I am passionate about... Healing the sick!

Let me just explain some background first before I get going. (if you want to skip the intro and just get on to the exciting stuff go down to the bit about 'The Weekend').

I am a follower of Jesus (a Christian - though I prefer the former label as the latter can sadly have negative connotations). That means I follow the teachings of, and have a living relationship with the man who came to Earth 2000 years ago, was born in Bethlehem in Israel, did lots of cool stuff, and then died and rose again. Lots of people will admit they either know about or believe in Jesus, but some people don't believe that he rose again (overcoming death) and was/is the Son of God. Well I do. I don't want preach at people on a soapbox, but I want to use this blog to share my experiences of this living relationship, and how exciting it can be to be a follower of Jesus in today's world. I'll also use this blog for some ramblings on the subject of design and web development so the two should hopefully mix well, seeing as God is the most creative person ever and he invented creativity.

So... Healing the sick!

It was something Jesus did a lot of when he was about, and seeing as he conquered death and is still alive, he still does it today, but through us his followers. How do I know this? Well it's written about and promised in the Bible, and secondly I've seen it happen!

Why did Jesus go around healing the sick? Because he loved people, and wanted to bring the reality of his Kingdom to Earth, and in his Kingdom there is no pain, sickness or disease. So we go about bringing Jesus' Kingdom reality wherever we go. Read the gospels (first four books in the New Testament for more).

The Weekend

At the weekend I went to play keyboards for a meeting in London. The meeting was basically getting a load of Jesus followers together and training up and then sending them out to heal the sick on the streets which is something I've been really passionate about and keen to learn about for some time. Well, after about 3 hours of teaching, inter-spursed with tea and cookies, we went out and began. Mark Marx was the person heading up the workshops, and he has developed this model which is supposed to get Christians out of their comfy churches and on to the streets - bringing Jesus to the people, opposite to the traditional church stance of bringing people into the church. Jesus was always on the streets with the people as he cared massively for them, he was rarely in a building with a load of his followers putting on services which he hoped people would come to (but there is a time and a place for that). So Mark taught us to go out and then we did, but the emphasis was firstly on showing people God's love and not just about wowing them, and definately NOT freaking them out with 'Holier than thou' Christian antics or jargon. It was about being real with people.

I saw about 4 people healed that day, in a 2-3 hour session on the streets. All we did was go out, invite people if they needed healing to sit down on chairs and have us pray for them. There was one guy in his 70s who got complete healing from years of back pain (comments welcome if I get any of this wrong), I saw a lady have her legs straighten up as her back was healed, I saw a young guy about 14 get healed from a bad leg or knee done at a football game, plus we saw loads of people touched by the presence of God and the kindness He was showing. People were smiling, seemed happy and were experience a sense of God's love for them as we did this stuff.

I am passionate about healing the sick! I am more passionate about people finding out how much God loves them, and at the weekend it happened lots! I want to see more of it, and do more of it!