It Is Finished –The Book

On Good Friday, April 13, 2001, the storyline of Master Potter was finished! We are thrilled to be so near to the completion of this lengthy project. Now we’re working on the tedious process of editing 400 pages (94 chapters) to send it to the publishers in the next few weeks! Thank you! Thank you to all you who have supported us, prayed for us and sent encouraging words to us! We are forever grateful! We’ll be sure to keep you updated as we move through the publishing process.

Pilot Mentoring Program

I’ve longed to mentor people on the road where the anointing is flowing! It’s something I have had on my heart for many years and we are now in the beginning stages of a Pilot Mentoring Program that may be the answer to my prayers. The logistics of administrating such a program are not in place yet but the Lord has opened one door that I will be telling you about later in the newsletter.

Most of you either know Linda Valen, my ministry assistant, or you have communicated with her at the office or in meetings on the road, but many of you do not know what’s going on in her life at the present time. First of all, let me say that she is a godly woman who has tirelessly served me, and many of you, with integrity and excellence. This month I asked her to share her perspective of what it has been like to be mentored under Master Potter Ministries and to let you know that this is the year to launch and pray for Linda!

“Lord, I Want Some Action!”

by Linda Valen

In November of 1992, I had returned from a two-month ministry trip to Russia and heard about a woman from Los Angeles who held meetings in Kansas City. Friends of mine told me she “blew up the meeting” and I was so disappointed that had I missed it! I was complaining to the Lord about it as I said to myself, “Now I’ll never see her again since she lives in Los Angeles!” Well! Talk about being ambushed by God!

At that time, I was on staff with Kansas City Fellowship (now Metro Christian Fellowship) as one of the pastoral secretaries. This woman moved to Kansas City in 1993 and, through a series of events, asked me to pray about going with her to New Zealand for six weeks. The Lord gave me the green light and said that I was going to “a land of new zeal”. That was certainly true!

“Lord, I want some action!” was the cry of my heart and the Lord answered my prayers in a wonderful way. That woman was Jill Austin and the trip to New Zealand in 1993 was a total paradigm shift in my heart and my walk with God!

On July 1, 1994, I joined Master Potter Ministries and become her ministry assistant. I felt like I was shot out of a canon and I haven’t touched the ground yet!

I can’t begin to convey to you how stunned I was when I attended Jill’s meetings in New Zealand for the first time, because I’d never seen her minister before. I was the one with my eyes bugged out and my mouth hanging on the floor for a month and a half, so to speak!

I remember right where I was standing during a meeting in Hastings, New Zealand, when I said, “Lord, I have been in good Spirit-filled churches all my life and I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire life! Where have I been? I feel like a baby in diapers!”

“My Life is Not My Own”

At the age of twelve, I asked Jesus into my heart and was filled with the Holy Spirit when I was thirteen years old. I prayed a dangerous prayer for my life then, “Lord, my life is not my own. It’s Yours. You can do with me whatever You want, whenever You want, with no conditions attached!” Because of that, I have experienced many exciting adventures of faith after making a promise of pre-meditated obedience to Jesus. I still pray that same prayer today!

“Serving With No Agendas”

I had walked with Jesus for many years and yet I did not know how to move in the anointing as a Spirit-filled believer! What a revelation that was to me! The Lord asked me to simply serve Jill and I have no agendas. For the past 7 years, in the midst of serving her in various capacities, Jill has been training and mentoring me.

Before I met Jill, I had ministered at different times, but in being with her on the road, I realized how much I didn’t know but wanted to learn:

• How to strategize before and during a meeting.
• Holy Spirit etiquette in working with pastors and leaders.
• How to cooperate with Jesus to break open a room.
• What to do if there is a “ceiling” during worship and/or the meeting.
• How to listen to what the Holy Spirit wants instead of relying on my own prepared notes (Jill always tells me, “The Messenger is more important than the message!”).
• How to follow Jesus instead of asking Him to bless what I was doing!
• How to look for the windows of ministry when God is touching lives in the meeting.
• How to debrief with the Lord after the meeting to learn keys to better cooperate with Him next time!

What is it like to come along side Jill? It changed my life drastically! Watching the Manifest Presence of God move, deliver and change people has ruined me for the ordinary and that’s what I want! I’ve had the privilege of witnessing powerful moves of God in churches, cities and nations because I said, “Lord, here am I. Send me!”

“New Challenges!”

Now Jill is challenging me to do entire conferences on my own and put into practice what I’ve learned. I just returned from my first solo ministry time to Hamilton, Ohio, and I was touched by the breakthroughs people shared with me. Representing His Name really put the fear of the Lord in me in a fresh way and yet I was excited to leap off the cliff and fly! While I was doing the meetings, I could see things that I’ve learned from Jill - but I could also see how much I still have to learn!

It all started when I boarded an airplane with Jill to New Zealand in 1993. The Lord has a good memory! As a teen, I told Him He could do with me whatever, whenever, however. He has … and He can until I take my last breath!

The Forerunner School of Prayer

By Steven Carpenter

Mike Bickle is the Director of the International House of Prayer and President of the Forerunner School of Prayer in Kansas City. Steven Carpenter, the Director of the Forerunner School, is a Dallas Theological Seminary graduate who has many years of experience as a pastor, Bible teacher and college instructor and he loves the anointing! He came with us on our Utah ministry trip last month and he’ll come with us at different times to future conferences. I asked him to share his personal perspective on the school with you.

The Spirit of God in our day is leading the church to rediscover who she is as the bride of the Lamb, and what she is as a house of prayer. As the Spirit of God brings these two together, a bridal identity and an intercessory calling, a glorious result is coming forth! The Spirit is awakening a praying bride! The recovery of this identity and mission will carry the church in coming days into realms of spiritual authority unknown since the first century. It will release the anointing of the risen Lord Jesus with attendant signs and wonders that cannot be denied, even as the miracles of Jesus could not be denied.

A Praying Bride

The call to awaken a praying bride is what has birthed the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. The Forerunner School of Prayer is now being birthed out of that same passion. There is an increasing sense of urgency that it is time to widen the call to every corner of the body of Christ to embrace her intercessory mission alongside her Bridegroom-King. God is calling forth the Forerunner School of Prayer to accelerate this awakening of the praying bride.

Unique In The Earth

Besides the practical, hands-on training in how to raise up a house of prayer, the school will be anchored by a theology that blends the intercessory, the prophetic and the bridal themes of scripture in a setting where the passionate pursuit of the beauty of God is being modeled. We believe that God is raising up the Forerunner School of Prayer to be a strategic instrument in bringing forth an end-time church captured by the longing to gaze on the beauty of God’s holiness, to embrace the prayer side of the Great Commission, and to go out in the fresh anointing of heaven to touch the earth with the presence of the living God! I believe there truly will not be another school like it in all the earth!

A New Season for Jill

God has been sovereignly selecting and bringing those that He wants to teach in the Forerunner School, and we are delighted that Jill Austin is one of those being hand-picked by the Lord. He wants to multiply Jill’s ministry by giving her gifts and anointing in an extended setting for expression and impartation to others in the body of Christ.

We have invited Jill to teach a ten-week course on the prophetic, beginning this September 2001, at the Forerunner School of Prayer here in Kansas City. The course, “Foundations in Prophetic Ministry Series”, will provide practical training in moving in the anointing, prayer, releasing the prophetic, and the Lord willing, visitations of the glory realm. Jill will also take students on the road with her at different times to be instructed and mentored in hands-on situations.

Note: If you would like to have more information, please log on to www.fotb.com and click on Forerunner School of Prayer. Or, you may address your inquiries to:

The Director of Admissions
Forerunner School of Prayer
PO Box 832
Grandview, MO 64030

In contacting them, please mention that you were recommended by Jill Austin with Master Potter Ministries.

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