“Ya’ll ready to play some football?!!"

"E-P-I-C! WOOT WOOT!"

Ok so I never thought that I’ve be playing Powder-Puff football, pretty much EVER. But…I am…and I like it. Have I made a touchdown yet? No. Have I done a ridiculous shake move that boggles the mind and wobble the legs of my equally Jesus-loving opponent?...perhaps lol!  The 2011 Powder-Puff Championship Game is THIS SUNDAY and we’ll be playing against Team Apocalypse. And with the favor of the Lord, His favorite team ::ahem:: Team Epic, shall be victorious. (Oh yes, I prayed it in). Our first set of games was actually this past Sunday on Nov. 6^th and now we’re going to the ‘shiiiiiiip!!! (Is it Disney World that they always go to after the win? Idk, I’d rather go to the New Jerusalem. But that’s another blog for another day lol)

So I was originally going to playing the position of a wide receiver but ended up being a running back and it turned out awesome. I had all of these WR plays written on my forearms and ended up playing a completely different position lol! And how about our team shirts eh? It’s designed from the Rosie the Riveter “We Can Do It” image from WWII (WWII also happens to be the name of one of our plays. Sneaky sneaky) and the back has the team name and then a huge "11". It's pretty funny because everyone has an 11, even the other teams lol. But our shirts along with a few other teams were designed by a fellow IHOPer Andrew Chen and they look all legit-like and professional. And during game day my small group leader Rachael Weyman brought some “facepaint” so we could do the whole lines under the eye thing and what not. Turns out that it was actually fabric paint but it worked juuuust fine (surprisingly haha). We all had a bunch of random splatters of black paint on our faces (ya know, to intimidate our worthy oppontents). Some had the traditional two lines, others had our team name and one even an entire hand print on the side of her face. That one was pretty sweet. Fierce I tell ya FIERCE! I wanted to pull a Tebow and put verses but I didn’t think of it until like half-way through the game (whack).  We even started each game with some team worship orchestrated by Davy (ya know, to show the other teams how “spiritual” and unconcerned with winning we were lol) But the few first games were fun and I’m looking forward to the championship where we’ll DOMINATE THE COMPETITION!! Uhh umm…but ya know…in love of course. (^_^)

 ::Team Huddle::

Alright, so here's the plan. The game will be at 4pm (I’m an hour behind you) on November 13^th so synchronize your watches. You’re part of the team now so I expect for you to be wearing our team color (black) and to be interceding on our behalf for the duration of the game. And in the end, it's all about Jesus anyway (well actually, during the beginning and the middle too lol) Everyone got it? Alright hands in ::hands slap on top of each other:: “Jesus IS Epic!” on 3…one-two-THREE!! "JESUS IS EPIC!"

Supernatural Faith??

Ok so this phrase has been resonating in my spirit for a little while. It was actually during a teaching at a Friday night EGS (Encounter God Service) that the phrase just kind of jumped out at me, and that created a spark of interest in just wanting to know what it meant to have supernatural faith. So after EGS is over at around 10ish, the Forerunner Christian Fellowship building (that we meet in Friday and Saturday nights for service) turns into the global prayer room and they stream live from there until about 12am. During that time I just started journaling and writing down a bunch of questions, pretty much asking the Lord different things and really wanting to get a better understanding of this whole supernatural faith thing. A few of those questions were “What does supernatural faith mean?”, “How can it be attained?”, “Can this be compared to the equivalent of having the spiritual gift of faith?”, “Is this more so an occasional Super Man mode of faith kicked into action during those times of testing OR is it something that you can actually walk in all the time as a lifestyle?”, etc. These were just a few of the questions that I had written out and throughout the past few days I find that my interest has been growing more and more!

I do feel like over the course of the past few years the Lord has been building up my faith in a tremendous way and it’s definitely coming in handy nowadays (oh yea). And so the area of faith for me has been more of a hands-on & experiential learning process as opposed to initially starting out searching through the scriptures for understanding on it. And so now I think He’s bringing me to a place where I can not only live out a life of faith through life occurrences but that I can also understand the aspect of faith from a scriptural standpoint, by digging deep into the Word & meditating on related scripture and also studying the lives of people in the bible that lived lives of faith. So far I’ve been meditating on Hebrews 11 (which gives an account of many of the major acts of faith throughout the bible and how they’re faith caused them to trust God for what was promised to them - AWESOME chapter. Go ahead, read it. I’ll wait…) & Romans chapters 4 & 5 (Chapter 4 being specifically about Abraham and how he lived a life of uncompromising faith in the Lord –Oh to be called a Friend of God ::sigh:: …and then chapter 5 on how JOY is a guaranteed result of having faith!) Below are a few of the verses that have stuck out to me:

Great Examples of Faith

 ¹ Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see…³³ By faith these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what God had promised them. They shut the mouths of lions, ³⁴ quenched the flames of fire, and escaped death by the edge of the sword. Their weakness was turned to strength. They became strong in battle and put whole armies to flight. ~ Hebrews 11:1, 33 &34

Faith Brings Joy

¹ Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. ² Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory. ³ We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. ⁴ And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. ⁵ And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. ~ Romans 5:1-5

The Faith of Abraham

 ²⁰Abraham never wavered in believing God’s promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God. ²¹ He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises. ²² And because of Abraham’s faith, God counted him as righteous. ²³ And when God counted him as righteous, it wasn’t just for Abraham’s benefit. It was recorded ²⁴ for our benefit, too, assuring us that God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. ~ Romans 4:20-24

And so the Lord has been taking me on somewhat of a faith-strengthening journey in discovering what it means to acquire and grow in faith as well as many scriptural references that help to build my faith in the process and so far I’ve been learning a lot! One thing I’ve learned for sure is that when you ask for an increase of faith it’s most likely not going to just pop up in your spirit out of nowhere (I mean it could, because God can do whatever He wants) BUT these things usually come with some amount of “hands-on” experience in which your faith is then built up by trusting God through a series of events. Another example would be in praying for humility. You’re definitely NOT going to just start being super-humanly humble out of nowhere, especially when you specifically ask the Lord to make you humble. There will more than likely be some situations that come up where you’ll have to choose to be lowly which then strengthen your humility muscle. That’s like a body builder wanting to attain a certain muscle goal without actually exercising their body. You won’t get “swole” by just wanting it, you have to act it out (or in this case, work it out) ::rant:: So anyway, I’ve just been receiving revelation of what He’s been taking me through and showing me the desire that He has to strengthen his children to the point of absolute faith in that when He says He’s going to do something we’ll just believe it as FACT. Whether it’s in the area of financial provision, the hope of a family member or friend receiving salvation, contending for healing or any kind of needed breakthrough the solution is actually pretty simple. TRUST THE LORD! (Sometimes we make this a lot more complicated than it really is) This is what He wants us to do.

Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. ~ Phil. 4:6

He speaks the word - His words don’t come back void - It’s GOING TO HAPPEN…GUARANTEED...so believe it. His track record is impeccable and He is outstandingly faithful in all that He does. He’s the PERFECT father who loves to provide & take care of His children, so let’s actually believe Him when He says that He’s going to do it! ;-) As for supernatural faith, I think that it's a matter of believing that God is going to make a way out of no way, even when it seems impossible. Having a sense of surety of His promises and hope that is beyond human understanding of all that God is capable of and faith that surpasses the seemingly hopeless state of any circumstance (with large amounts of JOY involved!). And so, I’m still learning a lot about faith and I’m excited for all that the Lord is going to be showing me along the way. Let me know what you think about the topic of supernatural faith (or faith in general), share any additional scripture or thoughts that He’s placed on your heart and maybe a few ways that the Lord has been helping to build YOUR faith! I'd REALLY like to hear from you! (^_^)

Mmm fellowship...

Oh how I miss these beauties (in addition to the other lovely ladies who were in the surrounding area lol) <3

Life in the GPR

The GPR is the Global Prayer Room here on the IHOP missions base. (You can watch it live here! I'm probably in there right now lol) As a student we have required "Sacred Trust" hours that we must complete for class requirements. Basically I’m in the prayer room about 24 hours a week and I absolutely LOVE it! I had an option of choosing between the 6am-9:30am block M-Thurs or the 7pm-12  which I think is about 3 days of the week and I chose those early mornings. It seems like my body was able to adjust to the morning schedule pretty quickly, or maybe I was just excited to wake up to be there? Ha! Either way, it’s been great! During the first few weeks I would always sit right up in the front (if you were looking for me on the live stream I'm sure you've seen me up in the front lol!) mostly because I couldn’t believe that I was ACTUALLY in the prayer room! I had never been here before this semester (although I visited this past December for the OneThing 2010 conference, they had a temporary prayer room just for the conference.) and it was so weird to see all of the worship leaders and singers up close and personal! I’m sure I looked like a bright-eyed and bushy tailed freshman to everyone up there lol Then after a few weeks I began to sit pretty much anywhere in the prayer room, and still was able to enjoy the atmosphere. And surprisingly I still feel really excited to eager to get here in the morning. You’d think that after being here day after day it would get old, but nope. It actually gets even better! After hearing from different people that the excitement tends to go away after the first few weeks, I decided to ask the Lord from the beginning to preserve my excitement and joy for being here, and He’s definitely been answering that prayer. Soooo I’m good! Maybe it’s just me, idk LOL But the sets are always so good! It’s usually Tim Reimer, Justin Rizzo, and John Thurlow/Jaye Thomas that leads the sets during my morning block and I love all of them. You can never get tired of songs from heaven! But I do visit the evening sets from time to time to tap into the Carey Asbury, Matt Gillman, and Misty Edwards sets though. I just can’t do the 12am sets just yet. I’m too much of a morning person now, but maybe next semester? Lol But whenever you watch the live streams and archives from the mornings scan the room and try to find me! Go ahead, it’s like a game, “Where’s Auttie?” (^_^)

What am I learning here? Sheer awesomeness...

So I know that there’s been a lot of questions about my classes, and so here’s some info about them! As a freshman I’m required to take what would be the equivalent to “Gen-Ed” classes here at IHOPU (not to say that the info is simple or basic but it’s more so the fundamental theological courses help students stay rooted and grounded in the faith.

The main class is the Forerunner Curriculum, taught by Wes Hall & Allen Hood (IHOPU president) that I have every weekday except Thursday. This class is a combination of all freshman class in the Forerunner Music Academy (FMA), Forerunner School of Ministry (FSM), Forerunner Media Institute (FMI), & The Call Institute (TCI). So it’s pretty much a melting pot of all of the new students. My freshman year is actually the first to open up to international students so my classes are full of awesome accents! 8-p Just to give you an idea of what this class is about, our past couple of teachings have been about getting a firm foundational understanding of the End-Times and the Lord’s plan for the Earth. We’ve gone through the books of Genesis and Revelations and have gone through topics like (1) God’s original intent for the Earth before the fall (2)His Redemptive plan (which covers an abundant amount of information about JESUS! Mmm (3) Our role as the Church, the Bride of Christ (4) the Global Prayer & Worship Movement and so many more topics. As a matter of fact, during the first and second days of class (that we TRIED to have) the Lord broke through with a tremendous move of His spirit, revealing Himself as Father, bringing deliverance and freedom to the majority of the class from past fear, oppression & strongholds. Pretty much a washing over and consecration of the whole class and bringing us all together in unity. The first couple of days of class were pretty intense. And there are still some random times when the Lord will literally stop “business as usual” in class to bring refreshing, breakthrough and a new wave of His spirit. Those are really awesome days 8-] The Lord has used this class to bring me so much revelation of scripture and has helped me to become more grounded in my understanding and knowledge of the bible.

The next class I have is Life of Prayer on Thursdays with Corey Russell. This class ::sigh:: Ya know…I’ve never felt so ON FIRE after leaving this class. Seriously, I get so (dare I say it) completely BLASTED it’s crazy! It’s definitely been a means that the Lord uses to strategically keep me ablaze, like a little gas on the fire each class. The revelation that He’s given me about INTERCESSION is craaaaaaaaaaazy! I have this ridiculously intense desire to just want to pray. It makes me think “::Ugh:: What was I even doing BEFORE this??!! I called that PRAYER??” Needless to say, the Lord definitely answered my prayers in the past, even if they lacked the luster and whole-heartedness that I’m beginning to experience now. This is completely different. It’s as if God has unlocked and ignited this piece of my heart that is now consumed with the idea that the Lord of All, this King of Glory, the Creator of the heavens, the Maker of my frame, the most incredible being in the universe actually LIKES ME!! Haha! He listens to me pray and sing to Him and actually responds & answers my prayers??? I don’t know about you but that just BLOWS MY MIND. It’s hard to even comprehend but He’s showing me that there aren’t just select people who He calls to be intercessors. We are ALL called to be intercessors and sit before the Lord before any calling or act of ministry. How else are you going to know who He is, the burdens of His heart, and the incredible plans He has for you unless you sit at His feet and commune with Him? The very idea of moving ahead with our plans in the absence of prayer seems utterly ridiculous to me now, although it’s only been a few short months or so since He helped this to *click* within my heart. It’s not just asking Him for things (although He really likes when we consistently ask, seek, and knock) but it’s about communing and developing deep intimacy with Him. Your relationship with God is really only as good as your prayer life. If you’re not praying you pretty much have absolutely no idea what’s going on with Him. That’s like telling other people that I have this really awesome friend, but I never talk to them…(FAOG “Mmmm") So yes, He’s raising me up as an intercessor first and foremost before music and any other calling to ministry, has been breaking the dullness off of my heart and has been guiding me and strengthening my prayer life. Praise the Lord for His abundant amounts of grace over my prayer life because I would have been out of there a long time ago. #TooKind

Moving right along! Foundations of Grace are the classes that I have on Fridays, taught by Stewart Greaves and Shelley Hundley (with additional teachings from Allen Hood & Wes Hall). This is actually a combo of my first semester freshman class along with the 2^nd semester Freshies and Sophmores, which brings the total class count to a little over 400 or so. It’s a pretty fun class because Stuart is hilarious lol Shelley’s sessions will be coming up pretty soon and she’s amazing also. This course has gone over the ins and outs of growing in grace, covering topics like: The Lordship of Jesus & Salvation, Becoming a New Creation, the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, Discovering the hope of our calling, knowing the exceeding glory of God, the importance of confession to God and to one another, the beauty of fellowship with believers, and how God lacks absolutely nothing yet He still desires me? ß(THAT one gets me) So this class is also pretty deep and oh so good for my spirit.

Last but not least is my FMA Practicum (prac-ti-cum noun. A school or college course especially one in a specialized field of study, that is designed to give students supervised practical application of previously studied theory.) I wasn’t exactly clear on what a practicum was either…lol All of FMA meets together (1^st-4^th year students) for teachings by the head teachers of the Music Academy, like Dr. Terri Terry the Dean of Student Affairs (yep that’s her real name. And she has a dog named Hereta Terry…get it? Eh..EH?? She makes that joke all the time) as well as presentations from IHOP’s worship leaders (Justin Rizzo & Marcus Meier so far). It’s been beneficial to be able to get a better understanding of the Forerunner Music Academy and its purpose here. Basically I am being equipped and raised up to be a “singing theologian”. I’m using the gifts that the Lord has given me with music to be able to sing and compose songs about the beauty of the Lord and declare His name to the world! Do I know the scope of this plan that He has for me? Hmm not quite, but I’m willing to go where He wants me to ;-)

Hope that gives you some insight to what it is that I’m learning as of now. There's so much that happens! Starting in January my Vocal & Keys classes will start. Sooooo excited! I’ll be updating more on the awesomeness (^_^)

And so…it begins!!

Welcome to my blog! This where you will find all of the updates of my life here in Kansas City, MO at the International House of Prayer University at IHOP! I’m ridiculously excited to be here and there’s been so much that has been happening so far and so I’ll get you caught up! I meant to have this blog up a while ago but I experienced a few technical difficulties (i.e. no internet lol!) But I’ve switched my day around a bit so that I can go on campus to the computer lab and also to get some extra hours in the prayer room while sucking up the internet here, which so far has worked out pretty well. But any who, I’d really like for this blog to be a place where you can find out about what I’m doing here at IHOPU and where I can answer any questions that you may have for me! (There should be a question box at the top of the blog!). Here you’ll find posts here ranging from topics in my classes & scriptures I’m meditating on to posts about my random thoughts, hair info (yes Shayna lol), and friends that I’ve made here in Kansas City. So in essence you’ll have a pretty well rounded view on what’s going on here! I’m excited to finally get this thing up and tell you about all the awesome things God has been doing. Seriously…He’s too much ::grin:: So ENJOY!! (^_^)
 

-Auttie