Ministry Ten Year Anniversary Reflections
If you stumbled on this page out a rash of boredom and Internet surfing while waiting for your car to be detailed at the car wash let me fill you in on what M16 Ministries is all about. Rather than click-bait you and make you wait till the end I'll just jump right in - spoiler alert. M16 Ministries is a pioneering ministry in dark spiritual warfare. What does that mean, Reverend Mike? It means the Holy Spirit has raised up a ministry to deal with dark threats and spiritual entanglements beyond the capabilities and resources of the neighborhood church. The term pioneering means there are not a lot of ministries doing this, only a few well-networked (national and international) ministries, and there is no documentation. We learn from the Holy Spirit and deep prayer. We are not a deliverance ministry or an exorcism ministry, but we do all the above. The ministry provides pastoral care for spiritually inflicted and traumatized souls that have been subjugated to supernatural forms of mind-control from dark societies and the occult.
How did I get into all of this? Was it a calling? No! I was drafted! In 2005, I was peacefully minding my own business in the front row pews of the frozen chosen at church. I was a good Christian, I did all the right things. I dedicated my time to Children's ministries, worked the soundboard, in service, when I could and so forth. I was doing all the right things! Except for having a relationship with Jesus! I was forty-something (maybe 47), and I was attending church for the fire insurance policy. Which translates to, Jesus your real, but I just don't want to wake up in hell when I die.
About this time, a street ministry pastor, named Bob Johnson, came to our church to preach. I remember avoiding him because there was nowhere in my spiritual life where I would ever work with the homeless. So that day I skipped out and went to work in children's ministries. This was about the time too, when my spiritual gift of discernment was starting to quicken inside of me. I always had this from childhood. But it was activating or something at this point in my life. Why? All I can figure is that the Holy Spirit got tired of waiting around for me and lit a fire under my butt. I didn't even have a ministry yet, and the Holy Spirit got working. He sent me to see one individual who was having some problems. It wasn't my forte but for some reason, I think my wife nudged me to go see this individual. At this time I was attending a church with a Holy Spirit identity crisis. Which means they allowed the Holy Spirit in but didn't reflect on any of the gifts. So I didn't know anything about deliverance, other than it was a Burt Reynold's movie, nor did I know anything about hearing from God. So God sent Ballum's donkey out to minister to this man. I always thought my seeing spirits was a form dimentia that I was fighting off. I have a degree in Computational Physics, and this sort of stuff doesn't line up with my training. Also, I had fears of it truly being dimentia, and if I didn't fight it and gain control it would take control of my mind, and my wife would be left with a husband she had to spoon feed baby food too because he completely lost his mind. When I ministered to this individual, I saw a shadow manifest and speak to this person. This person immediately confirmed that I saw the spirit. My whole reality came crashing down in that moment. It wasn't dimentia it was a spiritual gift that I have had all my life. Now I am more freaked out than this individual. This is a life changing moment in my life! I went to my pastor, whom I exasperated with questions he couldn't answer. I was irritated with him. Now looking back I have a different perspective. I shouldn't have been irritated. Later the Holy Spirit explained to me that he needed two kinds of pastors, shepherds, and sheepdogs for the flock. The Holy Spirit wanted me to be a sheepdog. I remember saying something prophetic to my pastor at that time, again, not knowing what prophetic meant, that I would one day teach people on what is going on. I thought it was an odd thing to say, but it came out of my mouth and it came into fruition. Ironically, the only person at the time who could help me and mentor me, was the street ministry pastor, I dogged, Bob Johnson. The irony, gets even more ironic, several years later I took over Bob Johnson's Night Strike ministry, as he was called into another ministry area. By this time I developed a deep passion for the people on the streets who were homeless in San Francisco. But my training on the streets were complete, and several years later, I too, handed the reigns over from Night Strike to another minister. Night Strike was my training ground in ministering and dealing with the occult and the demonic in San Francisco. The Holy Spirit gave me an amazing education and led me to my next phase of ministry. High-level battles with the occult and rescuing souls. The Holy Spirit reluctantly moved me out of Night Strike. I didn't want to leave the streets at all. But you must go where the breath of the Holy Spirit leads you. I had to leave Night Strike because of the intensity of attacks I would have to deal with in my new assignment. Plus I needed to be trained once again. I caught the next wave set the Holy Spirit had for me. And this time the Holy Spirit needed me trained in counseling. Totally, didn't see this coming and had he asked me, I would have responded, "Hell no!". The Holy Spirit holding back nothing in this season aligned me with an incredible minister and their ministry. Sorry, for speaking in acronyms, we are fighting a dark war in our nation right now. This ministry I am in is not at frontlines of spiritual warfare. Frontlines of warfare ministries focus on low-level demons and giants (i.e. deliverance). This ministry I am involved in is taking hills! If you're familiar with terms of engagement, we take out the enemy at the top of the hill who is entrenched and well supplied (the ones that require fasting and prayer). The counseling part is required because of the damage to the soul from the severe trauma that incurred as a result. In a nutshell, this is a special forces ministry. I work with some amazing ministers whom I nicknamed David's Mighty Men. These are ministers that Holy Spirit has also raised up and forged for the intense battles that are brought through the ministry front door threshold.
And somewhere in all of this, I have written some books, most notable, A Field Guide to Spiritual Warfare, and An Advanced Field Guide to Spiritual Warfare. With that brief, lengthy intro, out of the way, let's tackle some lessons learned over the 10 years of operation as a 501c3.
Lesson One - Patience is a Fruit of the Spirit
I am going to come out of the box and make some harsh comments, but they're valuable observations ministers are thinking, and talking about, but not sharing publicly. The first one is if you're drafted into spiritual warfare, by that I mean, you're operating in it, and you were tossed into it, then don't waste your time with schools of (supernatural) ministry or deliverance ministry certification. I know a lot of people have told me they have pursued this over the years. And I have yet to see any good fruit come of these training, but rarely do these students stand the test of time. If God really wants you in this ministry, then He will raise you up. If you are feeling deep tugs in the spirit to do ministry, pray into that and ask Jesus what He wants you to do. Rule #1 is chasing Jesus and learning to be patient with His timing. Dark occult battles require extreme patience. Can you work with an individual over a course of years for them to heal from what the occult did to their minds? Can you endure the witchcraft being cast at you? Do you have the supernatural covering the Holy Spirit provides you to protect you from the bombardment from the occult? Is your mind and soul in a place to endure these lengthy attacks? The Holy Spirit will immediately teach you and stretch into the patience of His timing, warfare, and healing. We do nothing but pray! Jesus fights the high-level battles for us. You must be at peace and in His patience. Can you hear God and feel His plan and timing? Fools rush into warfare. Your finances and resources will be crushed during high-level battles. Do you have the inner peace -and Joy! to endure battles that are magnitudes of months to years? Do you know what it means that a ministry like this will cost you everything? At the end of the darkest battle, it will be only you and Jesus standing. I have had relationships destroyed. My friends were all Christians, guess where the enemy went to attack? My home church was the first target when I got into this ministry. The Holy Spirit moved me out and gave me a covering. The church wasn't in a position to deal with the level of warfare. During these attacks, God will allow you to be sifted as he did with Peter. This is painful and extremely, heartbreaking, but it is the process through which the Holy Spirit raises up a special forces minister. During this time you will learn the virtue and fruit of His patience and timing. You may even give up in the fight, and the Holy Spirit revitalizes you back into His peace and patience to finish the battle.
I have had so many ministers come to me and not understand this key point. They either think they're cursed or are cursed financially because they didn't understand this virtue of patience. If you are in a spiritual warfare ministry, the enemy is going to go after your supply chain - finances! Duh! If you don't like the heat get out of the kitchen! Secondly, by not consulting with the Holy Spirit and being patient, these ministers step out of their covering (some I am not even sure if they had one, to begin with) and revile angelic majesties. They're cursed by their own spiritual warfare prayers.
My recommendation, never get into a fight the Holy Spirit didn't bring to your doorstep. If you're searching for battles, it probably isn't covered under the Holy Spirit and he'll let them jump you as a lesson. You only go where the Holy Spirit goes or brings you. If you're in a long slump of no battles. Ask him what you need to work on about yourself during this time. He could just be giving you a break. Be patient! Jeremiah 29:11! And never get ahead of anyone's healing!!!! Patience!
Lesson Two - It's Not About Growth, It's About the Soul in Front of You
The sad mentality of this age is that you have to build a ministry. It has to grow. Let me free you of this mindset. I got caught up in this early on because it was what my mentors were doing. This is a human mindset and I refer to it as pushing your large boulder up a hill. You won't get anywhere and you will become frustrated and want to quit. I have known many successful ministers who were speaking to large congregations and then flat-lining it for months or years thinking God forsake them or they needed deliverance from God being angry at them. This is a common thread with students of supernatural ministry schools. God launched them, but then they find themselves in the wilderness and lost. Many times I see the situation as they were so caught up in the limelight they missed the shift in the current of the Holy Spirit to catch His next movement. So here they are treading water looking around wondering where everyone went. The next breath of the Holy Spirit may have been to work with just one soul! Not a platform! This was a hard lesson for me to learn. Especially, after publishing my first book. My publisher was poopy at promoting the book, but it took off like a California landslide anyway. Because of the book's success, I was coming home from work at night and taking Magic Jack calls (predates Skype) from all over the world. This sucked the life out of me. I was too much of a greenhorn at the time to figure out some of the calls were from the occult drones to drain me in ministry. I became weary for years. Only recently have I stopped taking Skype calls for ministry. There were several reasons, people on Skype who called for help seldom wanted help and wanted to control the conversation with you on how much they knew about themselves (then why are you calling me?), or it was an occult drone to waste your time and energy. I stopped Skypes altogether and I only work with those who the Holy Spirit sends to meet with me face to face. And even those I filter through the Holy Spirit before agreeing to a meeting.
Ministry is all about the one soul in front of you! It's not about media product, or training, or holding conferences. Too many ministries are branding themselves now and are serving a consumer market niche rather than addressing the deep brokenness of the soul. Ministry is about humility and saying yes to Jesus, "send me", then it is about notoriety. If Jesus doesn't send you to Brazil to be a missionary, then perhaps He needs you right where you're at? That's right, in your living room and ministering one on one. Don't thumb your nose up at the priceless treasure He sends to you. In my ministry I know I will never be a speaker in a stadium or have a large audience. I am part of an underground church - here in America! We have to stay covert for what we do. I do missions trips, and I love them. But I feel in the spirit my slate may be clean of mission trips outside the U.S. for the next couple of years. Unless the Holy Spirit SENDS me. Right now, I am to work in my town with the souls He sends me to work with. Go where the spirit sends you. Tap into His pulse, and seek what the Father's will is. He responds to us in subtleness. You have to be patient and learn to live without a roadmap but rely on His provision and direction. There will be no influx of funds. Go back and re-read that. God will allow you to operate of the resources He provides you. I am working full-time in ministry now. I make my income from Christian counseling. I live paycheck to paycheck and get ridiculed by snarky people on why I charge for counseling. It's because God provided me with a ministry and an office space to share with other ministers and we have costs of operations (rent, power, internet, health insurance). Money comes from where? God provided us with an income through counseling. Provision. As a minister, you may have to work fulltime for a while. Up until 2017, I was working 60 hours per week in IT and doing 16-20 hours per week counseling. My minister compadres, over a season of YEARS, prayed me in full time. It's a blessing and a struggle. But I get to work fulltime in the healing ministry.
Lesson Three - It's All About Your Prayer Life
I am so done working with false prophetic ministers. I have people who come in and tell me and the other ministers I work with on how to run things because they have a 'special' connection to God that we don't have. When I work with these individuals I discover that they can't even hear God for themselves. It's called a Jezebel Spirit, and I have a pretty good insite from the occult perspective now of what Revelation 2:20 means. As for the ministers I partner with, David's Mighty Men, they can HEAR from God! We meet regularly and have deep prayer sessions and simultaneously receive what God wants to share. The occult JZ spirit as I have witnessed it doesn't look like what deliverance ministers think. It is actually a respected individual by the body of Christ and because they are so enamored by the false gift they get sucked into it. Many times you won't see the JZ spirit until it has destroyed. It takes a team deep in prayer to steer through this abomination. And it seems to be sprouting everywhere on the prophetic side of the fence. But enough of this for now. This could easily expand into a book. To counter this you need a prayer life that is deeply rooted in truly hearing God.
Again this was about prayer. So I need to address the issues with deliverance ministry now where the church relies on formulated prayer methodology to expel demons. This fast food drive-thru faction on deliverance is horrible. When I work with souls coming out of this seeking further ministry I discover a horrible condition. Most of these souls have a paper thin spirituality inside of themselves. Many have thoughts convoluted with New Age practices.
Did the person dabble in something they shouldn't have? Is this situation demonic? A number of deliverance issues are not demonic, but behavioral issues! Be the skeptic! Demonic oppression should always be the last choice. Sometimes the answer is not so easy, it is both behavioral and demonic. The toughest discernment the modern deliverance minister can't seem to make is when the problem is purely behavioral (porn addiction, greed, self-centered, immaturity, dissociation, and so forth). Many of these are representative of a weak prayer life or lack thereof. Why did I couple dissociation into this? Many dissociated abuse survivors want the problem to be demonic so it can supernaturally be prayed away. Dissociation is not a deliverance condition, but falls under the charter of inner healing ministry. Those with dissociation who develop a deep prayer life see results in their inner healing.
A common thread is people seeking deliverance ministry and not seeking prayer. I believe some churches have become so controlling and doctrinal, not deliberately, but got sucked down the road of deception. These churches are NOT teaching people how to pray for themselves. Some of these people were supposedly 'saved' by just having the soul recite the Jesus prayer. Which is great and all, but their heart and soul never repented from their sin. They were never taught how to pray or dig deeper in reflection for the sanctification of their soul. They were spoon fed their salvation so the pastor could collect his weekly statistics for the denomination home office. Pat them on the back, 3 souls saved last Sunday!
A saved new soul needs a mentor!!! Discipleship.
I work with many new saved souls in my counseling where their home church wants to heart synch, sozo, or do deliverance on them. And the key issue is these newly saved souls don't even know how to pray and they're weak in their spiritual walk. A lot of people I have worked with over time would not have needed a deliverance minister at all if their church taught them the aspects of deeper prayer. Sadly, many times, the pastor doesn't know much about this either, and their life at home is a dysfunctional mess. So what do they do, they reach for the most popular book on prayer at Amazon to preach from. Pastors need mentoring too. Some need spiritual directors. I have some seasoned pastor godly men on my speed dial for consultation. But as for narcissism at the pulpit, these shepherds rarely want to reach out for consultation from spiritual peers and leaders.
If you are stuck in one of these situations I recommend start researching contemplative prayer. Every Christian needs a deep prayer life, where they can hear His voice! Is your prayer life deep enough that if you were shipwrecked on an island for several years, and rescued, that you would be deeper in love with Jesus than before being a castaway? Or would you detached from Jesus and angry because you were marooned?
Are you angry at Jesus for what happened to you because of the abuse you endured in your life (marooned)? I have a deep prayer life, and I go through the poop-storm on a daily basis that is relentless and won't let up. I don't feel cursed. I don't have demonic activity at my house. My house is a nice spiritual oasis. It's because of my deep prayer life with Jesus that I can stand before some very dark stuff. This deep contemplative prayer life was completely non-existent back in 2006. My church never taught me how to pray. It was an extracurricular activity I had to implement. Glad I did, I would not have survived what darkness was capable of throwing my way. If you are going to minister in spiritual warfare, throw away all your books on and workbooks and class notes on deliverance. Right now! Go do it. Set yourself free! Go find some books on contemplative prayer. I recommend Into the Deep, by Dan Burke, as a starting place. This is a huge step. Elijah, when dealing with Jezebel and her prophets, didn't have a deliverance library, nor did the disciples in Mark 9. This is just lessons learned folks! Jesus inside you triumphs through his mystery, not because you own a book that calls out all the names of the demons in the OT and NT! By the way, prayer life is a relationship with Jesus, which means it takes years to mature. So don't be in a rush. Focus more on Jesus and his Gospels and less on Bob Larson books.
Lesson Four - On Deliverance Ministry
Back in 2007 when I embarked on deliverance ministry beginnings I was always criticized by ministers for being someone who wanted to cast a demon out of every tree I walked by. Fast forward 2019, now we have churches with deliverance ministries that are planting the trees for the demons to be cast out of. These new forests are seeded in the false and controlling religious doctrine of man's deliverance ministry. If you're in a church with a lead deliverance minister, back in 2006, I would have thought this was a good thing. Now my advice is to flee!!! Most churches I have encountered with this are narcissistic both from the pulpit and in ministry. The people in these congregations rarely get set free and need further deliverance. In fact, the bondage itself is from the legalistic deliverance ministry. If your church deliverance team has many books and many workbooks on deliverance, then they missed the boat in what Jesus wanted the church's role to be in this ministry. You only need one book for this ministry. If it ain't in there consult the Holy Spirit. This is one of the primary reasons I no longer associate M16 Ministries as deliverance ministry because the current state of deliverance in the church isn't Biblical. Do you want an education on real deliverance ministry? Go read about the return of the seventy disciples in Luke10! It's all about humility - not pride and notoriety. I am not a deliverance minister. I am a servant of the God Most High, the Lord Jesus Christ! You want to minister in the supernatural? Then be a Luke 10 minister!
Lesson Five - Learning to Live with a Spiritual Gift of Discernment and Being a Seer
This is probably another topic I could expand upon in a book. But I'll speak briefly here. In my line of work, on occasion, God gives the grace of seeing the invisible spiritual realm. I know I have been knocked by other Christians about this. "Oh, great, he see's spirits. I've heard enough.", you know the very discrediting stuff. If you're a seer you're going to get crap from other people who don't understand. I am not about notoriety, and I really don't like sharing about this. Because I really don't know what to do with this. Even to me, it is weird. I have David's Mighty Men I share with, and it doesn't go outside of that really. The level of discernment has grown deeper and I don't understand it myself, but I share it with my minister confidants. Mainly because it was too much for me to understand or experience. My advice if God graces you on occasion to see things is to just ask the Holy Spirit what is going on and if He wants you to see what you're seeing. If you see manifestations that doesn't make you a psychic or a clairvoyant. This grace is a gift of spiritual discernment from God. Where God allows you to see things. I don't always see things. Now it's so natural to me it doesn't phase me when it happens. But then again it I see things less now because of my hearing through prayer. Some of the mental (conversational) prayer I have with Jesus I can get a better picture of what is going on rather than having to see it as a manifestation.
What I do want to address is the "fake it till you make it" spiritual seers running rampant in charismatic deliverance ministries. The ones who run up to you and say they see a snake wrapped around your waste, genitals, or spine. Not that people don't truly see it, its the fakers I am shaking a finger at. If you don't see anything, then please -"SHUT UP!". You don't have to see anything for God to use you in spiritual warfare. I went through a season of training with the Holy Spirit around 2008, where my discernment was shut down for this very reason. The Holy Spirit wanted to show me the gift of discernment was a nice to have, but not necessary to kick out spirits. So if you're "faking it till you make it", God will never release this grace to you while operating under this deception for your own pride.
Second, as a minister, this stuff really messes people up. You don't go home with the person who has a fractured soul, not a demon, and you just freaked them out. It takes one or more counseling sessions to undo the false sign. No, my friend, God will not release the gift to you. Clean up your act, or get out of deliverance. Depart from me, I never knew you...
If you're a minister, do not base your ministry on your gift of the Holy Spirit. Base your ministry on who you are in Christ and be open to where He sends you. There is also a degree of spiritual maturity with this level of discernment. Darkness will always try to lure you to haunted sites. Stay away from this at all costs. You are not a paranormal investigator. Stay away from anything paranormal. Paranormal investigation is an abomination to God. If I go to a house blessing, I do so only under being released by the Holy Spirit to perform the cleansing. Being released for battle is how you enter a defiled site and get no spiritual attachments after you leave the site. The authority of Jesus Christ in these matters is absolute. When I ministered in the streets of San Francisco I could clearly feel the homes which had demonic infestation. But, it is what is. I don't enter or approach a defiled site unless summoned by the owner who truly wants the spirit evicted. This gift requires obedience to Jesus. The desire to visit a haunting can be seductive to the human soul, but read it for what it is a deception by the enemy to load you up with demons. The conviction of the Holy Spirit is strong inside me when this taunting emerges. Strength comes through obedience, the one who gave you the gift.
Hope some of this information was useful. I just thought I would brain dump. A lot of this came out of my reminiscing today when I realized the 501c3 was now 10 years old. Wow. And the adventures we have been on. Too numerous to blog in one entry. God Bless my friends and be blessed!
Rev. Mike
Comments
Post a Comment