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As we proceed into this newly minted year, I find my thoughts drifting to so many urgent and consequential matters — the heartbreaking suffering in Syria, the growing divide among Western Evangelicals, and the recent presidential election, to name but a few.
Certainly, as Christians, we need to be talking (and praying) about these things, and I am personally eager to take up discussions in the weeks ahead. One of my stirring sticks will be a forthcoming (and long promised) article on the topic of “praying under judgment.” This was originally targeted for release in October, but it now looks like it will get posted next month.
So discussions are coming, but the challenge as always is fitting them into the flow of life and ministry. And lately, that seems to be harder than ever!
I mentioned in my last letter that several ministry announcements were in the offing. Well, the time has come to deliver.
As of this summer, I will be assuming leadership of the Forerunner Media Institute at the International House of Prayer (IHOP) in Kansas City.
This will not supplant the work presently underway at the Sentinel Group — but rather augment it.
All our revival research, documentary videos, exposure tours, and training (including the Journey to Transformation) will continue. The primary difference is we will now have new outlets, new manpower, and new opportunities to raise up a generation of godly storytellers!
I could not be more thrilled at the prospect of working with Mike Bickle and the incredible leadership team at IHOP. These are folks who share Sentinel’s spiritual DNA, and readily champion prayer and spiritual intimacy as observable and essential elements of transforming revival. We think it is a quality match.
I will share in more detail after the first of the year, but for now I can tell you we intend to hold a late April Intensive on the Power of Creative Storytelling. This intensive will explain why the armies of God are actually storytellers, and why men and women with stories are being summoned in this critical hour. We will examine how personal experiences make us compelling storytellers, and why, when ideas are bundled with creativity, they can transport audiences to the heights of revelation, hope, and faith.
In the late summer, I will move to Kansas City with a small team and establish a Sentinel Group base near the IHOP campus. Our Seattle staff will remain in place. The Midwest base will host a variety of creative and strategic gatherings throughout the year, and supplement our work at IHOP University.
The importance of our storytelling mission was impressed upon me afresh when I returned from the Fiji Islands in mid November. Having spent the previous week filming transformational encounters in eighteen separate communities (yes, 18 stories in one week!), I knew we had to step up our game — because God is stepping up His!
It is not possible to do justice to this wonderful experience in the space of a few paragraphs, but I do want to mention a couple important takeaways.
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George filming an interview inside a village community center. Man in background is
Savenaca Nakauyaca, leader of Fiji’s Healing the Land team.
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First, God is continuing to move in great power — both to take care of His own, and also to draw those who do not yet know Him into the kingdom.
In one instance, the family of an eight-year-old girl, who in faith brought a container of soil to dedicate to the Lord during a healing the land meeting, is now set for life, owing to the subsequent discovery of gold on their property.
On the island of Vanua Levu, a humble clan leader prayed earnestly that God would visit his people. Shortly thereafter, he received notice from the federal government in Suva that his people were the rightful owners of the land upon which the city of Labasa, the nation’s fourth largest, is built. They are already using some of their newfound wealth to fund the revival training work of the Healing the Land team.
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Bedridden woman healed hours earlier after bathing in nearby healing waters — waters that a decades-old prophesy indicated would manifest on the heels of a devastating cyclone.
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In Delakado, one of two villages where healing waters have drawn thousands of visitors and commanded national media attention, we spoke to a woman who had been dramatically delivered of a deteriorating, bedridden condition just hours before.
Yet another Indo-Fijian woman was raised up by God right behind a gentleman we were interviewing in the neighboring community of Natadradave. That’s just how it goes in an atmosphere of true power!
My other takeaway from Fiji was the sense that transforming revival — at least in certain areas of the nation — has become so common as to seem almost normal.
In the Yasawas, a picturesque chain of islands four hours offshore from Fiji’s main population center, we pulled our small boats into village after village. Each time we would encounter the same story: “We were distressed in our need. We humbled ourselves and called upon God. He came to our village and changed everything.” The details were glorious, but the big story was one we began to sense we had heard before.
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Newly installed Paramount Chief of Fiji’s Yasawa Islands lifts his hands in surrender to God.
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Finally, on our last day in the nation, we were invited to attend (and film!) the installation of a paramount chief — in this instance, the new ruler over all the Yasawas. This is a relatively rare event, as paramount chiefs vacate their position only by death.
Since the new chief hailed from a community that had already been visited by God, he decided to break with installation protocol and tradition to, in his words, “be anointed like King David.” Thus, the entire affair was turned into an occasion for worship of the Living God. Watching through our camera lenses, it was one glorious spectacle – oil trickling down the sides of his face, the elements of communion consumed with the greatest reverence before the entire community, and finally, his hands raised heavenward in a dedicated and even defiant gesture of submission to a higher power. Breathtaking!
No less significant is the gathering this month of Native believers from the Seven Council Fires of the Sioux Nation. The expressed purpose? To petition the Most High God to bring transforming revival to this precious but needy people. Once again, our colleague Walo Ani will be coming over from Papua New Guinea to assist in the process of corporate repentance.
In late February/early March, our colleagues from Fiji’s Healing the Land team will be coming over as well. I believe this will add powerful fuel to the transformational fires already burning in South Dakota. Please join me in praying that the historic events currently underway would bear maximum fruit in the weeks ahead.
Finally, please pray for us as we prepare for another historic gathering in Herrnhut, Germany this coming August. We are expecting 150+ global prayer leaders to spend a long week waiting upon God and chewing on urgent questions facing the world prayer movement. At least 40 of these revival catalysts will begin their journey at revival sites in the British Isles and Bavaria in order to arrive, filled with faith and vision, at the Moravian community in Herrnhut.
I am presently in South Africa for two weeks of prayer and discussion with other leaders. All of us sense that God is preparing to do something truly amazing — and that it is linked to everything I have spoken about in this letter (IHOP, the Fiji Islands, and the unfolding grace within the Sioux Nation).
Would you consider partnering with us in this venture? Our most urgent financial needs are related to preparing the Revival Heritage program in Europe ($12,000), and editing the amazing footage we have recently filmed in Fiji ($7,000). Funds are needed on or before February 10.
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George Otis, Jr
President, The Sentinel Group
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P.S. As our way of saying thank you, we would like to offer two short videos — one from Fiji, and the other from the Sioux Reservation at Pine Ridge — for each gift of $150 or more.
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