After growing up as a missionary kid in Asia, I’ve worked in the marketplace in the United States much longer than I ever expected. However, I wouldn’t trade the journey over the past 10 years. The Lord has been so faithful to provide everything that I’ve needed, including heart surgery to correct an atrial septal defect (hole in my heart) in 2012. It’s been a challenging but blessed road, and I’ve gone from being very hole-hearted to being much more whole-hearted. Now with health issues corrected, I’m moving towards full-time ministry in Bellingham, WA as an urban missionary and worship director at Light of the World Prayer Center. I’m very excited for this next step.

THE MINISTRY:

Our goal at the Light of the World prayer center is to exalt Jesus in united prayer, praise, and worship for global harvest. We’re building a city-wide house of prayer where night and day (Malachi 1:11, Luke 18:7), Spirit-led, scripture-fed, worship-based prayer unites and ignites a fresh passion for Christ in every realm of society. We serve as a hub for over 30 churches in Whatcom County who each take a day of the month to stand in united prayer. We’re working towards 24/7 corporate worship and prayer here at LOWPC, as a central location where we gather from all of the different local churches to minister to the Lord and pray. As we do this, we are seeing the Lord’s activity increasing across all spheres of society. For more details, check out “The Whatcom Story” – a short documentary on LOWPC/Whatcom County, and other transformation testimonies.

LOWPC officially began in the spring of 2007, commissioned with the blessing of several senior pastors in Bellingham, and with all staff committed to and serving in local churches. In these 5 years we have seen God move in mighty ways in Bellingham. Thousands have accepted Christ (salvations and baptisms reported by local churches). Crime and gang activity is decreasing. Adoptions are increasing and abortions are decreasing. The Lord led us to pray into the issue of human trafficking during a 24-hour worship/prayer event the same weekend that a nation-wide human trafficking bust took place (with the largest single group of over 50 children rescued in the Seattle area). After over 3 years of praying every Saturday night for awakening and revival at Western Washington University, revival is indeed now happening. Campus fellowships bursting at the seams, reporting hundreds of salvations this year, and the different campus ministries are working together in love and unity. Senior pastors of churches across denominations are gathering monthly to pray together and seek God’s face for strategy to shepherd the city together. These are just a few examples of measurable transformation as a result of specific, unified prayer.

MY PART:

Over the past three years, I’ve had the joy and faced the challenge of balancing full time work with 15-20 weekly hours of ministry. Leading worship at LOWPC since 2008, I’ve served as worship coordinator since 2010. Why worship in a house of prayer? Great question! First, we worship simply because He is worthy of it! We see both worship and prayer happening in a continuous cycle before the throne in heaven (Rev 4 and 5, Isaiah 6). Following this model (“on earth as it is in heaven” Matt 6:10), we have found that combining worship with prayer is a very practical way to “rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks” (1 Thes 5:16-18). We praise and worship because He is worthy! As we do, He begins to make known to us the things that are on His heart, which we then pray back to Him, and return thanksgiving and praise for who He is and what He’s done! We currently have 90-100 hours of weekly corporate prayer meetings at LOWPC. Most of them have the prayer component but lack the worshiper component. As the ministry of LOWPC continues to grow, we have a very real need for a full time worship director to mentor and equip new worship leaders and facilitate their ministry. I’m also networking/building relationship with worship leaders around Whatcom County to serve them and foster unity.

In addition to time spent in worship and intercession in the prayer room, LOWPC staff all have some sort of out-flow or service area.  I’ve been dreaming for the past couple of years about teaching music lessons – guitar, piano, and music theory – especially to those who want to play for worship.  It’s a place that I can sow into a generation (of all ages!) of worshipers, equipping the body of Christ with skillful, passionate, worshiping musicians.  While working full-time, I didn’t have the time to do any teaching.  Now, however, I do. The time I spent at the Levite Praise Institute reminded me how much I love teaching music and gave me a leg-up on content.  I’d like to have 10-15 students taking weekly group or private lessons. Do you know of any music students to introduce to me?  Please send them my way!