Gov. Perry’s Invitation to The Response from The Response USA on Vimeo.

I love my sister!

October 2010 offered me the opportunity to visit my family in South Florida for the first time in 2 years!  There is something so special about returning “home”.  I loved spending time with my sister Lori who happens to be one of my very best friends!  I also got to visit some of my favorite places in Jupiter, Florida like Antonio’s, Guanabana’s and of course, the beach!

I also had the opportunity to speak at Open Heavens Center in Stuart, Florida and prophesy over nearly 40 people!  It was awesome and God really showed up.  He loves to speak to His Bride!

West Palm Beach, Florida

Laguna Beach, California

Interestingly, without any forethought of my own, in the fall of 2010 the Lord took me from one side of our nation to another in a matter of 3 weeks.  One day, I found myself looking out at the Atlantic Ocean while on a trip to Florida to visit my family and 3 weeks later I found myself with a friend standing on a pier in California looking out at the Pacific Ocean while on a ministry trip.  It was in that moment in California that I marveled over the Lord’s way of directing our life without us even realizing how He is in the seemingly unplanned and random events of our life.  I don’t know why the Lord planted my feet on both the east coast and west coast of our nation this past fall but I knew it was His doing and I  love knowing that for a moment I was caught up in His whirlwind!

Thousands of Christians from across the U.S. have been flocking to Kansas City, Mo., where a Bible college class at the International House of Prayer (IHOP) has sparked nightly revival services.

More than 1,600 people have been packing into IHOP’s ministry school auditorium to pray, worship and experience what many are describing as spiritual renewal.

(Photo: Scott Townsley, courtesy of the IHOP–KC Missions Base)

At services held last weekend, participants shared testimonies of healing from chronic back pain and migraines, deliverance from shame and self-hatred, and experiencing God’s love for the first time. Similar testimonies have been sent from around the world, where the services are being viewed via live Web stream.

Wesley Hall, provost of IHOP’s Bible school, said several people have been saved and 80 people baptized since Nov. 11, when students in his 9 a.m. class started breaking into small groups and praying for one another.  

“Some were lying on the floor, others were weeping, and some were laughing,” said Hall, who led the class with Allen Hood, president of the ministry school. “So I asked the Lord for a release of Pentecost, and it just snowballed. Other teachers brought their classes in, and the Holy Spirit moved for 15 hours, with reports of physical healings and deliverance.”

Almost 2,000 people from the Kansas City area heard about the “awakening” and came to the campus to participate. Since then the meetings, held nightly from 6 p.m. until midnight, have been drawing capacity crowds to the ministry school’s sanctuary.

College students are also gathering across the country to watch the services online. Testimonies have poured in from such schools as Georgia Tech, Wheaton College, Asbury College and the University of California-Berkeley, where students reportedly are experiencing great joy, deep peace, and emotional and physical healing.

“We will continue these nightly meetings as the Holy Spirit leads us,” IHOP founder Mike Bickle co-wrote in a letter with prayer leader Lou Engle, founder of TheCall, which has offices in Kansas City. “We earnestly pray that this awakening will continue, as our nation is in desperate need of another great awakening in this hour.”

Hall said the younger generation is very broken and looking for authenticity. “It’s the students who used to make fun of the manifestations who are now being hit with the power of God,” he said. “Those students don’t want to fake anything or create a culture. Rather, they want to experience God.”

And while Hall said he is grateful for the renewal, he and Hood are praying for more. He said most of the people being touched by the meetings are Christians.

“We want to see the lost saved and the culture changed,” Hall said. “We want this to grow and expand. We want an anointing where no known disease would stand against the people of God. We want to see this on the body of Christ worldwide, the third Great Awakening.”

Bickle said IHOP is not the next place of revival, but “one of many places that the Lord is visiting in our nation.”

“We believe that many other places are soon to receive a visitation of the Holy Spirit,” he told Charisma.

Bickle says the meetings will continue in the run up to IHOP’s One Thing conference Dec. 28-31 in Kansas City. Leaders expect some 20,000 students to attend, and seek to mobilize them to evangelize their cities and campuses in partnership with area houses of prayer.

Bickle and Engle said the conference would also address “a new wave of confusion that is systematically seducing many young adults into deception.”

“Sincere young people whose hearts were once ablaze for Jesus are being lured into compromise on foundational biblical truths and practices, while at the same time they are increasing in works of compassion and justice,” the ministers said.

They believe the renewal meetings are a sign that the Holy Spirit will release His power at the conference.

“We must confront the confusion that is pouring forth from many pulpits as well as from the halls of Washington,” they wrote. “It is time to draw a line in the sand. We must hear what the Spirit is saying, and we must act on it. The Spirit will confirm the truth with demonstrations of power.”

A great revival is coming to the Church worldwide that will change the understanding and expression of Christianity in one generation. The Lord is raising up a forerunner generation of young adults with a foundation of intimacy with Jesus and love for others—a foundation that produces dedication to works of justice, missions, and outreach as these young adults embrace God’s plans for the end times. These burning and shining ones will declare the coming of the Lord in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Ten years ago, in 1999, a few young adults gathered together in Kansas City for a prayer meeting that has continued night and day ever since. The International House of Prayer in Kansas City conducts eighty-four two-hour prayer meetings a week, all led by worship teams. Over 1,500 people are involved full-time at the IHOP–KC Missions Base. We have continued for a decade in 24/7 prayer, asking Jesus to release His justice in the earth, and, by the grace of God, we are committed to combining 24/7 prayers for justice with 24/7 works of justice. It is from this place of prayer, worship, and compassion that our annual onething young adult conference emerges.

This December 28–31, many young adults will gather in Kansas City to worship, pray, and hear messages that will help equip them to answer the call to abandonment to Jesus. They are singers, artists, writers, preachers, teachers, musicians, entrepreneurs, and future mothers and fathers. They are messengers from all walks of life who last year committed to the Sacred Charge—a commitment to a lifestyle of prayer, fasting, bold proclamation of Jesus, works of justice, extravagant giving, holiness, and diligent leadership in preparation for the Lord’s return.

The onething’09 conference is a gathering of young adults who have set their hearts to discern the times and live with abandonment and devotion to Jesus. Come this December and join thousands of others with like heart and like mind to pursue this call to one thing.

 For more information click here.

Many today are hungry for a deeper experience of the power of the Holy Spirit that will equip them to walk out practical expressions of compassion and justice to help others. Men and women are crying out for both a new depth of relationship with Jesus, and a greater impact on the needy.

Scripture makes it clear that the greatest outpouring of the Holy Spirit with the spirit of prophecy will occur just before Jesus returns (Joel 2:28–31). At IHOP–KC’s Prayer and Prophetic conference, you will receive practical training in the prophetic ministry to help you grow in prayer and hear the Lord’s voice, and to cultivate the Spirit’s power with prophetic revelation for your personal life as well as in your ministry to others. We will also look at practical ways to give expression to this as we contend for justice and walk out compassion.

Come and be practically equipped to live a lifestyle of prayer that operates in the prophetic anointing and seeks godly justice in every sphere of life.

To register for the conference click here.

MARENGO, Ill. — Renee Siegfort broke the news to her three teenagers on Mother’s Day last year: She was pregnant.

She really wanted the baby. Her kids did, too. Her on-again, off-again boyfriend of three years did not.

“I talked to God a lot, asking what does this mean. What am I supposed to do?” she recalls. She was working long hours as an office manager at a chiropractic firm and just making ends meet. She would need to take on a new expense: child care.

“We live simply,” says Renee, 36, looking around the living room of her three-bedroom town home. “There wasn’t much more we could simplify in our lives.” As much as she wanted the baby, she says, “I didn’t want to hurt my children.”

So after giving birth Dec. 30, she nursed Josephine Olivia Renee for six days. She then did something she would not have imagined nine months earlier: She gave her child to another family. Read it all Here

Support the Zoe Foundation make adoption affordable.

I am writing as the great great grandson of William Wilberforce, who campaigned vigorously for the ending of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, which ultimately paved the way for the abolition of slavery itself throughout the entire British Empire in 1833.

I am often asked what would be the campaigns Wilberforce would be fighting if he were alive in 21st century Britain. I believe that there would be a number of different issues – among them human trafficking and the scourge of drugs. But almost certainly at the top of the list, would be the issue of abortion.

As the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill comes before Parliament over the next few weeks, the opportunity presents itself to amend the abortion Act. With the number of abortions having reached 200,000 per year in the UK alone, the time is right to tighten up the law that was designed to protect women by ending illegal abortion, but never to allow such a high degree of deprived life.

There are great similarities between the status of the foetus and the status of African slaves two centuries ago. Slaves were considered a commodity to do with whatever the vested interests of the day decided. Today, in our desire to play God in our embryology experimentation, with all its’ unfulfilled promises of miracle cures, and our decision to abort unwanted children, we are no better that those slave traders who put their interests and world view higher than they placed the sanctity and value of human life.

Most people at the time didn’t believe the evil of slavery could ever be defeated, as so much of the economy at the time was dependent on the trade. It’s easy for us to think that is the case today with abortion, but I believe William Wilberforce would not take such a view.

Whilst our hearts go out to those who have chosen abortion, there should now be much greater emphasis on the alternatives that exist. Many of us would like to see far more support those who have made such a significant and difficult decision – but whilst we recognise the trauma many women have gone through, we also have a duty to ‘Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves’ (Proverbs 31).

The Psalmist says ‘My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.’

With abortions in the UK reaching 600 a day, it seems to me that the ‘secret place’, is one of the most dangerous places to be in modern day Britain.

As with my great ancestor, the battle took many years, even decades. But now, with the passage of time we look back in horror at how we devalued human life. I truly believe we will look back in years to come, repent and ask forgiveness for what we let happen to the unborn child.

There is something deeply depressing about a society in which abortion is so easy, yet alternatives such as adoption are made to appear so difficult.