And here is one more beautiful Christmas carol that my beautiful wife Ingrid has written. She also composed the music for it, but I had to tweak her melody a bit when I arranged it. The song is in a minor key and has a kind of Celtic lilt to it, I think. My recording can be found here on our SoundCloud stream, and yes, it would have sounded a lot better if a young woman had sung it instead of an old dude like myself ;-) Come And See Song ©2016 by Ingrid Tulloch Come and see that the Lord is good, come behold his face. Bend your knee to him, Christ the King, come behold his face. Jesus Christ, our living Lord, we behold your face. Jesus Christ, our living Lord, we behold your face. He will suffer and die for us: Come behold his face. Jesus, Savior, Emmanuel: Come behold his face. Jesus Christ, our living Lord, we behold your face. Jesus Christ, our living Lord, we behold your face. Alleluia, alleluia, we behold your face. Alleluia, alleluia, we behold your face. Merry Christmas to all from Mitch and Ingrid :-)
Here is another of Ingrid's wonderful Christmas carols. This one was inspired by the Germanic "Christkind" and celebrates the birth and coming kingdom of our Lord Jesus. The words go like this: Christ Child Holy ©2014 by Ingrid Tulloch Christ Child holy, Christ child pure, Christ the Son of God we adore. Born in a stable, born of a virgin, Born to reign and rule forevermore. Alleluia, alleluia, Immanuel we adore you! Alleluia, alleluia, Immanuel we adore you! You are holy, You are pure, You are the Son of God we adore. You were born to us, died and rose for us, You will reign and rule forevermore. Alleluia, alleluia, Immanuel we adore you! Alleluia, alleluia, Immanuel we adore you! You can listen to this song on SoundCloud . Once again, my guitar playing and singing aren't very good. Maybe I should just stick to playing keyboard? More info here . P.S. We tried translating her song into German but somehow we just couldn't seem to get the words to flow well. Contact us if you'd like to help us improve our translation. Thanks! Merry Christmas to one and all, great and small :-) —Mitch
Since it's just a few days until Christmas arrives, I thought it might be considered appropriate if I shamelessly plugged Ingrid's Christmas carols here on our website :-) Ingrid has written several beautiful Christmas carols which I've helped arrange to music and have recorded on SoundCloud. One of her earliest ones is actually an advent carol that celebrates how the angel announced God's favor to Mary and highlights how God shows similar favor towards us, His children. The full story behind how this carol came to be written can be found in chapter 4 of our book Simple Kingdom: Worship which you can read online or download as a free PDF. Here are the words to Ingrid's song: Favored By God ©2014 by Ingrid Tulloch Washed in his blood, changed by his Spirit, Cleansed thru his Word, we are favored by God. Filled with his love, sharing his mercy, Sent in his name, we are favored by God. Not for what we have done, but for what he has done for us, In the gift of his Son we are favored by God. Not for what we have done, but for what he has done for us, In the gift of his Son we are favored by God. My recording of the song on SoundCloud isn't very good. If you listen to it you'll notice that my guitar playing sucks and my voice wavers and gets creaky on the high notes. But hopefully you can still get a feel for the heart behind her song. Merry Christmas everybody! —Mitch
When my friend Martin Buehlmann handed over the leadership of the Vineyard churches in Germany, Austria and Switzerland to his son Marius, he urged Marius to remember three priorities that God had laid on his heart for the Vineyard: the Father's love for us, allowing freedom to the Holy Spirit, and Equipping the Saints as Wimber taught us. The Father's love has also been instrumental in my own Christian life and ministry, and I thought it might be helpful for some of you if I were to write a series of short posts on this important topic. Much has been written in recent years about the need, especially for men in our fatherless generation, to experience the love of God the Father. The subject of the Fatherhood of God has also been dealt with in books and videos from both theological and pastoral perspectives. My approach however is going to be different. Instead of presenting you with theology and practical advice, I'm simply going to share some stories about how I have *personally experienced* God as my Father and what impact these experiences have had on my life as a Christian. My stories will not be in any particular order — I'm not writing biography here, or an instruction manual like "Seven Steps to Experiencing God's Love." Instead they will simply be glimpses of key breakthroughs — and setbacks — in my lifelong journey of getting to know God as Father and experiencing the depths —and sometimes limitations — of his love for me, his child through Christ. My hope is that one or two of my stories will bring a new awareness of how you can experience the Father's love. And my prayer for those of you reading this — and especially for men — is that the Father will father you the way he has fathered me. I'll begin my series of posts shortly after Christmas. Ingrid will also be sharing some thoughts on this subject. In the meantime, be blessed and filled with the Father's love for you. —Mitch
This morning I was drawn back to a verse that has been foundational for me since I became a Christian: Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:33 NIV) In the NIV and most modern English translations, the passage where this verse is found (6:25-34) has to do with worry and anxiety about the necessities of daily life (e.g. the NIV has "do not worry", the ESV has "do not be anxious" and so on). But I don't think that's what Jesus is getting at here. Worry and anxiety are associated with fear, but the underlying Greek word μεριμνάω isn't about not being afraid: it's about not being concerned with stuff that's really not that important. In other words, Jesus isn't saying "Don't be afraid that you won't have enough money to buy food and clothes if you follow me" but rather "Don't focus so much on trying to earn a living; God will take care of you if you follow me." In other words, Jesus is saying we should prioritize God's kingdom above our own concerns, pursuits and aspirations. How do we do this? We can start by asking God to give us eyes to see the opportunities he has arranged for us today to do the stuff: heal the sick, drive out demons, proclaim the good news, help the poor. God has prepared these works — Wimber called them divine appointments — in advance for us (see Ephesians 2:10). Unfortunately we often miss seeing them or don't have the courage to seize the moment and act upon them. So we should pray for courage too. The early disciples did (Acts 4:29) and look what happened. Be blessed and strengthened. —Mitch
Hello everyone! We've redesigned our website to make it simpler to navigate and have added a blog so we can post fresh content more often. Our blog posts will include healing stories, personal testimonies, thought-provoking articles, and links to new worship songs we've recorded on SoundCloud . We also migrated the healing stories we had previously published on our site into our blog. Feel free to contact us at info@buildplant.org if you have questions or comments about anything on our site. --Mitch
A strong, pain-free back is important for an active, healthy life. Back problems are common however, so it's not surprising that we often prayed for many people suffering from various kinds of back pain in our home fellowships, church gatherings and conferences over the years. Here are three stories that illustrate some of the kinds of things that can happen when you minister healing prayer to people experiencing back problems. 1. The team approach At a Vineyard conference a man who came forward during ministry time said he had been experiencing almost constant mid-back pain for years. After interviewing him, three of us decided to take the man downstairs where we could minister to him in a more private setting. The three of us laid hands on him and began praying for the man, who was standing in the midst of us. One of us took the lead and began asking God to release his healing power on the man's back. The second member of our team was praying in tongues. I remained silent and waited for the Holy Spirit to give us a word of knowledge about the man's condition. After a few moments I saw in my mind what looked like a vertebrae that glowed warmly, so I began to pray out loud and say "Touch that vertebrae with your power, Lord, heal it." At this point the man we were praying for was twisting his torso and moaning. It sounded like he was in pain, so we continued with our prayers, each of us praying independently according to how we felt the Holy Spirit was leading us. After about five minutes of praying, we looked at each other and decided to stop praying. "How are you doing?" one of us asked him. The man opened his eyes and began to slowly twist and bend his torso. Then he looked at us with puzzlement in his eyes and said, "The pain is gone." "Really?" we all said? "Try bending right over, but be careful, do it slowly." The man bent over and touched the floor, then stood up straight and said, "No pain." The three of us who had been praying looked at each other with wonder and some excitement, but the man merely looked puzzled and somewhat apprehensive, perhaps fearing that he might only experience a temporary reprieve from his pain. But since the man seemed to be healed, we blessed him and he left to go back upstairs. Looking back on our prayer session, it struck me afterwards how poorly the three of us had functioned together as a team. We had prayed independently of each other and had not shared with each other what we thought might be the root cause of the man's pain or how we should pray effectively for him. We also didn't discuss our prayer session afterwards to see what we could learn from it or what we might have done differently. And yet the man was healed, for a few years later I ran into him again and he confirmed that his back was still healed and he was no longer experiencing any pain! But he still looked puzzled when I talked to him about it, and I probably should have probed his mind further in case there was some missing spiritual dimension to the constant pain he had been experiencing. But we were both busy and had other things to do, so we parted and moved on. 2. Persist in prayer The second story illustrates how persistence in ministering healing prayer can, over a period of time that may range from weeks to months, can eventually result in healing. This story was told by my friend Ken and has been excerpted from chapter 3 of my book Simple Kingdom: Home Fellowships which you can read online or download as a free PDF. Anyways, here is Ken's story of how his back got healed in our home fellowship: When I joined the house church I was experiencing back pain almost continuously. The group prayed for me every Sunday for over a year until my back was finally healed. I received a lot of love from that group and it encouraged me to pursue God and pray for healing for others. While this story is short, it illustrates several important things. The first is that home fellowships provide an ideal environment for people to learn how to pray for the sick. A second observation is that when someone gets healed of a debilitating condition, the result is often that they start praying for others to be healed—that's kingdom multiplication happening through the expression of God's power! And finally, don't give up when you pray for someone's healing—keep on praying until they get healed! John Wimber brings this last point home on page 158 of his book Power Healing when he says: "There is another reason—I believe the most fundamental reason—why more people are not healed when prayed for today. We do not seek God as wholeheartedly as we should. In other words, God is able to do greater miracles than we have yet seen, if only we would persist in seeking him." 3. Seize the moment The third story happened at the end of a time of fellowship in our home when those who came were standing in the entrance getting ready to leave. One of the men bent over to tie his shoelaces and suddenly let out a yelp. "Ouch! My back!" "What's wrong?" we all cried. "I can't stand up, I've thrown out my back again!" he said, as he remained stooped over. "This has happened to me before, and it'll be days before I can stand up straight again. Oh, damit!" At this point my wife Ingrid suddenly rushed over to the man, laid her hands on his back, and said "Be HEALED in Jesus' name!" The man's torso suddenly jackknifed upwards and he stood up straight. I asked him how his back felt and he twisted his torso and said, looking somewhat bewildered, "Fine, there's no pain". We all felt somewhat stunned, but we hugged each other and praised God and everybody went home. There are various ways one could explain how this healing occurred e.g. the Spirit came upon Ingrid, God gave her a gift of faith, she was moved with compassion, and so on. But the point is probably that she saw someone hurting and decided to act by praying for him, immediately and with expectation that God wants to heal. I wish I was more like that. Anyways, be blessed everyone, and be healed :-) --Mitch (with edits by Ingrid)
While Ingrid and I have had some measure of success in learning how to effectively heal the sick, we've found that the hardest person to minister healing to is often ourselves. Here's a recent story that illustrates this, and how an integrated approach that combines faith, medical knowledge and the Holy Spirit can effectively result in the person's condition being healed. For several months I had been experiencing high-pitched pulsating tinnitus. Repeated attempts at praying for my condition resulted in no improvement. Then about a month ago my right ear started blocking up at night. I assumed it was wax buildup, but when I used a flashlight and combination of mirrors to look into my ear canal, I couldn't see much wax. So I assumed it was an impaction where the wax goes deep into the ear canal right up against the eardrum. I've had this problem before a few times in my life and had to have my ears irrigated by my doctor. Unfortunately our doctor retired recently and we haven't been able to find another we've felt confident with. Our health care system here in Canada has deteriorated in recent years, and our province Manitoba has the poorest healthcare in the country. Just like with any other profession, good doctors (skilled in medicine and having a good heart) are usually hard to come by. This was true during Biblical times (see Mark 5:26) and Paul could be considered blessed that he had a good one accompanying him (Colossians 4:14). So I decided to try performing ear irrigation on myself. I should mention at this point by way of disclaimer that I am not trying to offer any kind of medical advice here, I'm simply relating a personal story. I began by searching for how-to articles about this online, and just as good doctors can be hard to find, good information concerning medical procedures is also difficult to find. There's so much poor, and even bad, medical advice on the Internet. Fortunately I finally came across this article whose target audience is medical professionals, and having a science background myself (Physics) I felt the advice in the article was trustworthy. Then together with Ingrid we reviewed a number of online videos about earwax removal, and after weeding out a lot of junk we came across this video that has helpful information on preparing your ears for irrigation. I bought some mineral oil and a 60 ml plastic syringe with a 16 gauge catheter attached from Amazon. Then after using the oil to soften the wax and with Ingrid's help, I tried to flush the impacted wax out of my ear. No wax seemed to be expelled, but for a few moments I could hear Ingrid's voice very loud and clear. After trying several more attempts, we decided to stop and pray for awhile. Remembering how Jesus put his fingers into the ears of the deaf man (Mark 7:33) Ingrid decided to try this as she prayed, but nothing seemed to happen, so we decided to try again tomorrow. The next day turned out to be a busy one, so I decided to wait another day before trying again. But that evening Ingrid said, "Let me pray for you again." So she put her fingers into my ears and then suddenly burst out with these words: "Open up! Open up! Let the living waters flow!" I recognized that this was a word of knowledge she had received from the Holy Spirit. Many years ago at the very first Vineyard conference we attended, Ingrid received a gift (or anointing) for healing during ministry time. Her words caused faith to rise up in me, but no healing occurred at that time. The next morning I put a good amount of mineral oil into my ear and left it there for 15 minutes to try to really soften up the wax. Then we went into the bathroom again and I tried flushing out the wax. After half a dozen attempts a tiny bit of wax was expelled, but unfortunately now my ear was completely blocked and I couldn't hear a thing! Argh, I thought, I've probably just pushed the softened wax deeper right up against the eardrum. That afternoon, discouraged and half-deaf, I began searching online for otolaryngologists in Winnipeg. After doing this for awhile, I decided to review some of the promises God had given us in the Psalms over the years. As I was reading a Psalm however, some words Jesus spoke to Jarius in Luke 8:50 suddenly came to mind: "Do not fear, only believe." The story of the healing of Jairus’s daughter in Luke 8:40-56 is a good example of what can happen when we start to pray for someone sick: instead of things improving, things suddenly get worse! I realized from these words that the Holy Spirit was encouraging me to continue the treatment I was doing, so after supper I went to the bathroom, carefully put the catheter end of the syringe into my ear in the direction specified in the NIH article linked to above, and began applying moderate pressure to the syringe to squirt a steady flow of body-temperature water at moderate pressure. I looked into the mirror after this and saw a huge gob of brownish-black gunk hanging from the edge of my ear canal. "IIIINNNGRID come and see what happened, the wax came out!" I shouted up the stairwell. Ingrid rushed down and we stared at the gunk after removing it with a kleenex. "Hooray, thank you Lord!" we said excitedly. Using mirrors and a flashlight, I then saw that there was still more brownish-black gunk in my ear canal, so we decided to irrigate a second time and an equally hideous lump of gunk came out of my ear. And suddenly I could hear everything LOUD AND CLEAR. We used mirrors to look one more time into my ear canal and no more wax was visible. Since then, my hearing has been perfect, and my tinnitus has much subsided. The lesson here is that our goal in healing the sick, which is to bring glory to God by extending his mercy to others (and also to ourselves) doesn't depend on the manner in which it's done. It's quite OK, and Biblical, to use a combination of faith, medical knowledge, and expressions of the power of God. Be blessed, and be healed :-) --Mitch
