The old saying, “Where there’s smoke there’s fire” is not always true. There are times when smoke indicates what was once on fire is now only a dying ember. Too much of the church in America has become dispassionate in their worship. As a result, they are not seeing the kind of breakthrough required to bring down the strongholds of hell that hold entire cities captive to delusion and deception.   This weekend amidst a pastoral transition, I saw demonstrated the kind of worship fire that enlivens the passion of a church and gives notice to hell that its authority over a city is being broken.

When I released the word “Worship Will Lead the Way in 2023” it did not take long for the Lord to put me in a place to see what He meant when I released that prophetic word. In the word, I wrote: “In 2023, we will see a return to worship songs that declare the triumphant majesty of God. It will be a throne room experience that focuses on the power and authority of Jesus Christ. The outflow and expression of that kind of worship, and the resulting personal and corporate recalibration it brings, will become our pathway into the future.”

Yesterday, Jan and I had the honor of being part of a team to help transition the pastoral leadership of The Father’s House in Portland, Oregon. For the last 23 years, since the inception of The Father’s House, Steve and Deborah Trujillo have led the church with an apostolic anointing that has endeared a city to them. They created a model for city transformation.  For all those years, Ty and Daneen Bottler faithfully served the Trujillo family and the church employing their apostolic and prophetic gifting with excellence. On Sunday, the Bottlers were installed as the new senior leaders of the church.

During worship on Sunday morning, as we prepared to install the Bottlers, we experienced the kind of worship that sets the stage for both city and national transformation. This was not a one-time expression of worship in The Father’s House. It is their DNA and is regularly demonstrated. This weekend it manifested as an affirmation of their commitment to worship that moves the focus of worship away from the worshippers to Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords. It is that kind of worship that ignites the embers of our passion for God into the kind of flame that will release a breakthrough.

As the worship team took us to the throne of God with their musical excellence and demonstrated passion, the heavens around the church opened allowing me to see what was taking place in the realm of the Spirit. With each stroke of an instrument and with each voice raised in passion amidst a sea of raised hands, I saw angels that had surrounded the church listening to our worship. At one point, the angels heard a command from Heaven. At that command, they were released to raise their swords and begin to move out from the church building. They began to cut the heads off demons of deception that have held the city of Portland captive in the grip of demonic deception. As the heads of the demons began to roll, the demons began to stumble around in confusion losing their way and becoming disempowered and disconnected from the completion of their mission. 

When I wrote about worship leading the way in 2023, I prophesied, “In the coming year, divine interventions by the Lord will take place, pulling down earthly thrones of authority that have been set up against the knowledge of God. Keep your eyes on the Lord, not on earthly developments. That focus will be critical in the coming year, especially during times of worship.”

I saw that prophecy being fulfilled this weekend in Portland, Oregon. It will soon expand and impact churches across America that are willing to rekindle the ember of their passion for God into flaming demonstrations of worship. I believe that kind of worship, a God-focused, throne room kind of worship that releases the hosts of Heaven, will prepare the way for the kind of city and national transformation the Lord desires. We must rekindle that kind of worship fire before any meaningful change can happen in our cities and our nation.