City Breakthrough: Pastor Makes Himself Homeless in Oshawa and Built an Altar

“I decided to turn the lights off, close my office door, and make myself homeless on the streets of our city for three days.”

As a pastor I can remember a time where I found myself frustrated with the Church…

Every Sunday we preached and encouraged people to go out and make an impact in the community. We often held altar calls, had lots of prophetic words, laying hands on people commissioning them to go out into the highways and byways of our city. However, each week things sort of carried on, business as usual at our church, apart from a few testimonies from people who went street evangelizing or had a ministry.

We had no shortage of prayer meetings and prophetic words about how God wanted us to be a “lighthouse in our city.” Some of those words described what kind of church we were going to be and the big things we will do one day. However, it seemed like a numbness began to settle on us. We weren’t seeing the breakthrough we prophesied and were praying for.

Waiting for the “it’s coming some day - but not yet” revival produced spiritual apathy.

We continued to come sit, wait, repeat.

During this season a desperation welled up in me to do something radical. Maybe it was born out of my own hunger, or maybe the Holy Spirit was responding to the prayers of the congregation all this time. Or maybe it was all of the above.

I decided to turn the lights off, close my office door, and make myself homeless on the streets of our city for three days. My purpose was to go and pray, sit where they sit, and sleep where they sleep. Taking my cue from Ezekiel when God told him to go and "sit in the midst of the people” (Ezekiel 3:17b),

I decided to do the same thing and pray. I desired an awakening inside myself to the realities of what we regularly preached about. I somehow felt that perhaps by doing this I would show God how serious I was about seeing revival visit our city.

Failing in prayer.

Day one of the three days I would spend on the streets arrived. I took nothing with me but a backpack with a Bible and a few necessities. As I began walking and praying, I was amazed by how exhausting it is to be “homeless.” You have to do a lot of walking, moving from place to place, anticipating where you will eat and eventually where you will sleep. These were probably the right conditions for me to pray with a little more desperation and sobriety than in our comfortable church prayer meeting time slot.

As I walked and began praying, I praised, worshipped and started “binding and loosing” any demonic influence I could think of. I blessed the city, rebuked things, and then, suddenly I was finished. I prayed for almost everything I could think of. As I continued walking wondering what I was going to do for the next three days, I began to conclude, surely someone has prayed for our city like this before, with these same words. Surely people have been binding, loosing and interceding on prayer walks similar to what I am doing now. Yet, our city was not changed.

What are we missing here? Why has the city Church not seen a breakthrough, and why did I feel prompted by the Holy Spirit, to go out and spend the next few days away from home like this?! I also started thinking about some fears and concerns about not only sleeping in the street, but any retaliation from the enemy I might experience because of my prayers targeting the devil.

Finally God moved.

As I continued wandering our city streets at now nightfall, finally the Lord had mercy on me. He took me to a passage of scripture when I felt suddenly prompted to open the little Bible I had with me. I landed exactly upon Luke 11:21-22. The words were highlighted to my spirit, practically jumping off the page.

“When a strongman, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed. But when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied and distributes his plunder”
(Luke 11:20-22).

I knew the passage well as I heard and read it many times. But for some reason that night, I saw something new in the passage. I noticed the words “he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied.” I immediately realized if a Strongman presided over a city, a nation, or a family, his power is enforced by spiritual armor. This made absolute sense because there has been no shortage of spears and arrow prayers thrown and fired at the demonic powers holding our city in bondage.

Even though the city Church used their weapons of warfare shooting them at this ancient demonic entity, since he was fully armored, he was fortified. The arrows and spears accomplished very little and simply bounced off of him. Perhaps we only aroused his anger. This could explain the history of bizarre calamities and sicknesses such as repeated instances of brain tumors plaguing leaders daring to take the city for Jesus.

Next, I asked the Holy Spirit, “What is the spiritual armor” a Strongman relies on? What gives him legal rights to hold territory when Jesus is greater than all principalities and powers? Like a flash, I understood the only thing giving legal grounds to a defeated enemy to oppress a city, family and even an individual, is unrepentant sin. The sin issue and transgressions within our city was of a level that the Strongman was fully armored and had legal grounds to hold the territory. Sin pays wages.  

Prayer that backfires. Literally.

A missionary friend of mine once asked a witchdoctor in another part of the world, why witches and voodoo leaders can curse some Christian ministers trying to establish churches in different regions. The witch doctor responded, “Many ministers are unfortified and have sin in their lives. This gives the curse access to be affective.” In short, the unrepentant, willful continued sin in even a Christian leader’s life has power to give the devil legal grounds to harm them.

Let me emphasis the biblical concept of “willful, continued and unrepentant sin.” We’re not talking about the sins, intentional or unintentional, we commit and regularly bring to “the throne of grace” and “find mercy” (Hebrews 4:15). Rest assured when a believer repents with all godly sorrow, God is “faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). What we’re talking about is the practice of unconfessed sin leaving us unfortified, opening a door for the devil to have access to us. Jesus gave us a hint to the power of being fully fortified when He said, “the enemy came and found nothing in me” (John 14:30).

In the same way unrepentant sin of an individual can keep demonic spirits in power over a person, this also applies to the sins and transgressions of a city. The sin gives the demonic entity legal access, armor, to rule in the city or region. As shocking as this may sound, it is good news. Because no one dealt with sin once and for all quite like Jesus did when He took the sin upon Himself on the cross.

“When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him” (Colossians 2:15).

The reality that Jesus has triumphed overall, is exactly what the devil doesn’t want you to know or invest your faith into. Knowing this means you can pray effectively, using your God given delegated authority to displace the enemy, a “squatter” in a home he no longer owns. This is big news!

But what do we do if an individual, people group, city, or nation won’t repent?

We then move into intercessory prayer. Here God looks for a man, woman, or collective group to “stand in the gap.” He looks for someone willing to repent on behalf of the sins of the people, bridging the gap between them and God. When this takes place, the legal access points the enemy may have, is lifted. When the blood of Jesus is applied, the strongman loses his power. This now presents the opportunity for an individual or Church body to take action through tangible acts of love, words and efforts, freely leading a person or a city into right relationship with God. A person, or people group, can knowingly come into revelation of sin and the Savior, embracing Jesus and His Kingdom, with unveiled eyes. This eliminates the strongman’s legal right in holding people in bondage.

Receiving this revelation on night one of my three-day prayer mission,revolutionized my prayer strategy. Instead of focusing my attention on demonic powers trying to use the right words and vocal volume to “bind them,” I turned my attention to the discernment of the Holy Spirit regarding what sin and transgression was present. I asked the Holy Spirit to help me take on the burden of an intercessor for my city.

As a pastor, spiritual leader or gatekeeper, I knew I had significant authority to pray for the city. When I started praying this time, rather than a short half hour sprint where I ran out of things to pray about, I prayed close to 10 hours a day. The Holy Spirit had my full attention away from the busyness of ministry duties at the church, and He took advantage of this. He began revealing all kinds of things related to the foundations and issues within our city. So much so I started writing down everything He revealed to me to repent of and pray about. He even led me to certain key physical locations in the city to pray.

To be continued…