26th March 2023
The organization is actually John G Lake Ministries , originally set up in the birth of the Pentecostal Movement in the States. (I had long known of Elim and Assemblies of God, but not this one). Their current leader is Curry Blake, whose ministry you can see online. We got a very short-notice invite (which I happened to notice on a little used email account), to a Training series in Healing in Oxford, last Thursday to Saturday. They use the term Divine Healing Technician – which has a very American ring to it, and the idea that techniques bring about healing left me feeling a little disturbed. However, as their beliefs, passions and methods were expounded and demonstrated over the three days, I found myself ticking all my mental boxes, thinking ‘This is everything I have come to believe, having studied the Scriptures more deeply in the past five years’. I find their techniques (perhaps ‘Healing Technician’ is appropriate after all!) to be much more simple and straightforward to learn, than some of the practices of ‘Deliverance’ Ministry I had struggled to cope with in the past.
During our recent attempts to network with churches and their leaders in Oxford, Ingria and I came across Dominion Life, first in Cholsey Pavilion (that meeting has now decamped to Didcot), then in St. Clements Family Centre. Quite small gatherings, often without live worship music – nor always providing word sheets to sing unfamiliar songs from (not helpful to visitors!) But bags of love for the Lord, really friendly welcomes, occasional outbursts in Tongues, sound Bible addresses (they love the King James version), and the offer of Prayer Ministry. And every Thursday they’re out on the Cowley Road declaring God’s Love in Jesus, and offering prayer for healing to anybody. Any group doing this has to have street cred.
Having personally struggled a bit with ‘Tongues’ in the past – mainly because it didn’t sound as free and beautiful as others’ were expressing – I responded to the Tongues session with some apprehension, especially when we were asked to do it LOUD and LONG, walking about. But at the the point when we were asked to use our Tongue while directing our mind to a major prayer need, my focus went straight to my knees which were quite painful with arthritis. I have to tell you that as I continued, the pain in my knees drained away. So followed my first ever testimony about Tongues! To God’s glory.
The greatest moment for me was the final session, the Public Healing Meeting. A man I had prayed with more than a year previously, and continued to pray for each day, came to the forefront of my mind. I knew this session was for him. He got my message on the final morning, and immediately replied “Yes, I want to be there”, so I brought him and his wife. Reminiscent of the woman whose issue of blood Jesus healed, he had been to just about anyone and everyone for relief from his very painful and incurable spinal condition. With three of us ministering to him, it took a while but finally he was rid of it – healed by Jesus! He wept tears of joy for the first relief he had experienced in decades, and was the first to give public testimony at the end of the meeting. Praise the Name of Jesus!
Healing in Jesus' Name 