A DAY @ IHOP

We spent the whole day Friday at the International House of Prayer (IHOP). IHOP is a 24-hour non-stop intercessory prayer and worship center. You can read the whole story here. We encouraged the team to start journaling their trip experience and start reading through the provided book “The Art of Listening Prayer” by Adventures in Missions (AIM) founder, Seth Barnes. AIM is the missions agency that we are going to be working with in New Orleans. It is the first time that we have hooked up with them. So far, in our training and our correspondence with our AIM contacts, Melisa and Anelli (pronounced “Anna-lee”), the experience has been a good one.

Anyhow, I spent most of Friday at IHOP, soaking in the amazing worship and journaling. Really, there are no words to describe the IHOP experience. The atmosphere is quite amazing and it was the perfect place for all of us to prepare for the trip ahead.

A few notes from my journal (from Psalm 132):

“I will not sleep until I find MY PLACE for You… I vow to be unashamed… I am called to be uncomfortable… here I am… there will be no rest for me until I become the place for You to dwell…”

One pretty amazing experience was when the worship leader started singing out the following:

“I give My honor to you and the people that are with you… I give My presence… My nearness… I am pleased by the way that you have labored…”

We finished the day together with a small group time discussing what had happened that day and sharing what our personal expectations were for the trip. You can watch the video of this conversation here.