During worship/prayer, I received a few “clues” from the Holy Spirit–one was an image/logo that looked like a river, and another was the phrase “back pain”. Also during that time, Brittney shared words with the group encouraging us to pray for other churches in the city as we felt led and to “remember where we came from/where the Lord had worked before in our lives” as we went out.

The group I was with ended up going to Downtown Franklin, and on the drive I noticed a sign for a church, New River Fellowship, that had a logo similar to the one I had seen earlier in the evening. I made a mental note to maybe come back by the church later, and thought little else of it for a while.

Once we got to Main Street, our group stayed together for a little bit, but eventually I felt God prompting me to walk down toward the Five Points/Starbucks area. (For me, this part of town really resonated with Brittney’s word to ‘remember where I’d come from’– during high school, I spent a lot of time growing in my relationship with God in that particular area/coffee shop.)

As I made my way, I noticed a group of four teenagers (2 guys, 2 girls) hanging out and heard God say, “Why don’t you go talk with them?” I noticed that both guys had guitars, but looked like they  were taking a break from playing. I knew that I didn’t yet have a specific word for any of the four, but I did have a peace in my spirit to just go talk with them. It was like God just kept saying to me, “Be yourself, and give them Me,” and that’s what I held on to. Once I did finally get over to the group and listened to them play a song, the opportunity came to share the real reason for my being there– that the Loving Father wanted to encounter them, right there on the sidewalk of a busy intersection.

After about a minute of small talk, I found out that they were Christians and that they were totally open to receiving prayer. I asked if they had anything specific to pray for, and one of the guys, Mitchell, spoke up about chronic back pain that he’d been dealing with for years–adding that his mom had the issue for a long time and now he did as well. So we just stopped and asked the Lord to heal the back pain, and I got a few other words of encouragement for Mitchell. He didn’t notice any change in the pain at the time, but I felt like I was supposed to just hang around for a few more minutes.

Pretty quickly, Mitchell started playing a worship song and asked if I knew it. I did, and I joined him in singing for a few lines when he stopped playing and then asked what I wanted to sing next. To be honest, I was taken off guard by his question and totally tried to move the conversation on…but he and his friends were pretty insistent and encouraged me to lead the next song–and that both guys would play along. Long story short: I ended up singing and getting to help lead a spontaneous worship session right there with these new friends on the sidewalk, as a number of random people came by. I realized at a whole new level that an Extravagant, Loving God calls for extravagant, love-driven worship, wherever you are–and that was really sweet. I also found out that Mitchell went to New River, the church that God had highlighted to me on the drive over. I got to give him an encouraging word for that church before heading back to meet up with everyone else.

And just tonight (2.5 weeks later), I got a text from a close friend of mine who goes to church with Mitchell. She had just come from a really sweet time of Spirit-led worship, prophecy and testimony-sharing at New River. (God is definitely moving in their community in new ways, which is so exciting!) And, in her text she said that Mitchell had gotten up to share that since the Treasure Hunt night, he had experienced ZERO back pain!

So… praise God for healing, encouraging words, new moves of the Spirit within the local church and worship breaking out in the middle of the city! Who ever said life with Christ was boring? ; )