| (Sam
Tillery)
 Each
one of us here brings something from the heart of God.
We each bring something from our various schools of
thinking and theology and expressions of worship and
we blend it all together and under the direction of
the Holy Spirit of God, there is a concert of praise
and prayer that is more complete together than it ever
could be if there were only one instrumental section.
We need one another and we are designed by God to function
together and to pray together, that is why it is so
important. City Reach Prayer is an open invitation for
the body of Christ and it’s diversity to come
together on a consistent basis. It doesn’t matter
what is happening, because as far as I have known, City
Reach Prayer has never been cancelled. We are going
to continue to come together and we are going to be
faithful. It doesn’t matter how many people come,
it is about being faithful and it is about the broader
representation of the body of Christ. We have some from
Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Sonoma, Sebastopol, Cloverdale,
etc. There is city representation and various local
church representation, so we are going to have a wonderful
time tonight as we grow in our prayer together
As we inter-mingle, we don’t
want you to stay with those that you are comfortable
with, because we want you to meet new people and share
with one another, so we encourage you to branch out
a little bit.
I am going to ask Harry Skandera to
come up now and we have been working together and represent
the Pastor’s Alliance with the county and this
has been our assignment to work together and represent
the Pastors in the county, so he is going to lead us
in this next part.
(Harry Skandera)
We were over here about a week ago
with the intercessors and we were actually praying into
this meeting. No matter what you may think things look
like, the things that God has established, God has established.
Whenever there is something that is first, you pay attention
to that.
I am going to take us through in a
little different way than we usually do. We are going
to pray together, but there are a couple of scriptures
that have been resonating in me tonight. One of them
is where Daniel has found himself in tough spot. King
Nebuchadnezzar has had a dream and all of the wisemen
can’t interpret it and so, they are having a big
problem, because Nebuchadnezzar is not a gentle man.
The King tells his Capital Guard to go ahead and kill
them, because they couldn’t interpret, so as the
Guard was on his way to do that, when he runs into Daniel.
Daniel realized that something needed
to be done or else many heads were going to roll. Daniel
Chapter 2 verse 14 - 23 goes on to state how Daniel
asked Arioch why the King had issued such a harsh decree
and then asked if he could have a shot at interpreting
the dream. After that, Daniel went back to his friends
and asked them to intercede and that God may reveal
this dream to him so that they and the rest of the men
would not have to be executed. That is coming through
in the clutch. Daniel doesn’t speak with wisdom
and tact, he doesn’t listen to what the man is
saying and then answer with the proper appeal, he just
asked for the chance and so when he went to his friends
he just new that he needed an answer and that they needed
to pray.
That is part of why we are here tonight,
we need answers and we need to pray. Verse 19-23 says,
“During the night the mystery was revealed to
Daniel in a vision. Then Daniel praised the God of heaven
and said: Praise be to the name of God for ever and
ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and
seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them. He gives
wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.
He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies
in darkness, and light dwells with him. I thank and
praise you, O God of my fathers: You have given me wisdom
and power, you have made known to me what we asked of
you, you have made known to us the dream of the king.”
God is our King. He has a dream. He is not going to
cut off our heads, because we can’t interpret
it, but He is waiting for us to intercede and to hear
the interpretation of His dream for this city, for this
place.
When we were here with the intercessors,
we were in a circle right here and as we were praying
I looked up to the wall and saw the scripture up here
that says, “Call to me and I will show you great
and mighty things that you know not.” I know that
later on this evening the Lord is wanting to leave a
deposit in this city. I know that, because I know He
brought a man from half way around the world to leave
that deposit, but we aren’t there yet. We need
to intercede for faith and for wisdom for your city
and for what is coming.
God is a God of seasons and timing
and this is the time of acceleration and of favor.
I would like us to divide up into
small groups of 3 - 4 people, and I would like us to
ask God, “What is you heart for this city. God,
give me your love for this city. Let me know what is
in your heart for this city and for this county.”
Whenever you are done in your small group, I would like
you to just be quiet before the Lord.
(Prayer)
Father, we pray that you would bring
revival and your mighty fire. Father, raise up leadership
that would seek your heart and your face. Father, we
ask the churches to be united in a better way, your
way. Father, let us be united with our hearts. Father,
we bless this congregation and bless this fellowship
of believers from this area that you have brought together.
We ask that your name would be glorified in this country,
city, county and in every house. We ask that the people
of this city would be on your feet. We know that you
can do this Father. Father, please do it in Jesus name.
(Harry Skandera)
The season is changing and it is time
for us to cry out and He will show us great and might
things. It is time to get his heart for our city and
to hear what it is that His heart wants to see. It is
going to require a change of mind and a change of heart.
For many of us, we have come to that place, and Sam
is going to come up here and share some of the ways
that God has already been moving, but before we go right
into thanking Him for all of that, we want to use it
to stir up our hearts for where He is going, because
He is going somewhere and we want to be with him in
that. We want to be able to interpret our Kings dream
the way that we should and will bring redemption.
I am not going to ask for testimonies,
but as you pray and are quiet, that is a pretty big
answer to be asking God to give us your heart and show
us what that would look like in Sonoma County. I believe
that God is going to fill in the pieces of that puzzle
and mystery as we continue to come together, because
I think that all of us have a part of that. That is
why He has called us here. That is why we come together
from many congregations, because we desperately need
all of us to fulfill all that He has called us to do.
(Sam Tillery)
What you are going to see is something
that we have been working on for awhile, and that is
to give praise to Him for what He has been doing in
answer to the prayer of the body of Christ. You are
the first to see this video in it’s completed
form. As Harry had mentioned that Sonoma is a city of
first things, this is the first public showing of what
God has been doing and it is really encouraging to see
answered prayer in bringing the body of Christ together.
(Video, “Together in
Christ”)
(Sam Tillery)
Several of you lead out in thanksgiving
to God for all that He has been doing.
(Prayers of thanksgiving)
(Sam Tillery)
This video has been produced and is
for Pastors to use to encourage their congregations
and to disciple the leaders in their churches to say,
“You know, it’s ok to come to this. It is
not a compromise of devotion to what you are already
doing, but it is an answer to the prayer of Christ.”
So, I want us to pray about that. This is a tool, it’s
targeted to the churches of Sonoma County. There are
many, who for some reason, are not partnered with us
yet and we don’t stand in judgement of that. It’s
really only a move of the spirit of God in Pastors and
in anybody in the churches life. It’s not a new
strategy. It’s not something that people have
to be convinced about, it’s really a work of the
spirit to bring about a commitment to the whole.
I would ask that you would anoint this
to inspire, not to oppose what God is doing or to draw
attention to ourselves. We want to decrease so that
Christ may increase. We decrease by not promoting our
own local, individual churches or denominations, but
as we exalt Christ. The title of this particular video
is, “Together in Christ”. There are other
videos that follow with the particular theme that are
also on this same DVD.
One is reflections on community transformations
and it is a 26 minute video that is basically a dialogue
with many pastors and leaders just talking of the components
of what brings about transformation in our communities.
It is not as entertaining by the way of seeing a lot
of different ages and activities and such, but really,
what does it take. It talks about what are the mistakes
we have made and what are the successes that we have
found. It is used to inspire leaders and others of ways
that we have used to step into this, so I wanted for
us to take a few moments here tonight to pray that God
would use this as a tool for His purposes.
Be in prayer for me as well. God has
opened the door for Pastor’s Prayer Alliance,
we in Santa Rosa have been chosen as one of the nine
pilot cities with Mission America and we are working
together with these eight other cities who are postured
for transformation. It is because of united prayer and
submission, humbleness, that God is bringing healing
to our land. The testimonies like we saw on the video
from city officials who are not believers, but are seeing
the power of the body of Christ, so be in prayer for
that.
I will be going to St. Louis on Sunday
for a meeting with Mission America and we are one of
the featured cities and will be showing this video,
so please be in prayer that it will encourage and inspire
other communities who want to have that happen too.
What do we need to see that come? Well, it says in the
scripture right here on the wall that if we humble ourselves
and seek God’s face and pray and turn from our
wicked ways. You know that our wicked ways can be our
indifference, our individuality and pride, that’s
wicked, that’s sin. If we turn from that and begin
to humble ourselves and pray, God begins to heal the
land. A miracle happens.
Let me just tell you one more story
and then we will move on to some other areas of prayer.
Tuesday night, I was at the board of supervisors chambers
with the land use commission. There was a proposal for
re-writing the plans for the use of land in the county
that would x out churches for any kind of growth, any
purchasing of property and the use of those ministries
on the property. Well, you might think to yourself that
that couldn’t be, but that is the case. So, anyways
we’ve gotten together as pastors and thought about
what was going to be our strategy, because they are
going to make these decisions. One of the reasons that
these leaders were making this decision to decrease
the use of land is because they are having great restrictions
on those who do have land and leaving the existing church
where it is standing.
Well, we came to the conclusion that
they see no value of churches. One reason, is the church
has been silent and not practically involved in service
to the community, at least to the degree that they would
see that there is a value. So, we decided that we don’t
need to go and tell them that that is a bad idea, we
just need to go and let them see, connect the dots,
of the value of what churches bring to the community.
Let me give you one example, so we sent out a e-mail
to many of the pastors asking them to fill out a survey
of the various ministries that they provide to the community.
One, for example is counseling. The question was how
many hours of counseling do you provide through your
church to the community in one year. We compiled the
data from the churches that filled out the form and
we had one of the presenters at the public hearing ask
for a show of hands for what issue you were there representing
and 75% of the hands went up when the question of who
was present for the church issue.
Pastor Rich Kundle from Hessel Church
in Sebastopol was the spokesperson representing the
Pastors Prayer and Ministry Alliance. He expressed that
there are some 98 thousand people in the churches in
this county, and I stand here representing the Pastor’s
Alliance, but if you look at those Christians that were
there, was important, because they won’t listen
to the one, it has no leverage. So, this great amount
of people were saying, “Hey, what’s up with
this?”
One of the stats that came through
this survey of the churches that we heard from in regards
to counseling, was that a over 190 thousand hours of
free counseling is provided per year to those in this
county. If you figure that the average counseling session
that you would go to a professional counselor, would
cost you 60 dollars, that’s 14 million dollars
of free counseling that the churches collectively are
providing the community.
As we continued to read off more stats,
I watched their faces and they began to look quite stunned
at the reality of these things. So, what God is doing
as we pray and as we come together, they see Christ
and they see the value. What you saw in the video, is
testimony of prayer and lives being touched and changed
through the body reaching out together and is directly
connected to the prayers of City Reach Prayer. So, please
pray here tonight that the message would be clear to
anyone who views this, that they would hear, see and
be compelled by the Spirit of God to answer the prayer
of Jesus.
(Prayer)
May we be a city set on a hill and
a shining example of others to follow and show the way
to Jesus!
(Sam Tillery)
I want to encourage you to encourage
your congregation, your church and your pastor to consider
as a home mission, supporting the United Pastor’s
Alliance. Of course that means praying for and with
us, but as we are moving forward as an alliance, it
is going to cost dollars and we already are a 501c3
deal, but there is something about giving dollars and
beginning to pray. So, I just wanted to encourage you
as we are moving forward, we are very purposeful of
the now stepping into the answers to the prayers that
we have been praying.
These videos will be available to
you and your friends.
Thanks for being faithful in prayer.
(Harry Skandera)
As City Reach Prayer tradition goes,
we spend the first half of the time praying into the
issues of the City, then the second half we pray for
the host and local ministry. We want to do that and
we will, but right now we have something that we want
you to do for the rest of the county.
One of the things that we’ve
noticed as we come to this place in our journey, it’s
not coincidental that the Lord had begun to bring people
from around the nation and the world to deposit something
here. This is not a key not speaker or an event that
we come and we hear something and we go home and we
forget it. This is more along the lines of we have come
to a place and the Lord is saying that it is time to
receive this, because you are going to need it.
The other night a number of us went
to Novato to hear a man named Doug Sheets. He was speaking,
but he was imparting something. We knew when we got
there that we were meant to be there to receive what
was being said. Fortunately I was there with a number
of other folks. Forest, if you had to summarize in just
a couple of words what you believe your received there
that night, what did you hear from what Doug had to
say?
(Forest)
He said a lot Harry, but for me I
think that one of the things that I think that God did
through him was to impart and release a vision/faith
to all of our hearts an understanding of the possibility
that God is willing and ready in this hour to give to
us something more than we now have to accomplish His
purpose in this hour in our cities, county, and state.
More through the giftings that He would bring and the
wisdom we have in His word, combined together along
with the release of vision and dream, that God wants
to impart to so many in the body of Christ, so that
we can walk out His will.
(Harry Skandera)
I agree 100% with what Forest just
said. One phrase captured me about what Doug Sheets
said,” We stand by what we know of principles
and understanding of the Bible, you can build a mini
church, but you can’t take or possess like warfare.
It is like, you can know all of the principles of knowing
exactly when to apply what at what time, that takes
the Rhema word. You don’t get that without going
into His presence and being touched. For some of us,
that is a stranger experience than others. Doug had
quite a testimony about happened to change his way about
looking at things. I say this tonight, we have a favor
to ask you from the rest of the county, being as this
is the place of first things. I really believe that.
I have a good friend here tonight.
His name is Salamat and he is here from Pakistan. He
has been coming to this county now for five years and
now he goes to a lot of places in America. He could
tell you all of this, but I believe that one of the
things that Salamat carries is the gift of faith. I
believe that the one reason that he is here, is to impart
that gift of faith for miracles, healing and all manners
of things. I believe that we are here tonight for you
to receive that on behalf of the rest of this county.
I believe that God has come to make a deposit, now I
can’t think of a better city for him to be making
that deposit than right here, right now and at this
time.
I don’t know what I can say
to recommend Salamat to you. He has been busy ministering
the last few days in San Jose and I picked him up, because
he came into town on the Greyhound bus. The bus was
30 minutes late, so we didn’t have time to get
any food on the way back to Santa Rosa, we went straight
to Hope Chapel. When we walked in, he went right up
to the front to speak. They were having a youth night
that night. After that, they dismissed the meeting and
invited anyone who wanted to receive prayer, that they
could stay. This was an amazing thing. At about that
time, instead of the room emptying, it began to fill
up until about the time that he just started praying
there were about 100 people in the room from all generations.
You know how young people are, they
were given the opportunity to go and stand in the line
over here to get prayed for, well a lot of them were
watching at first, then they all went one by one and
began to get prayed for and were falling on the floor.
They had asked people to raise their hands if it was
the first time that they had ever been there and there
were a number of them who raised their hands, by the
time the evening was over, over 100 of them had hit
the floor and one of those kids who had come to the
church for the first time in his life, went up to Salamat
and said, “I’ve got my dad on the other
line of my cell phone, will you please talk to him and
pray?” Of course he did. This young man had never
been in church. He asked Salamat why do you come to
America. Salamat, why do you come to America? Could
you come up here?
(Salamat)
 I
love to come here and see all of your faces and am so
happy to see what is happening on your video. You ask
me why I come to America? I come to America to remind
Americans about God being God. They have forgotten about
God in their country. The second thing is to show Americans
that God is real. He is not just isolated in one place.
He is real. Nothing less than revival is acceptable
for America. I want to see revival for America. There
was a time when the British and American Missionaries
were going to Pakistan and to India and converting people
to Christianity. I am a fourth generation Christian,
but now is the time for the people from there to come
to America and remind them of Chrisitianity and as Missionaries
here. Praise God, that is why I come.
(Harry Skandera)
Well, this is that time in the evening
when usually we would be praying, but just as we did
in the first part of the evening, we asked for God to
show us something about this place. Now, I want you
to ask you something about yourself. What are some of
those things that you would want to ask God for tonight.
God has brought something here for you. The Father is
waiting to hear from you. I am going to ask you to line
up front here with what you would ask from the Father
in your heart and allow Salamat to pray with you in
faith.
(Salamat)
 Father,
if I knew that my prayer would not be heard, then I
would never ever pray. If I knew that my prayers would
not be answered, surely, I would never pray. The reason
I pray to you is, because I know that you have heard
it and that you will answer.
You are going to get what you believe.
If you try to impress God with your words or your actions,
that is not going to get anywhere.
Remember what it is that you want
to ask and you will get it. I am ready to pray for people.
Just relax. I am not going to smack on head. You must
be ready to receive it.
 (Prayer)
(Harry Skandera)
Remember to be passing on what you
have prayed tonight for others.
So much happens in Pakistan where
there is a great deal of persecution, and little here
where there is not much persecution. Americans don’t
testify. They receive and then it is like they are afraid
to say what they received. It is like they are afraid
of how it will sound or how they will look or they doubt
that it really happened and they don’t want to
say anything for fear that it may be reversed and look
silly or something.
Whatever you receive, testify to it! Re-speak it.
(Time of people stating what
God just did for them)
(Salamat)
All of these testimonies are evidence
that God is purposeful here. Praise God!
If you would like to visit Bishop Salamat Khokhar
web site or support the ministery overseas please click
the link.
(Harry Skandera)
I just want to remind all of you before
we leave here, that the next City Reach Prayer will
be at Windsor First Baptist Church. You can go to the
web site www.unitedprayer.org for directions. Also,
if you remember, be praying for Sam and the other two
representatives who are going to St. Louis this Sunday.
Special Thanks to Christelle Eddy
who transcribed this document. |
