With shoes lifted above their heads, tens of thousands of young people at Arrowhead Stadium — and 200,000 more watching via live stream — shouted in unison, “Fill me, Holy Spirit” and “To live is Christ; to die is gain,” after 12 hours of worship, prayer and messages at The Send in Kansas City, Missouri, this past weekend.
Thousands of teenagers and Gen Z flooded Kansas City before The Send, sharing the gospel with nearly 5,000 homes and providing 6,000 more families with food and goods during the week leading up to the missions and prayer event at Arrowhead.
Eight hundred churches in Kansas City collaborated with The Send and partner ministries Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and Awaken The Dawn, sowing $1.5 million into needy Kansas City neighborhoods during a week of ministry training, outreach, prayer and worship called The Flood.
“Now I’m thinking, as a Kansas City guy, this is an incredible gift to our city,” said Mike Bickle, founder of the International House of Prayer (IHOPKC).
“I’ve been a pastor here for 40 years,” added Bickle. “My point is, this group comes into our city, witnesses to 5,000 homes, gives food to 6,000 other homes, mobilizes 800 pastors, touches the whole foster-care system, and asks for nothing,” Bickle said before receiving an offering for The Send.
It plans to take outreach to Norway and Argentina this year, then to Nashville, Tennessee, for The Send in 2023.
Foster care, adoption, high schools, colleges, communities and nations are mission fields The Send hopes to fill with committed laborers in the harvest.
Leading the culminating cry “To live is Christ; to die is gain,” YWAM’s Andy Byrd presented a compelling call to missions. Watch a replay of The Send here.
“There are 3.2 billion people who will go to bed tonight, never having heard the name of Jesus,” said Byrd, who believes 200,000 new missionaries are God’s plan to reach them.
There are more than 2,000 languages of the earth that still don’t have a single page of the Scriptures, and only 0.1% of American church members are missionaries.
“There are 424,000 missionaries in the whole world,” said Byrd. “There are six times as many people working at Walmart as there are reaching the 3.2 billion people around the world,” he said.
He’s hopeful that studies of Gen Z — conducted by Christian research groups like Barna — are accurate gauges of interest in global missions.
“Over 50% of Gen Z, when asked the question, ‘Would you consider giving your life to another nation?’ said, ‘Yes, I would consider that as a future vocation,'” Byrd said.
Studies also indicate that in the next 11 years, the Scriptures will be available in every language for the first time.
“There will be a year — let’s say 2033 — when the last language on earth worships Jesus for the first time,” said Byrd.
He and other ministry leaders concluded The Send by praying the Lord would mark tens of thousands with calls to nations and people groups.
“I pray that some here would see faces, and three years from now they see the face they saw tonight,” Byrd said.
Calling it “one of the most powerful exhortations for going to the nations in years,” Bickle insisted on receiving an offering for The Send — something he’s not accustomed to doing — which needs $5 million for outreaches in Oslo, Buenos Aires and Nashville.
“I have such confidence in The Send and Andy (Byrd’s) leadership,” Bickle said. “We want to send them out of KC in a manner worthy of the Lord,” he added.
In addition to commissioning missionaries to nations, campuses, communities, foster care and adoption, leaders also prayed for worship leaders and intercessors.
“If you’re a singer, musician or worship leader, then I just want you to lift your hands in this place tonight,” said Circuit Riders’ Lindy Cofer. “We ask for songs for the harvest; songs from heaven, songs to usher in the King of kings and Lord of lords,” she added.
Prior to becoming The Send, the fasting and prayer ministry The Call challenged young people to devotion to Jesus under the leadership of Lou Engle.
“I pray for the grace of fasting and prayer on this generation,” Engle said. “I pray for the release of the spirit of prophecy in the last-days language of the Holy Spirit. I want you to believe for an impartation of dreams and visions,” he said.
A missionary to Mozambique, Heidi Baker prayed for healing and impartation during the week and at the commissioning. “I heard the Lord say, ‘Release control.’ To release the reins. Jesus holds all the reins to all the chariots and horses.
“The saints of God will go low. We will go slow. And we will go loving Him. There will be mercy in our hearts. And a sword of mercy and justice in our hands. It’s a place of holiness where Jesus alone holds every rein to every chariot,” Baker said.
Like Bickle’s primary message from Song of Solomon, others will carry it. “I want to pray for people tonight who are called to — not their only message but their primary one — the first commandment. If that’s you, then Song of Solomon 8:6 is the message; it’s the beauty of Jesus’ lovesick heart,” Bickle said.
He prayed, “Father, I’m asking that supernatural grace be on them — Song of Solomon 8:6 — the seal of fire imparted through them to others. Place on them, Lord, a supernatural anointing of grace to love Jesus more and, through them, impart it through songs, sermons, podcasts and one-on-one discipleship.”
Christ For All Nations (CfaN) Evangelist Daniel Kolenda, who at the opening of The Send preached the gospel and extended an invitation to receive Jesus, closed with words from Isaiah chapter six.
“Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up. The train of His robe filled the temple with glory. The whole earth was filled. The angels cried ‘holy, holy, holy.’
“We have beheld the beauty of the Lord today,” Kolenda said. “We have worshipped Him. We have cried ‘holy is the Lord.’
“Then Isaiah said, ‘Woe is me for I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people with unclean lips and my eyes have seen the Lord.’ So, an angel came with coals from the altar and touched his lips and purified him.
“I believe our hearts have been purified today in the presence of the Lord,” Kolenda said.
There was another step in the encounter.
“Isaiah heard the Lord ask this question: ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And before Isaiah had even heard what it was that God wanted him to do, he volunteered. ‘Here am I, Lord; send me,'” Kolenda said.
“I believe the Lord spoke to me and said, ‘I’m about to release a commission and a call right now. Where you’re standing your life is about to change.’ The Lord is going to speak to you. He’s going to put a nation, a continent, a people group, a message in your heart. And He is going to send you out from this place.
“I thank You that tonight, at Arrowhead Stadium, You release laborers into Your harvest field,” Kolenda prayed. “I thank You right now that You give them callings, commissions and mandates. A fire in their bones that will drive them and compel them for the rest of their lives to run with the baton of the gospel,” Kolenda said.
The Lord is raising up apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers. “Thank You for raising up world changers here. I thank You that You will keep them by Your power. And that the end will be greater than the beginning,” Kolenda said.
At the conclusion, The Send honored Circuit Riders’ Brian Brennt, who passed away in November before seeing the fruit of his passion fulfilled. His son, Nick Brennt, prayed for an impartation of his father’s passion for Jesus. {eoa}
Steve Rees is a former general assignment reporter who, with one other journalist, first wrote about the national men’s movement Promise Keepers from his home in Colorado. Rees and Promise Keepers founder Bill McCartney attended the Boulder Vineyard. Today Rees writes in his free time.
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