John Lindell and His New Book
Back in 2014 my husband, Allan, and I attended a conference in Springfield, MO, of the Society of Pentecostal Studies (SPS). It was held on the campus of Evangel University since the students were all out for vacation.
On night we decided to skip the plenary evening session in order to visit the well-loved James River Assembly of God, a megachurch with a good reputation. On many Sunday evenings for about a year, Allan and I had sat together and watched an archive version of their Sunday morning service for that day. My husband knew how to Chrome Cast the program to our TV set from his phone or laptop. Our church had no evening service; James River became our Sunday night church.
The evening that we visited the physical church, we said “Wow” as we saw the large sanctuary on the campus between Springfield and Branson. We were equally impressed with the crowd inside on a Wednesday evening. It was their weekly prayer service, a favorite of the people. Most of the seats in the 3800-seat auditorium were taken. Prayer requests were given on slips of paper.
A recent Charisma magazine article has this to say about the Wednesday night meeting:
Lindell believes that the biggest factor behind James River’s growth—besides God’s sovereign move—is the church’s weekly prayer meeting. In January 1998, Lindell started inviting the church to meet and pray on Wednesday nights. Over two decades later, the meetings are still going strong. Lindell estimates that probably 40 percent of his church attends the weekly meeting—and almost every regular James River attendee would call the Wednesday prayer meeting the church’s most important service.
Lindell thought like this: “The longer we pray, the longer we’re at it, the more powerful the church is going to be and the more we’re going to see God’s power.”
Was he right? He has seen God do incredible things. He describes some of them:
When we started the prayer meeting, interestingly enough, salvations increased exponentially. Baptisms increased exponentially. Holy Spirit baptisms increased exponentially. There was a weight of the Lord’s hand and a grace on the church that really…took us from being an ordinary church to being an extraordinary church in some really significant ways. The prayer meeting is the engine that drives the ship of James River.
The church attributes the success of their Cherish Kids ministry to the prayer backing it has. It is a ministry started by Lindell’s wife Debbie 10 years ago and has stressed foster care and adoption. Charisma says that “over 5,000 kids have been placed in foster and adopted homes throughout Missouri.” State offices have even asked the Lindells to duplicate it in every county in the state. They have a tremendous “green light” with the state of Missouri.
Allan and I also visited the church on a Sunday morning. As visitors there that day, we were invited to go to a special room for welcoming visitors. It was a nice living room setting with a trained lay person to chat with us. It was definitely not a situation where one goes to a visitor’s counter and receives a mug. We sat at a little table for four, and soon, a young woman and her husband from the church came to chat with us. She was from Ukraine with excellent English and he from Russia. They seemed genuinely interested in getting to know us as persons. She was active in the women’s ministry at the church and knew the pastor’s wife well. (Lindell’s wife, Debbie, had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer; the doctors caught the disease early on. I have not heard since about how she fared in her treatments.)
Thus, it was a delight to see Pastor John Lindell featured on the front cover of Charisma magazine for June/July, 2019. There is a photo of John and Debbie together, holding hands. The back cover features his new book, Soul Set Free, Why Grace Is More Liberating Than You Believe. Soul Set Free takes the reader through the book of Romans. I tried to get it through interlibrary loan, but it was too new! Amazon wisely carries it. (https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Set-Free-Liberating-Believe/dp/1629996173/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1NXYBLCTII033&keywords=john+lindell+soul+set+free&qid=1568752909&s=books&sprefix=John+Lindell%2Caps%2C138&sr=1-1)
The book, like Pastor John’s teaching, is an example of how he systematically labors through a particular book in the Bible. Charisma provides a helpful link to see him in action. Here it is to learn from Romans:
lindell.charismamag.com/The Grace of Gifts
May many a pastor take up Lindell’s challenge to go for it and make prayer a priority in his local church. God will do amazing things through earnest prayer.