* Open Doors.  Because I only want to invest my prayers, time, energy and study in those places where the Lord wants me to be, I do not solicit meetings.  When an invitation comes (the Lord often tells me before it comes), I soon know whether I’m to accept or not.  The size of the crowd, the conditions of believers making up the host church, the prospects of adequate or inadequate financial offerings, the distance of travel – none of these things matter if the Lord impresses me to accept the invitation.  The reason every meeting in 2008 was blessed of God is because many of you were praying.  I do urge you to continue to cover me and the meetings throughout this new year.  No matter how many doubts are hurled at me through the day, right up to the time I’m to deliver God’s message to the people, when I stand up, the Spirit reminds me: “Fear not, I am with you; I will be answering yours and many others’ prayers throughout your message.  Speak up!  Obey me!  Be bold!  Trust me, and you’ll see my glory in this service!”  For the past year, I never failed in any service to see the glory of God – the altars filled with sinners needing to be saved, believers needing to confess sins of unbelief, self-righteousness, hypocrisy, unforgiveness, bitterness and disobedience and needing to be restored, cleansed and filled with the Spirit, the sick needing healing, and those in bondage needing deliverance.  Oh, how I wish you who pray for this could see how God is answering your prayers!  Let’s keep on praying!  I’ll keep on preaching, teaching and going!  And together we’ll all give God the honor and the praise!

* My Health.  I need to update many of you on my physical condition.  Many of you have heard me report my healing from diabetes while in a crusade in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, South America in October, 2006.  One of the leaders who prayed for my healing, Pastor David Love, warned me that Satan would seek to steal my healing back.  From October 2006 to June 2007 I was free from diabetes.  And then one Sunday morning, I tested my glucose count and it was 600!  Believing I was to continue in faith, I went fourteen months by faith, despite the dangerous level of sugar in my blood.  But when my eye doctor examined my eyes in August of 2008 and told me my diabetes was affecting my vision, and then when the very next day my dentist told me he believed that the bleeding in my gums was diabetes related, I went before the Lord and prayed until I felt His permission to return to my doctor.  I am now on both oral medication and insulin shots.  Thankfully, the glucose count is coming down to levels of safety.  I do praise the Lord for this!  Also my blood pressure is returning to normal.  I have always seen doctors, hospitals and medicine as gifts from God.  But I also know that He supernaturally and instantaneously heals the sick.  Even as I was returning to medication I saw the Lord do miraculous healing in those I prayed for.  But I do seek your prayers for my health.  Even when my condition was at its worst, I felt energy and strength to travel, preach and exercise.  I want to keep going as long as the Lord gives me the open doors, provides the strength and supplies the financial needs.

* The Book ESTELLE.   This is my fifth book, and I must say that I believe it is the most important book I will have written.  It is about how God taught my dear mother how to take authority in prayer so that He would change her world.  Through Estelle Tharp’s prayers, God sent a sweeping revival to Arkansas County in 1946 that transformed a community and changed many families and individuals.  I should know, for it changed my life.  Ever since the Lord called me to the ministry I’ve known the Arkansas County Revival was to be reported in a book.  When I related the revival story to Billy Graham in 1976, he said, “Well, when are you going to get started on it?”  Several times since, he’s asked, “How’s the book coming?”  Early last year, the Lord spoke to me very clearly and said, “Its time for you to begin work on the book.”  I’m not even half through with the first draft, but I can never remember such anointing while writing the previous four books that I’ve enjoyed while working on this one.  But I seek your prayers that I’ll not omit or treat too lightly those things the Lord would choose to use to convict believers concerning our spiritual needs and personal responsibilities in preparing for revival today.

* The BSHOP.  It was in August, 1998 that the Lord spoke to me and told me to begin The Big Sky House of Prayer ministry in or near Bozeman, Montana.  At the time my wife Maxine and I were living in Dothan, Alabama.  Because of Maxine’s failing health, it didn’t seem possible to return to Bozeman at that time.  But as I shared the vision with prayer partners far and near, the Lord laid it on the hearts of Dr. and Mrs. McMurray (Kyle and Vanessa) to take steps in bringing the vision to reality.  We are now holding forth in a property in Belgrade provided by the McMurrays.  The place is small and not too easily found.  More parking space is needed.  But we are making the most of this facility – people meet on Tuesday and Wednesday nights for two hours.  Others meet on Friday (9:30 – 11:30am; and 12:00 – 2:00pm).  On every Wednesday night, we pray for the sick to be healed.  Our Christian Renewal Board of Directors has agreed that we do need to relocate the House of Prayer ministry, to enlarge the space for classrooms for teaching prayer, add a healing room and a deliverance room and provide more space for parking.  We believe the Lord is going to provide a site and funds for building.  Please pray with us that this shall all come to pass on God’s timetable and in a way that will allow Him to use this ministry for uniting His people in prayer to get ready for the mighty revival in the Great Northwest that will impact our nation!

* Financial Support.  I am well aware of some of the shady gimmicks and dishonest techniques that are all too often used in these times to raise funds for Christian ministries.  Determined with the apostle Paul not to be “a peddler of the Word of God for money” (II Cor. 2:17), I am not going to promise you amazing prosperity if you will send me “a seed Faith” offering.  Since most of you tithe your prosperity into your local church, here is what I’m asking you to do: If you really believe there is a need for Christian Renewal Ministries, then please go to the Lord in prayer and ask Him what you should invest in this ministry.  Then take the enclosed card and fill it out the way the Spirit leads you – whether a one-time offering, a monthly gift or otherwise.  And please share your prayer requests on the back of your commitment card.  I shall personally take these requests regularly before the Lord.

* Our Board and Personnel.   I am grateful to my daughter and executive assistant, Pris Larsen, for her selfless and efficient services in leading this ministry.  Also, I am grateful to Vanessa McMurray, our Director of the Big Sky House of Prayer.  And, finally, thanks to our Board of Directors – Dave & Marilyn Bos, Paula Butterfield, Greg & Rina Donaldson, Gail & Betty Fremont, Duncan & Susan Hill, Kyle & Vanessa McMurray, Ben & Ruth Ann Smith – for their faithful prayers, generous giving and wise counsel.