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New Move of the Holy Spirit New Move of the Holy Spirit
Kevin and dorothy Ragnahan, who are part of the leadership team for the People of Praise network of covenant communities in the United States, have been involved in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal since its beginnings in the late 1960s. In the last five years they say they have seen more healings and wonders in their ministry than in the thirty previous years. Below Kevin shares some of the factors that they believe have contributed to this new phase of their life in the Holy Spirit
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We started the People of Praise community over 25 years ago with
29 members. Now we have 21 branches in North America and the Caribbean
with 1900 adult members (3600 including the children). As leaders
we spend a lot of our time on the road visiting the different communities.
We have always prayed for healing in the community but it wasn't really
a focus and we never saw the powerful testimonies we have been seeing
over the past five years. This can not be put down to any one thing
but a whole series of factors that have contributed to a growth in
expectation among us that the Lord will heal, and He has. One of the factors that we feel is significant, was that a few years ago we started reading about the life and works of Smith Wigglesworth, an English Pentecostal, who lived at the turn of the 20th century. He came from a humble background and didn't have much education, but he had great faith and saw the most amazing miracles through his ministry, including over 20 people being raised from the dead. We have also been influenced by the writings of John G Lake, another early Pentecostal from the Azusa Street Awakening, who was responsible for setting up the Healing Rooms in Spokane, in Washington in the early 20th century. The catalyst, however, happened six years ago when a man from our community called Louis Grams, who had Churg-Straus disease, which is a terrible wasting illness that causes all your organs to gradually shut down, was healed. He had been in a long decline over several years and was now in the final stages of the illness, dying in hospital. One day as he lay in his bed a black nursing aide came into his room and said simply that he was not to be afraid, and that he would be healed. With this she walked out of the room. Within a day, he suddenly began to get better and his health improved so much that he was released from hospital. It was about this time that we were having a retreat for the leaders of our community at a cottage by a lake. Louis was supposed to come, but we weren't expecting him, as we knew that he was dying in the hospital. We thus were absolutely amazed when he arrived and told us what had happened. He was still taking some of his medication and his legs were still wrapped in the elastic bandages he needed for his circulation problems which were a result of his illness. Stepping out in faith In view of what had happened, we felt the Lord was calling us to step out in faith, and pray for his complete healing. Thus we laid hands on him, prayed in faith and took off his bandages. The next morning his numbers were completely normal and we knew for certain he had been totally healed. We couldn't believe ourselves that this had really happened. The doctors were amazed. One of them said, "I don't believe in miracles but this is clearly the work of a big force!" This healing was a big event in Louis' life but also for us all. After his healing Louis went all over the country to our different branches of the People of Praise community leading meetings and praying with people for healing. In the process he discovered the Lord as well as healing him had given him a gift for healing. Influence of Brownsville Revival At the same time, we had some other healings going on in the community. It was around this time that the Brownsville Revival was happening and a number of the community went along to that. I got a lot out of this myself. This was an Assembly of God led revival and I was touched by the huge sense of expectation there was there and the belief in the immediate and powerful action of God in the situation. For some people the Brownsville factor was a bigger influence than for others, but throughout the community we had a renewed expectation of revival and renewal and the sense that normal Christian life was meant to be more power-filled on a daily basis than we expected it to be. We couldn't believe ourselves that this had really happened. The doctors were amazed. One of them said, "I don't believe in miracles but this is clearly the work of a big force!" This in turn effected our community life. Before that we had stopped having public open meetings, but now we started them again. These are not really evangelistic, as 95% of those who attend are already practising Christians, but they are places where the Lord through the ministry of the body is meeting people's needs. The structure of these gatherings is quite informal. We simply tell stories of what's going on and have testimonies of not just healings, but of all that God is doing, such as how marriages have been restored or financial problems been resolved through God's actions. We don't use tongues or the prophetic word instead the emphasis is more on music, sharing and praying for healing. People are touched by the powerful testimonies of what God is doing We have found that people respond very powerfully when they hear the testimonies of what God is doing, rather than to the more formal teaching we are used to doing. They want to hear about how God works in people's lives. This is particularly convincing if the people sharing are local, because they can see these things have happened to people they know, so it must be true.I remember we had all been praying for Nathan, who was the fourth child of one of the young families in the community. As a baby he was not putting on any weight and it turned out he couldn't absorb sugar into the blood system. Arrangements were made for him to go to Indianapolis children's hospital but he needed some more internal tests before he went and in that time Colleen, his mother, brought Nathan in front of the community to be prayed for, and then again to the leadership some days later. We felt led to pray with a great deal of confidence. When his blood tests were taken a couple of days later they showed no trace of the disease and he started putting on weight and he's fine now. "It's true, he's my baby!" I have been a deacon in the parish for 18 years, which means I get to preach in Mass. A short time after Nathan's healing, the gospel reading for that Sunday was the story of the four men who lowered their friend through the roof so that Jesus would heal him. In my homily I couldn't resist giving some contemporary examples of how Jesus heals today too, and told the story of Nathan. I preached the same sermon at all four Masses. Nathan's mother leads the music at the 7 o'clock Mass and as she announced the final hymn she added, "I just want to say that the baby Kevin mentioned is mine, and it's all true." Afterwards the woman who is in charge of the ministry of the sick for the parish contacted us, as several parishioners had been in touch with her, wanting to be prayed with. The upshot was that we simply invited anybody who wanted to be prayed with for healing to show up at the church one afternoon. Six or seven of us from the community who went to the parish, then turned up to help do the praying. We weren't sure who would appear as our parish is very traditional, where this kind of thing doesn't happen. But a group of people did appear and there was an amazing expectant atmosphere and we had several minor healings. Raising the Dead As far as the community is concerned, we don't have anyone with a big healing ministry, everyone prays with everyone and it is simply the body of Christ doing the ministry. We have noticed, however, that when people pray one on one there is less fruit than when they are prayed with for a time by a group. The key is really expectant faith and we now simply expect God to move and do things, whether it is in a public meeting or praying for someone informally in a private home after supper. And he seems to be honouring our faith. We have even started praying for the raising of the dead. We do this with all the community members who die now. Louis had been so near death that when he was healed, it was as if he had been raised from the dead and we have heard of contemporary situations when this has happened. So far we haven't seen anybody raised from the dead ourselves, but if we don't pray for it, we never will!
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