by Mike Simon
Jul/Aug 2009

For more than 30 years the Board of Directors at Christian Healing Ministries has been providing guidance to our ministry staff. On May 7th the new entity CHM Foundation held the first meeting of its Board of Directors. The CHM Foundation is one of the new endeavors the Lord has called the ministry to set in place. The purpose of the Foundation is to build a solid financial base that will provide support to the ministry efforts of CHM. Over the last several months, we have been preparing the business structure, mainly converting and upgrading the software. This has been an exciting new development. We are 60% of the way through the process of converting from FileMaker Pro to Raiser’s Edge, state of the art software for development. Raiser’s Edge will enable us to capture and report important information to donors and provide increased flexibility for our ministry team. We are carefully and diligently praying for the Lord’s direction so that each part of the process of building a business structure to support ministry will be productive and efficient. Proverbs 21:5 says “The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.”

The CHM healing ministry staff has outgrown its administrative offices on the northside of Jacksonville and on April 21st the development team and a group of CHM staff members dedicated to the Lord our new CHM Foundation office, in Ponte Vedra. The office in Ponte Vedra will be home to the members of the development team. The Reverend Gene Strickland prayed for everyone there and then served communion. Sara Flynn, Jeff Sampson, and Linda Strickland from CHM also prayed through the space. We invited the presence of the Lord to come and we can now feel His presence there.

It is our mission to bring transformation into the lives of tens of thousands of individuals in the years to come. The Lord spoke to Francis MacNutt asking CHM to build a new Healing Center so those who are hopeless, desperate, hurting, lost and dying can come and find peace, healing, and eternal life. The CHM Foundation is the part of the ministry supporting the effort to invite donors to take part in what God is doing. As the needs grow, so has our ministry and it has become necessary to provide a larger facility where hundreds of saints can come and be ministered to all at the same time; while learning how to carry the healing ministry of Jesus back to their home cities and bring healing and transformation into their church and community.

We are grateful for your prayers, encouraging words, and financial generosity. Our highest goal is that the same spirit of care and ministry that defines CHM be felt by those who donate and correspond with the CHM Foundation.

Mike Simon is the Director of Development for CHM.

by Rev. Nigel Mumford
Jul/Aug 2009

I wonder if that Easter resurrection witness is the first biblical reference to post traumatic stress disorder — the onset of the “thousand–yard stare. ”Crack troops sent to guard the body of Jesus experienced something that was totally out of their realm.

We know that our crack troops today are experiencing the physical and emotional wounds of war. What can be done to help returning combat veterans? (I understand that the U.S. Fire Department is doing a better job than the church to help these broken souls.) How can we help as individuals or as a church? Be creative, such as by reaching out to say “thank you”; activate your prayer team; put on a recognition dinner; offer a day of healing of memories; adopt a military family. Reach forth your hand to help; the list is never–ending.

Two years ago my bishops and I were having lunch. We discussed how combat veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq will need spiritual help and healing if they are to be reintegrated into “normal” life. History has shown that after Vietnam very little was done to help the emotional breakage of minds and souls after the extreme horrors of war. The DSM4 gave a new name to a very old condition: post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This is nothing new. Even the ancient Greeks noticed a psychological change in their soldiers coming back from carnage. This syndrome has had many names over the years: shell shock, compassion fatigue, battle fatigue, war neurosis, the thousand–yard stare, and post–Vietnam syndrome. In the American Civil War, it was called nostalgia!

I spent a year of my life in combat and have seen first hand the horrors of man’s inhumanity to man. In my own personal healing journey I wrote a quote that summarizes the issues of this particular need for the healing of memories:

The mind is witness to a catastrophic event. The intellect simply cannot cope with what it has seen. The body reacts physically under duress. The heart receives emotional scars; the soul weeps... This mental trauma is a total body reaction to witnessing violent actions in combat. The desperate primordial need to save one’s own life and the lives of others. (NM 1975)

The basic problem is that, without healing, the war continues on in one’s mind, even after many years. An exaggerated startle response and many other symptoms of this experience plague many compassionate souls who have seen lives cut short before their very eyes.

After much prayer, we designed a three–day retreat. People started coming out of the woodwork to help: a bishop (a retired colonel who served in the U.S. Marines and the U.S. Air Force), and a layman (a retired lieutenant colonel from the British armed forces). Both of them were former combat veterans. And many others showed up who wanted to help. So far, we now have run three programs and have three more set for March, August, and October 2009. (Please go to www.ctkcenter.org for the dates). The retreat participants and their families have come from the following theaters of war: World War II, Vietnam, Korea, Desert Storm, Afghanistan and Iraq. The program is free for all combat veterans due to the astonishing generosity of individuals who want to help.

I was honored to present the “Welcome Home Initiative” (WHI) to the chief of the Army chaplains, Maj. General Douglas Carver, and seventeen Army chaplains at the Pentagon last December. I had an hour and a half to present the program and answer questions. They showed a lot of interest, and I had the chance to pray for these chaplains and to anoint their hands. We would so like to get the School of Healing Prayer® into the Pentagon.

If you know a combat veteran, please invite him or her to the WHI program. You can find a downloadable brochure on our web site at www.ctkcenter.org. The vet just needs to get to our center in Albany, NY, Christ the King Spiritual Life Center. Once there, the food, room and board are free.

Please contact us if your spirit is quickened and you want to do something to help. Thank you for your prayer coverage for this national need for healing of memories.

God bless you, much love in Jesus,
Fr. Nigel Mumford +
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The Rev. Nigel Mumford is the Director of Healing Ministries at Christ the King Spiritual Life Center in Greenwich, NY.

by Sara Flynn
Jul/Aug 2009

Bitter Root Judgements

As I was preparing for my talk on Blessings and Curses for the School of Healing Prayer Level III recently, I was also part of a team praying with someone suffering from stage four lung cancer. I mentioned the great results we were seeing to another prayer minister and she suggested I ask the prayer recipient about the existence of bitter root judgments. She also recommended I read Doris Wagner’s book, How to Minister Freedom, specifically the chapter by Cindy Jacobs on bitter root judgments. I did so. I had heard of bitter root judgments in the past and read John and Paula Sandford’s book, Transformation of the Inner Man¹, twenty years ago but I had never prayed for release from bitter root judgments for myself or anyone else. How I wish I had!

Bitter root judgments usually originate in our families of origin and are often expressed in close relationships later in life. Children judge their parents and/or siblings for wounds suffered during the course of life together. Sometimes, as in cases of child sexual abuse, for example, the injuries are great and judgment seems justified. While we are permitted to judge behavior, we are not permitted to bitterly judge the heart or motivations of another person. When we do, we plant a seed of bitter judgment in our own life which operates like a curse pronounced over ourselves.² Thus, we are not only injured by the original offense but also by our response to it. With the passage of time the unconfessed sin develops into a root system in our hearts. As we continue to judge bitterly, we strengthen that root system and it becomes more powerful and persistent in its quiet growth. Of course, we don’t see the roots in this stage of development — they’re well hidden — but later, we see the poisonous fruit that springs forth from the mature plant that has been nourished by the bitter roots of judgment. We wonder how on earth the unwanted fruit grew in our lives. We may blame someone else and continue in ignorance, reaping a harvest of bitterness in relationships that are very important to us.

God has set a law in motion which demands that we eat the fruit ourselves (Gal. 6:7). While most Christians realize the need to forgive others, most of us do not go the extra step of examining our hearts to see if we made a bitter judgment (perhaps long ago) at the time of the hurtful offense. If we did, we need to expose the root and take an ax to it! But how? The answer is surprisingly easy. The habit of judging others is part of the old sin nature to which we die daily. Jesus died to remove from us the consequences for all sin, bitter root judgments included, but we have to confess our sins, repent and, in this case, stop judging bitterly to receive the full benefit of Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf.

Let me give you an example from my own life. When I was a child, my father made a financial decision regarding an inheritance my grandfather provided for my brothers and me. His decision made the money available to us during childhood and was used to pay for various items, all of which were very enriching and beneficial to us as children. In hindsight, I respect my father’s choice. Nonetheless, at the time, I wanted to defer receipt of my inheritance until adulthood and was thus very angry at my father and resented his decision on my behalf. I judged him bitterly in my heart.

In adulthood, I have struggled financially. While God has been very gracious to me throughout my life, I could never get ahead of the seemingly inevitable money problems. I married a man who was not financially responsible. When we were in the process of divorcing I discovered that he had taken out a credit card in my name and run up a $10,000.00 debt for which I was fully responsible. He had also failed to pay taxes on his business for two years and I had to pay half of that debt as well. When we divorced, my portion of the marital assets was allotted to me in our home which I had to sell. The first sale of the house fell through. The house finally sold nine months later but just a week shy of foreclosure. How unfair it all seemed. I wondered what I had done to deserve such difficulties. If only I had known!

When I reread the Sandford’s chapter on bitter root judgment, I realized how deeply this simple truth of sowing and reaping was affecting my life. I had long since forgiven my father and he has forgiven me. But I had never asked God to forgive me for bitterly judging my dad. The seeds I sowed in ignorance during childhood had sprung up in full flower in my adult life and caused serious trouble for me and my children. So I confessed this sin against my father and repented. Then I asked the Lord to cancel the sowing and reaping cycle, and to bless my dad in every possible way, giving back to both of us everything that we lost as a result of my bitter root judgment. Lastly, I prayed the Lord would heal every wound in our relationship that came from my sin.

Before I came to CHM, I worked part–time from home as a mitigation specialist. I still periodically consult attorneys preparing for capital trials, or representing their clients on death row. After I prayed to be released from the effects of this particular bitter root judgment three weeks ago, I have had so many job offers I have had to turn them down. I have more simultaneous opportunities to earn money than in the previous five years!

The woman for whom we are praying for cancer is breathing better than she has since her diagnosis two years ago. Her lungs are free of fluids and she is suffering no side effects from the chemo. And yes, she also prayed to be released from the effects of bitter root judgments. Praise God!

¹While both books are excellent resources, the Sandford book is the seminal source for Wagner’s chapter on the topic.
²The foundational scriptures for this teaching are Deut. 5:16, Matt 7:1–2, Gal. 6:7 and Hebrews 12:15.

Sara Flynn is the Ministry Program Director at CHM.

by Linda Strickland
Jul/Aug 2009

This year (2009), Alaska celebrates its 50th birthday as a state. Although I would agree with every resident that their state is truly great, I am happy to report that the spiritual state of Alaska is great as well.

Recently, Judith and I journeyed from Jacksonville to Anchorage for a Healing Prayer Training Conference, hosted by Community Covenant Church, Eagle River — a bedroom community of Anchorage. Of the 683,000 people who call Alaska home, one–half of them live in the Anchorage metropolitan area.

This healing conference was birthed out of a vision given to several members of this church who had attended our School of Healing Prayer® on our campus in Florida over a year ago. The vision was that the ministry of healing prayer would be brought to Alaska.

Judith (along with Mike Evans of Wholeness Ministries) brought the teaching of CHM to this extraordinary group, which represented 50 churches from around the state. In addition to the churches represented, the conference was attended by many native Alaskans who were flown in from various villages of the “bush” area of Alaska. (These are areas that cannot be reached by road.) In addition, 27 pastors, representing all of the area denominations, were present.

To say that this was a diverse group would be an understatement — and it was a beautiful thing. Although a lot of individual healing took place within the group, it was exciting to see how much was accomplished corporately, which is now being carried back to the many churches represented.

In an effort to show you what is going on in Alaska, I would like to share some of the wonderful comments from the attendees:

“I will never be the same!” (This was a resounding comment that we heard over and over again)

“Thank you, thank you, thank you for coming to Alaska! I am so excited to see what God is doing up here. I had begun to think that God had forgotten about us. During the conference He touched me…zapped me actually. I didn’t think I could fall even more in love with my gentle Daddy.”

“Thank you! I have been fighting with issues for a while that I thought were just mine. But through your teaching/ministry I was able to identify it as generational and now it is gone!”

“I have never heard speakers speak from such a strong foundation of love: love for people and love for God. Everything you said was rooted in that. Thank you for coming and teaching us and loving us here in Alaska.”

“We are much more equipped to go back to our congregation with authority and empowerment.”

“This conference was confirmation of my suspicion that prayer need not be complicated.”

“I was stretched this weekend. I was shown several areas that I still held anger and resentment — and that I needed to let go. It is incredible to have so many churches together in one place to equip them for spiritual healing.”

“I let go of unforgiveness that I have held onto for 23 years!”

“God touched me with much learning, anointing and grace from the speakers and those around me. I don’t want the weekend to end!”

“I received a deep sense of the Father’s love for His children…and for me. He is crazy about us! He desires health, wholeness and happiness for us….and that is our (my) inheritance.”

“I was very much out of my area of comfort, but I know this is God.”

“I discovered that God allows everyone to play. He calls all of His people to be a part of His healing ministry.”

“I was filled and continued to be filled with an overwhelming love for people, a love that is unexplainable. I know it is not possible for me to love like this on my own, it is God’s love for people.”

“The power of God and His Holy Spirit has become so real for me.”

“I attended this seminar reluctantly and with little to no expectations. Through the worship and the message the first night, God moved Matthew 23:9 from an intellectual knowledge to a deep inner knowledge and understanding. I know now that He is my Father and I am His daughter. I rushed home that night and asked my husband if he could rearrange his work schedule so that I would be able to attend the entire conference.”

“The thing I enjoyed most as the organizer of this event was watching as the teams from a variety of churches came to be trained in healing prayer. Several of these teams were even accompanied by their pastors. I loved their hunger to learn and desire to take this work back to their homes, churches and villages. It was delightful to watch as they sat and learned together and prayed together. I also loved the unity we had from the most conservative to the most charismatic churches.”

— Sandy Gold, Coordinator of Prayer Ministry, Community Covenant Church

Linda Strickland is the Associate Director of Ministry and Assistant to Judith MacNutt.