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CHRISTIAN RENEWAL JOURNAL 
A QUARTERLY JOURNAL ON PRAYER, REVIVAL, AND THE SPIRIT-FILLED LIFE

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Fall 2006 

 TRANSITION AND REDEDICATION


Personal Transition

Those of you who have been following this ministry know that we have been in a time of transition.  My dear wife Maxine, who had been in failing health for the last two or three years, passed away on March 30.  For some time prior to her death we had been planning to return to Bozeman, Montana.  But I returned to Bozeman alone on June 8.  While it is great to be back in the beautiful mountains of southwest Montana, the breath-taking scenes cannot heal the hurt or fill the emptiness left by Maxine's death.  However, I am comforted knowing that she is with the Lord and free from the pain she suffered for months leading up to her departure.  I am also comforted by the prayers and expressions of hundreds of you dear ones who expressed sympathy and support through letters and cards of condolence.  Many of you over the last twenty years have prayed, encouraged and supported this ministry financially, and we are so appreciative.  I am also comforted by dear family members. It was difficult to leave my son, Tim, and his wife, Billie Jo, in Dothan, Alabama, where Maxine and I had lived for the last ten years.  But it is good to be with our daughter, Pris, and her husband, Ron, and my granddaughter, Anna, here in Bozeman.  And I am delighted my son, Steve, also decided to move from Pensacola, Florida to Bozeman.  He has consented to assist Pris in some of the computer setup and programming as she helps me in the work of this ministry.  We are both grateful to Steve for his help.

Since returning to Montana, I have been revisiting and walking my old prayer trails here in the Hyalite Mountains near Bozeman and praying with various groups three nights each week at the Big Sky House of Prayer in Belgrade, Montana.  It is very clear to me that the Spirit is leading me to trust God for the spiritual anointing and physical strength to go on with the ministry of calling believers to Spirit-anointed prayer, to holiness of heart and life, and to faith for a mighty spiritual awakening in our nation to turn back these end-times tides of darkness and delusion affecting both the church and the world.   In order to do this I find myself crying out for "a double portion of the Holy Spirit," as Elisha did.

Ministry Transition, News and Prayer Requests


I am grateful to the ten members of our CHRISTIAN RENEWAL Board of Directors who share my vision and passion for being led of the Holy Spirit in carrying out this ministry.  They all live in or near Bozeman. They just recently approved unanimously the nomination of my daughter, Priscilla (Pris) Larsen, to succeed Rachel Kuhn as my Executive Assistant.  Rachel served this ministry efficiently and faithfully for eight years, but she has chosen to continue living in Dothan, Alabama and has found employment elsewhere.  Rachel reports that she is enjoying her new work and she continues to pray for and support this ministry.  Pris will be equally devoted to this work, and it is a joy to have her at my side.  Already, she has been instrumental in re-establishing the ministry in the State of Montana, registering us in with the proper institutions and securing a U.S. Postal permit for bulk mailing.  She has been in touch with accountants for counsel in bookkeeping and reporting to both the Federal and the State government.  It appears that we are now cleared for operations, and it is with gratitude to God and to all of you that we bring you our first issue of the Journal since our transition.

Our readers and prayer partners will understand that the year 2006 has been a most difficult one.  There were a few cancellations of meetings prior to Maxine’s death, so that we have only had five events so far this year:  four revivals and one School of Prayer in Tennessee, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Texas and Alabama.  Every one of these events was blessed with the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, as we sought to be faithful to the Word and the leadings of the Lord.   Four more meetings are being planned for the rest of the year: Schools of Prayer in Oxford, Pennsylvania and Tiffin, Ohio, and a Crusade and School of Prayer in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, South America.  A strong church here in Bozeman is considering hosting a School of Prayer this fall.  Please pray that other churches will schedule either revival meetings or Schools of Prayer or conferences on the Holy Spirit so that we may have a full slate throughout 2007.

Alarming word is coming to us of late out of South America that President Morales has declared himself a hard-line Communist, and in agreement with President Chavez of Venezuela, they have decided to decree restrictions against Christian ministries and practices in their respective countries.  As of this date my host, Bishop Jack Terry, declares the Crusade is still a "go" for Santa Cruz, Bolivia.  But, again, I urge that much prayer go up for the entire continent of South America, where the Holy Spirit has been poured out for nearly a generation now in many countries.  But on this trip to South America, I am wondering if I will find the same restrictions on my ministry that I experienced in East Berlin before the Berlin Wall came down.  By the grace of God and with your prayers, I mean to go to Bolivia under the anointing of the Holy Spirit and declare the message of Salvation and Holiness and Prayer that He lays on my heart.

Praying for America

In closing, allow me to set forth my main concern and my most resolute purpose: First, my greatest fear for America is not terrorists’ attacks, an economic depression or natural disasters. My greatest fear is that because of the sins of prayerlessness, unbelief, pride, self-righteousness, and coldness of heart among professing Christians, the American church will miss the great full-scale spiritual awakening that God has planned to give us in these last days!  Our greatest sin is that of prayerlessness.  Sincere praying will clear the way for the Holy Spirit to come, and when He comes He will convict us of the other sins.  As The Spirit convicts, believers are then enabled to repent of their sins. 

As Christians lead the way in repentance, the Spirit will pour out in revival power.  Then the world will sense its need for God, and sinners will repent.  When professing Christians lead the way in repentance, and when men and women of the world follow in repentance, healing will come – lives will become whole, homes will be united, churches will begin to love and forgive one another, communities will come together and we’ll see something of heaven on earth.

I am writing these things in the full confidence that God has not yet given up on our nation.  The most convincing evidence of this is the discovery that here and there across the nation there are signs of a growing army of prayer warriors who have an increasing hunger to see the glory of God manifested in their lives and families and churches in revival power.  Houses of Prayer are being formed.  Prayer meetings are being called.  Pastors are starting to meet weekly for prayer, and they are willing to encourage their members to join in community and interdenominational prayer meetings. Denominations and parachurch ministries are calling for seasons of prayer and fasting, and a few are calling for solemn assemblies of repentance.

I am resolved by the grace of God to walk daily in fellowship with an ungrieved Holy Spirit, to pray in the Spirit, to bring every thought into the captivity of Jesus Christ, to obey God rather than men and to personally engage in militant intercessory prayer for the revival that God wants to give the church in these last days.

Every revival, beginning with the Pentecostal revival in Acts 2, can be traced to a prayer meeting.  Surely, it is time for all of us to pray with Charles G. Finney, the American evangelist of the nineteenth century, "O God, send the Holy Spirit!  Give us both the breath of spiritual life and the fire of unconquerable zeal … O, that You would send the wind and the fire!  And I believe You will do this when we are in one accord, when we are all believing, when we are all expecting, when we are all prepared by prayer!  AMEN!"

 From Nicaragua to Kenya

Rev. Tharp's granddaughter, Anna Llanes, is a senior nursing major at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, Idaho. Rev. Tharp asked Anna to share some of her experiences on the two mission trips she participated in this past year.


In March, 2006 I went on a Medical Mission to Nicaragua with Pre-Med & Nursing Students from Northwest Nazarene University.  We saw 800 patients in five days at six clinical sites we had set up.  The weather was hot and some of our team had traveler’s sickness. We dealt with parasites, anemia, infections, diabetes, and cancer. We struggled with exhaustion – mental, emotional and physical.  We saw such brokenness and poverty among the people. This is an experience that will never be forgotten.

The joy on the children’s faces and the ear-to-ear smiles as they greeted us captivated my heart.  They loved to pull our arms and raced to get their picture taken with us.  The little ones wanted us to hold them and the older ones laughingly tried to communicate.

The doctors of Nicaragua had been on strike since November, leaving some of the most poverty-stricken Nicaraguans with no medical help for several months. Because of our style of clinics and our short stay we could only see these patients for a few hours, give them a diagnosis, some information and some medications and send them on their way.  We struggled to remember that God was in control and had to put our trust in Him to take care of these people who were in extraordinary need.  I believe in miracles!


In August of 2005 I traveled to Kenya, Africa on a mission trip with ROC (Reach Out and Care) Wheels to deliver over 200 wheelchairs and to fit specialized wheelchairs to kids with severe disabilities. We had a team of 24.  I also got to spend a day with community nurses doing a well baby clinic (checkups and immunizations) for about 125 babies.
We visited the orphanage at Dagoretti that also housed an abandoned baby center.  There were 72 babies under the age of four, and one-third of the babies had HIV/Aids.   We picked up crying babies from their mats and loved on them.  The toddlers came to us with their arms reaching high, begging us to pick them up.  What a joy to hug and play with them.


On this trip Dickson and Susan, who are both my age, really touched my heart.  Dickson is very disabled but he is full of joy!  When I met Susan she was in tears.  I talked with her, took her picture and gave her some pens and a note pad. Her smile blessed me.  I got to be the first to write on her pad.  I wrote, "Jesus loves Susan.  Anna loves Susan.  Susan has a beautiful smile."  She was my friend for the rest of the day, giving me a huge smile whenever I spoke to her.  I have learned that smiles are one of God’s greatest gifts - and the most beautiful.







Spring 2006 (to be added soon)
 
Fall 2005

The Power of Cooperative Prayer

The apostle Paul opens his second epistle to the Corinthians in profuse celebration of "the God of all comfort" who has "in answer to the prayers of many" delivered him from what he had thought to be "the sentence of death."

The details of Paul's sufferings in the province of Asia remain obscure, but they were severe enough to crush his spirit so that he was forced to abandon all hope of survival.  "Indeed," he said, "in our hearts we felt the sentence of death."  He said he was "under great pressure far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life."

The apostle rarely used the term "despair" (exaporethenai), which implies all hope of surviving oppressive circumstances.  Paul saw no way out, no reprieve from his death sentence.  Only divine intervention delivered him from the jaws of death and brought him back to the reality of life.  "The Father of compassion" miraculously rescued him.  And the apostle believed with all of his heart that God had done so in answer to the prayers of many!

As I look back on the year 2005, I would not even dare to compare the magnitude of my trials in ministry to those of the apostle Paul's.  I will just state that in all of my fifty-six years of full-time ministry, I have never know so many and such various outright Satanic attacks.  The spiritual opposition against me and this ministry in 2005 has surpassed anything I have known in the last twenty-three years of devotedly calling God's people to prayer, of clarifying the Spirit-filled life of holiness and power and of spelling out the biblical terms of true moral and spiritual awakening.  The entire year has been a wake-up call to the fact that the enemy dreads prayer, hates the Spirit-filled life and opposes revival in any life, in any congregation, in any community or nation.

The Prayers of Many

But please let me hasten to say that the year of 2005 has been a victorious year despite the attempts of the enemy.  For the Holy Spirit, through the prayers of many of you, has helped me to overcome in the following ways: to find the physical and emotional strength to go on despite the increasing weaknesses, pains and infirmities of aging … to leave home and entrust my suffering wife Maxine to the care of the Lord and others (our son Tim and my executive secretary Rachel have been faithful when Maxine has needed someone with her) … to face congregations that seemed frozen in unbelief of any possibility that God could send revival to their church, and then go ahead and proclaim the Word only to see Him work gloriously … to struggle through hours of spiritual warfare battling demons of doubt and discouragement, then experience the sweet breakthrough of the Spirit's anointing for absolute joyous freedom in worship, praise and intercession …  to endure days and nights of loneliness and the need for someone to pray and share with, then to turn to the Lord and find that He is all that I need …  To graciously accept criticism (sometimes harsh) and take it to the Lord, only to find that the Lord agreed with my critics (except for the harshness), but finding the grace to repent and make the changes in attitude and ways of ministering that are pleasing to God … to learn of meetings being cancelled too late to fill the dates with other invitations, then turn it over to the Lord as being providential …  to come to the realization that invitations are now fewer, financial contributions are falling off and I'm getting older, then find comfort in the Word of God to the effect that "in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (Rom. 8:28).

"…the year of 2005 has been a victorious year despite the attempts of the enemy." 

Although I conducted only eleven events (6 Schools of Prayer, 6 Revivals and 1 camp meeting), I can say to the glory of God that His Divine Presence was manifested on every event.  Sinners were saved!  Believers were sanctified!  Hungry Christians were filled with the Spirit!  Bodies were healed!  Demons were cast out!  Congregations were revived!  And many new prayer warriors were trained, and they are now waging war against the Kingdom of darkness.   It's been a good year.  We have worked hard to keep all of our obligations, but all commitments have been met.  Our income this year has dropped to a record low, but all bills are paid.   All because God has worked through your many prayers!    Oh, how I thank you!

Looking Ahead

Please know that the trials of 2005 have not daunted or discouraged me one bit!  I have never faced a new year with more faith or a clearer vision or a greater determination to see the glory of God in our ministry than I sense now as I face the year of 2006.  Several meetings are already booked, and I expect to conduct more events this year than we did last.  But whether more or less, I am resolved throughout the year to pray in the Spirit, live in holiness and power, proclaim the truth as the Spirit leads and believe God for the outpoured Spirit on every event.  As we are faithful to these priorities, we can trust the Lord to help us keep the office open and pay a part-time executive assistant, publish the CHRISTIAN RENEWAL JOURNAL, encourage and give guidance to the BIG SKY HOUSE OF PRAYER operating in the Bozeman, Montana area, and keep on calling God's people to prayer and to holy living and to revival.

I will share with our prayer partners the list of priorities that head my list as we come to the year of 2006:

1.   More passionate prayer partners.  The apostle Paul believed in the power of cooperative prayer.  Back in 1986, when the Lord began using me to go to different congregations in various places and share my vision of revival praying, He spoke to me and said, "If my servant the apostle Paul felt he could not be true to the heavenly vision without the prayers of the saints, who are you to think you can fulfill my calling to teach prayer and spell out my conditions for revival without the prayers of my people?"  I took that caution seriously, and the one thing I am most grateful for aside from my own salvation and the divine anointing for prayer and ministry is the Spirit's gift of an unknown number of prayer partners.  And truly, these precious, valuable, indispensable people are a gift from God.  In my own strength and persuasive abilities, I could never have gathered them.  Time and time again, precious ones have come to tell me, "God has asked me (or us) to take on CHRISTIAN RENEWAL MINISTRIES as a major concern, to pray daily, and sometimes through the night, for His anointing on you and His blessings on everything your ministry undertakes."  Sometimes, such reports come via emails and telephone calls.  Letters are written sharing with us the burdens people are carrying for the success of this work.  Some of these people we have not met or cannot remember having seen.  But, oh, how we thank God for such people!  I am now pleading with you to pray with me for an added number of passionate prayer partners this year.  I am convinced it is the foremost secret in anointed ministry of spreading the Gospel and calling the nations to prayer and preparation for Last-Days Revival.

"I have never faced a new year with more faith or a clearer vision or a greater determination to see the glory of God in our ministry than I sense now as I face the year of 2006." 

2.   Health and Safety.  I must not take for granted the health and energy God gives me for prayer, travel, writing, preaching, teaching and counseling.  Pray that God will continue to help me to be disciplined in eating and exercising so that I can continue to be "a vessel of honor, a temple of the Holy Spirit set apart for His service and glory."  Please remember my wife Maxine also, who has at times throughout 2005 been in great pain, even as she is at this time.

3.   My colleagues in ministry.  I am very grateful to Rachel Kuhn for her efficient service in the office.  She has not been in the best of health this year and we hope she will be able to give more time in 2006.  We must cover her in prayer for God' s touch on her body and on her life.  Also, pray for our CHRISTIAN RENEWAL BOARD OF DIRECTORS (Dave & Marilyn Bos, Paula Butterfield, Greg & Rena Donaldson, Gail & Betty Fremont, Duncan & Susan Hill, and Kyle & Vanessa McMurray).  Please pray for Vanessa as she gives direction to the BIG SKY HOUSE OF PRAYER in Belgrade, just a few miles west of Bozeman. 

4.   Open doors.    I truly want to be available to the Lord for wherever He wants me, but trying to keep a full slate is not my great concern.  I have learned from a limited schedule this past year that not being so busy can be a great blessing.  I can be more attentive to Maxine, spend more quality time with the Lord, do more reading and serious thinking when I'm not traveling and preaching and teaching so much.  Pray that churches will call me where they are willing to sacrificially and passionately fast and pray and believe God for revival.  Otherwise, I feel I am wasting my time and just spinning my wheels.

5.   Financial needs of the ministries.  I can go before the Lord and look every donor in the face and know that God is being glorified in CHRISTIAN RENEWAL MINISTRIES.  I know in my heart that I and others who invest financially in this work will be generously rewarded in due time.  I know that we are laying up treasures for the life to come.  So without embarrassment or apology, I ask you to consider prayerfully the amounts the Lord would have you invest in getting the message of prayer and revival out to this nation and others throughout the year of 2006.  Please give careful attention to the enclosed commitment card.  I will get a lot of encouragement from these cards whether you make a one-time contribution or choose to give monthly or quarterly.  These cards will be reminders that I am not alone in this ministry, that there is power in cooperative praying and giving.  Please include your prayer requests on the back of your cards and they will go into my own personal prayer journal.

Thank you for joining me in prayer and in giving and in trusting God for an anointed New Year!  I trust you will have a Merry Christmas!  May you and your family be greatly blessed through this holiday season and beyond!

Sincerely,
James W. Tharp

Journal Subscription Renewal

The Christian Renewal Journal is sent out four times a year with vital messages about prayer and the next great awakening the church must undergo in the last days.  A five-dollar subscription renewal is requested on a free will basis.  No formal subscription list is maintained, however the database is gone over from time to time and those we have not heard from in a while are removed.  Would you consider helping   support Christian Renewal Ministries by sending in a subscription renewal of $5.00 to offset printing and mailing costs?  Perhaps you would consider helping to defray the costs of sending this journal out to pastors and laymen less able to give?  If so, we would be deeply appreciative.  Thank you for your generosity and support in the past and we will use all money received in a wise manner showing proper stewardship of what the Lord entrusts to us.  Once again, thank you and may God bless you!

This page was last modified 10/02/06.