Hosting

We’ve had a number of ideas around a House of Prayer. Is this a place for gathering in groups, hosting conferences or training times, how to pray for nations maybe? Perhaps we host week-long inner-healing intensives for small numbers of folks. Maybe we fly-in pastors and their wives from the majority world for three-weeks at a time for restoration and refreshment, for being poured into with a renewal from the Lord.

Any of these are possible. We have an understanding about how to pray for nations. How to come on the inside, putting down the pointing finger and loosing off judgement and condemnations towards our governments. To instead, take on identification with the sins of our land, to confess gross injustices and betrayals of leadership as our own and on behalf of country and leaders, bringing these sins, by the power of the lamb, to the cross where they are washed away. We run toward the world to take on the stones just as the Lord has done for us. We could in fact gather and teach this year by year out of a location gifted us by God.

Then too, Capturing Courage has had inner-healing prayer as part of its backbone for more than twenty years now. We are well-versed in it. Know its ins and outs. Have taught it a little bit, quite recently. It is a big conversation, a deep learning, a careful task to undertake. A place in which to teach and host inner-healing is definitely something we may be asked to do by the Lord.

To fly pastors in to a House of Prayer does not seem so doable now, due to covid, yet, this is the original idea with a house of prayer. Capturing Courage has been hosted in hundreds of homes and churches in a hundred places in the majority world. What a great delight it would be to host folks here, with us, for a time, to bless and to pour into. Again, any number of things, inner healing, meditative prayer, teaching the core principles of our College of Capturing Courage, or extending an understanding, habits, manner and way, of Church to Kingdom Era, could be its own full-time endeavour, responsibility, and commitment.

But, despite the things we might DO with a house of prayer, what has become clear is that first and foremost a House of Prayer is for praying. Not even so much praying for each other. But for praying. A House of Prayer is for BEING before the Lord. And this simplifies things.

We already understand Capturing Courage Canada – A House of Prayer as Hosting the Lord and Each Other. Let’s look at this in the simplest way.

First we come to a House of Prayer as houses of prayer. Each one of us as we are drawn to the Lord for the Lords sake, become a house of prayer. We settle in, abiding, resting, trusting, tucked into the womb of God, close to the heart, quiet and still for a time. From here all life flows. Within us, to us, and out from us. Living as houses of prayer begins as a blessed gift to self and then flows out to many as God With Us wherever we go. Let us not discredit this, the world is hungry for this exact thing; God trickling out of your hem wherever you might go.

A House of Prayer is a way of life, a learning to abide in God and God in You.

Therefore, we take care of those who have come to meet God in this way! We do not get in the way. We set down our teachings, our thoughts, and our understandings. We pick up towels and soap, trays of simple food, cups of tea and coffee. We Host. Quiet rooms are set aside for silence and sitting, for gentle meetings, God and You. We make the beds. We wash dishes. We serve tea. We sweep the floors. We clean the bathrooms. We serve you.

What I love about this is that we come to the core of hospitality and service. Any of us, in residence at House of Prayer, those permanent, those tucking in for special occasions or gatherings, those who say, “Yes, I’d like to be a Host” are then tasked with great things–the folding of towels, the washing of dishes, the serving of tea, the cleaning of bedding, and the remaking of beds. We are brought to the core beauty of caring for each other in the most basic of ways; hospitality is the first greatest movement of God and it is to this community we call God, that we are included. And live. And have our being.

At House of Prayer we act this out. We live this. We live the Lord in this way. At Capturing Courage, hospitality is our first and deepest conviction about God and the Kingdom of God. Manner and way of The Spirit is first found in our ability to serve and to host, to gather without pretence, no posturing and no agenda. Here, the Lord can then lead. The Spirit can then heal. Father God, can then touch hearts and remake us into your and my original image as intended from before time.

So, we do have things we could teach. There are focuses that we could gather around. We could pray for each other. Global things are at hand that could be facilitated and harnessed forward through prayer. But first. We Host the Lord. And We Host Each Other. From there, the Spirit leads. Many things are possible, but nothing has to happen. If all we ever do is bring tea to your quiet room while you bask in the Lord, hearing and knowing God for yourself in the silence of intimacy, this is great and good and all that is required. Hospitality is our first moment in the Spirit.

Because God can bypass all our best teachings simply with his Presence.