Healing Rain

I expect God to touch many hearts through this coming weekend's service . Doyle, our associate pastor, is preaching on the healing power of Jesus. tomorrow afternoon I am filming a testimony of a woman who has experienced God's touch recently as she has wrestled with cancer. But the services will also be about healing in broader categories - emotional and spiritual. We're following the message with Michael W. Smith's "Healing Rain" - which we've presented before and have seen the song used by God to minister deeply to people. (Listen to an excerpt here, wma format)

We're also using, in congregational singing, "Blessed be your name" by Matt and Beth Redman. It's been covered by numerous artists - Here's a wma link to Robin Mark's recording. It provides a counterpoint to the theme of healing - "When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say: Blessed be the Name of the Lord..."

We'll also use this prayer which I composed when we did "A Heart Set Free: 40 Days in Philippians", our homemade followup to 40 Days of Purpose:

Father God, there are chains that would imprison my heart today –
bonds that would hold me back from all that You have for me.
Chains of guilt or doubt, chains of selfishness or fear-
Chains formed in my past or my present,
by someone else’s hand or by my own-
Chains known and unknown to me.
But you know them all, Lord, and You can free me from their hold.
In the power of Jesus, please break the chains and release me this day,
so that I may live in the joy of a Heart set free. Amen.