Winter Ramp: Day 3

The first service started at 10am. We didn’t reserve a very large floor section and so our group was really cramped. But hey, the manifest presence of God is worth it.

The second set started with another worship set lead by Catherine Mullins (Who is now my second or third favorite female worship leader). She lasted a whole song before taking her boots off and dancing in her sock feet. She’s really expressive and leads her team very well. The setlist for this morning was:

When You Speak No One Else Everything (Lifehouse)

Also during the worship set Catherine Mullins and Karen Wheaton lead people through a prayer for deliverance from the fear of man. Karen’s daughter came up and had a testimony about how God has set her free from fear.

After worship, Dutch Sheets talked about dreams. His focus was that God is a dreamer, and He has breathed His nature into us, and called us to dream with Him. Our calling is simply to live our his dreams, plans and visions for our lives. The service ended with Jeremy, the electric guitarist from yesterday, leading a song that perfectly echoed the word that went out. Calling the body of Christ into the dreams that God has given them. Rick Peno joined in after a few minutes and they ended up dismissing half the crowd and continued worship for whoever wanted to stay.

The second worship service was lead by Rick Peno, who demonstrated the huge span of musical and spiritual backgrounds that were represented. They started with a song that sounded like an old Petra track, talking about how Johnny and Suzie Q got their lives transformed by being filled with Holy Ghost fire.

Their second song was a song that I remember from my elementary school days. They played “When I think of His goodness” with such freedom and jubilee that I knew that they had to be in touch with the party that’s going on in heaven. And the musical proficiency in the group was absolutely top-notch. Rick brought out his bluesy harmonica to crank things up a little bit towards the end.

After that he went into his popular “We’ve got the best dad in the whole world” song, as well as bringing back “Abba” from the first night. The last song was titled (I believe) “Pioneer.” It called church leaders and revivalists to not give up even though its hard getting the trail blazed and the ball rolling. One of the members of chosen was asked by Karen Wheaton to lead a prayer for those feeling discouraged by being the ones having to do all of the hard work to bring fire and passion to their church or school.

A large chunk of the afternoon service was dedicated to the ministry team “Chosen.” They performed four drama/dances, and gave short words of encouragement and prayers in between. I was really inspired by their format. They made sure that everything they did had a specific purpose. I cannot over-emphasize the impact the dramas had on the crowd and myself individually. The team is so unified and on fire that their ministry radiates God’s own word and heart.

Casey Doss finished out the service with a call to not slide back once you get home. He laid out multiple strategies for what to do when you come up against opposition when trying to bring back the revival. These included starting a weekly, purposeful, prayer group, and submitting to spiritual leadership.

Damon Thompson ended with a charge to pray as a youth group that the focused intensity would not go out. He had the youth groups circle up and pray with each other, about what they were going to do when they returned to their city.

The final worship service was like all the others in that everyone was giving their best, but it seemed like God was increasing what their best could be. For four hours they stayed in joy, passion and fervor. The setlist was:

You are Holy Heaven on Earth Light of Your Face (I think this is the title) Shekinah Glory

Damon Thompson brought the word of God to us tonight. He prophesied that we are stuck between two gates. We’re stuck between the encounter with God and the fulfilling of our destiny. He preaches from Acts 12, where Peter is miraculously released from prison, and the iron gate to the jail opens automatically. But when he reaches the gate to the house with the intercessors, he has to knock repeatedly in order to get in.

He said 2012 was a year that gates will be opened. That destinies would be fulfilled and encounters would become lifestyles. He called the church to step into it's proper role, as the ecclesia, the governing body of the spiritual realm.

The worship team came up and we interceded for the new year. We prayed that God would open up gates granting authority and dominion. Once the worship team came up they played a lot of short stanzas from a bunch of different songs, most of which I didn’t recognize, but I could tell others in the room did. (I appreciate that about the ramp. Their music and teaching styles vary, but they’re very true to the Word of God and to living out the truth inside.)

They put a countdown on the screen, worshipped until zero, and blew the shofar. They played songs of rejoicing, someone sprayed silly string on our bags, and 2012 began! They continued the service for about 15 minutes afterwards and then Karen Wheaton blessed everyone, and sent them out. I’ve never seen the majority of people this excited to leave a conference before. Usually its Bwah!! It’s ovvvvver!!! But these people are genuinely excited about going back to their cities and starting their prayer groups, secret devotional lives and subsequent revivals!!

WINTER RAMP DAY 1
WINTER RAMP DAY 2