“TIME TO MOVE FORWARD”
Charismatic Movement – Leadership Training June 27–by Peter and Marg Kingsland
Prayer group leaders from all parts of the Vancouver Diocese gathered at St Matthews Parish on Saturday June 27 for a Leadership Training Session. Vernon Robertson, ARC Committee Chairperson and a gifted and inspirational speaker encouraged us to action.
“It is time to move forward. If we continue to do the same things we can only expect the same results”, he remarked.
At the 9 A.M. Mass, we heard in the readings how God had special plans for Abraham and Sarah when they were in their senior years. Vernon referred to this and challenged the older members: “Don’t use the fact that you are old or tired as an excuse for not moving ahead”. “If God calls you to do something he will give you the means (including the energy) to carry it out. “Many of us are getting old and tired,” he added, “but God often saves the best until the last,”
A highlight of the morning was adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, led by Father Obiwumma.
Later, Lennie David responded to questions about Life in the Spirit Seminars. Two key questions that came out were how can we reach the next generation and how can we make people feel more welcome. When asked why so many people take a seminar and then never return Lennie said that we need to trust the Lord regarding where they go from there. We cannot judge how the people have been affected or how they apply the experience in their lives.
Roy McIntyre reminded us that each prayer meeting belongs to Jesus. Referring to Col 3: 16-17, which provides scriptural guidelines for our prayer meetings he said that each meeting needs to be a place where everyone experiences God’s love in a personal way. Love is at the heart of our charism within the Charismatic Movement.
Vernon explained the School of Healing Prayer developed by Francis and Judith McNutt. This program teaches us how to pray and minister effectively to hurting people and bring about physical, emotional and spiritual healing as well as recognizing and dealing with deliverance from evil spirits when necessary. He reminded us of our call to evangelize and pointed out that the healing prayers serve as a great tool for evangelizing.
Vernon is well qualified in this area, having developed the Catholic Evangelization Training program in the 90’s and later the Catholic Alpha program in the Vancouver Diocese. He emphasized the need to have a specific focus for all of our prayers and to back up prayers with fasting. We need to be proactive in reaching people. If we passively wait for them to come to us there will be no growth. He advised us to focus our prayers in specific areas and to be constantly aware of what we are praying for. He demonstrated his words with his own example as he led us in prayer throughout the meeting.
The ARC Committee has organized a 40 day period of fasting for the Charismatic Movement Annual Conference coming September 25 and 26. A sign up board was presented and each prayer group was invited to select a specific day each week during the 40 day period when members would offer prayers and some sort of fasting (not necessarily food).
Quoting Joel 2:12 Vernon told us that we are called to a deeper personal relationship with the Lord through repentance and surrendering our hearts to God.
“We can rise above the obstacles. The trickle can become a stream. It is time to move forward”.
