The Connection Between Heal, Whole, Holy: He Who Is in Us Is Greater Than He Who Is in The World
But is all this healing and supernatural spirituality in the Bible and approved by the Church?
Healing means to become whole, complete. Heal and whole both come from holy: becoming the one person you were born to be.
Two years of pandemic and isolation are fueling a Christian movement to restore the relationship between healing, wholeness, and holiness.
“The good news? People are rediscovering our God heals,” says Mary Healy, a Sacred Heart Major Seminary professor and Biblical scholar. She authored two books on healing and spiritual gifts and worked with numerous Catholic and Protestant ministries.
More than 900 Christians from across the nation are enrolled in programs at the Encounter School of Ministry at St. Patrick Catholic Parish in Brighton, Michigan. The main campus, 18 satellite campuses across the nation, and online courses teach “a supernatural lifestyle of faith.”
Thousands more will gather to hear Healy and a dozen other top speakers December 27–29 for the annual Encounter Conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
“He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world,” Healy tells cheering students. “Do you want to be an instrument of the Lord’s power?”
Healing churches and ministries are suddenly ‘everywhere?’
Twenty years ago, Jim Baker, the Protestant pastor of Zion Christian Fellowship in Powell, Ohio, near Columbus, knew of about five churches focused on healing people. Now, he says, “They’re everywhere.”
We often “make excuses” to avoid healing prayers, Baker stresses, but the Bible says “heal the sick,” not simply “pray for the sick.”
“Here’s our healing training: Ask the Father ‘Got anything?’ and if he doesn’t show you anything lay hands on the sick,’’ Baker says. “Jesus never made them find the root cause of the sickness. Jesus did not teach that we should look to ourselves to find the problem. Instead, he said we should look at him to find the solution.”
- Pope Benedict Emeritus XVI similarly said the Church can be summed up in one word: “healing.”
- Pope Francis famously likened the Church to “a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds.”
“All supernatural ministry is like surfing,” Encounter guest instructor Jordan Beachnau teaches. “You can question, or you can try to catch the wave and ride it.”
Removing God created a ‘spiritual vacuum,’ with a greater demand for healing, meaning, spirituality
Healy explains that removing God from your life and culture shifts our focus inward to ourselves, “and when a society is based on narcissism, where is the place of self-sacrifice? Where is the place of self-giving? Commitment to others?”
“They’re being taught to put me first,” Healy explains. “It’s no wonder that we have a pandemic of broken relationships, broken marriages, broken families, which leads to broken hearts, which leads to broken lives, which leads to depression, addiction, suicide, and all the other symptoms of the culture of death. We are surrounded by the walking wounded. In the culture of the absence of God, there are many casualties. Probably all of us, in some way, know it personally.”
In the decade before the pandemic began, she notes the suicide rate for 10–14-year-olds tripled. So why would a child that young consider ending their life? Healy calls them walking wounded “spiritual orphans who have no idea who they are, what life is about, where they come from, where they’re going, what authentic love looks like.”
“It’s as if we’ve lived through an earthquake, we have lived through a spiritual earthquake, and we’ve discovered how much we can be shaken,” Healy said. “Your jobs can be shaken. Your plans, your finances, the global economy, the supply chain, certainly health, and even the Church has been shaken.”
But she asks people to read Hebrews 12:26–29: “His voice then shook the earth; but now he has promised, ‘Yet once more,’ I will shake not only the earth but the heaven.’ This phrase, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of what is shaken, as of what has been made, in order that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.”
She sees this shaking happening now, adding, “Yet once more I will shake. It’s then we learn what we have that can’t be shaken, the unshakable Kingdom that can’t be taken from us. God works all things together for good.”
The five-step prayer model: How it works
I. Interview. David drove an hour and a half for prayer from a team of four Encounter students. They talked about his health, asking him to rate his pain on a scale of 1–10. He revealed great, constant pain in his leg and an arm that had been only partially repaired after a fall from a roof. And he spoke of an eye condition requiring a 30-hour surgery that week. They told him, “You may feel heat, tingling, cool, and peace. This can be normal, but it’s not necessary for healing. Does this sound good?”
II. Prayer Selection. The team asked the Holy Spirit, “how do you want to heal this person?” They tried different forms of prayer like prayers of petition: Asking, as children of God, for healing. They also tried a “Prayer of Command,” speaking authoritatively in faith to ailing a body part, saying, “In the name of Jesus, I command the bones, ligaments, muscles, and tendons, be healed.” Finally, they asked, “Father, what are you doing? Or “How do you want to release healing right now?”
III. Prayer Ministry. They prayed for the Holy Spirit to come and act.
IV. Re-interview. They tested the prayers, asking if David felt any improvement. He did. His throbbing leg now felt better. His eyes sparkled and teared up. They prayed a second and third time, and David felt improvement each time.
They also asked him to forgive anyone who might be harming him. He said he needed help because he is the caretaker for his wife who needs a walker and struggles even more.
David, walking without pain, wept: “you listened so well and repaired my soul.”
V. Post Prayer Suggestions. David (like nearly all the people prayed over that night) felt better. So they praised God. They told him to pray for help if any improvements lessen over time. They encouraged him to persevere in prayer and understand that their suffering is not meaningless.
But I have no power or gifts, so this is just for certain people?
What is the difference between being filled with the Holy Spirit and just going through the motions? Saying the words without knowing their meaning?
Encounter instructors always point to the Bible and Church teachings, including the promise that all baptized become “a priest, prophet and king,” adopted children of God with their entire inheritance.
The Law of the Gift says the more love we give away, the more we get back. Merry Christmas? No unique gifts, talents, or powers are required, but we also learn that everything we get in life (except our sin) is a gift from God.
In Acts, the story of the Church begins with Peter and John encountering a man “lame from birth.” St. Peter, who showed fear and betrayed Jesus three times, is now filled with the Spirit and so bold in his faith that he says, “Look at us. I have no silver and gold, but I give you what I have in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk.” (Acts 3:7).
Note, the Bible doesn’t say Peter himself does anything (no mention of any power or gifts) other than invoking the name of Jesus and completely trusting in someone bigger than himself.
St. Peter pulls the man up, “and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. And leaping up he stood and walked and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.” (Acts 3:8–9).
