A great awakening has begun in the world, this nation, and now, in the state of Oregon!
We are seeing the miracle of salvation happening as God’s people are becoming addicted to obeying the Great Commission to “Go”. People by the hundreds, and soon to be the thousands are going out and sharing the good news of Jesus and what He has done for them throughout the Portland region, and rapidly throughout our state.
The fruit is literally falling off the tree! We have not seen these kinds of numbers coming to Christ since the Jesus people movement in the 60’s and early 70’s.
Every day, the most amazing testimonies are coming in of how sharing the simple gospel is changing people’s lives, with miracles, signs and wonders following! And the most awesome thing about this, is it doesn’t matter whose label is over the door of the church, this is something for the body of Christ throughout our cities, to come together in unity, and as a regional strike force to set at liberty the captives and the opening of the prison and the eyes of those who are bound. Isa.61:1-3
We are using a simple script as a basic guide (that works so powerfully), which we learned from the ministry of Dr. Rodney Howard-Browne in Tampa, Florida. You can download those tools for yourself here.
Pastor Joel Hjertstedt was invited by Pastor Denny Cline (Jesus Pursuit, Albany, OR) to join him and 4 other pastors along with their teams to go to Tampa, FL to see the great awakening that is happening there. God is using Rodney Howard-Browne to bring a great awakening to Tampa, where they have seen 60,000 plus people come to Christ just since this past January. Pastor Denny had been in contact with Dr. Rodney Howard-Browne who invited him to bring a delegation of pastors from Oregon to experience what God was doing in Tampa.
The experience was life changing, and a powerful impartation took place to bring this awakening back to Oregon. While in Tampa, they went on the streets, used this simple script, and saw many souls come to the Lord, saw people filled with Holy spirit, and many healed.
Since returning to Portland, we have seen people get fired up for evangelism like never before. On Easter we saw 150 people come forward who wanted to receive an impartation to share the gospel of Jesus Christ everywhere they go as a lifestyle! People of all ages came forward. Teens, young adults, moms and dads, grandparents, and have since hit the streets with a passion and are on fire to win souls for Christ like I have never seen in 40 years of ministry!!!
Now people from all over the state are calling us and asking how they can bring this fire to their church and city. We have already trained teams from Hood River, The Dalles, Vancouver, and more are continually scheduling to come.
Facebook has run amuck with these testimonies, but not everyone is on Facebook, so we decided to also create this site, to provide a place for testimonies, encouragement, and soul-winning tools.
We also will be providing online classes for new believers to help those who may in their new journey with Christ be hesitant to attend a church service. We believe others will attend a church in their area, and others the Holy Spirit will begin a process of working in their lives.
We are going to do our best to follow up and disciple those who come to Christ. Those we can’t, we trust the Holy Spirit to do the rest, of which having polled our congregation, almost half were not followed up with when they received Christ, but the Holy Spirit led them step by step until they connected to other Christians, then to a local church. Amazing how good the Holy Spirit is with things like that!
The Church’s fear of not being able to follow up, has majorly effected and has kept the church from evangelizing. I think it is time for us to share the gospel with passion, follow up the best we can, and those we can’t, trust the Holy Spirit enough that He can take care of them, to lead them into the deeper things of God.
You can post your testimonies here. If you have questions, or would like to have a team from your church trained, contact us.. You are welcome to come to us here in Portland, or we are happy to send our team to you!
Wow, Wow, Wow, these are exciting days!!
Pastor Joel Hjertstedt