The Healing Prayer Institute

Saturday, April 26, 2008

St. Teresa of Avila Parish Life Center
1878 Abbe Rd.
Sheffield Village

Located at junction of Colorado Ave and Abbe Rd.
Click here for Mapquest Map

Christ’s model of ministry was to preach the Good News and heal people.  That is the model followed by our presenters. In 1993 Lloyd and Nancy Greenhaw, responding to Pope John Paul’s encyclical, Mission of the Redeemer, decided to leave successful careers in order to serve the Church in the full-time ministry of Catholic evangelization. Lloyd had been a representative for a Fortune 500 Company and Nancy had enjoyed a career as an award-winning watercolor artist and teacher. Through Renewal Ministries (Ralph Martin’s organization), Lloyd and Nancy have spoken at conferences, priest retreats, parish missions, and open air crusades here in the United States, and in Africa, Turkey, and the Pacific regions of Samoa and Papua New Guinea.  They are dynamic evangelists.  Nancy is a gifted singer, and she and her family music ministry lead worship at conferences and youth rallies around the world. In their evangelization activities they use the Gospel and Jesus’ healing power to bring people to Christ.

The opening session will deal with all the images of the Holy Spirit and provide the participant with a clear understanding of the Holy Spirit. This will be followed by two sessions where we will examine Scripture and look at the action of the Holy Spirit throughout time. By examining the action of the Holy Spirit we will understand not only who the Holy Spirit is but also what the Holy Spirit does in our time because God is the same yesterday as He is today and tomorrow.

During this afternoon session, the participant had an opportunity to open their lives to the action of the Holy Spirit and learned how to live the rest of their lives in the power of the Spirit.

After Jesus rose from the dead, he told his disciples that, “...signs like these will accompany those who preach the gospel...the sick on whom they lay their hands will be cured.” MK 16:18-18. This same Christ is among us today encouraging us to go and proclaim the gospel and to lay hands on the sick. As we reach up to God in faith and reach out to God’s people in love and compassion, the gifts of healing are being made manifest.

This workshop on the Four Basic Types of Healing will touch on the different ways Jesus healed. Physically, Emotionally, Spiritually, and from the power of demons. This day will include talks on each with time for discussion and prayer.

Workshop 4: Praying with People and the Formation of Healing Teams

The good news is that God c an use us to bring the healing power of Jesus to "every town and place he intends to visit". God is the God who heals and his Holy Spirit was given to us to bring the healing power of Jesus to his Flock.

This workshop will focus on the practical and spiritual aspects of forming healing teams in you areas or parishes.

This course would look at the effective ways of praying with people. It will cover some of the "do’s" and "don'ts" of healing prayer, when and how to refer a person for professional help, short and long term prayer relationships, integration of word gifts with healing prayer.

The course will also address some of the practicalities of organizing and training a healing team for a parish ministry or prayer group. The course will look at the various roles on a healing team, effective environments for healing services, various kinds of services and how to integrate healing prayer into the life of the parish.

I cannot understand my own behavior.
I fail to carry out the things I want to do,
and I find myself doing the very things I hate. [Romans 7:15]

Somewhere between our willful sins and our physical ailments lies that part of our lives where we find many of our real failings as humans. This is where we encounter our emotional weaknesses and problems. It is where we keep repeating patterns of behavior that destroys us, destroys our relationships, and destroys our ability to grow spiritually.

Inner healing is indicated when we realize we are held down in any way by the hurts of the past. Any unreasonable fear, anxiety, or compulsion caused by patterns built up in the past can be broken by prayer.

With inner healing we ask that Jesus Christ walk back in time to that time when we were affected and free us from the effects that wound us in the present.

This freeing from the effect sets us free to grow and experience the fullness of Christ's presence in our lives.

Guest Speaker - Arlene Apone

He indeed died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. And all of this from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and entrusting to us the ministry of reconciliation. [2 Corinthians 5:15,18]

God constantly and consistently tells us in His word that we are to seek forgiveness. We need to seek God's forgiveness but it does not end there. We need to forgive ourselves for our faults and failings and then we are to go out and forgive others.

In fact, it would seem in reading God's word that healing and forgiveness go hand in hand. Think of the times he forgave sins and then healed after forgiveness. Think of the passages when he tells if we come to the altar and remember we have something against another then we are first to go to that person and seek forgiveness first and then come back to the altar.

We as disciples of Christ have been given this ministry of forgiveness ~ reconciliation is our mission. This for us means we begin with first forgiving ourselves and seeking forgiveness from God and those we offended. Then we need to go out and forgive those we hurt or who have hurt us. Offering forgiveness and healing always, for what good does it do anyone to be healed and not know forgiveness of God and neighbor.

by Dr. Francis J. Sizer, PhD

He indeed died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. And all of this from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and entrusting to us the ministry of reconciliation. [2 Corinthians 5:15,18]

So many Christians have difficulty praying and relating to God because of false or distorted images they have of God. These images are sometimes created in their minds because of a false understanding of God as revealed in the scriptures. Others are created because of facts of life that are interpreted as God's fault and His doing. Still others are created by the lack of parents to nurture love thus making it difficult or next to impossible to relate to a loving father.

This full day workshop will help you understand the truth about God's nature. It will encourage you to receive healing from personal hurts of abandonment, rejection or abuse, and it will set you on track to relate to God as a loving father.

When they came to the crowd a man approached, knelt down before him and said, "Lord have pity on my son for he suffers severely... I have brought him to your disciples and they could not cure him. The disciples approached him in private and said, "Why could we not cure him?" [Matthew 16:14-16, 19]

The scripture story says, as Jesus passed by he saw a man blind since birth and goes into a discussion of his blindness being an opportunity for the power of God to be manifested. Of course the man was healed through the touch of Jesus. What would we do if someone came to us with some need for healing which had been with them since birth. How would we pray? Would we pray for their healing or for some other presence of God in their life? What about those individuals that are addicted to something or some behavior which is destroying them and their families as a result? How do we pray for them? What do we pray for when dealing with tough cases, with times when prayer seems to go unanswered, with addictions that so control an individual they cannot cooperate in the healing prayers. This course will look at the phenomenon of prayer that does not seem to heal a person, removing blocks to healing, the use of twelve step programs, and the mystery of the power of God to open the doors to healing.

The Lord , the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love for a thousand generations and forgiving wickedness, crime and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation. [Exodus 34:6-7]

We know that there are physical problems which are passed down from generation to generation through a genetic predisposition to these physical problems. Sickle cell anemia, heart disease, macular degeneration, breast and colon cancers, skin problems, allergies and depression are just a few that we can mention. When you go to a doctor for a physical, your family medical history is taken because they know health problems can be passed on from one generation to another.

But we also have passed on to us, through our families, patterns and attitudes that are positive attributes and those that are negative. In one sense blessings and curses are passed on to us through our families giving us a predisposition to certain things ~ good and bad. We can have a disposition to shyness or and outgoing personality. We can have a predisposition to certain weaknesses or strengths because they are passed on to us through our families.

In this workshop we will explore the many ways our immediate families and the generations which went before us have brought us blessings and curses ~ good things and bad. We can be freed from the bad that has been handed down and we can multiply the blessings through the process of intergenerational healing prayer.

Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe because of the works themselves. Amen, amen I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works I do and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it. [John 14: 11-14]

In these words Christ gave the mission of preaching, teaching and healing to those who believe. Jesus did not say to us that we would do all he did except healing. Jesus said we can believe on two levels. One a level of faith because he said it or the second level was to believe because of the works he did which gave witness to his power.

This was the same message to John the Baptist when he asked if he was the promised one. Jesus said tell him, the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear and the dead are raised.

This mission of healing is passed on to us who believe and in this workshop we will explore how to grow in this mission of healing. After two years of workshops we have heard the message of what healing is, how it operates and the many things we will encounter as we pray for healing.

Jesus placed primacy on the twelve being with him before going forth to do ministry. This order is an example for all who serve the Lord, including those who pray with others for healing. We are to be more engaged with the Lord of the work than the work of the Lord.

This day will look at the spiritual disciplines, practices and attitudes one needs to be a fruitful servant of the Lord. Our prayer ministry to others needs to flow out of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Otherwise we run the risk of being those who may say, “‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’ Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you…’” [Matthew 7:22,23a]

The process of inner healing starts with the knowledge that only God knows our inner depths. As the psalmist says "For you created my inmost being; You did knit me together in my mother's womb...Your eyes saw my unformed body and in Your book all the days of my life were written, before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them." Therefore, we must go to Him who knows us and open ourselves up to His healing light through the work of the Holy Spirit sent by Jesus and present in us who believe.

This workshop will be conducted by Dr. Francis Sizer, a Christian psychologist in practice in the Philadelphia area, who has had a healing ministry for over 30 years. He will speak on the role of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in healing and share stories from his vast experience of inner healing as a psychologist.

Raised as a Catholic, author Moira Noonan became involved in New Age practices and ideas as a college student. Over a 25-year period, she worked in Religious Science ministry as a psychic counselor and as a therapist. She became certified, or developed expertise, in such areas as Hypnotherapy, Past-Life Regression, Astrology, the Course in Miracles, Reiki, channeling, crystals, goddess spirituality, clairvoyance, and other occult practices. In 1993, after a series of powerful conversion experiences, she returned to the Catholic Church, and is now a popular speaker in the Christian community, witnessing and evangelizing, and explaining the deeper meaning and influences of the New Age movement.