I trekked up to the lovely town of Redding, CA last weekend for the JesusCulture Encounter ‘08 conference. JesusCulture is the brainchild of, among other people, Banning Liebscher, who is one of the zaniest dudes I’ve ever come across. And he’s the first to admit it. We love you Banning. (And BTW, my Mac dictionary thinks your last name should be Lobster. Thought you might want to know.)

Where was I? Oh yes, JesusCulture, which is the brainchild of…nope, I already did that part. OK, so we went up to Redding, CA to attend the conference, and in past years, we’ve come away with body, soul, and spirit all reeling from the intenseness of it all. This year was no different. That Bethel Church crowd up there really puts you to work. Don’t ever go check them out if you don’t intend to jump, scream, shout, laugh, cry, stand up, kneel down, and — most importantly — worship Jesus Christ with your entire being and then some.

Now due to a, ahem, misunderstanding with who was supposed to get which tickets when, I wasn’t able to get into the main convention center auditorium. Last time when that happened (yes, I seem to be prone to other people forgetting my tickets), I had to go sit in the overflow room elsewhere in the convention center and watch a video screen. Thankfully, Holy Spirit is bigger than distance, and He did some awesome things in that room, but I wasn’t too keen on missing out on the grand experience.

However, apparently I and about 1,500 other people were in the same predicament, so those zany dudes up in Redding (is it something in the water?!?!) decided to put on an overflow CONFERENCE at the church itself. Get this: JesusCulture started out at Bethel Church. Then it outgrew the church, so they moved it to the local convention center. Now, it’s outgrown the convention center, and they had to move part of it back into the church. How long do you think it’ll take before both the convention center AND the church (which is not small by any means) are BOTH too small to fit all the people who want to come? Not long.

Alright, now on to the highlights of the event. It turns out that our overflow conference had some perks that the other people didn’t get to enjoy. Yes, we had video screens with satellite feeds of the main sessions, but we also had a bunch of live presentations and some live worship music for our own group as well, so it was fine. But the cool thing is that we got to have a healing revival right in our midst that they never had at the center!

What happened is that one of the live presentations was about receiving words of knowledge for people with physical or emotional ailments and asking them if they need prayer for those conditions. After talking about it for a while, Scott Johnson (the presenter) decided it was time to give it a whirl. So he asked everyone in the audience to ask the Lord to give them a word. Then he asked people to come forward up to the podium if they had received a word. Scores of people came up, and he started going on down the line asking them what the word was. They would call it out (pain in the left knee, tumor in the abdomen, fibromyalgia, what have you), and then when people would raise their hands in response, the person with the word of knowledge would go out in the audience to pray. This process went on uninterrupted for quite some time, and those of us without words or ailments called out were asked to find someone who needed prayer and join in on that.

Sitting next to me was a young lady who told me she had hurt her ankle while playing soccer, so I prayed for her healing. After a few moments, I asked her how it was doing, and she said it was a little better — but little isn’t good enough, so I prayed some more. She said it was better still, but at that point I felt that it probably needed a bit of time for God to work on it. That, or she was just being polite….but I always try to point my faith towards God when in doubt. Back to this story in a moment…

A whole bunch of people in the audience got healed, and some testimonies were just amazing. Serious injuries were healed, chronic diseases, muscular or skeletal immobility, you name it. Remember, these were audience members getting words for audience members praying for audience members. There was no “big man in a fancy suit” up in the front making it all happen. It was a God thing, not a diamond-studded preacher thing.

The incredible thing that happened, which I’ll never forget, is later when I was sitting on a bench outside waiting for a ride, a girl of, oh, 12 perhaps, came out in an obvious state of emotional turmoil and phoned her mom. I don’t think she realized I was sitting only a few feet away. “Mom, mom, you’ll never believe what’s happened! I’ve been HEALED!!!” Apparently, one of her legs had been longer than the other, and it made it awkward to kneel down or perform certain maneuvers, and she said it had felt “funny”. But now, in this service, her legs had supernaturally evened out (I don’t if one grew longer or the other grew shorter), and by God’s power, they were no longer askew! She could barely talk on the phone out of shock and amazement and excitement, and one can hardly blame her. It’s pretty cool when you get to see how an ordinary person outside of any manufactured hoopla is truly touched by the Holy Spirit.

But wait, there’s more! Previous to this, I had been walking by on my way out of the church when I overheard a women getting prayer from some church ministry folks for a sinus condition. For some reason, I felt in my spirit I needed to wait. So I waited nearby, and when they were done praying, she asked for prayer for her ankle. Now when you’ve prayed for someone in a certain way and they’ve gotten better, it gives you the faith to pray for that condition again for someone else. So I told her I’d just prayed for someone with an ankle problem and I’d be honored to pray for her. So I did, and very quickly she reported a big improvement and started dancing around (she was a dancer). Praise the Lord! This was before I ended up bumping to the young lady I’d prayed for originally who told me her ankle was a LOT better. Just like I’ve said on my blog, faith works.

Speaking of which, when she and her friend came outside (after I’d overheard the even-legs-girl’s phone call), they offered to give me a ride back to the convention center…which just goes to show you that the old saying is true: one good turn deserves another.

So I had a fantastic time up at JesusCulture, and it gave me a spiritual reboot in order to be more effective in my work and daily life. It’s easy to lose sight of God’s magnificence when you get mired down in the doldrums of performing various mundane activities every day. May it never be so, Lord, may it never be so! I pray we will always be aware of how close you are and how much over-the-top love you have for every one of us!