries. I was very busy until April 2021, when it seemed like a switch was thrown and everything went into slow motion — I thought it was time to retire! Through a series of divine coincidences, He introduced me to HeartSync Ministries (HS) that was founded by Fr Andrew Miller, an Anglican who is also an LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker). I was pleasantly surprised to see that his modality is accepted and practised by both clinicians and non-clinicians.

So what’s the difference between SLG and HS? Broadly speaking, SLG deals with spiritual warfare — generational curses, spiritual entities, lifestyle issues and land issues (I famously had to get rid of an entity that had taken hold of a corner of a shared office I had newly moved to and was spooking my intercessors); HS deals with the wounds in the heart that result in inner conflicts and distrust of God. The two ministries complement each other.

Now, depending on the presenting issue, I and my clients can choose either SLG’s principles of spiritual warfare or HS’ modality of ministry to the heart.

Kathlyn Tsang