Healing on the Streets

As part of the internship I am doing, it was suggested that we completed the Healing on the Streets Training, I’m not going to lie…when it was suggested I wasn’t really sure about it. But when I started at Church on The Rock I had said that I would give everything a go to begin with and then decided which things I felt God was really calling me to be involved in! The closer the weekend training got the more nervous I became! To be honest I didn’t really know how HOTS worked or how they do what they do…but I did know it involved going out on to the streets and praying for people to be healed!! This is NOT something I have done before or something that I thought I would feel comfortable doing! 

So last Friday and Saturday, the training began!!  I was nervous!! I had heard of Healing on the Streets before, but I didn’t really know what was involved, I didn’t really know what they do or how they go about their ministry. Even though I didn’t know any of this, I had been quick to make a judgement…before the training had even started I was thinking that I didn’t really want to be part of the team, I would do the training and that would be it! I was quick to prejudge what the teams did, I assumed they go out on to the streets, convince people who need healing to come and sit on a chair and then pray they get healed, which is partly what they do but its not done in the forceful way that I thought it might have been, and that definitely  is not all that they do.

 I guess one of the things that I didn’t really agree with (not that I could disagree with it as I didn’t actually know) was that ok people may get healed but, then what…did this make them become a Christian there and then…probably not…was there any relationship built that means that the people being healed had someone they could talk to about what had happen, someone who they could ask question an who could encourage them…I didn’t know but I assumed not.( However I was later informed that many of the same people come past every week! The team have built relationships with people in the town! )

Friday night we started the training, we started with worship and then members of the team told us about healing on the streets…it’s quickly became apparent that I had been wrong, there really is more to this then I thought! The more the team spoke, the more I realised that in fact the healing is only a small part of what they do. What they see as being even more important than the healing is to be able to have the chance to tell people that God loves them!! And THAT is soooo important; some people may never have heard that before, some people may have never heard that anyone loves them before.

 

The training continued on the Saturday, the team explained how the Healing on the Streets is actually done. They explained how before they start the gather together, pray and wait for God presence, they then spend two hours in the town talking to people, telling them about what they do and offering to pray for people.  Before they start to pray for a person, they introduce themselves, kneel down in front of the person, look them straight in the eyes and from their hearts tell of how much God loves the person on the chair, how special and important they are. And having a chance to do that is sooo incredible.

The more the team talked and the more I understood, the more I began to see what an amazing thing the team does. Each week they commit to going out in to the town, come rain or shine and help people to see and experience the love and peace of God. Many people don’t often get to hear that they are love, some people don’t have anyone that they can talk to, some people need to see a miracle. When people sit on that chair in St Peters Port, many get a real sense of Gods peace…these people may not have felt at peace of years yet in that moment that they sit down, they get it, they rest! 

Sometimes people don’t get healed…sometimes they do, the team do not know why that is and I guess it is not for us to ask.God know what he is doing, God also knows why that person sat in the chair, he knows what they needs. Someone with a broken leg could sit down, and we could assume that that is what needs healing, when actually they really need to hear that they are special that day! Or perhaps they just need to feel at peace after having a stressful few weeks. God know what he is doing, God doesn’t need us to heal people, and he doesn’t need us to be providing that thing for that person, he can do it himself…BUT he WANTS us to be part of it. God calls us in to a partnership, he likes to do things with us, he doesn’t need to he wants to. And at times we probable get in the way and make things harder, but God doesn’t mind that we mess things up or get it wrong or don’t do things very well, He loves that we can do it together! God likes to use us and when we take that step of faith to do something for him, God meets us there!! Sometimes he is just waiting for us to make a move.  

One of the team members was explaining how some weeks they will have a steady flow of people come and sit on the chairs and other weeks they have none, they didn’t really understand why this was…but God spoke to them and said that it is about obedience…Stepping out it faith, doing something a little out of their comfort zone, to show they are willing to be used because and God wants them to be part of something special. It is not about the outcome but it is about being obedient to what God has called us to do.

On Saturday afternoon we went out  to use what we had been taught….I’m going to be honest I did not feel comfortable kneeling on the floor, in a circle, with 10 other people, in the town centre on a Saturday afternoon. I also found it quite hard to look someone I didn’t know in the eyes…BUT it did feel good to be doing something…to be taking a step of faith, to being able to share Gods love with other people and being there for people who just need to talk, cry or rest. We didn’t see any healing during the 2 hours we were out, but we did see people experiencing God. And that is what it is all about!!!!