BY NATE HOWARD
EASTERN PA DISTRICT TEAM
“My sheep hear my voice.” - Jesus (John 10:27)
The most fundamental building blocks of any relationship are the simple acts of speaking and listening—two people talking. Jesus emphasizes that truth in His interaction with His people. Always supported by and grounded in His written Word, Jesus speaks, and we hear. It’s the constant in being in a relationship with Him.
Jesus speaks to His sheep, and the way He speaks to each of us varies. A significant problem often surfaces when we don’t hear Jesus’ voice in the SAME way someone else hears Him. The different experience sometimes confuses us—or worse—leads us to think we don’t hear Jesus’ voice. We can even conclude Jesus no longer speaks.
But the very words of Jesus declare, His sheep hear His voice. It’s impossible to be His sheep and never hear His voice. Sure, there are seasons or reasons why we might not hear His voice in the same way or with the same clarity or intensity. Still, the characteristic of being Jesus’ sheep is simply this: we hear His voice.
Two types of training are required to grow in hearing Jesus’ voice, the essence of prophetic ministry. One type includes gaining biblical and theological grounding to raise expectations and faith for prophetic ministry and to avoid common excesses and pitfalls often associated with the prophetic.
Over the past two years, the prophetic cohort (one of several developmental tracks offered by our district) has been designed to help people gain biblical grounding to grow in discovering, discerning, and delivering prophetic ministry. By participating in a cohort, studying what God’s Word teaches about Jesus’ voice, and practicing hearing Jesus’ voice in a safe, supportive environment, I am seeing men and women grow in confidence in understanding and experiencing prophetic ministry.
The second type of training is experience: cultivating, risking, attempting, and stretching within a safe, developmental environment.
The Prophetic Development Track I lead provides both types of training to help us hear and be transformed by Jesus’ voice.
Here’s one pastor’s story that illustrates that transformation:
Thank you for the prophetic event. As you know, I asked for prayer there because of recurring nightmares which I had had over the previous weeks. I wanted to write and tell you I have been nightmare-free since Saturday.
But there’s more. Early Sunday morning I woke to a vision where I saw the word “rebellion.” The Holy Spirit said that the thing I was hiding that was revealed to the person who prayed over me was a growing spirit of cynicism towards leadership that was infecting me in my job. He said I needed to repent from that or it would infect my view of leadership in the Church. I repented of that and feel a great freedom.
As we develop Kingdom workers for increasing Gospel impact, I’m convinced growth in the prophetic is pivotal. Revelation 19:10 says that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. In other words, prophetic ministry points to Jesus, speaks of Jesus, and reflects what Jesus would be “testifying” in any given situation. Prophetic ministry is Gospel ministry. It’s the good news of who Jesus is and what He is doing, and it grounds us in the Gospel and will empower us for increasing Gospel impact.
You may be sensing that a next step for your development is to grow in the prophetic: hearing, discerning, and walking in Jesus’ voice for you and your ministry. If so, please fill out the interest below, and we will contact you with more information.
To experience a taste of prophetic development, you are also invited to a prophetic activation event on Saturday, December 4 with Alex and Hannah Absalom. You can find more information about the event here. You can also register for the event below.