We have just – last night- returned from our UK mission and have lots of good news to share.  In Bristol, there were prophetic declarations at the river gate, the exchange of the prayer baton to coincide with the passing of the Olympic torch through Bristol, a Praise bus on College Green playing praise music all afternoon preceding the Olympic Torch, and of course the Arise conference on Pentecost.  

It was really great to see some of our old friends and spend time praying together over the week.  When the Olympic torch came through Bristol we did a lot of prayer, particularly on Hanham Mount – John Wesley’s place of preaching to people of  Bristol.  You could look down across Bristol from there and several of us prayed for breakthrough in Bristol and for re-opening the gates as Wesley had done before us.  This photo is of the New Room- Wesley’s first chapel where the prayer baton was passed and we had worship to commemorate the event.

Over 6000 people and 75 church leaders across the denominations assembled at Ashton Gate Stadium for an afternoon of prayer and declaration over Bristol.  I was asked to give a prophetic workshop for the children to listen to hear God’s word for Bristol.  Some beautiful responses from the children but one in particular showed an arrow pointing forward said,”… the ministers in Bristol have done enough.  Now God is going to do a new thing, and for them to keep going, onward to the “new thing” God has for Bristol”.

Sheena Tranter who was our partner in the House of prayer we had in Bristol was the carrier of the vision for Arise Bristol.  She and her teams of intercessors organized all these events which we know will have lasting effect in the Kingdom for Bristol.

England is preparing for the Queen’s 60th year jubilee this coming Sunday and everywhere there are flags and bunting. Especially in the shops and streets of London where a floatilla will be on the Thames Sunday afternoon. Through the last 60 years there has been incredible change in England. In terms of Christianity there has certainly been a shift to a secular society in that time. There has also been a large influx of ethnic groups bringing in their own forms of religion. At the moment one can see them co existing with toleration on all sides but it does not mean that it will always be the case, especially if Northern Nigeria and the Sudan are examples of what can happen after a tipping point has occurred. So the work for the Kingdom of God that is going on now in England is particularly important and there are many signs that revival is imminent. Certainly what has just happened in Bristol probably could not have happened a year ago. This is being repeated all over the country to some degree or another as the prayer baton precedes the Olympic torch. People are gathering in the streets and gates of cities interceding and declaring. We just pray for more of the presence of God in that nation as the cry to ‘Awake, Awake, Awake’ is beaten into the soil by praying intercessors.

We also heard from our London friends that 16,000 people filled Earl’s Court Stadium to worship God the Friday before Pentecost in London.   

We left Bristol on Monday morning to head up to London to visit with our friend Keong who has a heart for hosting missionaries.

We were so blessed by our visit and particularly want to thank all those who have been praying for us and also have been directly supporting us in this mission.  We remarked every day how blessed we felt and how grateful we were.  We could feel your prayers!

Love you guys!

Here is a link to the Arise Bristol video from Bristolnetworks  :  Arise Bristol and Beyond

We just had a wonderful weekend with Tom and Maryln Litteer at Living Waters fellowship in Newton, NJ, and we were praying for healing for people. On the Friday evening while praying for someone I got a word from the Lord, ‘Egypt’ so I asked the person we were praying for if that meant anything to her. She said ‘No’.  The next day we were praying for a man who had slight one hearing in one ear only and limited peripheral vision from birth. We were praying with him on and off through the day and at one point I asked him where he was from and he said ‘Egypt’. At that point I knew God meant to heal him and told him, ‘I believe God wants to heal you today,’ and related to him the word I had received the day before. So we kept on praying and praying and I would have given up but for that word we kept on pushing until God showed us how to pray for him and his breakthrough came. His non functioning ear opened up and he could hear with that ear and was not using a hearing aid in his other ear. We are still believing his eyes will open to a full vision as well. To watch someone receive a gift from the Lord like that is so beautiful as they truly understand how much God is a powerful God and loves them in a tangible way. It is as though they receive their own personal springtime with the Lord and all is made new for them.

We are so excited about what the Lord is doing in our area as we start to get feedback on the GSSM satellite school we will be starting in September with our friends Susan and Ralph Baker Borgeson. We are still getting the word out and gathering information as to who would be interested in joining the student body. It is such a great opportunity for people both young and old to be transformed into walking in the supernatural ways of the Kingdom of God naturally every day. We believe it is it a part of our calling in this season to get this underway.

One of the discernments which has come out of our Thursday evening gatherings for prayer and worship is the need to AWAKEN this area, that there is a spirit of slumber over it. The area has taken on the mantle of Rip Van Winkel, the fictitious character who slept through his responsibilities after taking a drink. We have the Rip Van Winkel bridge which joins Columbia and Greene counties, over the Hudson river. Today in our village we had an announcement that there is to be a large Rip Van Winkel puppet show on our village green this Saturday. So we are just praying for that spirit to be lifted off this area that there would be an awakening in the community of the presence of the living and active Lord.

In all these areas that we are involved with we really need to have your prayers. God asked us ‘To build an ark in Philmont.’ and sometimes we call out to Him for more direction. We do ask for your prayers in all we are doing here.

We are excited about re-connecting with our friends in England and joining in with the prayer movement at Penetecost. Prior to the ARISE Pentecost meeting in Bristol, the Olympic torch will pass through and along with it, a prayer baton.  Thousands of UK Churches are organizing to make the most of the media attention on their cities and creating prayer activities to engage people in God’s Kingdom!

We are excited to be  going on a mission trip to London and Bristol May 21 through May   30th to support our friends who are praying for Revival in England this spring!

Our House of Prayer partner, Sheena Tranter, and friends have organized “Arise Bristol”, an intercessory prayer event calling for people through out Bristol to gather, repent before God, experience reconciliation between each other, to gather as One Body, with One Vision for the Future of the City, Region and Nation on May 27 .

There will be prayer events throughout April leading up to Pentecost.  For more details and to see what other Christian events are happening now in Bristol, visit: www.Bristolnetworks.org  There will also be a meeting for the upcoming Global Day of Prayer in London which we will attend.

Thank you to all of you who have contributed to make this trip possible.   We believe God will more than cover our costs, and ask that you would pray about this being a possible opportunity for you to invest in missions at this time.  We believe that our spiritual heritage here in the United States is linked to the UK.  We want to ensure that Christians in both countries can worship freely.  Please help if you can by sending your tax deductible donations made out to “Unto Life” and sent to us at PO Box 927, Philmont, NY  12565.

Blessings to you all!

Here is a link to Michael’s ‘Revival England’ video he made just before leaving England on utube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlvczErqlLw

Love, Michael and Christine

What a month – temperatures in the high 60′s and 70′ for two weeks- the trees are starting to flower everywhere.  Is it possible that Spring is really here to stay?

I (Christine) am nearly finished with the winter discipline I set myself of drawing in black and white only and completing two drawing and portrait classes. Also have several new icons I am working on: The Entry into Jerusalem, Pentecost, a Madonna, and a Tetramorph icon.  I will be changing my website soon and updating my “Fine Art America” page soon.  I don’t know if you’ve seen that, but you can order a card, a print, or a printed canvas of any of my works on the site. They make it easy to buy my art on line and apparently people from all over the world see it.   One of my art goals is to teach two more iconography classes – one in Woodstock, NY and one in Great Barrington, MA.   The Woodstock class will start May 1 and run on Tuesday afternoons through the summer, God willing.

We are excited hearing about the intercessory prayer activities of our friends in Bristol.  There have been several gatherings for prayer for the City and the nation, prayerwalking, prophetic healing of the land actions and finally, a City wide day of Prayer at the Bristol Arena on Pentecost.  We feel called to go over for that to pray and stand with our friends for Revival in Bristol and Britain.  We are very grateful for all of you who have been contributing to our mission all along, and we believe enough money will come in by March 31 for us to go, if it’s God’s will for us to go.   We’ll keep you posted! (If you go to the Kingdom Arts Ministry tab at the top of the page, you will see where to send donations. Thank you!!)

Here’s Michael: Here in Philmont we are beginning to realize how much pain there is in our neighborhood. There is a lot of illness, loss of families and real poverty. We are assigning more time to being just out on the streets and talking with people and praying when we can. We have the goal of bringing more people to the Bible study at the library.

On the wider front we are working to see the GSSM satellite school get set up and are having meetings and starting to put out PR for that. We feel called to bring people into a supernatural walk with the Lord and GSSM is designed to do for that purpose. Looking through the schedule starting in September it is really exciting to see what is lined up in the first six weeks, with Mark Virkler, Randy Clark, a Living Jesus Conference, 10 days in Brazil and then the Voice of the Prophets in Lancaster, PA. So that is getting exciting and we are still working on the nuts and bolts of that.

We have also been doing some teaching to a youth group on Words of Knowledge with wonderful time of activation and look forward to more ministry in that area.

The vision is to build a team of active Christians in this area, a triangle between Columbia  / Greene County and Albany. The area has had Holy Spirit visitations in the past and really needs a revival now. There are movements going on all around, also in England and the Far East which show that there is a real wave of the Holy Spirit moving in the world, a swelling of activity and as it grows and grows there will be much for Christians to do. Now is the time to really push forward in what each one of us hears God is calling us to.

So we continue to ask for your prayers and also to let us know how we can pray for you. God is so good and He is on the move.

Withour love,

Michael and Christine

Oops! February 29 and it is snowing!

Wow! What a mild winter!  No complaints here, and the fact that daylight savings is right around the corner is a light unto my feet!

We have been really blessed this last month with having some good friends come to our prayer gatherings.  God has been moving, people have been healed, and we are excited as we continue to seek God’s Presence here in our home in Philmont.We are regrouping, growing stronger in our faith and love while the winter passes. We see so many similarities to the Spiritual problems in Bristol and Philmont.

 We believe that more of God’s presence in both places would work absolute wonders! But how, Lord? Be believe in God’s promises of blessing over the UK and the USA.  We pray for the faith of Abraham, “No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised.” Romans 4:20-21

Recently there have been two house fires in Philmont which totally devastated the buildings, leaving a black charred mess of previously wonderful homes. How fast and  completely devastating fire can be! Historically, in another fire in 1977, High Rock Millsone, the last of 6 textile mills still in operation in Philmont, burned to the ground taking with it from the heart of the village all the buildings across the road, in fact if there had not been about four inches of snow laying on the roofs of surrounding buildings that January night a lot more of the village would have burned in that traumatic blaze. Many people lost their jobs and the mills were never rebuilt. Along with the economic loss and social changes there was a  spiritual trauma that still endures in a poverty spirit set deep in the heart of the village.  There are a lot of people doing good things here but there is a spiritual brokenness which only God can heal and that is what we as Christians in the community are called to. The call to build an ‘ark’ in Philmont is what we are praying for God’s guidance to answer. A place of prayer and furnace of God’s presence,

We also recognize that the picture I described for Philmont is appropriate for many small towns in our area and indeed in England. There is such a need for spiritual revival in so many communities and this not something which social programs can fix. It has to be a work of God. Unfortunately in our brokenness the tendency is to look everywhere, except towards God.  So the call is even more important that as Christians we do represent a living and powerful God in our walk in the community. That we do pray for healing whenever we see some one who is not well. That we do talk about Jesus Christ and who He is in our lives.

There can be no doubt the church is in a period of shaking. Thank goodness, it has to change to do God’s work.  So we are calling out to God daily, what are you doing today and what am I to do with you, Lord?

Right now we are praying for God’s direction about our next mission trip to the UK, particularly in terms of the timing, what God is doing there and what he has for us to do there. Please keep us in prayer that we may hear clearly God’s plan for us in the UK.

Looking forward to the autumn and as part of our call to build up active Christians in this area we are committed to running a Global Awakening Satellite School of Supernatural Ministry. We are in the process of exploration with different churches for interest and  where God wants it to be located. Along with the satellite GSSM school we are encouraging people from our area to join one of the Randy Clark mission trips to Brazil, a life changing and equipping experience. The GSSM school, which we are both graduates from,  takes all the students to Brazil early in the first semester so they can see how God works in a nation in revival. To see God healing as you pray for people changes not only the life of the people getting healed but also your own understanding of how powerful God is.

In the mean time we are praying for God to bless this ministry with financial partners who want to share in the spiritual blessings of those who send God’s ministers to do His work.  We recognize that the missions will be more fruitful when they represent a large body of committed Christians who are praying for and sending us to bring the Gospel to spiritually troubled areas. We truly thank those of you who have already partnered with this ministry and for all your prayers.

“And it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Hello Family and Friends!

Do you ever have times when it’s been hard to understand what God has been doing in your life?  I’ve certainly been challenged to understand why God asked us to give up our house and go to England, then come back again to the same house we gave up!But everything is completely different now.  It’s the same house, but completely different!  Same friends, but completely different!  And the difference is made crystal clear by Galatians 2:20, which is a gateway to a whole new life!  Now it doesn’t matter where I live, as long as Jesus is in me, and I in Him.

So, now we are praying with old friends in a new way.  We are different and they are different.  They have been traveling along the same path while we were away and we have so much more to share and plan about now.  We are so grateful for partnerships – people who are committed to what God is doing in us, sharing the rewards and the difficulties together.  You are part of what we are doing, and we want to partner with you in prayer for what God is doing in your lives too!

I’ve been practicing my portrait drawing every day.  We visited the Met in NYC last week and saw the Renaissance Portrait exhibition with our son in law Tore.

Really inspiring! Some of my recent drawings are above.

This week we are calling a gathering of people for healing prayer and worship which we expect will become a regular bi weekly event. It is the first tangible step in God calling us to ‘build an ark in Philmont’, but there have been many God appointments and developing relationships building up to  it. God is doing a work here. He is gathering people into this region, there is a shaking happening in the churches and people are looking for a well of the Holy Spirit. Many ministers are needing a place to be restored themselves. There are pockets of fires burning for Christ which are isolated and need to come together to create a critical mass. The distance between these house churches, prayer groups and bible studies is a critical factor, people have to drive an hour or more at least when gathering. But God! But God is doing a work here.

When Heidi Baker prayed over us at our ordination she was declaring, ‘Go low and Go slow’. We have been under so many attacks that we know God is working here. The very fact we have the same house except it has a new purpose and mission could only be orchestrated by God. This last month I have gone over in my heart all that we have gone through to move to England and then back here again and calling out to God about it, so God gave me a word; ‘Its not your job to worry about what you achieved in England, Michael, but it is your job to SEED IN FAITH.’  As we hear now what is happening in Bristol, it is so exciting to see how God is working there now. I am sure as the churches start to work together in Bristol there will finally be a critical flow of the Holy Spirit for revival in England. We hope to be going back to England at the end of April to help with what God is doing there with a call for action before Pentecost.

Meanwhile God is working here and we are excited to see how people are coming together. We know we are called to seed in faith and let God do the watering. Please keep all this in your prayers as we continue to walk with God and see His presence here in Philmont.

We hope you’ve been able to share God’s joy this Christmas season with loved ones.  We’ve been so happy to be with all three of our children and their loved ones.  Our baby grandaughter is growing so fast – I’m so glad I get to see her in all these cute stages.  So far she still has red gold hair and loves being with people.

It seems that God is now showing us clearly what He is asking us to do and we are excited and happy to share that with all of you who have been giving us so much support all along!  Here’s what we know so far:

•  We will be starting to host Praise and Worship Sunday afternoons at our house in Philmont,
• Michael will be leading two Bible studies – one in the Library in Philmont Sunday evenings, and one Monday night at St. Michael’s Church in Colonie.
• I will continue teaching iconography in Cohoes and start building up a drawing class here in Philmont.
• We will be looking to start a GSSM (Global Awakening) satellite school of ministry in September and encourage people to go on the mission trip to Brazil with Randy Clark in October.
• Return to the UK in April for a short term mission

All of this is exciting and will involve quite a few of our good friends too.  God is filling us with a hope for the future, and we hope you catch it from us! Somehow, I know He is up to something really good and we are encouraged daily by the news we hear from the UK.

Moving back to our old house has come with a string of issues but we are really grateful to be here and just yesterday received the whole of the space back. Looking back as to what God has done in our lives in the last two years is quite extraordinary, moving us and everything we owned to England and then hauling it all back again. We will be dedicating more than half the house for God’s purposes which would not have been in our thoughts before we left. God has rearranged our thinking in many areas.

We really believe that 2012 is going to be a breakthrough year for revival in our region here in New York and in England. There has been a tangible shift in the heavenlies. There is an excitement that God is on the move. We believe that this shift will continue to become more apparent and active. As we continue to listen to what God is calling us to we look back and see how God has brought us into relationships with many different people and now He is calling us to reconnect with them and mobilize. God is calling us to get on His train because it is pulling out of the station.

Please keep us in your prayers and we will keep you up to date with what God is doing, but this we do know 2012 is going to be incredible, more than we can possibly imagine. For we know that nothing will be impossible with God.

As November draws to a close, we have so much to be grateful for.  

Having Thanksgiving in Boston with our son, daughter-in-law and new grand daughter was delightful!  Being able to visit my mother who is recovering well from a broken hip and seeing her smiling, settling in back at our house, seeing old friends and making new friends.

But I wonder if you are experiencing the battles and seemingly unending difficulties that we are?  It’s almost becoming funny, that the moment we solve one huge problem and feel we can relax-BOOM!- another one hits.

And they all seek to distract us from the things that really ARE important.  Like prayer, worship, fellowship with God.  

This is our back garden – can you see the little deer?  There’s a family of them that live back there by the cross.  In a way, our succeeding in all the recent battles secures the safety of their home.   I think that is the way of intercessory prayer, too.  People willingly taking up the battle in prayer wins
peace for many others who are unaware of what it costs.      We are praying with a couple of icons these days -like this detail of Saint Anthony, the father of monasticism.

He was a great intercessor for his time and withstood many temptations and assaults from the demons. In 2 Chronicles 5:13 when Solomon completed the House of the Lord, and brought the Ark of the covenant in, it was the duty of of the trumpeters and singers to praise the Lord saying “For He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever.”  I think this is the task – no matter how awful the onslaught is, to sing praise that God is good, He is always good, and His steadfast love endures forever.  When the people praised God with those words, the Glory of the Lord came down and filled the temple.

We are the Temple and what could be  better than being filled with the Presence of the Lord?  This photo is from the blessing of the icons and the iconographers’ hands at Saint Nicholas’ Church where I teach, in Cohoes last month. It was a joy and honor to be there.

We are planning for  a January start for a house Church in our home in Philmont, a small discipleship group, and Michael will be doing some Bible teaching.  We plan to be praying and asking to see if God is calling us to start a Global Awakening satellite school of ministry in this area in September.

Back in Bristol, we are so encouraged by all the prayer efforts that are happening there. It seems that people are uniting across the denominations to pray together – outside and inside churches. Dec 1 there is a UK wide prayer on the streets which some of our friends in Bristol are participating in, and John Mulinde’s World Trumpet Mission is having a strong prayer presence too.  There are many more prayer events and we are really thrilled to hear about each one, and we pray together with each one.   Click to view slideshow.

We are also seeing a very powerful presence of the Lord in some of the prayer meetings at St. Michael’s Church in Colonie and experienced being held on the floor by His Presence. We have both started prayer walking on the streets and find it a way to hear God’s heartbeat for the village. There was recently a death in this community which has shaken the village as it happened so quickly and it has opened up opportunities for us to pray for people. It has also revealed a strong masonic presence in the village. The words keep coming to my mind as we discern what God is doing here from a prayer session in June, “Build an Ark, in Philmont. A place of my powerful presence.” So we ask for your prayers for this that we would build God’s ark here, it so desperately needs it.

I prayed for a lady in the drug store in Boston the other day for her broken wrist, she literally said before I started to pray for her, ‘I wish someone would come along and bless me and get rid of all these demons attacking me.’ God had it all planned for me to be there. We always need to remember God has so much more for us than we can possibly imagine and when it seems to be so dark we need to hold on to God with all our heart, for He is really all there is and His love endures forever.

We hope you have a Happy Christmas with the true blessings of the good news of the birth of Jesus Christ our savior, born so humbly yet full of so much power in each of our lives today.

PS  We REALLY want and need your prayers!!! It makes a huge difference!!  And we will continue to pray for you too!           Love,            Christine and Michael.

What strange weather! Two weeks ago it was hot and sunny here in Philmont, New York, and this weekend we had a snow storm – 15 inches. Although many areas around us lost power, we didn’t, so were able to keep heated through the night, praise God!

Michael and I prayerwalked through the snow to the Main St. Pub for their special Sat night gourmet Indian food. It was snowing heavily but we weren’t the only ones there!  We prayed all the way there and back that our neighborhood would not lose power. Our prayers were heard, Praise God!

“Be strong, be courageous, and keep the charge of the Lord your God, walking in His ways and keeping His statutes, His commandments, His ordinances, and His testimonies as it is written in the law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn”.” 1Kings 2:2-3

This is a Word I received during this move from Bristol to New York.  God blessed us with good helpers and our shipment clearing customs.

We have been so blessed with our Ordination at the Voice of the apostles Conference, too.  We connected to old friends, met for prayer with a pastor who will be our mentor during this new stage of our ministry, and received inspiration for possibly starting a Global Awakening satellite school in this area with an emphasis on media and the arts.

It has been quite exciting and challenging moving across nations, coming back to our home which we had given to the Lord when we set out on our mission to the UK.  God showed me that our house was like Abraham and Isaac.  We honestly gave it up to Him and He restored it back to us!  I am glad we did it, because I am happy to give God everything in total trust that His best for me will always be His plan for me.

We continue to meet with friends and colleagues in ministry here, and seek God’s guidance as to how and when to participate.  Hopefully next month will see more news about that – after I catch my breath (and unpack).

Moving back has brought us full circle and looking again at what God is doing in this area we see a lot of things in transition. One of the denominations which we have a history with here seems to have been really undermined by the enemy and under attack. This area has had a heavy cloud over it for a long time and many people have burned out trying to open up God’s kingdom here. As we take stock that would be the outward appearance but we also feel a great hope that there is a big change coming. There are many people working really hard within the community to build it up but few of them are walking with the Lord.

I have resumed my prayer walking here with declarations over this village and nation. Somehow there is a sense that what we are doing here although very local will also have a relationship with Revival back in England. The word we received from God when seeking whether to return to America was to set course for both America and for England. God does things in ways we do not understand but I am sure that there will be a cross over, a bridge, a connection that will build both nations up.

Thank you for your prayers, and you are in ours.

Much love,

Michael and Christine