Ministry Team Training

We have spent the past 16 lessons looking at various aspects of praying on a ministry team. The best way to review what we have studied is to look over the handout I give team members who serve on my teams. It is a high-level overview of what we have been studying and will serve as a helpful reminder.

Practical Guidelines

1. Always minister in love. God loves them and you are operating as His representative to them. For this conference:
   • No rebuking/corrective/directive prophetic words allowed. If you believe you get a word along these lines, see the leader before delivering it to the individual.
   • No condemning or putting the person down.
2. Always treat the person kindly and with respect. Give them your full attention while ministering to them.
3. Never act surprised at anything they tell you. Sometimes when God moves on people they will confess deep struggles or sins. Do not judge them; simply minister to them.
4. Anything shared with you during ministry is confidential and is not to be shared with anyone else. There are a few legal and moral exceptions to this, where you need to talk to the pastor (preferably get the person to go with you):
   • If they confess they have injured/killed another person.
   • If they confess they are beating/abusing their children or spouse.
   • If they are seriously considering suicide.
5. Pray in Christ's authority, but do not hype or manipulate or work the person up emotionally. Your job is to pray and God's job is to meet the person. The less you "hype," the more you will see the power of God released.
6. Be sure to ask God to show you what He is doing so that you might do it with Him.
7. Keep your eyes open while ministering and watch for visible evidences of the Lord moving on people.
8. Pray with a catcher or get the person in a safe position (sitting down, kneeling, etc.) if it looks like they may fall.
9. Personal hygiene: use breath mints, deodorant, etc.

Ministry Model

1. Talk to the person and find out what they want prayer for. (Sometimes the Lord is on them too heavily for them to talk. When that occurs, we skip this step).
2. Ask God (silently) what He wants to do here.
3. Select a prayer strategy to do with Him what He is doing.
4. Do the prayer. Be sensitive to the Spirit's leading. Keep your eyes open and watch for natural evidences of what God is doing in the spirit. Keep your spiritual ears open to hear God. (It is okay to break from prayer and talk briefly to the person and then go back to prayer.)
5. Post prayer follow-up: This can be a few words of encouragement and counsel if the person is in a place to receive it. It might be soaking prayer if the person is down on the ground. It might just be a hug and a word of blessing if that is all the situation merits.

Types of Prayer

PHYSICAL HEALING

1. In Jesus' name, command the disease to leave, or command the body part to work right or command the healing to come forth.
2. I always suspect a spirit of infirmity unless God tells me there is not one present, and I command it to leave.
3. Bless the body part to function the way God created it to work
4. If there are no results when praying for the believer, ask God to reveal the root causes and deal with them.
5. Test to see if healing occurred. (I usually take a baseline before I pray so that I can tell how much improvement there is.) In outreach meetings, send people with healings up to give their testimony. If healing is only partial, you may want to pray more, as God may do more healing.
6. Be sure to tell them that sometimes the devil tries to bring symptoms back, so if the symptoms return, they need to command them to leave in Jesus' name.

DELIVERANCE

1. Forbid the demon to manifest (slithering, vomiting, violent gestures, etc.)
2. Get the person's attention and insure they want to be free of the demon. (I like to have them renounce it or command it to go)
3. Take authority and command the demon to leave.
4. If the demon doesn't leave quickly/easily, then look for "hooks" it may be holding on to and deal with them:
   • Unforgiveness
   • Unrepented sin
   • Curses
   • Vows/dedications (also dedications made by parents/relatives)
   • Generational access
   • Witchcraft or occult practices
5. After removing hooks, then command the demon to leave.
6. Fill the space so the demon can't come back as easily. This involves leading unsaved people to Christ, asking the Holy Spirit to fill the space the demon vacated so it can't come back, etc.
7. Teach the person how to take authority in case the demon tries to come back. (Do the same for any healings that involved rebuking a spirit of infirmity.) See Matt. 12:43-45:

   43"When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. 45Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation."

AUTHORITY PRAYER

This does not need to be loud to be effective. Jesus gave us His authority, so we simply use it to command demons, sicknesses and situations that are out of God's will to line up with God's will. We cannot command unsaved people to be saved because we do not have authority over another person's free will. However, we can command any spirits that are blinding a person to the gospel to stop doing that. We can command finances to come forth, etc. Just be sure the Holy Spirit is leading you in terms of what you command when you command in the name of Jesus. (We do only what the Father is doing.)

CURSE BREAKING

There are different levels of curses, such as

simple curse

something hostile is spoken once and empowered -- usually just speaking to break the curse is sufficient.

repeated curse

something spoken repeatedly.

1. get rid of hooks to allow it to land.
2. may need to break it repeatedly since it is being said repeatedly. So break it initially and teach the person how to break it.

ritual curse

curse being placed with demonic or witchcraft empowerment, or possibly with fetishes. This is similar to repeated curse, but needs intercession and clear direction from God on what to do. God may ask you to:

• Remove a fetish
• Take communion. Example, God has us at altar where blood sacrifice was done after identificationally repenting for the sin of the sacrifice.
• Do nothing. He may want to break the curse off on His own (example Balaam)

OTHER PRAYER

1. Blessing prayer -- speaking the blessing of God on the person's life.

2. Confession/repentance/forgiveness -- if the person comes to you and confesses a specific sin, help them give it to God and repent (turn) from it. Then pronounce His forgiveness on them and pray that God empower them to walk free of this from now on.

3. Prophetic prayer and personal prophecy. Please stay away from corrective, directive or rebuking words.

4. Inner healing prayer. (You should already know how to do this or you should not do this type of prayer at this conference).

5. Invite God to come and minister to the person. ("Come Lord Jesus and meet this person," "saturate him/her in Your love," "reveal yourself to him/her," etc.)

6. Impartation of spiritual gifts.

7. Bless what God is doing on the person. Pronounce it over them if God shows you what it is. Example: "Lord, I bless and release the prophetic intercession anointing that you are releasing right now. I call it forth in Jesus' name."

8. Specific prayers for the specific nature of the ministry call.

Example:

If the speaker has just called people up front who are struggling with rejection, then pray along those lines. Things like, "Lord, thank You for making him/her secure in your love for him/her. Thank you that he/she is accepted in the beloved. Bind the truth of this to them and right now through the power and authority of Jesus Christ, we break off the lies and deception of rejection over this person and we bless them with a full understanding of the reality of who they are in Christ...accepted in the beloved, holy and pure before God."

Or you might pray along the lines of how much God loves them, etc.

9. General prayers, as appropriate. The person may be up front because they have a specific concern. It is okay to agree with them (straight petition intercession) on the area they are concerned about.

Anointing Verses Authority

When God anoints, it is wonderful. Healings are instant and deliverances are fast/easy. But we can heal the sick and deliver people from demonic spirits even when the anointing is not present. Jesus has given us His authority and He expects us to use it.

Jesus expects us to do the same works He did:

John 14:12-14
12I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in Me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13And I will do whatever you ask in My name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14You may ask Me for anything in My name, and I will do it.

Jesus has all authority and He has given it to us.

Matt. 28:18
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.

Matt. 9:5-7
(Jesus used healing to prove He had authority to forgive sin.)
5For which is easier, to say, "Your sins are forgiven you,' or to say, "Arise and walk'? 6But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins" -- then He said to the paralytic, "Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house." 7And he arose and departed to his house.

Matt. 10:1
And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease.

This authority is not based on us. It is not based on our holiness, it is not based on our ability or our anointing. It is based on what Jesus did on Calvary. This authority is given to all of Jesus' followers. So sickness and disease and demons have to obey us when we exercise the authority that Jesus gave us to do what the Father is doing.

However, we have to grow in our authority. So start with smaller things and as you see God heal those, your faith and confidence in God grows, and you can work up to bigger things.