Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:14 — 31.9MB)
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | RSS | More
Summary: When Don is invited into the Word and Spirit Pastor’s Conference, he is given five minutes to demonstrate corporate listening and inner-healing prayer. Within 3 minutes one pastor begins weeping because of how the Lord is ministering to him through prayer. In this episode, this pastor shares about how this 5-10 minute prayer session was one of the most pivotal moments of his spiritual life where he noticed, “A remarkable difference, a remarkable change in trajectory and a freedom.” Now, almost 3 years later, this pastor describes how he continues to experience freedom from the fear and worry of spiritual things and a spiritual anxiety rooted back to his Native American grandmother. And he shares his surprise of how what transpired was so quick and simple as Don helped him to pray through it.
Transcript: Brian Brown Interview (May 2021)
[00:00:00]Brian Brown: [00:00:00] I really wrestled with a high level of stress resulting in getting into depression and crippling anxiety and having to go to therapy. And those five to 10 minutes that weekend were some of the most pivotal moments of my spiritual life. Where I noticed. A remarkable difference, a remarkable change in trajectory and a freedom. It was a huge release. It was an enormous weight from that moment, two and three quarter years ago. I can only describe that I’m not afraid anymore. That has been the overwhelming majority consistent pattern for me. Whereas I used to have a lot of fear, particularly when it came to things spiritual, it’s just not there. I don’t get freaked out by stuff anymore. I don’t feel intimidated. And I’m not wrapped up with the worry if I’m going to be under oppression or attack. I just feel like the Lord has released me from that power and spiritual anxiety. But man, the surprise of how it happened and what transpired was, [00:01:00] very quick, very sudden it didn’t take a lot for this to happen. And that was just the incredible simplicity of praying through it.
[00:01:11]
[00:01:11]Don Love: [00:01:11] As you’re listening today, click subscribe. So you don’t miss any fresh content and we’d really appreciate it. If you would help us grow by sharing this podcast with a friend, giving us a five star review and writing a few words to let us know how this podcast is shaping or challenging, the way that you approach prayer.
[00:01:28] Last week, we talked a bit about how word was spreading about what our church was doing through prayer and how I was invited into a conference in Tennessee full of pastors, working together to grow in our understanding of how biblically the Spirit of God is at work today. Little did I know that when I was given a five minutes to lead the pastors in listening prayer two would experience breakthrough in the first three minutes. And that this breakthrough would ripple out and at least three other pastors, as we prayed through things with them. And Brian, the pastor who was first to experience breakthrough is here with [00:02:00] us today. Brian. We met at the 2018 Word and Spirit Conference. Right. When I was there with you, I got to actually stay in the same house with you. And I could tell there was something that you were waiting for. So you want to talk a little bit about what happened? What was your experience there?
[00:02:17] Brian Brown: [00:02:17] What started out as a talk that you were giving ,Don, turned into practice. And I’ll never forget, someone asked you to speak about what your ministry was like and what was happening in it. And you said, well, more is caught than taught.
[00:02:28]Don Love: [00:02:28] Yeah. I told Arthur, the leader of the group, there just give me five minutes. He kept looking at me like, you’re not gonna do it in five minutes. So, five minutes… Within three minutes, you were weeping. And then I took the other two minutes to explain and said. Normally what we would do is pray with someone like this. Could we have some more time? They give us like 15. That was about three years ago now. Yeah. Coming up on three. So you want to talk a little bit about what happened?
[00:02:49]Brian Brown: [00:02:49] Yeah, sure. Let me, I’ll back up just a little bit. If I can. , I came to faith in a fundamentalist Baptist church so my experience with the holy spirit was solely the act of [00:03:00] regeneration and the inspiration of scripture.
[00:03:02] And so it seemed like in my early discipleship that the work of the spirit was essentially done. Because the Bible had been produced and what I needed was in the scripture I wouldn’t have divorced the holy spirit from my behavior or my sanctification theologically, but practically speaking, it was like
[00:03:20]The Spirit’s move today was reserved for the charismatic emotionalism, that’s how we might’ve categorized it. And so for the first 15 years of my walk with Christ, I kind of categorized movements of the spirit and the work of the spirit as, another part of Christianity that didn’t necessarily apply to me. In my early thirties, I started to really press in on what scripture said about the Holy Spirit and what the Holy Spirit does and was convinced by the scripture that the Spirit was certainly active and equipping His people with gifts and that there’s no reason to believe that the gifts had ceased biblically.
[00:03:55]I had also in my, in my twenties and early thirties come into a pretty reformed [00:04:00] theological track. This is a weird merger that was happening in me. I thought it was weird actually. And so anything that didn’t have a slot theologically or that was what I determined to be solid was something to kind of be afraid of to be cautious of. Kind of saw myself as a theological party in, in a lot of ways. And so when things seem to move outside of those boundaries, it just, for me, it was a little bit frightening. Yeah. Here. I was having encounters with the Holy Spirit after asking for them. And at the same time, having this strange spiritual anxiety about the Holy Spirit, really stressful place to be. Yeah. I had quite an experience when my wife’s brother and his wife did some prayer ministry in the Sozo model. Yeah. And then afterwards listening to some of the teaching from Bethel Church and Sozo and stuff, I kind of just froze up.
[00:04:49] I’m like, I have no idea what this is. I don’t know how to categorize it. It was literally scaring me, in some sense, tied up with fear concerned that there was a demonic element. I wrestled [00:05:00] with this probably for three or four years kind of being tied up, what the Spirit of God was going to do.
[00:05:06]And it was crippling. And it was wrought with this anxiety and fear. I knew it wasn’t healthy, and it really caused me to have a lot of stagnation in my spiritual development and my spiritual growth. Quite honestly, there were times where I was like, man, I need to be delivered from some chain or some spiritual block.
[00:05:24] And along with that we were in the beginning stages of planting a church. And so , having some ministerial performance concerns and worries was also part of the spiritual anxiety bundle I was wrestling with. And I knew in my head and I felt somewhere in my heart, I wanted to run free in God’s joy, in His presence and the equipping that he promised the people who are following him.
[00:05:54] And I just was stuck. And that’s when a friend of mine, a common friend of ours Foye Belyea [00:06:00] invited me to go down to Knoxville. Yeah. Thought that the Word and Spirit conference was going to be something that would be a game changer for me. Yeah. So in so many ways I was Ready, willing, wanting to just be kind of set free from this, this anxiety, which is wrapped up strangely in the person of the Holy Spirit.
[00:06:16] I knew God wasn’t causing the anxiety, but he was I have a lot of trepidation about what God was going to do. Yeah. And so , for me, he was the focal point of it. I had a sense, in some ways a revelation that there was a breakthrough coming that weekend, I was expecting it.
[00:06:30] I didn’t know how and where and when. And that’s when the session that you gave which started out as a talk in front of this group of pastors and ministry leaders who were in one way or another seeking the reconciliation between the scripture and the spirit in their ministry or in their personal life, or having questions or doubts about it one way or another. We’re all there learning and wondering and wanting to practice. So, what started out as a talk that you were giving ,Don, [00:07:00] turned into practice. . And you said, instead of talking a lot about it, why don’t we just kind of model this and just start praying and watch what God does and how it works? Somewhere in my chair there, I kind of had this sense that here it comes this is, this is probably for me here? So that was thrilling. That was exciting. Anticipating that, but man, the surprise of how it happened and what transpired was, very quick, very sudden it didn’t take a lot for this to happen.
[00:07:33]You started something along the lines of Lord, will you show me what it is that’s keeping me from you or from understanding your love fully. Yeah. And I just remember , bowing in prayer.
[00:07:50]And yielding myself to what God would have me to see and almost immediately almost instantly I [00:08:00] had a vision in my mind’s eye and it struck me so hard. It’s so clear. It was a clear image of my native American great-grandmother.
[00:08:11] And there was this semicircle transference that went to my grandfather’s face, skipped over my dad and came to me. I was floored and it was in that moment, the Lord had revealed to me the root of this portion of my fear and anxiety . Whatever it was this stronghold or generational, call it what you will.
[00:08:39] I said, that’s it. I knew it. I knew there was some weird root inside of me that needed to be plucked up that had to do with my great-grandmother’s fears and anxieties being transferred to my grandfather. And then somehow to me. And that’s when I just started bawling, sobbing. Yeah. I, and I knew exactly what God was trying [00:09:00] to show me.
[00:09:00]And so if I remember right, I think I do, it was kind of obvious I was hitting some emotional things. There’s like 30 guys in the room or whatever. So I think you had everybody take a pause. Yeah. Some people came over and laid hands on me and began to pray for me. You asked me specifically in that time, if I could take what I saw and give it to Jesus, and I was able to do that and hand it over to him.
[00:09:27]And I was, I was able to take that fear and that bundle generational anxiety and hand it over to him. This may sound, I don’t know, it doesn’t sound out there to me anymore. Yeah. I’m only saying that because it probably used to sound out there to me. Yeah. There was another extension of that vision where I could tell ancestrally somehow through the pagan spiritism, that was my ancestors tradition.
[00:09:52] There was somehow some spiritual thing connected to that and it came through that native American lineage. [00:10:00] So we prayed about that too. Yeah. Broke that off. Lord just broke that, however that operates in the spiritual realm, I’m not really clear on it, but we asked God to remove that and not let it define who I am in Christ.
[00:10:15]It was a huge release. It was an enormous weight from that moment, two and three quarter years ago. I can only describe that I’m not afraid anymore. That has been the overwhelming majority consistent pattern for me. Whereas I used to have a lot of fear, particularly when it came to things spiritual, it’s just not there.
[00:10:37] I don’t get freaked out by stuff anymore. I don’t feel intimidated. And I’m not wrapped up with the worry if I’m going to be, , Under oppression or attack. I just feel like the Lord has released me from that power and spiritual anxiety. I there’s a, there’s a second thing that happened too in Knoxville. I don’t remember if you’re leading us through this time or it was just something that God had impressed on me. As I was kind of wrapped up , in what the Lord was doing [00:11:00] inside of me. But I believe you might’ve led us to pray about any sins or anything that’s left that we might need to confess or that the Lord needs to deal with.
[00:11:09]And the Lord brought something to mind from my childhood having to do with sexual sin and Yeah. I mean, I used to go into the library and sneak into the section and find this book on Satanism. And there was ritualistic sex or nudity in the book. And it was awful.
[00:11:26] It was dark. And when I was a kid, I mean like fourth, fifth grade, I used to go back there and look at it just to look at the naked pictures and stuff. Right. And the Lord brought this up and I kind of had thought I had dealt with that, but he put it in my mind. Put in my heart, I confessed it. And repented and like he does, he just was able to show me things that were keeping me hung up from intimacy with him and from growth.
[00:11:54] Yeah. And we asked him to, and that was just , the incredible simplicity of [00:12:00] praying through it has just so strongly stayed with me because , like Sozo or like other prayer methodologies or, , like if you have any experience with praying through psychological experiences or experiences from your youth there can be some, getting lost in the weeds.
[00:12:18] Yeah. , in methodologies and things like that. However what the Lord did that weekend for me, it was just opened my eyes to the fact that he has a clarity and an insight that cuts through anything, and it just struck me simple it was to ask him yeah. What it was I needed to see.
[00:12:37]And that really, for me, Don, that weekend and those five to 10 minutes were some of the most pivotal moments of my spiritual life. Wow. Where I noticed. A remarkable difference, a remarkable change in trajectory and a freedom. So yeah, it was, it was great, , it was unbelievably great.
[00:12:56] Don Love: [00:12:56] I’d be curious to hear now being a church planter, that seems like the [00:13:00] kind of thing that would naturally be stressful to lots of people. Right. And so how has that affected the way that you go about church planting and also you’re a father of a fairly large family as well. Yeah.
[00:13:11] And is eight kids a lot, most would say. And so, , what about that, , within your parenting, within your ministry, now that that has been released, I assume there’d be some changes in those and how you interact with others.
[00:13:24] Brian Brown: [00:13:24] Yeah, for sure. And, and I think for pastoring and church planting, that’s probably some of that stuff , it was a little slower to burn away. And I was thinking about this, this morning in preparation for us getting together to talk, I mean, I probably will do some writing about spiritual anxieties because, there’s a constant and in the adventures that you’ve been on, there is a constant barrage of this mix between adequacy in ministry realms, and Perceived adequacy from the outside and then like the matrices of adequacy, like how can I prove that I’m adequate in ministry. Right. And [00:14:00] that’s just a lethal combination for a lot of people. And I knew ahead of time before we plant the church, I wanted to try to avoid some of those measurements. But it’s almost unavoidable when you start analyzing, how are we doing in church? How’s this thing going? What’s God doing?
[00:14:14] How do I quantify that? So what’s happened for me over the past couple of years is I’ve really just learned to stop beating myself up A. about church growth accomplishments in ministry, but also B. In the way that I approach my devotional life, the way that I approach intimacy with God as if, every time I didn’t accomplish goal in devotion to God, before this, it would tack on another level of anxiety. Like, oh, I blew it again. Oh, well that’s just my M.O., isn’t it. It’s my M.O. To be unfaithful. It’s my M.O. To be a slacker in my spiritual life. It’s my M.O to just not care about prayer. Okay. And so what’s changed for me is really to just release myself too, from spiritual [00:15:00] anxiety.
[00:15:00] Yeah, my worth in Christ and my relationship and intimacy with him is not dependent on the level of worry that I have about it. In terms of parenting yeah. Parenting stressful holy smokes! And as somebody who kind of runs high on the like revved up meter and not worrying about what I’m doing and am I doing a good job or not that season that I was in, where we met in Knoxville, prior to that, I had I’m resting much more and I’m being still much more in him. I’m allowing him to be the, not just the guide of my spiritual life, but the strength and the impetus for it.
[00:15:34] So, yeah. really wrestled with a a high level of stress resulting in getting into depression and crippling anxiety and having to go to therapy.
[00:15:43] And it came out, my anger levels of my children were higher than I would have want them to be. My wake was shorter constantly, And wrapped up in all. That was the fact that I knew I didn’t have what it took [00:16:00] to create the children. I wanted them to be in the Lord.
[00:16:06] There’s a picture of my son. I don’t know which theologian it was, but he had just picked up a theological book when he was like nine months old and just happened to be holding it. So I took this picture and I was like, oh yeah, that’s it. That’s it right there, man. He’s going to know Greek, along with English, right?
[00:16:20] Yeah. And so your first kid, you’re like, okay, I can create this spiritual being better than me. And when you recognize a lot of your failures as a parent about that your kids are fallen and broken and you need mercy and that you cannot impose upon them, their spiritual development.
[00:16:35] It’s just like, it can break you. Yeah. So I think, , a lot of that was wrapped up in my parenting as well. Yeah. And rather than being present in my kids and not frustrated yeah. I just revved up frustration and realized, yeah, that’s stemming from my own junk. So I think it’s changed a lot of the way that I parent now too, cutting myself breaks, cutting them [00:17:00] breaks, resting more together, playing more together. And part of that is just realizing that’s what I need to be doing with the Lord as well.
[00:17:09] Don Love: [00:17:10] We came to your church and Rhode Island. What was it? 2019. So as a result of that conference, did anything stick, did anything grow? What did you think as a result of that?
[00:17:20] Brian Brown: [00:17:20] Yeah, I think there was definitely afterwards opportunities that we had particularly for me and, one other friend we really poured through praying through it and we’re noticing a lot of things that, that we’d like to do together. And , most of our church has similar experiences in having either having their formative years in non charismatic circles. So for some people, , Asking the Lord to show something to them as a bit of a hurdle.
[00:17:46] Don Love: [00:17:46] Yeah.
[00:17:46] Brian Brown: [00:17:46] But we were able to pray with some people , as follow ups to our time together. And even though their background and experience wasn’t necessarily in a vein that would be open to those things. The Lord was able to bring some insight into their hearts [00:18:00] and to bring them into greater places of freedom.
[00:18:02] So. It’s really interesting for our church right now. We’re in the middle of reformulating in some ways and I think there are people who are clamoring, who are longing or hungering for deeper experience in prayer ministry, my wife is one of those people in particular , who have seen the power and the freedom that happens when we invite the spirit into the places where we need freedom , and to be quite candid, there’s some people that are pretty skeptical that this sort of way of approaching the Spirit’s work is what we should be doing. And it’s probably in some ways defining how our church is reformulating but as we emerge out of COVID into this next chapter I know for me, I’m really hungry to take in more and to see others, not just me, but to see others find freedom and find ways to help others to find that freedom as well. So yeah we’re looking forward to digging in more.
[00:18:50] Don Love: [00:18:50] So other thoughts or questions that we can talk about here today?
[00:18:54]Brian Brown: [00:18:54] I’ll never forget Your obedience to God and I can’t say enough of how it’s affected my trajectory, so, [00:19:00]
[00:19:01]Don Love: [00:19:01] well I appreciate your willingness just to come on and share.
[00:19:04] Brian Brown: [00:19:04] Absolutely. Anytime.
[00:19:06]Jennifer Love: [00:19:06] Are you starting see why it is that Don and I can’t get enough of leading and teaching others how to pray through things? If you ever led someone to Christ, either through sharing the gospel with them or through listening and prayer and played a role in a pivotal moment in their spiritual life, then you get it. There’s nothing quite like knowing that your small obedience has led to lives that are forever changed. And as in Brian’s case, his marriage, his church, his family will never be the same. Imagine being able to have this happen again and again, as you help people process life through prayer, that’s what we were experiencing. And that’s what we were inviting you to be a part of.
[00:19:41]Don Love: [00:19:41] Yes. And it’s out of this gathering that our prayer ministry started to shift away from a single church or university to churches everywhere. As we prayed through things with Brian, the second pastor placed his hand on his shoulder and when the prayer was over, the second pastor cried out, ” I experienced breakthrough too!” as he [00:20:00] worked through a childhood struggle. Then by the end of the day, I ended up praying through things with a third pastor and then a fourth. And each time they had a noticeable breakthrough . At the end of the day, as I surveyed the majority of the pastors who had experienced breakthrough, I realized they were all from Colorado. And so I thought, okay, Lord looks like Colorado’s next. And as I looked at my calendar, I realized that was already scheduled to fly to Colorado on my university’s dime for the Evangelical Theological Society meeting in Denver.
[00:20:28]Jennifer Love: [00:20:28] And when Don flew out a woman in our church from our prayer team paid to send me along so that I could co lead the conference with him. And as an added bonus, we would get a chance to stay in the home of two authors whose books had influenced our prayer team. Alan Kraft the author of More: When a Little Bit of the Spirit is not Enough and Rusty Rustenbach the author of A Guide to Listening and Inner Healing Prayer. You may recall from episode zero that this book was the first book on listening and inner healing prayer that we found biblical enough to embrace and recommend to others. So what a great opportunity for us!
[00:20:59]Don Love: [00:20:59] As we near the [00:21:00] end of the season, we would love to hear how, what you’ve been hearing has encouraged and challenged you in the way that you approach God in prayer and the way that you lead others in prayer. Have you felt God calling you to step out and model some of what you’ve been hearing this podcast? If so, we’d love to hear about it. Email me at drlove@praythroughit.com and tell us your stories. As of last week, Jen and I are now stepping out and doing pray through it full time, and we could use your support. Sign up at praythroughit.com/give to become a monthly supporter and help us develop new content, such as season two of unquenchable and other online and in-person resources to help you and your church better understand the Bible and experience inner healing so that you can grow in intimacy with Christ through prayer.
[00:21:49] Join us next week when we conclude season one and hear from some of the other pastors from Word and Spirit who were impacted long-term through this short prayer time and the pray through it, session that followed. [00:22:00] Until then keep listening in prayer.
[00:22:05]
