This February a small group from Shiloh began meeting in downtown Iowa City. The meeting is culmination of years of prayer and a fresh determination to see that Jesus Christ not be hidden away in our hearts, but be expressed to those who hunger to know God.
Erin Dunn, one of the young pastors at Shiloh attended college at the University of Iowa and worked in the area for many years before being employed at Shiloh. He has personally carried a burden for the city since those days. Since beginning the meetings in Iowa City, Erin has found that the burden he has is not his alone. Many others from Shiloh who have lived and worked in the city are believing for God’s moving there.
For the first few meetings he has invited 20 or so people to gather with him in the heart of downtown and begin to pray. Erin is beginning the meetings by following the instruction of Jesus Christ that you must first bind the strongman and then plunder his house (Matt 12:29). The first meeting began with a time of deep repentance and turning away from our own hardness of heart and dullness of hearing. In subsequent meetings, the repentance is being combined with a travail that the gods of this world no longer blind men’s minds so that they might all see the gospel of the glory of Christ (2 Cor 4:2). It is a two-pronged approach. On one hand, we must break our own hearts where we have bottled up the light He has placed within us. On the other hand we are to be the vessels of the prayers and prophecies by which the authority of Christ will manifest to break the influences that would stop that light from being seen.
The meetings are small, but not for long. Erin and the others leading out are beginning to bring short teachings into the times of prayer and worship. All of the elements are present: God is being glorified in worship, the word of the testimony of Christ – the spirit of prophecy (Rev 19:10) is being spoken, and all of it is being mixed with faith in the heart of those hearing!
Believe with us! We know we are just one of many gatherings happening now in Iowa City – a hunger for God is growing and the heart of our Father will respond to it as He always has when people turn their hearts to Him!
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