On April 18, 1996 we began our Spring Conference on the theme of "The Heart of David: Worship and Warfare." Weeks before it began we started to sense that this was going to be a major encounter with the Lord. We were not disappointed.

It has seemed that each one of our conferences over the last four years has begun at the level that the previous one left off, and then gone higher. This one certainly continued the trend. When "the smoke had cleared" it had exceeded all of our hopes and expectations.

In the first meeting there was a holy electricity that charged the air. The worship immediately hit a level that was as strong as we have ever experienced, and immediately started pushing back the limits. It continued for over two and a half hours. There was no time left for a message or ministry, but it was right. We did not just want to talk about worship and warfare, we came to do it! Experience is a much better teacher than words.

The intensity continued to grow in each meeting through Friday afternoon. It was during that meeting that the gulf between heaven and earth had somehow been bridged in a powerful way. After the musicians had stopped, the people continued, with the volume rising dramatically. Then it was if "the sound of many waters" filled the Grand Assembly Hall. It was deafening. We seemed to be vibrating as if a tidal wave was sweeping over us. It continued for several minutes until I did not think we could take much more. When it stopped a great sense of awe filled the room.

Ray Hughes, one of our speakers and a man who has studied and led worship for many years, later told me that it was impossible for human voices to make the sound that we heard in that meeting. He said that it seemed to cover the entire sound spectrum at one time, and that he had only heard such a thing in dreams and visions that he had had about ten years before.

I do not understand the technicalities of what we heard, but I have been in many concerts and rock festivals with hundreds of thousands of people, and I have never heard anything like it. Members of our worship band who have played in such huge concerts said they have never seen or heard anything like it either. We only had three thousand at the entire conference, and one thousand of them were in an overflow room. There had to have been heavenly help.

The meetings that night and the next morning were intense, but it seemed as if things had leveled off a bit. That afternoon the momentum was gathering again. I gave my brief message before the worship because I knew that once it got started there would be no stopping it. When Don Potter led the first song, basically the only song we sang for over three hours, we began to feel as if maybe something had started that would not end.

Singing one song may sound like one of the most boring things you have ever done,

but it kept going because no one wanted it to stop, and it kept climbing, crescendo after crescendo. When I thought it was impossible for it to rise to a new level, or become any more intense, it would. In my early years as a Christian I had thought that heaven would be a very boring place if all we did was sing and worship. In meetings like this you come to understand that worship will truly be one of the best parts of heaven.

When that one song finally ended, some of the musicians were lying on the floor. To my astonishment, the people were not ready to quit. I asked for one more song. Don led, We Shall Overcome, a song he has written that imparts a powerful spiritual militancy. Then, on a "Holy Ghost whim," I asked Leonard Jones to lead an old Beatles' song, I Want To Hold Your Hand, in which he had changed some of the words to make it like a message from the Lord. As soon as he started, it seemed like the roof would come off of the building. When he finished, "the sound of many waters" again filled the hall, but it was even louder than before. A holy fear began to fill the place.

There was a presence of the Lord like I had never felt in a meeting before. I looked at Christine Potter and Susy Wills, who were dancing near the center of the stage, and I have never seen such a look of terror on the faces of anyone. An intense burning, like a nuclear fire that burns from the inside out, seemed to be on the stage. Christine started pulling at her clothes as if she were on fire, and Susy dove behind the drums. Then a cloud appeared in the center of the stage, visible to everyone, and a sweet smell like flowers filled the area.

When the cloud had moved away (it seemed to move to the rear of the stage as it disappeared), some of the children who had been dancing at the front began to pull up tiles from the floor to see if there was a fire under it. Some asked if we had a smoke machine. We did not, and we did not do anything to cause that cloud of smoke. As Ray Hughes explained later, when the Lord received an offering He would often consume it with fire, and then it would go up in smoke. We believe that this was just a token of encouragement from the Lord that the offering of worship had been received.

I have been in many great meetings in the twenty five years that I have been a Christian. I have witnessed extraordinary demonstrations of power, and even the visible glory of the Lord appearing in a service. Even so, I think that somehow this conference surpassed anything I have ever personally experienced in a meeting before. We had some of the world's greatest musicians, who played their hearts out for the Lord, but what we experienced was much more than any musicians could produce.

I confess that I love the kind of supernatural manifestations that we have been having. I often pray that we will see His glory visibly manifested in our meetings. Even so, what made these probably the best that I have been in was the manifest presence of the Lord. He was there! I know that He came the way that He did because of three thousand of the greatest worshipers of God I have ever seen together in one place. From the very beginning it was obvious that they had come to bless Him more than to get blessed.

There was a reason that I requested Leonard to play the Beatles' song. The Beatles were prophets of the world whose music helped set the course of a generation. The music of the sixties and seventies grabbed you, turned your head and sowed seeds for a harvest of lawlessness. But the domain of music belongs to the church. It will be recaptured, transformed, and used to powerfully sow seeds in hearts for a harvest of righteousness. We must seize this domain from the enemy, and use it once again for the chief end for which it was created--worship of God, not ourselves, and not the enemy and his ways. There is a music that is now coming to the church with the power to arrest men's hearts more than has ever been found in secular music. It does possibly have unprecedented commercial value, and we will be given every temptation to prostitute the treasures that we are entrusted with. We must resist these temptations. If we do it will be used to prophesy and set the course of a generation that will turn to the Lord. This gift is for the Lord. It is so that He will receive the reward of His sacrifice, not so that we can get rich or famous.

Worship is also a form of spiritual warfare. As Wade Taylor related in his brief address at the conference, Ezekiel described Satan as kind of the worship leader in heaven. He fell when he used the gift of God for his own purposes. When he fell he took that domain and has used it as a powerful force for corrupting men with self worship. We cast out demons but we wrestle with principalities (see Ephesians 6:12). Therefore, we cannot just cast out Satan, or principalities, but we wrestle with them. Wrestling is the closest form of combat. It is also one in which you seek to displace your opponent. That is why worship really is such a form of spiritual warfare. As we take ground in worship we are retaking the place that Satan had in the heavenly places, and we are therefore helping to displace him. We will only displace him if we remain faithful to the purpose of true worship, and refuse to use what we have been entrusted with for selfish means.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

We must go higher. Until we look like Jesus and do the works He did, we still have not arrived. We must keep going for more, much more. It seems that every part of the ministry at this conference went higher just as the worship did. The initial feedback from the Prophetic Ministry Teams was that they also entered into a level of ministry they had not known before. We also took one third of the people into the studio next door for the more in-depth teaching and ministry. Almost everyone seemed to think that this took that ministry to a much higher level, too, and it also enabled us to accept one third more people who otherwise would have been turned away.

If you are planning to come to our fall conference(s), please do come with an absolute determination to go higher, and do not wait for the conference to start. At all of our conferences now many are starting to see angels, and dreams and visions and prophecy are being released to people. This is all wonderful, and we are asking for more of it. We expect to see more and greater miracles. However, let us come with the primary goal of seeing more of the Lord, and learning to better minister to Him. Join with us in asking to see His glory just as Moses did.

THE FRUIT FROM THE CONFERENCE

Conferences are a part of God's strategy to gather His people together and impart a common vision to them. That is why He required all of His people to go up three times a year to Jerusalem to celebrate His feasts. There is a dynamic in such gatherings that I have never witnessed in a local church, but I believe it is supposed to be there. A main reason for the conferences is to take back to our local congregations our experiences and visions of higher ground in order to impart more zeal for the Lord. If these meetings do not impact our personal lives, and our local churches, we must acknowledge that we have a serious problem.

I used to tell those attending our conferences not to judge their local churches, or even our local MorningStar church, by what they experience in a conference. When people came to our local church after a conference they were often surprised to find us struggling just as much as their own local church. Even so, it has been one of our ultimate goals to see our local church meetings reach the same anointing and intensity that we experience at the conferences. Last year we did. Now we know that this is not just a theory, but that we can have the same kind of hunger for the Lord, which therefore draws His presence, in our local meetings as we have at conferences.

This is not to imply that all of our local meetings are as good as the conferences, but enough of them have been that have let me know for sure that it can be done, and we must seek this. There is nothing in this world more exciting than walking with God, learning His ways, and seeing the Holy Spirit move in our midst. We cannot stop until every one of our meetings is much more exciting than any sporting event or other entertainment that the world can produce. The apostle Paul made it clear that it is supposed to be that way.

But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was,

how shall the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory?

For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory (II Corinthians 3:7-9).

Here Paul was saying that those who walk in the New Covenant should be experiencing more glory than Moses, and he had to put a veil over his face because of the glory that he reflected. We must keep going until we have drawn so close to Him that we, too, reflect His glory. The way that this will happen is by pursuing the Lord, not by criticizing others, which is one of the ultimate forms of pride, and can cause us to be disqualified from the very things we are seeking. There is nothing in the world more contagious than a person who is getting closer to the Lord. If we pursue Him with the zeal that we saw in you at the conference, we will find Him. As Paul Cain once said, and as the Scriptures confirm, "We are all as close to the Lord as we want to be." The veil has been removed. You can be as close to the Lord as anyone alive today, or anyone in the Scriptures. You will determine if you will or not.

NOTE ABOUT OCTOBER

This year we will again have back-to-back Fall conferences in October. The first will be Thursday, Friday and Saturday, October 17-19. The second will be the following Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, October 21-23. We do this so that we can accommodate more people, but you are free to register for both conferences. Previously, the second conference has built on the momentum of the first, and to have a few hundred stay over seems to help this. We will also be having Children's Conferences and Youth Conferences running concurrently with the general meetings. Please register early if you plan to be at either of these meetings. See the Registration Form in this bulletin.

Also, on May 31-June 2, June 28-30, and July 26-28, we will be having smaller "School of Prophetic Ministry" Conferences for intense training and impartation in the prophetic gifts and ministries. If you have prophetic gifts, desire them, or pastor those who do, these can be very helpful. Attendance is limited to 500 for each of these conferences, so register ASAP for the meeting you plan to attend. Those who have attended one of the basic schools will be invited to attend a smaller, more advanced school next year. See the Registration Form in this bulletin.

SPECIAL THANKS

We have an army of volunteers without which we could not host conferences. This conference was especially dedicated to them, and it was our hope to spend a lot of time ministering to them personally, which we were not able to do because we were so caught up in worship. This we cannot apologize for, but please know how much you mean to us, and to the Lord. The worship that was offered to Him at this conference would not have been possible if it were not for your heart to serve the way that you do.

Also thanks to Don and Christine Potter, who gave birth to the idea of having this conference, and whose tireless labors helped provide the setting for all that took place. Thanks to Leonard Jones, Matthew Donovan, and all of the members of the MorningStar Worship Team and Staff who labored so much before, during and after the conference. Thanks to Gary Lund, Terry McMillan, Charles Barnett, Mike Maples, John Elliott, and The Foundry Guys for sharing your incredible talents, and for your tireless playing during the conference, so that the Lord might receive the worship He so deserves.

Thanks to Ray Hughes, Paul Cain, Bob Jones, Bobby Conner, Steve Thompson, Mike Littlejohn and all who served as leaders or on prophetic ministry teams. Thanks to John Hamrick, and Rick and Sharon Skaggs, for dropping by, and being willing to jump right in to help. Thanks to Mike and Dixie Dean, and the many helpers who served the ministry and worship team members at The Manor.

Thanks to all of the members of our local congregation, for all of your service, devotion and for supporting these conferences the way that you do. I know that many of you were in the very thick of the action in every meeting, and your devotion to the Lord and to worship was a contagious fire in our midst.

We especially thank all of you who came to this conference. I have never seen so many together in one place who had such a heart to worship the Lord. You have

again raised our vision for what the Lord is accomplishing in His people. The continual advancement that we see in you conference after conference is one of our greatest encouragements. I have no doubt that the Lord will have a bride that is without spot or blemish, and one that will pursue Him with a passion that compels Him to come quickly.

Rick Joyner