ANNOUNCEMENT: Change of Schedule

Hello everyone!

There is a minor change in schedule for this coming Monday's session.
Due to an unexpected scheduling conflict, the session on Feb. 16, 2009 will be canceled.

The Wednesday, Feb. 18th session will continue as planned.

Please scroll below for a more detailed outline of the schedule for February. Thanks so much!

JG

LINKS: Apostolic Passion & Church Planting

Hello again!

Here is another great link. This one is to Floyd & Sally McClung's website. This article that he wrote, I first heard about on Jaeson Ma Audio CD's from a House Church Planting conference. The name of the conference was Organic Church Movements Conference and was presented by Church Multiplication Associates (Jan. 26-28, 2007) in Long Beach, CA.

According to Jaeson, this article profoundly affected him and I have to say, I agree. There is something in it that dares you to live like this. It's amazing and I think every true God follower should consider this a "must read" at least once per year.

Here is the link to the article: Apostolic Passion

Here are a few more links:

Jaeson Ma
Church Multiplication Associates

Grace-
JG

LINKS: IHOP-KC & co.

Hello Tribe!

Here are some great links I think you will enjoy and be greatly blessed by. They are from IHOP-KC.
Please check them out when you have a spare moment!


free downloads, teachings & even a worship CD

onething conference 2008

I'd like to strongly recommend watching the episode titled, "God is Returning to Earth" They have a short presentation by Exodus Cry, a division of IHOP-KC, which is dedicated to prayer & intercession for human trafficking

This is one of the primary areas of prayer focus for our HOP in 2009 and it is a good introduction.

"...anything you pray for, you will receive a deep wisdom & insight as you pray on it..." Mike Bickle, Director IHOP-KC "God is Returning to Earth OneThing Conference '08"

Grace!
JG

COMING SOON: prayer focus for 2009

Hello tribe!

This is just a quick note to let you know, more indepth details will be posted soon on The Altar IHOP, Tokyo's main prayer focus for 2009.

Thanks for your patience and check back frequently in the next week for updates.
Grace,
JG

ANNOUNCEMENT: 2009 February Schedule

Greetings all!

Please see below for the HOP February scheduled sessions. Important point to note: we will be back to twice per week sessions starting from February.


Our schedule for February is as follows:

Monday
February 2nd, 7-9pm
Session as regularly scheduled.

Wednesday
February 4th, 7-9pm
Session as regularly scheduled.

Monday
February 9th, 7-9pm
Session as regularly scheduled.

Wednesday
February 11th, 7-9pm
Session as regularly scheduled.

Monday
February 16th, 7-9pm
Session as regularly scheduled.

Wednesday
February 18th, 7-9pm
Session as regularly scheduled.

Monday
February 23rd, 7-9pm
Session as regularly scheduled.

Wednesday
February 25th, 7-9pm
Session as regularly scheduled.


Looking forward to seeing you there!
Grace,
JG

UPDATE: Cafe' Decision & The HOP

Hi again tribe!

This past few weeks at the HOP have been amazing. We've had 3 sessions in 2009 so far (one impromptu session last Thursday) and Abba's presence has really been so strong in each of them.

It's been such a sweet time of prayer & fellowship it's been hard to stop and go home in the evenings- we've all just wanted to linger a few minutes longer before heading back to "life." Oh, how great it will be the day we go 24/7! I just cannot wait for that season to arrive! What a huge celebration we will have and what an amazing victory it will be.

In our sessions, we've had times of personal prophecy and prayers for physical as well as emotional healings. A few of us have even started to notice the overflow of this time in prayer impacting our house church groups. In fact, just this last Saturday, we were able to move in a powerful time of visitation. Abba touched a number of members and set them free from fear. Fear of man specifically but, there was a new freedom from fear in general. It was, as always, such an honor to be involved and have a front row view of the transformation individuals experience when they step into new realms of freedom.

Come to think of it, in the prayer room before our fellowship, we started prophesying, "never the same, after today, never the same." Towards the end of ministry time, the group leader actually said, "after today, we'll never be the same again..." How much more of a confirmation of God's word for the hour can you get than that? Especially when the person who spoke that phrase was not present in the prayer session?

Since December, God has also been doing amazing things at Cafe' Decision.

He's brought a core team of individuals together to really dig in and build up the business through a wide variety of new and very creative avenues. Some of which I am a part of.

This team coming together truly is an amazing miracle. Especially since there was contemplation and much prayer the later part of 2008 over whether or not it was time to close down and do something else. Instead, Monday & Wednesday evenings have been dedicated to the HOP. Tuesday is going to be an English Village event. Thursday will continue as a bible study lead by Mr. John LaDue of YWAM. (Youth With a Mission) Friday & Saturday evenings will be very event focused with special emphasis on hosting "live-house" style performances. And Sunday will maintain itself as a church for those who have met Jesus while at the cafe'.

This church, I'm told, is about 30 individuals and nearly ALL of them Japanese! The cafe' has only been opened for about 3 years! In Japan, this number if new believers is pretty amazing especially considering most churches often average 30 members with only one or two new believers added to their community annually. Yay for God. He truly is building His church through some unusual and unconventional means.

I've written a bit on the cafe' before. Specifically, about the HOP being located in "the upper room underground." I'd love to share with you some additional interesting insights regarding its location.

The district in which Art Cafe' Decision is located happens to be the same district in which much of the government of Japan functions and is housed. This area is known as "Chiyoda-ku" and is one of the 23 ward areas which compile the city of "Tokyo."

Not only that but, twice to date (in 2007 & 2008) teams from Bethel Church in Redding, CA; USA visited the cafe' as part of their mission trip. On one of those trips, a picture was sketched of the cafe building with a tree growing up through the center of it.

The prophecy attached to the picture was of a seed being planted deep and growing into an amazing tree.

I believe we are in the process of seeing this prophecy come to pass- at the very least, the tree is starting to break ground and be a tree rather than a tiny seed.

As has been mentioned in at least one earlier writing, the sign on the front of the building is "Big Vision." Haha! Abba is so good to us. He has indeed given us a BIG Vision for this Cafe' Decision, the HOP and also Japan.

We ARE the upper room underground and we are indeed PLANTED in the field of government for the nation of Japan. In fact, to my best knowledge, the Kanji Characters used for the name of the area literally mean, "God's Field." Or something very close.　神田 is spoken, "Kanda." The first character meaning "God" with the second character meaning "field."

Taking that to the prophetic, The Altar IHOP, Tokyo & Art Cafe' Decision are planted in Abba's field of Government. Hee hee! Can't really get much better than that hey?

"of the increase of His GOVERNMENT, there shall be NO end."

Interesting statement I think- that Abba would plant a cafe dedicated to the "arts" and promiting artists in the center of His field so that it would grow up a fruitful tree. Haha! What a good God. I so love the way He hides His treasures for us to find.

In closing, please do be in prayer for the cafe'. This is one of our 10 main prayer points for the HOP and we could use all the prayers we can get. Both for the HOP team that meets there weekly and also, for the cafe' operations & administrative teams who are working very hard to ensure there is income coming in to pay the bills and keep the cafe' operational.

That's about all for now.
Grace-
JG

ANNOUCEMENT: 2009 January Schedule

Hello Tribe and Happy New Year!

2009 promises to be overflowing with fruit & blessing. One of which is a place to meet. Cafe Decision will continue to be available to us on Wednesdays. Thank you Abba!

That said, for January, we will meet once a week and will look at returning to two days a week at a later date.

Our schedule for January is as follows:

Wednesday
January 7th, 7-9pm
Session as regularly scheduled.

Wednesday
January 14th, 7-9pm
Session as regularly scheduled.

Wednesday
January 21st, 7-9pm
Session as regularly scheduled.

Wednesday
January 28th, 7-9pm
Session as regularly scheduled.



Thanks so much and can't wait to see you there!
Grace-
JG

ANNOUNCEMENT: Winter Holiday Schedule

Due to travel plans & events scheduled at Cafe Decision, our sessions will be scheduled as follows for the rest of December:

Wednesday
December 17th
Session as regularly scheduled.

Thursday
December 18th
Bible Study Night- Hosted by Mr. John LaDue of YWAM

Wednesday
December 24th
No session- Christmas Eve
Jennifer out of town

Thursday
December 25th
No session- Christmas Day
Jennifer out of town

Wednesday
December 31st
No session- New Year's Eve
Jennifer out of town

Thursday
January 1st
No session- New Year's Day
Jennifer out of town

Wednesday
January 7th
First session of 2009- Location TBA

A is for Apple

What is it about an apple that brings to rememberance the basics? The simplicity? The endless hours spent in kindergarten singing the ABC song while looking at flash card images of apples? A is for apple... A is for the basics. A is for a starting point.

After nearly 6 weeks of prayer sessions, it's safe to say we've finally settled into our own "A" of the ABCs. That is, we've developed a loose structure to our sessions. They are turning out something like this:

Welcome & Introductions
the HOP concept is a very new thing to Japan and bears answering the question, "so, what's a HOP anyway?"

Testimony & Sharing
how God's answered prayers and/or spoken to us over the course of the week- often, scriptures & passages shared will reveal some of the direction prayers will flow durring a session

Prayer Points & Personal Requests
quick reminder/introduction of key prayer points & list up of personal prayer requests for the week
if a white board is available, they are written up there for all to see- this visual aid has proved helpful since English is not the mother tongue of many in our tribe

Brief "How to Pray" & Establish Expectations Announcement
who will start, how we'll finish and that it's okay to pray in tongues, sing, walk around, pray in ones native tongue, speak the scripture, etc...
again, something proven helpful for first time participants

Opening Prayer & Worship
prayer leader opens with worship to follow intermittenly over the course of a session
worship has been somewhat creative up to this point- we've not got a "worship team" yet and it's not always possible to play live music... (we'll get there eventually though)

Wrapping Up
Last 5-10 minutes of a session: personal prayer requests, closing prayer & offering collection

It's definately a good feeling to be able to say, "yes, we've got a system." Now we can really start to focus on our what instead of the how.
This is so exciting!

Thank you Abba!

UPDATES: We Are One Month Old!!

Wow!
Just wow~!
How great is our God hey? I mean, it's been an entire month and we started our first prayer meeting on Wednesday evening, November 5th with a grand total of 3 individuals. I do have to say, I feel a bit like the proud parent of a newborn! Haha!

General Report:
In the space of two weeks, we went from one meeting a week to two meetings a week and finished off November with a grand total of 7 prayer sessions. We've also grown from a meager start of 3 individuals to 10 individuals in attendance over the course of our two designated prayer nights. While some of us manage to attend both nights, not all are able to. However, the fact remains that we've had up to 10 people showing up in various combinations to pray during the course of a two session week. Something I'm sure we can all agree, is just great! Certainly many more than I imagined God would send to our new tribe in its first month.

The Tribe:
To supply some insight into the international flavor God has begun pulling together on this prayer team; we've had in attendance:
2 Americans
1 Australian
1 German
2 Japanese
1 Korean
1 Taiwainese

This is truly starting off as a house... for ALL nations!

Holy Spirit Buzz:
There have been several email inquiries and networking opportunities into the "Tokyo HOP" thing. Some of which were in response to the "we're getting started" email I sent out to the mailing list in October. Others were from word of mouth and fliers we passed out during one of the Saturday Night Fellowship gatherings (a house church group.) A few that came from other online applications and networking circles. It's great how news travels when you are plugged into God's network. How wonderful it is to be surprised by Him every day.

Family:
We have become the sister HOP of The Altar International House of Prayer located in Meadville, PA; USA. While this is not officially official, it is "official" if you know what I mean. There is still lots of paperwork and research to be done but we are very much headed in that direction. THANK YOU ABBA! And yay!

Name Change:
We will also be changing our name from "House of Prayer, Tokyo" to "The Altar International House of Prayer, Tokyo." Yay! How exciting is this?

Future Website:
On that note, I've been doing research and planning for our future website and I am happy to say things are coming along reasonably well. As the site is still very much in the planning & initation phase, it will be awhile before it's up and running. I think though, the blog is working well at the moment and there is no need to rush this.

Prophecy:
In one of our most recent sessions, one of our team members was led to pray for the government & leaders of Japan. While in that stream, I ended up prophesying

there will be a Minister of Foreign Affairs who will meet Jesus and make a national public delcaration of this faith change.

It is not known however, whether this is the individual who currently holds this title or one who is yet to come. The timing is all up to God. Additionally, I personally do not know if the current Minister of Foreign Affairs is male or female. In all honesty, it doesn't really matter male or female, now or later. Heck, for all we know, it could be for several Ministers of Foreign Affairs! :-) We all know, what matters is God moving on the hearts and minds of the people in this nation be they in the halls of government or halls of day care centers.

Creative Solutions to Doing HOP in Japan:
In lieu of a Skype chat/discussion with one of our prayer team members just last night, we are going to look into scheduling sessions with mini-prayer teams(2-4 per group)via Skype at intervals during the week. This is a great solution to the "we do not have our own building to meet in" challenge and also works well with the commute time/distance/cost challenge which those who are living in and around Tokyo face. I think this may be a very creative answer to prayers asking God to establish the HOP, Tokyo and also show us how to effectively use the resources we already have access to.

If you are not able to join our Wednesday or Thursday night prayer sessions but would still like to be a part of the action, please contact me and I will see about setting up some remote "Skype prayer teams." Email: jagracey@cba.att.ne.jp

Prayers Please:
In prayer, we can use all the support we can get. Members of our team have been experiencing (in varying degrees) such things as intense headaches, sickness, extreme sleepiness, interestingly timed relationship difficulties and more chaotic than usual work days since we've begun to meet.

This is pretty common demonic reaction and interference over here. It is really a battle of will and endurance for some of our team members to attend the sessions. This is true for those who are and who are not yet fully aware the source of those previously mentioned manifestations.

Basically, the moment people begin to gather to pray here, things are set in motion to discourage and prevent that from happening. Understandably so since every word we speak in prayer is like lightning striking from the sky. It's all good though- you've gotta learn to love the battle to be in on this fight hey?

Prayers for endurance, disernment, divine strategy, God to bring His designated and appointed tribesmen to our camp, financial provision, supernatural grace & wisdom for the leadership and really what ever else comes to mind. If you think it, we could use prayer for it. :-) We aren't picky! (hee hee)

Funding the Kingdom:
Finally, if anyone feels led to support the HOP, Tokyo financially I'd like to share a few immediate needs with you:

1. Printing fees for the HOP info. fliers and other basic documents are about $20 USD or 2,000 JPY per 100 sheets of A4 size paper.

2. Round trip train fare to Tokyo and back from my home is about $24 USD or 2,400 JPY. To attend each session of the HOP (2 sessions a week x 4 weeks) it's about $200 USD or 20,000 JPY a month in commutation expenses.

3. A high quality USB port compatable IC voice recorder (with English directions and buttons) so we can start recording some of our sessions and transcribing prophecy and other important things that transpire. The devices are somewhere between $200-300 USD or 20,000-30,000 JPY.

4. Monthly, Quarterly or Yearly support of any capacity for staffing and basic operations/administration costs of running and setting up a ministry. Tokyo is one of the most expensive cities in the world and the costs involved with doing anything here are higher than average.

If you are outside of Japan, please contact either The Altar International House of Prayer (refer to link for address & contact information) or myself directly.

If you are inside of Japan, please contact myself directly via email: jagracey@cba.att.ne.jp


Grace, glory & fire,
JG

HOP info & contact flier

This is the final version of our flier. It includes English & Japanese. Many thanks to Manami & Hiro for helping with the translation and also the proofing process.

Next steps:
printing & distribution

Top 10 Cities in the World

According to Interesting Top 10 Lists Blog, 6 of the 10 largest cities in the world(based on population)are located in Asia.
#10 shanghai
#8 manila
#5 mumbai (bombay)
#4 dehli
#2 seoul
#1 tokyo

According to worldatlas.com, 4 of the 10 largest cities in the world(based on population)are located in Asia.
#9 calcutta
#6 shanghai
#3 mumbai (bombay)
#1 tokyo

According to citypopulation.de, 6 of the 10 largest cities in the world(based on population)are located in Asia.
#10 shanghai
#8 manila
#5 mumbai (bombay)
#4 delhi
#2 seoul
#1 tokyo

According to geography.about.com -list 1, 6 of the 10 largest cities in the world(based on population)are located in Asia.
#9 jakarta
#8 mumbai (bombay)
#7 manila
#6 osaka-kobe-kyoto
#4 seoul-incheon
#1 tokyo

According to geography.about.com -list 2, 6 of the 10 largest cities in the world(based on population)are located in Asia.
#10 jakarta
#9 shanghai
#7 dehli
#6 mumbai (bombay)
#3 seoul
#1 tokyo

The information from these sources dates from 2005 to 2008. The numbers posted on these lists for the population of Tokyo range from 28 million to 34 million individuals who live in and around the metropolis. And surely, it's been noted that on each of these lists, Tokyo is number one. This is every bit as much interesting as it is impressive. One cannot help but find themselves in contemplation, "What are your plans for the largest metropolis in the world Lord?"

In the days of Jonah, the city of Nineveah was also a large city and quite possibly the "Tokyo" of its day and age. In a conversation between God and a very disgruntled Jonah, God clearly spoke His heart to Jonah (Jonah 4.11),

"...Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?"

If we apply this to our day and time, we could also read this passage as follows:

"... Tokyo has more than 30 million people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and uncountable numbers of animals as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?"

"Should I not be concerned...?," says God.
Can you hear His voice thunder as He speaks those words?

"Should I NOT BE CONCERNED for the city of Tokyo? For the Nation of Japan?..."

What will happen if we begin to pray, as if lives depended on it, for God to raise up and release those who are called to preach and walk in the anointing of Jonah? If we begin to pray for God to raise up and anoint each one of us with the mantle of Jonah that we may go into our own "cities" and release His Word in those places...

We don't have much record of Jonah's sermons other than he issued a call of repentence ahead of impending consequence. (Jonah 3.4) We don't really know exactly how he delivered his message other than he started delivering the message at one location and finished three days later. Scholars even speculate as to whether or not Jonah's message was delivered to other cities which were within the neighboring area or to every home and neighborhood within the city walls. We do know though, the words from Jonah's mouth struck the hammer of the Lord against stony hearts of a people.

And we also know, the words Jonah released into the atmosphere of that great city shook her and resonated within her like a gong. The people, from the greatest to the smallest dressed in garments of humility and fasted. (Jonah 3.5-7)

Let us pray then for this vision to come to pass. For, if God is able to turn a single heart, He is well able to turn a city. If He can turn a city then, turn a nation. And if He can turn a nation, He can also turn an entire region. Even if the city be Tokyo and the region be Asia.

"... nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few." 1 Samuel 14.6

"Who has ever heard of such a thing? Who has ever seen such things? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment?..." Isaiah 66.8


The Spirit and the Bride say, "amen & come Lord Jesus."