Growing in the Prophetic - Mike Bickle

257 Pages·2009·2.97 MB·English

Growing in the Prophetic is a valuable resource for indi-
viduals and congregations who desire to mature in prophetic
ministry. Through Mike Bickle’s deep and tested reservoir
of knowledge and experience, many will find encouragement
to exercise the spiritual gift of prophecy in balance and power.
—Francis Frangipane
Pastor and Author

Mike’s journey in the Lord has been quite amazing. In the begin-
ning, he was a young conservative, anti-charismatic, evangelical
pastor. Now he is an intimate, passionate worshiper, moving in
the supernatural and leading others into a powerful place in
the Spirit.
He has moved a million miles in his heart and experience of
God. It is this authenticity that stands out in the man. He is not
afraid to explore, to quest, and to pioneer. This book is a journey
into the territory of prophecy, the prophetic ministry, and the
role of prophets.
Developing prophetic people is not easy. Pastoring a prophetic
community is not for the fainthearted. Cultivating a safe place
of relational accountability for prophets is a tough job. Only a
leader who has been led into divine encounters with the Lord can
undertake such a transitional process.
Mike’s book is real, pragmatic, and rich in experience and
wisdom. To love the gift of prophecy as a church is a good thing.
To develop a prophetic community who can hear and act on the
voice of the Lord is an altogether different proposition. Growing in
the Prophetic is an important book to read and study. It will teach
you transitional process. That alone is worth the investment.
I loved the initial book of this same title. If Mike has found a
way to upgrade and expand its wisdom, then I am definitely first
in line to read it!
—Graham Cooke
Brilliant Book House

Gentle but firm. Compassionate yet incisive. Abounding in under-
standing.
—Colin Dye
Senior Pastor, Kensington Temple
London, England

Mike Bickle’s practical wisdom will serve the body of Christ well.
—Terry Virgo
Leader of Pioneer International
London, England

A man of transparent integrity shows us the way forward into
areas where angels have feared to tread.
—R. T. Kendall
Author, Total Forgiveness

Mike Bickle is a man with a remarkable teaching gift, quick to
acknowledge past mistakes that he has clearly learned from.
This is a book every charismatic should read if we are going to
increase our ability to hear from God, speak to Him, and remain
committed to Christ, to Scripture, and to one another.
—Gerald Coates
Leader of Pioneer International
London, England

At a time when the Spirit is speaking strongly to the churches
about the gift of prophecy and the office of prophet, Growing
in the Prophetic is an extremely important book. Mike Bickle
brings an enviable combination of maturity and transparency to
his exposition of biblical principles molding the prophetic along
with valuable lessons learned, both positive and negative, through
his ministry to the “Kansas City prophets.”
—C. Peter Wagner
Professor of Church Growth
Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California

prophetic

in the
Growing

mike
bickle

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Growing in the Prophetic by Mike Bickle
Published by Charisma House
A Strang Company
600 Rinehart Road
Lake Mary, FL 32746
www.strangdirect.com

This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic,
mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written
permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America
copyright law.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the New King
James Version of the Bible. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson,
Inc., publishers. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked nas are from the New American Standard
Bible. Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by
the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked niv are from the Holy Bible, New International
Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by
permission.

Scripture quotations marked rsv are from the Revised Standard Version of the
Bible. Copyright © 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education
of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by
permission.

Design Director: Bill Johnson
Cover Designer: Jerry Pomales

Copyright © 1996, 2008 by Mike Bickle
All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bickle, Mike.
Growing in the prophetic / Mike Bickle.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-59979-312-2
1. Prophecy--Christianity. I. Title.

BR115.P8B53 2008
234’.13--dc22

2008030850

08 09 10 11 12 — 987653421
Printed in the United States of America

vii

C o n t e n t s

Preface .........................................................................................................ix

1
“There’s Been a Terrible Mistake” ...........................................................1

2
Confirming Prophecies Through the Acts of God in Nature ..........11

3
Prophetic Administration: Revelation,

Interpretation, and Application .............................................................23

4
Overview of the Prophetic Ministry .....................................................35

5
The Difference Between the Gift of Prophecy

and Being a Prophet ................................................................................49

6
Women Operating in Prophetic Ministry ...........................................61

7
Seven Dimensions of the Prophetic Church .......................................69

8
The Coming Great Revival .....................................................................77

9
Contending for the Fullness of the Prophetic Anointing .................89

viii

Growing in the Prophetic

10
False Equations About Prophetic Giftings ........................................101

11
God Offends the Mind to Reveal the Heart ......................................113

12
Pastors and Prophets: Getting Along in the Kingdom ...................125

13
Origins of the Prophetic Call ...............................................................135

14
Embodying the Prophetic Message .....................................................141

15
Common Abuses and Misuses of Prophecy ......................................153

16
Practical Ways to Grow in the Prophetic ..........................................169

17
The Prophetic Word in Public Worship .............................................183

18
The Prophetic Song of the Lord ...........................................................191

19
Manifestations of the Holy Spirit ........................................................201

20
God’s Strategy of Silence ......................................................................225

Notes.........................................................................................................233

ix

P r e fac e

W

hy another book on the prophetic ministry? I’ve read many
books on the prophetic over the years. Some focus on the
various biblical categories of prophets and the supernatural
manifestations that occur through them. Others focus on how to prophesy
and then what to do with prophetic words.

This book touches on those subjects, but it also frankly discusses the joy
and the pain of prophetic people in a local church context. I relate the perils,
perplexities, and tensions involved in nurturing prophetic people among
nonprophetic people. When Holy Spirit activity happens among weak people
like us, the clash between selfish ambition and lack of wisdom is inevitable.
Many tensions arise. Plus, we encounter Holy Spirit experiences that are
foreign to us. All this makes for a challenging experience in our church life.

I pastored in a local church context for twenty-three years until I began
the International House of Prayer missions base in Kansas City in 1999.
On September 19, 1999, we began a ministry of worship with intercession
that continues nonstop, twenty-four hours a day. Our staff members view
themselves as “intercessory missionaries” because they do the work of the
ministry and outreach from a place of night and day prayer. Our staff raises
their own financial support as missionaries in a way similar to other mission
organizations like Youth With A Mission and Campus Crusade for Christ.
Currently, God has graciously joined about fifteen hundred people to us full-
time. About five hundred people are our ministry staff, and another one

x

Growing in the Prophetic

thousand serve full-time as students or interns. They each are involved about
fifty hours a week.

In addition to these, approximately two thousand people join with us in
our Sunday celebration services. Thus, about four thousand people make up
what I refer to as the “IHOP Missions Base family.” We cry out daily for the
release of the spirit of prophetic wisdom and revelation from Ephesians 1:17.
The Lord has given us glorious answers. Many have had prophetic dreams,
visions, and supernatural experiences.

We have hundreds of people actively involved on our prophetic teams.
These teams give prophetic words to thousands of people each year. It is
important from the start of this book to say that we only receive prophetic
experiences that glorify Jesus, honor the Scriptures, and promote holiness
and love for one another. This is the safeguard for subjective prophetic
experiences.

My journey in pastoring prophetic people began suddenly, in the spring
of 1983. I admit that I have made many mistakes in this journey, but I have
learned some valuable lessons. I will share some of what I have learned in
the last twenty-five years of being deeply involved with prophetic people and
movements.

The future of the church is sure to be filled with people who operate in
the prophetic anointing. In the generation in which the Lord returns, the
whole church will receive dreams, visions, and prophetic experiences (Acts
2:17–21). This will be exciting as well as challenging. New dimensions of the
Holy Spirit’s ministry will certainly emerge that will demand faithfulness to
the Scriptures as well as deep humility as learners (1 Cor. 3:18). This is not a
good time in history for a “know-it-all,” but rather it’s the proper time for the
virtue of humility expressed in a teachable spirit as we go to greater depths
in the prophetic.

1

1

C h a p t e r

“There’s Been a Terrible Mistake”

J

ohn Wimber had set it all up. It was July 1989 when four thousand
people gathered to a prophetic conference hosted by the Vineyard Chris-
tian Fellowship in Anaheim, California.

John had spoken a couple of times at the conference, then introduced me
and others who were going to bring messages on the prophetic ministry.
I taught on the nurturing and administration of the prophetic ministry in
the local church and offered some practical advice on how to encourage
people who were just beginning to receive prophetic impressions, visions,
and dreams. I told stories about how we had experienced God’s use of
dreams, visions, angels, and His audible voice to accomplish His purposes
in our church life. I shared a few stories about how God confirmed some
of these prophetic revelations with signs in nature—comets, earthquakes,
droughts, and floods occurring at precisely predicted times.

I guess I should have been clearer about the fact that seldom do any of
these supernatural experiences ever happen through me directly. I had been
mostly a spectator of the prophetic ministry and, initially, a reluctant one at
that. Yes, I was the pastor of a church that had about ten people who trav-
eled full-time with a focus on prophetic ministry, but I had only had a few
prophetic experiences myself. Mostly, I told what happened in their experi-
ences, not mine.

Growing in the Prophetic

2

In my early days of ministry in the middle 1970s, I was a conservative
evangelical doing youth ministry, hoping one day to attend Dallas Theo-
logical Seminary. I was anti-charismatic and proud of it. However, by 1983,
I found myself surrounded by a group of unusual people whom some referred
to as prophets. I had no experience with the prophetic ministry; however,
I became the leader of these ten to fifteen prophetic people. “Why me, Lord?”
I asked many times in the years that followed.

The Vineyard conference where I spoke in July 1989 was mainly attended
by conservative evangelical church leaders who had been blessed by John
Wimber’s teaching on healing, but who for the most part had not been
exposed to prophetic ministry. They represented a rapidly growing number
of believers in Jesus who have a great longing to hear more directly from
God in a supernatural and personal way.

I had finished my morning session and was leading the ministry time
when John Wimber came up on the platform and whispered in my ear,
“Would you pray and ask the Holy Spirit to release the gift of prophecy
to people?”

For those of you who have had the privilege of being around John Wimber
before his death in November 1997, you know that there was not an ounce of
hype or showmanship in him. He would invite the Holy Spirit to move over
an audience and touch thousands of people in the same tone of voice that he
gave the announcements. It was in that matter-of-fact way that he asked me
to pray for the people to receive what I had just been describing.

With four thousand spiritually hungry people watching us, I whispered
back to John, “Can I do that since I’m not prophetically gifted myself?”

John responded, “Just go ahead and pray for the release, and let the Lord
touch whomever He touches.”

“Why am I praying for these people?” I thought. I looked around for help
from one of the well-known prophetic ministers who were also speaking at
the conference. They should have been the ones praying for the people to
receive more grace for prophetic ministry. None of them were in the audito-
rium at that moment, so I was obviously on my own.

“Well, OK, John, if you want me to,” I said. It would be a harmless prayer.

John announced that I was going to ask the Holy Spirit to release the gift
of prophecy in people’s lives. So I prayed. I noticed one of the leaders from

3

“There’s Been a Terrible Mistake”

my church in Kansas City, at the back of the conference auditorium, pointing
at me and quietly laughing. He knew I was not a prophet, and he also knew
that I was in deep waters over my head in leading this ministry time that was
“supposed” to release the prophetic anointing to others.

As soon as the meeting was over, a long line of people formed, anxiously
waiting to talk with me. Some wanted me to pray personally for the prophetic
gift to be imparted to them. Others wanted me to give them a “word from
the Lord,” that is, to prophesy what God wanted to say about them and His
plan for their lives.

I had recently introduced prophetic ministers to the conference, those
who for years had operated in prophetic ministry in ways that had amazed
me. However, some attending the conference had mistakenly determined
that I was an anointed prophet and certainly the man to see if they wanted
the prophetic gift released in them.

Over and over I explained to the people lined up to see me, “No, I don’t
have a word for you. No, I can’t impart prophetic gifts. No, I’m not propheti-
cally gifted.”

I looked around for John but could not find him. After spending some time
explaining this individually to about twenty-five people in the line, I stood up
on the stage and made an announcement on the microphone: “There’s been
a terrible mistake! I am not a prophet. I don’t have a prophetic ministry. I
do not have any prophetic words to give you!” Then I left the meeting.

Richard Foster, author of Celebration of Discipline, had been waiting for
me to finish praying for people so that we could go to lunch. Heading for
the car, I was stopped by several people in the parking lot who wanted me to
prophesy to them. Of course, I had no prophetic words for them either.

Finally, we made our escape and found a restaurant about ten miles from
the meeting place. But to my surprise, while I was standing at the salad
bar with a plate of food in my hand, I was asked by two different people
who were attending the conference to prophesy to them. I wished that I had
made it clearer during my session that I was not a prophet, nor was I the
son of a prophet.

Those either excited or desperate to hear from God are seldom restrained
and polite. I was getting impatient and exasperated with people’s persistence.
The fact that I was with Richard Foster, whom I had wanted to meet for a

Growing in the Prophetic

4

long time, increased my irritation. It was also a bit embarrassing. Richard
laughed when I said to him, “I’m not a prophetic person! A terrible mistake
has been made today.”

Yet, the stir that day was insignificant compared to the uproar that was
to come a few years later related to the prophetic ministry that I was related
to. It seemed to me that God had picked the wrong man to pastor a team of
prophetic people.

A Reluctant Introduction to
Prophetic Ministry

Many people know about God only in the context of things far away and
long ago. They are hungry to know that God is involved with their lives in an
intimate way in the present. When that knowledge is dramatically awakened
for the first time, people often overreact for a short season and often become
overly zealous. There is a great hunger in God’s people to hear directly from
Him in a supernatural way. I see this hunger increasing even more as the
years go by.

Many people involved with prophetic ministries have been brought into
it kicking and screaming because they had been taught that the gift of
prophecy had passed away. A good example of this is my close friend Dr.
Jack Deere. He was formerly a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary and
a committed cessationist before he met John Wimber and experienced the
demonstrations of God’s power. (A cessationist believes the supernatural
gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased after the Book of Acts.) He also went through
a difficult, soul-searching journey as he came to embrace the prophetic
ministry. Being a brilliant Bible teacher, he had to make sure that it all was
100 percent scriptural.

We value seeing ministry of the gifts of the Holy Spirit operate in rela-
tion to the written Word of God. This is a nonnegotiable aspect of the IHOP
Missions Base quest to grow in the prophetic. Eight leaders of our missions
base have master’s degrees, plus another four have doctorates—mostly from
conservative evangelical, non-charismatic seminaries. Another five men
earned law degrees before joining our missions base staff. The personality
profiles of these men and women are usually in strong contrast to those who