The next assignment...

Our prayers regarding Barney Creek continued. As we sought God’s direction, I was drawn to 2 Kings 2:19-22 (KJV – King James Version) “19 And the men of the city said unto Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth: but the water is naught, and the ground barren. 20 And he said, Bring me a new cruse, and put salt therein. And they brought it to him. 21 And he went forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast the salt in there, and said, Thus saith the LORD, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any more death or barren land. 22 So the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spake.”

The Scripture reminded me of what had happened spiritually in the Coker Creek area surrounding Barney Creek. The pentecostal churches in that area seemed to struggle with attendance. It almost seemed as if the spiritual climate there was on a roller coaster with no stability. Nothing appears to really be flourishing. I continued to feel that what God did there over a hundred years ago was what He wanted to remain there – the power and presence of Holy Spirit in dynamic fashion! And it just wasn’t there!

I felt that we needed to go to Barney Creek and prophetically pour salt into the waters asking God to heal the waters which have been polluted with our attitudes and actions of the past which have stopped up the well of salvation and the flowing of the revival stream from which came the Church of God. We set Thursday, April 14^th to do this.

Meanwhile, we continued to wait on God’s timing for connecting with Doug Small. Patiently, we waited. The April conference at the North Cleveland Church of God was quickly approaching. I could hardly wait for the opportunity. I knew that God was up to something and that it would be a good thing!

A deluge of Glory...

The ladies from the Piney Grove Community Church (where we’ve been meeting to pray) planned a special day for Saturday, March 12, 2011. They invited Mary Bolton, Tennessee State Prayer Coordinator for Aglow International to be their guest speaker. She brought a beautiful encouraging word about Enoch’s pursuit of walking with God. At the end of the service she gave the following word from the Lord:

Word for Barney Creek

A DELUGE OF GLORY

March 12, 2011

“In those days of the Barney Creek Meeting House, there was a remnant who sought after me with all their hearts, soul, mind and strength. They only wanted more of Me. I honored their deep longings and desire to be filled afresh with My Spirit! I poured out My Spirit upon them and upon the land! I hear the cries of those today that want more of Me. I hear the cries, and I am responding. My Spirit is hovering over you even now. My Spirit longs to fulfill the longings of your hearts. I am opening up the windows of heaven, and I am pouring forth an abundance of the rain of My Holy Spirit. I am pouring forth a deluge of My rain, a deluge of My presence and a deluge of My Glory! Receive My abundant outpouring upon you and a fresh outpouring upon the land. Get ready to move by My Spirit. Lift up your hands, lift up your faces, lift up your hearts and receive the abundance, the deluge of my rain that is coming forth upon you. Even as you have seen some physical flooding lately, you will see the spiritual flood of My Spirit. Get ready for the torrents of spiritual water that I will pour out upon you. Receive My glory and shine forth My Glory! Go forth bathed, surrounded and immersed in My glory! I’m sending you forth with arms outstretched to receive the masses!”

Given Through Mary R. Bolton

Ladies Day – 3/12/11

Piney Grove Community Church

We stand in agreement! Yes, Lord, do it! Do it again! Send Barney Creek Second Edition! Send the deluge of Your Glory!!!

Reflection of times of prayer...

I was reviewing my notes from the January 17^th prayer time in the Barney Creek area which I had written about in a previous post – “From point A to point B.”

During my time of prayer, God had also reminded me that time actually meant nothing to Him, because the past, the present and the future are all the same to Him. As He was speaking this, He was also showing me a scene from the future (it was so fast that I couldn't tell what it was – I just knew it was the future) and the next thing was a scene from the past (again it was so fast, I couldn't tell what it was) and then right back to the present. It was all happening so fast that I almost felt that I could not tell which time was real or where I was – in the past, in the present or in the future!

I don't have words to adequately tell what was happening. The time frames seemed to be one upon top of the other and all happening at the same time. God was surely reminding us that He is in and is in control of all elements of time. There is no difference to Him. So to accelerate us to the place we should be (without the detours and distractions) is not impossible for Him.

During another time of personal prayer regarding Barney Creek Second Edition, I began to see a safe deposit box opening on its own. I saw no keys or hands. I had never seen anything like this before. The box was removed, opened and then held for me to look into. I saw a sextant, a tripod, and survey equipment. I knew the tripod was used to hold the instruments and that the survey equipment represented setting borders and boundaries.

But I couldn't understand about the sextant since it is used mostly for a ship's navigation. When I looked up its meaning, I found this information:

A sextant is an astronomical instrument used to determine latitude and longitude at sea by measuring angular distances, especially the altitudes of sun, moon, and stars.

In the Science Dictionary it defines a sextant as: “An instrument containing a graduated 60° arc and a movable pivoted arm corresponding to the radius of the arc's circle, used in celestial navigation  to measure the altitude of a celestial body in order to determine the observer's latitude and longitude. A horizontally mounted telescope and two small mirrors are arranged so that the observer can, by moving the pivoted arm, sight the horizon and the reflected image of the celestial body in the same line, giving a reading along the arc that is used to look up the observer's position in a published table.”

When I considered the scientific meaning, I felt that perhaps we were spiritually using it to align with the heavens from a specific latitude and longitude. Later as I continued to seek God about this, He said that "He" was using it to specifically target His blessings. As I continued to ponder the point of view God was showing me, I realized that it was God's safe deposit box that had been opened and those were His items. He was using them to target His plans. WOW! No wonder there were no keys or hands seen as the box opened! It was amazing.

Oh that we could see the fully revealed plans of God for this later day outpouring of Holy Spirit!

With the heart of an intercessor...

The 2011 Tennessee State Prayer Conference was held the end of January at New Hope Church of God in Sevierville. I was unable to attend but I watched it online from home. Our evening speaker was Bishop P. Douglas Small, President and Founder of Alive Ministries: Project Pray. He also serves as the International Liaison for Prayer Ministries out of the office of the General Overseer of the Church of God.

I must admit that over the years, I have heard some wonderful sermons on prayer which have informed, stirred, blessed and encouraged me, but this was the first time I had heard a Church of God minister preach about prayer who had the true heart of an intercessor! There was something about his ministry that connected with the cry of my spirit.

My brother is Bishop Raymond Hodge, State Administrator Coordinator at the Tennessee Church of God State Office. I told him after the Prayer Conference that I would love to let Brother Small know that there was a group of women praying at Barney Creek and everything that had happened thus far. He said that I should let him know because he was interested in things like that.

I began to ponder how to let him know. I felt that after a conference, he would probably be inundated with emails and I wanted this to be done in God’s timing. So I began to pray for God’s direction about it.

The following Sunday afternoon, I thought of something that I need to tell my brother. I waited a while after church to call, hoping to give him time to finish lunch. When I called, I could tell by the background noise that he was still in a restaurant. I hurriedly told him what I needed and was ready to hang up, when he told me that he was having lunch with Brother Small and that in the course of conversation the topic of Barney Creek came up. He continued to tell him about our prayer group and what we felt God was doing. He said that Brother Small said he’d like to talk with us about it.

This again excited my spirit! Now I just had to wait on God’s timing. I sometimes jokingly say that if I could give God a gift, I would give Him a watch because from my perspective, He can’t tell time! It often appears that He procrastinates and puts off answering our prayers until the very last possible minute! But I know that He answers in His timing and it is always perfect.

I was scheduled to speak at a retreat April 8-10, 2011, the same weekend that Brother Small was going to be in a conference in Cleveland, TN, about an hour from my home. A part of me wanted to say that I couldn’t be at the retreat because my spirit longed to be able to go the conference in Cleveland. But I told the Lord that I would be a woman of my word and continue to prepare for the retreat and trust Him for directing my timing for sharing this with Brother Small.

We were praying, planning and preparing for the retreat and also continuing to intercede for Barney Creek Second Edition. Toward the end of March, for reasons we now understand as God’s divine timing, the retreat had to be rescheduled. My appointment schedule was totally rearranged so that I could attend the conference in Cleveland.

As our prayers continued for a fresh outpouring of Holy Spirit, I began to notice something out of the ordinary happening. As I have stated in an earlier post, three days after our first prayer meeting there was an earthquake in our county. I checked the website every week or so to see if anything else had happened. I began to notice something unusual.

From October 17, 2010 until January 9, 2011, there were four small earthquakes scattered around in the east Tennessee Region. From January 10^th through March 24^th, there were six earthquakes. This is more than our normal activity, but that’s not the unusual thing. What made this unusual was “where” they were occurring. There seemed to be a pattern forming.

There was a 1.8 earthquake on Friday, February 11, 2011 in Spring City, TN which is in Rhea County. Rhea County does not touch Monroe County but Highway 68 passes through Spring City. (You also turn off Hwy 68 to go to Barney Creek.)

There was a 2.3 earthquake on Friday, February 18, 2011 in Ducktown, TN which is also on Hwy 68 in Polk County which is also adjacent to Monroe County.

There was a 1.7 earthquake on Saturday, February 19, 2011 in Athens, TN which is in McMinn County, also adjacent to Monroe County.

There was a 1.3 earthquake on Monday, March 7, 2011 Louisville, TN in Blount County, also adjacent to Monroe County.

There was a 2.3 earthquake on March 24, 2011 in Friendsville, TN in Blount County adjacent to Monroe County.

The earthquakes seemed to be occurring either along Highway 68 or in counties surrounding Monroe County. This occurrence seemed most unusual for our area…very unusual indeed.

Things were indeed happening! Now we were waiting for an opportunity to connect with Doug Small – in God’s perfect timing, of course.

From point A to point B…

I could hardly wait until our next prayer meeting. The excitement and anticipation within my spirit seemed to increase every day. Each day I would find myself saying, “Lord, I just know that You are up to something here! You have not forgotten what You did at Barney Creek! You are going to do it again! You are sending Barney Creek Second Edition!”

When we finally gathered for the next prayer meeting, we were eager to see what God was going to do next. As we were getting ready to pray our focus was again turned to the fact that God had chosen this place over 100 years ago to pour out His Holy Spirit and if He wanted it here then, He still wanted it here now! He has not changed His mind!

During our prayer, I was again drawn to a time of repentance. My prayer was something like this:

“Father, when You poured out Your precious Holy Spirit here, it became our ‘Point A’ and You desired us to be here today at ‘Point B’ in a greater measure than we are presently. We repent for allowing detours and distractions to hinder us on our journey. We have wandered around and around just like the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness. They could have arrived in the Promised Land in a much shorter amount of time, but through their attitudes and actions, they delayed their arrival and many did not even get to experience the joy of entering in.

But You, Father, are more than able to supernaturally propel us to the place we should be had we not allowed these detours and distractions to have taken place. Take us to that place, oh Lord!”

Then the prophetic word of the Lord began to come forth which stated that He was more than able to take us to that place just as if we were on a super highway with no detours, no distractions and no limits.

Once again we felt within the very depths of our spirits that God was indeed taking us from point A to point B in ways that were beyond our human understanding.

Do it again, Lord!

Following the September 2010 Breaking Free Retreat for Women in Coker Creek, the burden to see a fresh outpouring of Holy Spirit began to increase. It was seldom from my thoughts and prayers. It seemed every conversation would eventually turn that direction. God began to bring other prayer warriors across my path who had the same burden.

One of my prayer partners, Bobbie Williams, was reared in that general area. Richard and R.G. Spurling had held a tent revival on her grandparents’ property in the Norwood Hills area sometime around the turn of the century. From that revival, seven churches were formed. One of the churches was Piney Grove Community Church. The church was destroyed by fire a couple of times and the current structure was rebuilt in the 1940’s.

Bobbie’s grandmother, Dorcas Freeman Bowers, was the first known and verified credentialed lady minister in the Church of God. Dorcas’ brother, Andrew Freeman, is listed on the marker at the First Assembly House as an attendee of the first General Assembly of the Church of God. The minutes of the first General Assembly states the following:

“Family worship was discussed by Andrew Freeman and others. It is, therefore, the sense of this assembly that we recommend and urge that the families of all the churches engage in this very sacred and important service at least once a day and at a time most convenient to the household and that the parents should see that every child is taught, as early as possible, to reverence God and their parents by listening quietly and attentively to the reading of God’s Word and getting down on their knees during the prayer. We recommend further that the ministers and deacons of each church use their influence and make special effort to encourage every family in the church to engage in this devotional exercise every day.”

From what I have learned, throughout the years the Piney Grove Community Church has struggled with attendance. Sporadically, the doors of the church would be closed for a season and then reopened at a later time. Thus was the situation in the spring of 2010. The church was reopened and services were once again held there. Some of Bobbie’s relatives began attending services there again.

Around December 2010, the pastor of the church, Rev. Richard Freeman, offered to allow us to meet to pray in the church. We began to prepare for a day of prayer in early January 2011.

God was working individually on each who would eventually join together in prayer on Friday, January 7, 2011. One of the ladies had spent the summer of 2010 researching the history of that area of Monroe County going back to the 1500’s. She also researched church history as well.

There were 5 of us ladies who met for prayer at Piney Grove Community Church on Friday, January 7, 2011. Our opening prayer asked for God’s direction for all that we did. We invited Holy Spirit to lead us in obedience to God’s purpose for this end-time move of His Spirit. We sensed that the first thing we needed to do was to repent.

The established churches of Monroe County (Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian) did not welcome the introduction of the Christian Union into the region. The established churches banded together to put down the revival. But the greater the persecution, the more the revival grew.

To us, this had been the Body of Christ wounding the Body of Christ. As part of the Body of Christ, we each accepted responsibility for the wrong, the wounds which had been inflicted by each of the denominations and repented for them unto the Lord and to each other. We then prayed blessings over each denomination.

We also repented for those who had embraced the pentecostal movement and had developed a holier-than-thou attitude and a prideful disposition which caused others to have an unaccepting attitude toward them. We again repented to each other and prayed blessings upon the various pentecostal streams which grew from this early movement.

We also repented for failing to live up to the fullness of our covenant with God and recommitted ourselves to it. We repented for attitudes and actions which prevented the strong pentecostal presence to remain in this vicinity. We asked God to restore the things which satan had stolen, hindered, and diverted from us.

At the close of our time of prayer, we interceded for God to once again pour out a fresh flow of Holy Spirit – a Barney Creek Second Edition. One of the ladies asked God to again shake this area with His presence and as a sign to us to send an earthquake – not a strong one which that would cause harm to property or injury to persons – but would just shake this place.

The following Monday morning, January 10, 2011, there was a 2.2 earthquake Sweetwater which is located in Monroe County. Sweetwater is at the intersection of Highways 68 and 11. (Incidentally, Barney Creek is located just off Highway 68.)

The following morning, Tuesday, January 11^th, we awakened to a beautiful blanket of snow covering the ground. This reminded us of the Scripture found in Isaiah 1:18, “…though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”

Yes indeed, we sensed that God was pleased with our prayers and was going to once again send a fresh flow of Holy Spirit. Do it again, Lord! Send Barney Creek Second Edition!

In the beginning...

Before moving to Monroe County in east Tennessee in January 2006, I had visited Barney Creek, the First Assembly House and Fields of the Wood, all of which are significant to the history of the Church of God of Cleveland, Tennessee. When I had visited them the first time, I viewed them with a “so this is where it all began” attitude – like that of a tourist. But my attitude toward these places changed when I began to get to know some of the precious people in this area.

Before I go any farther, allow me to give you a brief history of the beginning of what occurred at Barney Creek.

On August 19, 1886, in a grist mill along the banks of Barney Creek in the Coker Creek area of Monroe County Tennessee, a group of nine believers joined together to form The Christian Union. Richard Spurling and his son, R.G. Spurling, operated the grist mill which was also known as the Barney Creek Meeting House.

The Spurlings had felt that there had to be more to church and the Christian life than the creeds and rituals which they were experiencing in the churches they attended. They felt that the church should be founded upon the law of love which the Scriptures taught and that the New Testament contained everything that was needed for guidance for the church and Christian living.

During their time of searching the Word of God and hours upon hours of prayer, they experienced the grace work of sanctification and an in-filling of Holy Spirit as recorded in the book of Acts. The young church experienced much persecution but through it all they remained strong in their faith and commitment to the Lord.

Additional information can be found at the Church of God International Offices’ website, http://churchofgod.org/a-brief-history-of-the-church-of-god.

The Christian Union eventually became known as the Church of God has continued to grow and is now in virtually every country of the world and its membership exceeds six million people.

As I stated earlier, as I came to know more about this area and the people in it, my attitude changed. My heart began to be burdened and grieved because there was not the strong pentecostal presence in the area that I felt should be. Since this was the place God had chosen to pour out His Holy Spirit over a hundred years ago, I couldn’t help but feel that He still wanted the power of Holy Spirit in this area in a mighty way.

We began having Breaking Free Weekend Retreats for Women in the Coker Creek area and prior to the retreats we would spend time praying over the area. We would go to the top of Buck Bald Mountain to intercede. Buck Bald Mountain is an amazing place. There used to be a fire tower on the top of it and there are no trees at the summit of the mountain. The view forms a 360 degree panoramic vista. You can see Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia (and possibly South Carolina) from there.

During the summer of 2010, we were preparing for another retreat in late September. In August we began a 40-Day Mountain Top Prayer Journey in preparation for it. We made several trips to the top of Buck Bald Mountain to pray and proclaim the Word of God over that area and those who would be attending the retreat. We interceded for the power of Holy Spirit to again flow through this area.

On the day the retreat began, the retreat staff gathered on top of the mountain again. One of the ladies prophetically declared that there had been a paradigm shift in the atmosphere. To be honest with you, I was tired of “hearing” prophetic words about “paradigm shifts” and “new levels” and not seeing any results. But something seemed different that day. And it has been different since then!