Arise Shine
Serving the Body of Christ in Frankfurt
I remember the day I walked into the “Lukas Gemeinde”, an Evangelical church in Frankfurt/Germany, for their monthly interdenominational worship evening. I had just moved to Germany at that time from South Africa and was hungry for just worshipping the Lord. Although I was not able to understand the language at that stage I bathed in the simple worship and prayer that flowed like a river that night. I have never forgotten how deeply I drank from those fresh waters and how uplifting and encouraging those meetings were.
The memories of that time, now almost 20 years ago, were and are the inspiration of our “Arise Shine” Meetings held bi-monthly in Frankfurt. For quite some time the Lord laid it on my heart to hold such meetings where people could just come and worship, pray, receive or simply experience the presence of the Lord through whatever He was doing that day in the meetings. It is a place of freedom where the people and the local pastors do not need to be concerned that we will try to gain their members for a church or denomination. This is purely an interdenominational meeting that makes room for the Holy Spirit to move as He wishes, be it healing, worship, prayer, preaching or just being still in His presence. Of course I am aware of other such interdenominational meetings in the city at different times that we also support.
However, our meetings are not just for the city of Frankfurt but they already reach people from all over the nation. Voice in the City will continue to offer these meetings because we see the positive effect they have on many.
With Gayle Claxton as a strong bible teacher we have a vision to turn the afternoons into a kind of “Character Building Seminar” with strong teachings and the possibility for people to take notes and use them later in their own house groups or churches. This time of teaching and training has already started and will be presented even more intensively with the help of modern media.
These are wonderful times in the presence of the Lord. We have experienced God in whatever He wanted to do that night and we expect more of Him in the future. It might be that the Lord leads us into preaching a word or perhaps not. I expect healing to take place while the word is being preached or maybe during an altar call. It might be that we just dim the lights slightly and let the people simply worship, which was the case at the last “Arise Shine” Meeting. After that I felt led to let God’s people minister to each other with amazing results of healing and deliverance. These meetings are not about Voice in the City. They are really about God and the body of Christ in action.
People are healed and touched in all the meetings but we felt the need to create a special time of “individual prayer and ministry” for the sick, called “Personal Touch”. We placed them in-between the two main meetings, Gayle’s teaching meeting and Suzettes evening Praise Meeting. Here, experienced men and women pray in teams for people in need of healing. Of course we cannot give attention to everyone for as long as we would like during the main meeting so “Personal Touch” allows us the opportunity to give that individual attention to those in need.
Testimonies
“I want to say ‘Thank You’ with this email. On January 24th, I attended the Arise Shine-Meeting. Because I was suffering from pain in my shoulders since quite some time already, I used the in-between break to receive prayer and I really felt that the two people praying for me were strongly led by the Holy Spirit. During the worship my heart was overflowing with thankfulness and when we were asked if anybody had received healing I answered, ‘Yes!’ because all pain was gone. But also something else had happened. It was not only the physical healing but in my inmost I felt set free – just as if all my insecurities and burdens were folded together. I’m grateful for your ministry and I will pray for you! The Lord will bless you greatly!”
“Peter was suffering from kidney problems and has been healed. His doctors also confirmed that his blood count is normal again.”
“We were totally impressed with the agreement even meshing of the messages of Gayle and Suzette. We know that they had no idea of what the other was going to say! This is an example of just how much the Holy Spirit moves in them as a wonderful team. The opening of Suzette’s heart before all assembled in her speaking about the absolute trust that she has in her Creator, in every single word that she had to say, touched... inspired... and encouraged Karin and I immensely! We know that God will completely heal her! Karin and I were also so full of joy to be able to help in the healing prayer as a team for ‘Arise Shine’. We know that this was and will be a time of glorification of the Lord in His healing power. We had two follow-up visits at our ‘Wellness’ healing time at ‘Philadelphia Gemeinde International’ on Tuesdays following: A lady who was healed at the "Arise Shine" needed further help through counselling. A man who was healed at the ‘Arise Shine’ had further healing needs and has received further healing since. He is now also attending the church.”