Spirit & Truth 2022: God With Us

Presence and power.

These are the two best words I can think of to describe what I experienced at this year’s Spirit & Truth Conference. People came who were ready to meet in the flesh. We came to meet the Triune God. And the ones who came seemed to carry a common hunger. We were hungry for God’s presence. We were hungry to experience God in the midst of all the other things that seemed to have been stalking us like prey.

There was an optimism and a joyful expectation from the moment I stepped into the room that took my breath away. Optimism and joy, sadly, is not what I have come to expect from a gathering of Methodists. But this was not an ordinary gathering of Methodists – this was a group of people desperate for the real thing, people who are done playing church, going through the motions, pretending to be fine when they are falling apart.

All we had to offer God was our hunger for His presence, to be touched by His perfect love.

And the presence of the living God was with us in a way I have never experienced before. I can’t do justice to it in writing. It was just more of who God is. A weightier, heavier, presence of the One who Is. We were touched by the presence and power of the Lord.

The Conference was also led by brothers and sisters in Christ who have experienced God’s presence and God’s power in their lives. They led with humble confidence in the Father’s love for his children, and His desire to make His presence known in power.

I can’t stop talking about what God did. I saw Holy Spirit fill people with His presence. I saw people experience miraculous breakthrough. I saw people filled with the joy of the Lord. I saw people grieving under the weight of their sin, being given hunger for purity and holiness greater than their desire for sin. I saw the Lord deliver people from demonic oppression.

I saw the fire of revival fall on dry kindling.

I just kept finding myself in tears at God’s goodness, at Jesus’s kindness.

Since returning to Waco, TX, I keep hearing myself say to people, “we fell into the Book of Acts!” No one who was there will read Acts the same way. Jesus has raised our expectations for what happens when Holy Spirit comes. And we have seen God move in power here too. There is a growing hunger for more of God. There has been a growing awareness of the presence of the living God in our midst. There is a new freedom to be vulnerable, to ask for prayer. And Holy Spirit is showing up and moving in beautiful ways. Prayer is not something we do in a perfunctory way because we are supposed to. Prayer is where we meet with the Risen Jesus and are filled with the Spirit He sends.

I am having a blast!

If you’ve never experienced any of this before, I need you to know that Jesus is kind and He is gentle. Do not be afraid to ask for more. Holy Spirit will not humiliate you! He loves you, completely and without flaw. His love will not fail you.

Another thing that struck me about this conference: we are a group of normal people. Extraordinary things happen through ordinary people. One of the things that I keep thinking about is the deep humility in the room. I’ve never experienced the level of joy and delight at seeing God use someone else that I experienced at this conference, particularly by the leaders. They were also determined to first and foremost follow Holy Spirit’s movement and not quench His work (to the point that one person willingly let go of the talk they had prepared so that there would be the space needed for ministry to happen at the end of the gathering).

I feel deep confidence and joy that this is what Jesus is bringing to His church. Normal people are being given a new hunger and thirst for more of God.

If you want a glimpse of what I’m talking about, check out Jenna and Emma’s story.

Can you imagine the Lord sending young people to your church who want to spend time in the Father’s presence more than they want anything else? Can you imagine the Lord sending people to you who are willing to change their lives to make room to pray and fellowship? Can you imagine a community of faith that determines it will settle for nothing less than real Christianity – everything that God intends for us?

What if God knit together a family in your church? What if people who are lonely, hurting, suffering, in pain, were placed in families that committed to walk with them in deep places?

The Lord is raising up sons and daughters who will become spiritual fathers and mothers to many. Holy Spirit is breathing new life and bringing His presence in power in churches that are asking, seeking, and knocking.

This is just the beginning.

This is what we’ve been waiting for!

Are you ready for more?