Yes, I am first called to be a husband and a father. My covenant with my wife and my commitment to my children is far more critical than my commitment to build a prayer room and advance the prayer movement.
Beyond those central responsibilities that I delight in honoring, I want to lay out my ministry calling.
The “tagline” of this blog summarizes the two main components of my calling before the Lord:
1. I’m an intercessory missionary.
It is clear to me at this phase of my life that ministry titles and functions will come and go. The primary calling of my life, however, that “trumps” all other functions is the one I feel is the highest calling I will ever have. To be an intercessory missionary is to be divinely “set” by God on a wall of intercession (Isa. 62:6-7) as one who would give Him no rest until the passion of His heart is fully established on the earth. The great prayer of Jesus was that the kingdom and the will of God would be fully realized on the earth. Jesus longed for the earth to be a reflection of heaven itself (Matt. 6:10) - and the means by which He will bring this to pass is through prayer. In John 18:36, Jesus told Pilate that His kingdom would not be birthed on the earth by human means; rather, the desire of Jesus is to bring as a righteous Judge swift justice to those who cry out night and day (Luke 18:7-8).
I won’t graduate from this calling, nor will I be promoted out of it. Prayer is not a means to an end for me - it is the end itself. God chose the weakest means to bring about His grand plans: weak people saying His words back to Him, skipping meals along the way. It is our glory and His delight for us to grow in agreement and unity with Him through prayer.
2. It’s the end of the age:
In one of the most significant encounters in my life, the Lord apprehended me in the place of prayer to commission me to proclaim the message of the end of the age. The title of my website and my web journal reflect the words He spoke to me that night: “Tell them I am coming! Tell them my hand is on the door…!”
Since that evening almost five years ago my life has taken a strange turn. It’s one that I could not have orchestrated or planned out. I am now preaching, teaching, and writing about the end-times. The funny part is, I never asked any of the leadership here to do any of those things. None of them know about that encounter, and those who do don’t know the details. I have been asked and approached to speak at conferences, teach Bible School classes, and write a book about the return of Jesus.
Like everyone else, I’m not always happy doing what I am called to do - there are many other things at times that I would rather preach and teach about. Yet I will joyfully play my part on the team, and I will join the many, many messengers the Lord is calling in this hour to proclaim the reality of His return and the necessity of our preparation for it. I am more convinced than ever that it is closer than we think. The urgency of the hour demands that we pursue the oil of intimacy with Jesus in the place of prayer (Matt. 25:1-13).
I have decided to give my life to Jesus to be fully spent in the place of prayer, building and promoting prayer as a lifestyle, establishing a prayer room that we might give Him no rest, and stirring the prayers of the church unto the great intercessory cry in Rev. 22:17 - “And the Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’”
- David
December 27th, 2006
I answered a question on the Onething Forums (www.ihop.org) that I thought captured the essence of what I signed up for. The original post asked what the phrase “buy gold refined in the fire” from Revelation 3:18 meant. Here was my answer:
My vote is that it means:
1. “Buy” - to pay the price by rending your heart (Joel 2:13) in a place of the recognition of true spiritual poverty (need for supernatural resource - Matt. 5:3).
For a believer there must come a day in which they recognize that their gifting, strength, ability, and natural resource can not deliever them from their crisis nor bring them into a true expression of the kingdom. They must then begin the process of tearing themselves away from the places of strength or comfort that they lean on or depend on when they are under pressure. This is a painful process - it truly rends the heart to tear yourself away from the natural things you draw strength from or confidence in.
The Laodicean church in Revelation had grown confident in its own strength and resource - thus could not see their own lack of internal fire from God. Jesus was kindly exhorting them to begin a painful journey that would cost them everything - to turn even from the permissable things, or the “weights” that were hindering the deeper life in the Holy Spirit. They had to realize their spiritual bankruptcy and seek to obtain eternal things - or true gold.
2. “…gold” - Thus that which Jesus was counseling them to pursue radically was the “gold” of authentic internal life in God. Really, all of the beatitudes of Matt. 5:3-10 could be considered the true “gold” of the kingdom as the believer cultivates true maturity regarding their inward pursuit and desires.
God Himself wants to give us “gold” - a true inward transformation by grace in which we pursue and desire only Him rather than the external things that weigh us down and seduce us into thinking that we have arrived at something (i.e. recognition or success). The seeming “success” or outward prosperity of the Laodicean church had tricked them into thinking that God approved of them and that they were doing great.
3. “…refined in the fire” - speaks of the processes in the leadership of God to produce the pure gold of a heart fully loyal and devoted to Him in voluntary weakness and dependancy. The one whose boast is truly in the Lord Himself as Provider, Friend, Leader, and King is the one who has submitted to the necessary processes of trial, tribulations, and shaking - and did not quit along the way because of the power of the love of Christ working within them. As we are refined in the fire we are purified in our motives and desires so that we can come into full voluntary agreement with Jesus our King.
In other words, I signed up for the real gold - I have set my heart to see the authentic kingdom of God come into my life and my community. I won’t be satisfied by anything less, and can’t be consoled by anything else. Or at least, I don’t want to be.
I am sitting in this prayer room today, restless and hungry but with grace from a kind God to transform what I hunger for. It’s what I signed up for.
- David
December 27th, 2006
Literally, for IHOP-KC, there is only one thing happening this week. The prayer room is here at FSM for the day (as they are building the new stage at the actual prayer room) and many, many of our staff are downtown preparing for the torrent of 15,000 bodies that are preparing to lay seige to the Municipal Auditorium.
I’m speaking at two sessions (on the Book of Revelation and the Second Coming, naturally…), leading the prayer room on site, and helping facilitate our Solemn Assembly on Sunday - an all-day prayer meeting with 10,000 plus. After helping out this morning a little, it’s back to my little hideaway to consolidate my thoughts for the sessions.
I’m tired already, but this is what we do.
David
December 27th, 2006
I’m “on the clock” for a few hours this morning (8 - 10 AM, every Monday - including today). So here I am, in the prayer room, praying that all of you would have a joyous Christmas.
If you’re wondering, we opened some gifts last night (after our annual Bo Ling’s Chinese Restaurant / drive around and look at amazing Christmas lights tradition); we did the “run downstairs and see what’s out” (a bike, two robopets, and full stockings) thing before I left; then it’s breakfast and the rest of our gifts at around 10 AM.
So, for now, it’s two glorious hours of me, Shelly Hundley (leading worship), and Jesus. And about 35 other folks, also either “on the clock” or loving the novelty of the prayer room on Christmas morning. And Mike in his little cubicle thingy, hereafter known in this space as his “LCT”). Mostly though, it’s me, Shelly’s voice, a little bit of keyboard, and Jesus.
Merry Christmas from the Sliker Family!
- David
December 25th, 2006
In looking back at the past year, I am amazed at how much can happen here at the International House of Prayer over a 365-day span.
For example, in looking over a year’s worth of Sunday sermons from Forerunner Christian Fellowship…
(FCF is our church that serves: Kansas City – people looking for a good church, the IHOP community – people who moved here because they love the message and community of believers that have gathered here, and the Missions Base – people who thought it would be a good idea to call themselves an “Intercessory Missionary”, raise support, and lead the Prayer Room)
…I found that it was fascinating to just look at the messages that were imparted to our community.
2005 seemed to be the year in which we as an IHOP-KC family were connected dynamically to the Sermon on the Mount in general and to the value of meekness in particular – especially related to the reward that Jesus longs to give those who are willing to contend in love for unity with His heart.
2006 seemed to be, in the general sense, a reconnection of our spiritual family to our core values (or “heart standards”), which can be summed up in the acronym “I.H.O.P.”; or –
(more…)
December 23rd, 2006
First up, Daniel. Since I’m biased, I won’t even comment.
So am I the 3,005,456th person to post cute kid pictures on a blog? Should I be sent to the blog penalty box? Is this too cliche?
I’m sure most of you won’t mind.
- David
December 23rd, 2006
Don’t do it.
Someday I’ll list some semi-comprehesive reasons as to why one should only start a 24 hour house of prayer at gunpoint. Not the easiest thing to pull off.
But if you must, and just in case you were interested…and near the Atlanta area, you may want to be at this conference.
Any chance I get to hang out with the Humphrey family I tend to jump on - they are among the best of the best people around. If you love prayer and are within a few hours of the IHOP-ATL, you really need to connect with Billy. If you love prayer and are anywhere near the Charlotte area, you really need to connect with Kirk. There is no one like him - he is truly one of my favorite people and one of the most focused, dedicated leaders I have ever known. I love the Zadok House of Prayer!
As I said earlier, “Year in Review” is coming tomorrow…
- David
December 23rd, 2006
It’s Friday night, and typically most of the earth isn’t doing what I’m doing at the moment – which is sitting in a mostly empty prayer room listening to gentle melodies and easy, lilting phrases waft through the room accompanied by a simple keyboard progression and slight guitar accents picking away in the background. To fully grasp the glory of what I am describing, you really should either: a.) Be here or b.) Subscribe to the webcast. The info is elsewhere on this website, but for $10 a month you can stream the prayer room live into your home 24 hours a day. You could leave it on all the time and let night and day prayer transform the atmosphere of your home, your dream life, and actually participate in some of the prayer meetings. Pretty wild, eh? I’ve set it up for some of my friends around the nation, and they are hooked. On a side note you can pretty much always catch me leading the Tuesday 4 PM (to 6 PM, CST) prayer meeting. It’s one of our all-staff prayer meetings, and we generally focus on praying for the salvation of Israel. After that last statement, some of you have two options: read Romans 9-11 or download my notes from the “Meditations from the Prayer Room” part of the website. Whatever is easier for you, though “both” may be helpful to those who are particularly troubled…
Side note about the webcast: in about four months, for that same $10 a month, you will be able to watch a TV-quality webcast, each and every day. I won’t tell the whole story (it’s long, involved, and simply crazy), but we will be changing the look and feel of the prayer room (upgrading the stage, lighting, sound, and cameras) to make it more inviting to those who watch us on our webcast. God TV will be partnering with us significantly in this endeavor – it’s pretty exciting. If you have Direct TV, you can watch us on the God TV network, as they will be doing much programming involving IHOP-KC in the days to come – starting with much of the Onething young adult conference at the end of this month. It’s both great and terrible all at the same time. It’s great for you, mostly terrible for us. I’ll let you read between the lines on that one for now…
Since I’m here in a prayer room on a Friday night with much caffeine coursing through my veins, I thought it would be fun to look back at this past year and do a “Year in Review” for my life and IHOP-KC in general. Then I started going on and on about the webcast. Blogs are weird.
OK – I’ll wrap up this stunning masterpiece of literary genius and get diligently to work on my “Year in Review” post.
- David
December 22nd, 2006
As of this past Sunday (Dec. 17th) this website has been officially “up and running”. Whew! There will be much more to come (thanks, Josh Hawkins!) as I will be adding teaching notes, info about Tracey and I, photos, links, etc. The biggest additions will be info about Tracey, what she is doing, etc. The site is way too “me!” for my taste right now. It’s a great start though. We’ll also be adding a way to order some of my other materials for those who are interested, like my End-times syllabus (from my Biblical Foundations of Eschatology class at FSM) and some CD sets.
Having just finished our winter 2006-2007 update and emailed it to many of you, hopefully some of you are finding your way here (which was the purpose of the update). Of course, the “undeliverable” emails being kicked back to me by the dreaded “System Administrator” were to be expected - some of my contact info is out of date. So send the update to anyone you know who knows the Sliker family (ones that you know know us and ones who know you know that they know we know, in other words).
I look forward to hearing from many of you - some of whom I haven’t been able to touch base with for quite some time.
December 22nd, 2006
In other words, it’s Paul saying in essence:
“This is what God’s plan is through Jesus - and you are called to be a dynamic part of that plan in a stunning way. Therefore, I pray that you really understand what this means for you.
“I pray that you would understand who He is (and how awesome He is), who you are (and how awesome you are called to be), and how much power is available from heaven to bring you into this awesomeness.”
- David
December 13th, 2006
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