Its an early Sunday morning and I am cozying up on a bench at Starbucks typing away on my laptop sipping on my Americano topped with pumpkin cold foam. Pumpkin is the only way to embrace fall in Florida, there may not be leaves falling, but we do get the crisp morning air. 

I am supposed to be working on my Book Proposal that is due in five days… but my mind can’t shake all that I experienced in the last week. On Monday morning as I stood before a large team praying and leading us into a charge an email came through that I was given an appointment to have a face-to-face book pitch with an agent in the first week of November. 

From the moment I believed God has asked me to move forward in faith to write this book I have fought in prayer with him. “Lord this isn’t good timing…” And he would push back on me, “obedience isn’t about right timing Katie.” 

Each step along the way I’ve pushed back, Lord this is too big for me. This isn’t the best timing.

The biggest wrestle in the quiet of my writing….. “ Lord I don’t think I can really do this.” Because this book writing process has ripped all my insecurities out of the hidden layers of my mind and made me stand at the threshold and confront them. 

It may seem like I am sitting here procrastinating my book proposal, but I feel like I can’t move on until I process the last week. After processing with Branden last night, he encouraged me to write it out this morning. 

When you lead a team with 4-6 prayer tents out each day for 8 hours the stories are endless. I can confidently assure we prayed for thousands of people, primarily from the Tennessee and Kentucky region. 

This was my 8th Prayer Tent outreach I have led so the experiences I share are not the team’s experience, they are solely my opinions. 

This was my first prayer tent outreach where I carried the pain of a true missionary for the lost and spiritual blindness. I was deeply grieved and frustrated at the religious spirit we continued to bump into. This outreach wasn’t one where I was dancing because of quick “wins,” rather I was heavy for the thick deception I was seeing. This veil of blindness I was seeing had me at a place of desperation before the Lord. I felt like I spent a lot of my hours of this outreach toiling, contending, and feeling heavy by the opposition we were experiencing. How do you lead the lost to Jesus when they think they already know him because they “do the right outward things?” It deeply grieved me that I continued to see “Christian” as in name only. It was the tagline you choose as your religion — not a personal relationship, a life of surrender where Jesus transforms you. 

By the third day I cried out to the Lord, let me have more Lord, I want to see a breakthrough! I kept praying, Lord I am not satisfied with this, give me the hungry ones. 

He gave me two experiences:

1. A sweet girl surrounded by her friends began crying because she was raised Mormon and her parents decided to leave mormonism. She kept crying, “ I don’t know what I am, I am waiting for them to decide.” Our team spent a long time discussing God’s grace, what a personal relationship with Jesus looks like and how she can have assurance of Salvation. At the end there was a special moment where a team member gave the girl her personal Bible. They hugged, embraced and cried for a while. It was a tender moment. 
2. On my last day out on the beaches two girls approached us very boldly. The one girl stoutly stood before me and said, “lets pray!” I began to ask questions… and I continued to ask more and more questions  (if you work with me or attend my training you know I primarily speak in questions) Then we had a moment. The Holy Spirit broke in and we had a breakthrough! It was powerful to see the Lord speaking to these precious girls, they had heavy things they were carrying. I had a moment where I passionately shared, they were eating chicken bones in a corner, when the Lord had prepared a banquet feast of finest foods for them to sit with HIM and enjoy. There was a place at the table for them. All 4 of us began crying as you could see the Spirit breaking off chains and strongholds. Another team member began ministering to the other gal as she was carrying anger and unable to show tears because of a tragic experience she has faced. The Lord healed her in that tent, her legs and then body began shaking uncontrollably as she sobbed. 

I could go on and on with stories…. The baptisms on the beach with those special souls, I will never forget how God moved in their lives in powerful ways! 

On the last morning as we celebrated over brunch we shared some of our favorite moments from the week. My favorite moments were all the men and women who stepped out with me in a tent for the first time and got out of their comfort zone!!!!! There were many who have never prayed for a stranger  or opened their mouths to pray out loud in front of others. I watched God transform people in a week, I watched a spirit of Boldness come over SO MANY of those serving in a tent, watching them come alive as they depended on the Holy Spirit. I witnessed many say YES LORD, HERE I AM…. and then God took that yes and did miracles in their lives! Fires were stoked in hearts and that was the most beautiful thing to witness all week long. 

What I love most about this prayer ministry, I feel I get to see and experience what Christianity is supposed to be. Not more knowledge or comfort, or “in name only.” Rather, it is ordinary people united under ONE mission to see people set free and know their creator. This is what the church is to look like, fiery and united on a battlefield. You can not hide in apathy or comfort in this ministry and at the end of the day, isn’t that how the church is supposed to operate like? Bold, broken, humble, and surrendered to the Holy Spirit. I feel overwhelmed and humbled at how God is moving and calling people to radical boldness.

“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.” Acts 4:13