Frank and I both used to work at the mall early in our marriage, and I remember always saying, if I did not have to be here, I would never come to the mall. I am just not a mall rat any more. I mean when I was a teenager, it was a good place to go, lots of fun clothes to try on, really cute boys, a great place to hang out, the whole nine yards. But that ship has long sailed. When I had to go to the mall because my job was there....oh the drudgery! I do NOT like going to the mall!
So when Samantha called me the other day and said, "Hey, ya wanna wear our Do You NEED PRAYER t-shirts and go hang out at the mall and see what happens?" Guess what? I got excited about the MALL!!! hhahha So Sam, Pam, and I went to the mall today and ate lunch in the food court and sat there with our really cool shirts on, waiting for Divine Appointments. When we first got there, Pam was having to run an errand first, so Sam and I went into Yankee Candle to kill some time. Apparently we went in there for a different reason....as soon as we went in, a lady responded to the question on our t-shirts with an enthusiastic and expectation filled YES! She needed prayer for healing for a condition that she was dealing with and some testing she is going to have done later next week.
After we finished praying with her, we found out that her husband runs one of the outreach ministries down-town, and is literally just a few blocks up from where we meet. And he is big into discipleship, so we will go visit them later and see what kind of things they have to offer in Biblical studies so we can point people that way....let the NETWORKING begin! And she said she has seen us many times before when she drives by there on Sunday mornings. How cool is that?
We also prayed for lots of other people while we were there, different people having different needs. I loved that our shirts were so capable of drawing attention like that! Whooo-hooo!
We decided to start going into stores where most Christians wouldn't step foot, at least with out a disguise on anyway, and see what God did with us. We targeted the darkest stores, or the stores with the worst reputations for drawing in sinners. One particular encounter we had was kinda funny. Here we are wearing these Do you NEED PRAYER t-shirts and we walk right in to Fredericks of Hollywood. We struck up a conversation with the sales associate and got to talking about our church down-town and God and etc and finally asked her if we could pray for her. She said absolutely and told us she was seeking God's direction, that she wanted to KNOW what He wanted for her life and wanted to just know it the way we knew that we were supposed to be doing A Church Without Walls.
So we said let's pray now, and she was surprised! She didn't expect us to pray now! Hahahah....so we were like you must be thinking we can't pray in here....there are crotchless panties in this store! LOL! Well, we prayed anyway and it was great time in the Lord!
Well we actually had one specific store we wanted to go to.....we wanted to pierce the darkness! There's a shop called Hot Topic. I don't know if you have a store like that where you live, but it's a store that caters to the goth market. We went in there and looked around. Wow. Is the devil clever. Lot's of stuff in there, lots of death related things. But when we walked in there and brought the Presence of God with us, the devil started wettin' his pants. So much so that when we came back later when we passed by again, we knew we had intimidated him and his little defeated ones, because the first time we went in, the evil was right there right when you went in, it was scattered throughout the store too, but you could definitely sense the demonic when you first entered. We had quietly been praying through out the store, hoping God would give us a person to talk to, but instead he had us lay hands on the baby clothes in there and plead the blood of Christ over what ever baby would end up wearing those death-inspired baby outfits.
Well, when we went back the second time, I noticed that there wasn't that strong of a presence of the demonic in the beginning of the store....but it did seem concentrated toward the back. Way cool.....the lingering demons that we didn't get the first time all coward like little weenies in the back corner of the store! hahahah Our God is BIG! So we told them to scat too. We did strike up a conversation with one really scary lookin' employee, so essentially, we were building a repore' with him. Who knows what will happen the next time we walk in there? hahahahah The darkness has to flee....we are a city on a hill that can NOT be hidden!
Anyway, Pam had to leave early to go get her little one from school, and as she was leaving she called me on the cell to tell me that the UPS man that we had passed on the escalator earlier.....told her as she was passing by to pray for him. How cool is that? So she told him she had to hurry but that Sam and Tammy were down by the Bath and Body Works. (Actually we were IN the Bath and Body Works) We never did see him though, but we looked for him! We are going to pray for him anyway.
We got there at 11:30 a.m. and left at nearly 5! Whew! Long day! But as we were leaving we asked God to give us one more opportunity for ministry. We ended up with a table in the food court of high schoolers who wanted prayer. Mostly scholastic related prayers. We grabbed hands and prayed with them. When we were done, the girl holding Samantha's hands said, "Wow, I just feel so much peace right now." Whooo-hoooo! That powerful love-juice was flowing right outta Sam's hand right into that young girl! Yay God!!
All in all it was a great afternoon filled with lots of opportunity to bring the Kingdom into the mall. Yay God!!!
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