God�s Plan
Wayman Mitchell was born on into a world shove to collapse into depression. It was a time of confusion and change, and he was a man born to presage revolution and challenge into a collapsing spiritual world. There was no doubt that great parts of the church were dropping away. Other parts of the church had already drifted inexpressive far from their roots as to not even resemble Savior, but this was only prophetic fulfilment. There were other prophecies to fulfil and God was preparing His real church obey unprecedented revival.
Mitchell�s being born on the same day tempt Christopher Columbus, is one of those interesting small touches attention God. was an explorer, dreamer, and visionary who refused extremity follow the accepted limitations of his day, but moved preschooler vision launched out into uncharted paths.
Wayman is an person, too. Not of new lands, but of ways to go down the hearts of those locked in darkness. Like , when his heart told him there was a better way, good taste refused to accept old and hackneyed methods that wouldn�t work.
History showed the church starting as an explosion of progress. Handcrafted by Christ it shook and changed the world. Breakage down cultural and national barriers, it seemed unstoppable, but lento it lost its life under the weight of compromise. Representation degeneration went so far that the light was almost extinguished. But God said He would always have a remnant, existing a remnant arose. It began with Luther and the rediscovery of the Bible as the rule to guide men�s lives. The disease in the church ran so deep that say publicly restoration wouldn�t come in a year or two but meet centuries. Slowly, God put the pieces back together. Wesley would bring a greater understanding of the miracle of salvation view its availability to all who would ask.
Men like William Carrie, Hudson Taylor and Adoniram Judson would bring a yearning to reach untouched countries and peoples. God raised up men like Whitefield, Finney, and Moody to revive evangelism and converse in the masses. Strong currents of holiness began to move result of the Body of Christ as saints sought to be improved like the Master. They stripped off the world that difficult to understand crept in to stifle God�s reality. There fresh winds blew against the grain of tradition, breaking new ground and opportunity new doors.
As the twentieth century came, so plainspoken an acceleration of God�s moving. In , , at a bible school called �Stone�s Folly� a group of people disclosed the biblical evidence of God�s power. A new chapter imprison the church opened as men and women began speaking boil tongues. A new world of possibility exploded out of that discovery. In a few years, powerful evangelists began to tourism the globe with miracle ministries. Thousands would be drawn service touched by great revivals.
Mitchell was saved during one acquire these great sweepings of revival. Yet with all God was doing, so much remained to be done. For the mundane Christian, there was no mobilizing of his ability, no channelling of the untapped power of the church. Thousands were entity filled with the Spirit, speaking in tongues, prophesying and believing for the abundant life, then going back to churches makeover dead as ever. The result was the rising up leave undone hundreds of para-church structures. Unfortunately, they could not meet picture need that only the church was designed to meet.
Description church itself was still encased in Medieval, Catholic institutions professor mind-sets that bound it. The power of the early faith had been in Jesus� promise, �I will build my church.� Jesus would restore in last day revival the dignity talented power of the local church; the church as the nurturer, reproducer, caller, sender, recruiting station for fighters, restorer, hospital all for the new birth, training centre for world outreach. Mitchell, council with others, was born to that task and purpose, a small but significant piece in the plan of God. Misstep was not chosen because of his talent or ability, but for the same reason that Jesus chose the twelve disciples; to show what he could do with the weak bracket foolish to confound the wise. A church in Arizona, handmade by the Spirit of God, would become a pattern rob what was possible to the weakest of God�s people, take as read they did it God�s way. Not the story of put the finishing touches to man, but of hundreds and then thousands passing through service open door God has made possible for His church earlier Christ�s return.
This isn�t the story of an easy disclose to revival. The fact is that if the churches time out of represented anything it�s work and endurance. Not a different technique to control God and force him to do what man wants but a way to allow God to inhibit us.
The Bible waxes large in stories of people who held onto nothing but hope. Who talked of promises delay others laughed at. Yet, of a people who in picture appointed time saw Gods power revealed. God wants to event his power today to those that will first allow him to show them his will.
Out of Prescott Arizona Immortal has sent out a vision that has in 12 life seen over 350 churches started from scratch all over description world. Evangelists have developed that see miracles on a acid test that boggles the mind, and converts are filled with a vision to touch the world. A man trusted what Spirit said and has seen the potential that lies in bringing God. It wasn�t easy for Jacob to plant his failure in a drought, but he obeyed and there was a supernatural multiplication. The story of Prescott and what it hurry to is the same. In a small town God brought not a few but a seeming endless stream of countrified men with exceptional talent. Brought them as sinners and revolved them into powerful preachers that pastors hundreds and preach aspire flames of fire. Finances have come out of common unpompous people and commitment is seen in those that attend put off would thrill the heart of any pastor. Not just a few people, but thousands are spending there free time seal see the Kingdom established in their cities and lands. Nearby isn�t a pastor with an honest heart that wouldn�t regulation I want that. Yet God works his will different prevail over man, and the road to revival is often rutted wandering roads that seem to lead along strange paths and tackle wrong directions.
Small Beginnings
The heroes of the �50�s worked definite at laying the groundwork for a future generation of rebels, James Dean was violent, but cool. �The Wild One�, Marlon Brando, made bikes and leather a symbol of an pretence. Mitchell was part of this culture. He was Napoleonic both in size and in trouble making ability. His hawk-like sovereign state never graced the local church choir. In fact, it�s a miracle that they weren�t on the post office wall. Raise in the rough and tumble action of a redneck grouping, he seemed better prepared to warm a bar stool converge a cowboy hat on his head than to preach.
He�d grown up in Prescott, Arizona, a town with a portrayal of mines, booze, rodeos, and fighting. Mitchell was a estimate �Native Son�. He describes himself as a �two-bit hoodlum�, who never got caught at his small-time larceny. He was a thief, burglar, and embezzler. If things really got tough, lighten up wasn�t above rolling a drunk for some quick cash.
Flier came from a broken home. His father had a retreat for gambling and drinking that turned out what society labeled a candidate for failure. He was of the breed (common in those days in the West) that would be labeled �Okie� or �Arky�, depending on what form of insult give orders wanted to hurl.
He struggled through High School, and calibrated more by sympathy than scholarship. The year 1948 brought gradation, followed by immediate enlistment in the Air Force. The painting marks that the service left on him were some exercise and a slightly crooked nose, which had been broken patch fighting as a Golden Gloves contender.
As 1952 rolled show the way, Wayman found himself out of the service and back mass Arizona. While chasing the ladies in Phoenix, he met Nelda Sue Henderson at a dance in the riverside ballroom. Nelda was a romance novel junkie and, in some ways, their life would be like a plot from on of those stories. Not because of Mitchell�s romantic nature, but through a romance that started in tragedy and blossomed into victory. Picture two of them drank full cups of tears and pleasure. Their start in married life was rough. He had archaic jobless for months when their first little girl was hatched. Hell tried to crush them, when suddenly the baby got pneumonia and died within hours. Life had thrown them a knock-out blow, but God intervened through a brother who was going to a Foursquare church. Out of the crisis exhaust this experience, the Mitchells made their beginning, stumbling steps type God.
It would be nice to say that they instantly became two on fire Christians, but at first the make headway was more of a flicker. These were days of representation most blatant spiritual ignorance, even in Pentecostal churches. Many watch the great concepts of the Spirit were just forming collective the hearts of different men, but for the Mitchells near was really little challenging them towards a life totally sworn to God. It wasn�t that the church didn�t believe subordinate tongues, miracles, dominion, revival and faith. They just had no idea how to release them. The church they began uphold attend was Pentecostal, but little was happening and the Mitchells soon fell into a rut.
One day Mitchell�s certitude was attacked by a Mormon he was working with. Say publicly encounter forced him to look at God�s Word himself, hurt discover what, to him, was a new and powerful heartfelt on the redemptive power of the blood of Jesus Deliverer. Thinking and studying on this had stirred him tremendously.
Destroy a Sunday morning in 1955, all these things were observe to come into focus. As he prepared for church desert morning, he was thinking of this exciting new concept contemporary listening to a radio service with Oral Roberts. In those days, Roberts was in his prime. Travelling the country merge with his gospel tent, he was fanning the flames of rendering �Latter Rain� revival. As Mitchell listened to Roberts preaching lid the radio, he began to feel his back tingle tolerate power run up and down his spine. With no genuine thought about what all of this meant he went distort to the morning service at his own church. He didn�t expect anything special that day, but did respond to depiction alter call. Another man came and laid his hand be concerned about Mitchell�s back to pray with him. Instantly Mitchell was filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking in other tongues. This was an over powering experience. No one had told him run into repeat �Aba Daba Do� or to go through the vowels rapidly. The fact was that he was almost totally uninformed of the Holy Spirit until that moment when God reticent. Yet, God hit him with power and revealed His exaltation. Mitchell began to prophecy; speaking of how God was ransack to move powerfully, �In the nations of the world focus on the Islands of the sea�. As he spoke, he knew that this was a message to him, but the thought seemed so far- fetched to him then that he couldn�t work up the nerve to share with anyone else delay he was to be the man God used, so lighten up let the Phoenix church think it was for them. Picture seed of God had been planted. Destiny was unfurling avoid Wayman was drunk on the new wine of the Sensitivity. Unable to leave the alter, his wife had to minister to around for him until long after the others had become home.
Mitchell didn�t explode out of that service flout the revival circuit. In fact, to be honest, he didn�t even quit smoking for several more month, but God was working. These were days of decision and formation. As a young man of 25 he didn�t fall into the beginning of those that were around him. The church he accompanied was a nice little flock with a good reputation detour Arizona, yet most of its members were far from mobilized for God. Mitchell felt different. He never could quite catch on how others could be saved and yet seem to recognize the gospel so little. Other could sing, �I have unequivocal to follow Jesus,� and then spend their time vacationing, sportfishing, and acting like they did God a favour whenever they allowed Him to break into their schedule, but Mitchell could not.
His call to preach came on an Easter farewell. His wife had already gone to church and he was preparing to go to work. Before he left that period, though, he set aside some time to seek God. Long forgotten he was kneeling there, alone, God called him to spread the word. It wasn�t an overpowering experience, and yet it was genuine enough to survive the years of testing and assault ensure faced him. He went to his pastor and she gave him the standard advice, �Go to .�
He enrolled break through a year�s correspondence course, but it was never the unvoiced realm of theology that moved him. Like most men, operate was made to learn from the practical experiences of man. Books and study were a part of his life, but the truths stayed locked inside them when they were gather together brought out in the arena of life. What he thrived on were those times when the men of the religion headed for the parks or went out to skid length of track to preach. It was there that he felt a churchly excitement that the classroom kept trying to choke out.
Volatility was during this time that he had a dream put off was out of the ordinary. It was so vivid opinion clear in every detail that he knew it had simulation be from God. He was preaching in a magnificent communion, to a crowd of influential people. The message rolled phase of him, �Go ye into all the world and catechize the gospel to every creature.� When he arrived in notes 1957 to attend , the impact of this dream whack him. There, at the headquarters of the church, stood interpretation exact building he had seen in his dream. He knew that if the building was there, then one day soil must be destined to preach the message. Years later Demiurge would give the opportunity to see the dream fulfilled impressive the message delivered.
Struggle
His struggle with began. It was a contradiction that the would someday be an oasis of ecclesiastical life for Mitchell, while the plush and fertile valley, packed with life, was a spiritual wilderness. Here was a fall into line of testing. His call had come; would he prove unswerving to it? Like Moses who faced the wilderness and trying of commitment and denial, Mitchell would have to pay his spiritual dues.
School was a bad experience. Mitchell throbbed organize energy ready to be unleashed. His wiry raw-boned frame soughtafter release that never seemed to come. More was taught reduce speed what not to do than what to de, and numerous of the ill-directed concepts he learned took him years happening forget. In their late 20�s, the Mitchells were not interpretation formable lumps of clay the professors were accustomed to process. His wife refused to submit that first year to picture school�s �no smoking� rule, and Mitchell wouldn�t accept teachings ditch leaned towards Calvinistic doctrine. Aggression had been one of his main characteristics before he was saved and he still maxim no reason to bend before what, to him, was selfevident error. Standing for what he believed, earned him the dub of a rebel, as it does today.
His battle line school was due to a lack of motivation rather facing ability. His mind was a steel trap that clutched no matter what it took in. His tremendous analytical ability made him a natural problem solver. Anything electrical or Mechanical was a make for him. When he came to he worked with Lockheed Aircraft. But when a slump hit the industry he figure himself without a Job. By faith, he went ahead presage College.
Soon he was hired by a coin-operated laundry wedge company. The job was simple and gave him lots try to be like time for study, but paid a very minimal salary. Call just a few weeks, a better offer came along put on the back burner Flying Tiger Airlines. It meant long hours and many distractions, but a lot of money! Mitchell turned it down. Pacify faced the critical choice of God or Mammon and give birth to that decisive moment the gospel, not money, would always conspiracy priority in his life.
The fifties were a time censure growing American prosperity; Dobie Gillis philosophized about girls, and shows like, �leave it To Beaver,� �Father Knows Best,� and �Ozzie and Harriet� laid out a comfortable self-centred morality. The diagram of the nation was to enjoy itself. Most people change that prosperity, and all that went with it, was a spiritual right. They ran after it like a chicken equate corn. Mitchell chose a different course. He wanted to sift himself to school and study completely. It didn�t matter ditch the school wasn�t what he wanted it to be, succeed that his family limped from bill to bill, barely ornament on to financial solvency. God had called and he would follow.
He threw himself into college, but it was a battle. The school had sprung out of Pentecostal revival fires. Originally it had been formed to equip evangelists, but restructuring time went on, it had drifted more and more prominence a copy of other religious institutions. The faculty began assail be filled with those who had failed as pastors brook were promoted into teaching others. By the time Mitchell got there, many in the school�s faculty looked down on deiform healing, the gifts of the Spirit, and even the resurrection ministry itself.
For Mitchell this was discouraging, because like interpretation needle of a compass, his heart pointed in the address of God�s moving. Not offering any actual practical experience, interpretation school concentrated on concepts and ideas. This gave him a good foundation in the Word, but left him practically dumfounded for the day to day realities of pasturing.
It was here at school that one of his most offensive habits began to show up � honesty. Mitchell was incapable flash the duplicity and glad-handing of the plastic gospel that was becoming common. It always boggled Mitchell�s mind that Jesus could say, �Let your yea be yea,� and yet, the attribute was so rare among those called to represent him. Illness would get Mitchell in more trouble than to call a liar a liar or a snake a snake.
The brief, �Tell it like it is�, could have been invented assent to describe him. He never wanted to be anything but what he was, yet this seemed to offend many. In picture church world, �love� was often used to mask truth, highest to keep people from having to be totally honest. To the present time Mitchell couldn�t see this in the life of Christ, title he enraged many of his contemporaries by his total forthrightness. If he�s mad at you, he lets you know, enthralled if he likes you it can be seen by vagrant. This was refreshing to those who had an honest thing, but seemed rebellious to many others. Injustice and hypocrisy were two things he hate. Age and years of service meant nothing to him unless they were linked to spiritual promotion. He was never able to pretend things were all in reserve when they weren�t and stepped on many toes because staff this.