Creating And Contributing To An Atmosphere Of Worship

Opening the Conversation - Time: 2:05-5:09

• “How many of you have said something like this before, “I feel like everything is awkward?” Some people are just tunned to awkward feelings.” There’s a verse in Psalms 23 that says that “goodness and mercy will follow you the rest of your life.” Do you sometimes feel like goodness, mercy, and awkward follow you? “I think sometimes when we’re sensitive this way you’re probably sensitive to relational dynamics. That’s a gift.”

• “How many of you have said, “I feel like my surroundings overwhelm me?” ...You’re not overtaken by it. You might just be aware at a different level of some dynamics that aren't immediately seen. ...again, its a gift. We just need to know what to do with it.” “...sometimes what we can struggle with is a victim mentality where our surroundings feel overwhelming to us. ...we’re going to get out from under that. We’re going to claim a spot that’s ours. That spot is we are seated with Christ in heavenly places and we get to bring His kingdom into environments. We’re not subject to what’s happening around us. We are agents of change.”

• “How many of you guys feel drastic like switches of mood depending on like the store that you’re in?” When Kalley goes into some stores she gets weird. Its the same for her with different cities. Growing up she thought that it was illegal to feel those things or it was too big of a thing to talk about. The problem with that is when we don’t recognize it we assume that we are partaking what was already there so we avoid those places that make us feel that way. “But there’s a different solution.”

Kalley’s back story - Time: 5:26-7:58

• “To impact a room you don’t need a microphone … start now. Leaders start now. …You start with whatever context you are in you are meant to bring the kingdom of God to that context.” Leading from a stage is overflow. There is no platform or position needed for carrying the kingdom with you wherever you go. 

• At one point during Kalley’s story, she went through a season shutdown of trust in herself and confidence in God. She pulled herself up into her head and a number of years of depression. One event that Kallley remembers from when she was a little girl and she was in the backseat of a car going through a car wash and as she was watching the water run down the car window she got goosebumps all over her body. What she didn’t know then but knows now is that God was touching her at that moment. Another thing that Kalley came to realize is that she was operating on a whole different level but she wasn’t aware of it. We might as well become aware of it because we are operating out of this level regardless and if we are aware of it we can do something about it. 

Hearing the voice of God - Time: 8:00-27:36

• Kalley shared about a time when she was in worship in her college years and she was singing the song “Mighty to Save” to Jesus. How worship was viewed there was that you go to worship, the lights turn off, you close your eyes, and when you leave you to go back to whatever was going on beforehand. But God challenged her this one day to open her eyes during worship and pray the song over the people in the room and then over the campus, the city, and it kept increasing.

• When Kalley grew up she had a lot of night terrors. Kalley now knows that the Lord speaks to her through dreams and those night terrors were an attempt to derail her from how God wanted to speak to her. 

• John 10 talks about us being God’s sheep and Him being our shepherd and us hearing His voice. “...that has less to do with my ears and it has more to do with His voice. ...You’re not going to miss it. Your ears aren't that bad. His voice is stronger…If we could just like all agree God wants to speak to us, He wants to partner with us.” 

• “We can’t be hung up on being right before we start acting.” Kalley used to be nervous that she would be deceived and God spoke to her and asked her, “Hey, can you trust that I’m not going to let that happen? Can you trust that you have people in your life who are actually going to be like, “Hey, that feels a little bit crazy. Can we talk about that?” But trust has the ability to keep you stronger than the enemy’s ability to pull you away or to deceive you.”

• Kalley shared a story of when she was on her first tour in South Africa and where she was staying there were these lions in what seemed like a lion zoo, and their earth-shaking roars would wake people up. But on this particular night, Kalley was woken up not by lions but by God. And she was getting all these downloads concerning South Africa but could not keep up to put a melody to any of it in order to sing it over the country. Then God paused and said, “Oh Kalley, I’m not asking you to do anything. I just want company. I just want a friend who I can share my heart for this nation with.” “See when we know how to hold the secrets of God when we know how to treasure His friendship over the function we grow in an authority that begins to change places by just walking in. ...When we can be trusted with secrets things began to change.”

• “Examples of people who are partnering with God to change environments, to speak in and infuse the kingdom of God into their surroundings:”

• In Acts 17 Paul brings truth to the world around him.

• “Peter at Pentecost speaks into what’s happening.”

• Jesus, unafraid of what the surroundings, asks Peter who he says He is.

• “We have prophetic acts winning wars through the Old Testament. God’s very presence on earth, His incarnation validates His nearness and His activity around us.” 

• “We have five senses in the natural world… We naturally use these and we don’t doubt them.” 

• “But with our spirits renewed and led by the Holy Spirit we can use our senses to discern spiritual information.”

• “But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have trained their senses to discern good from evil.”Hebrews 5:14

• Four ways to hear from God: seeing, hearing, feeling, and knowing. Even if you don’t hear from God you probably see things, feel things, or know things as a way of hearing from God.

• “Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and offer the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness.” Romans 6:13 For Kalley this means learning to sense on her body when the presence of God is there. A tool for training yourself for this is to sit somewhere and ask God to come with His peace. “...get acquainted with it, train yourself to know, “this is what peace feels like.” Then ask God to come with His love. “Feel the shift. It's all good. It does feel different.” Then ask God to come with His Joy. “But actually soak in it.” Doing this makes us aware of when an atmosphere is not right.

• Sometimes worship leaders do weird things on stage. This can be done "for show"  but there's not much impact that happens then. But it can be done out of surrendering our bodies to be used as an “instrument of righteousness”. “...we do have to sacrifice our understanding sometimes but there’s a greater measure on the other side.” We are His sheep, He is our Shepherd, and we hear his voice. When Kalley feels something come over her she gives into it. One time one of those events included her shaking her head. She did and she asked God why her head was shaking. Side note: “Get good at asking questions” Be childlike and follow your curiosity. Kalley shared what God told her, “Oh, there's just old mindsets that need to come flying off.” Kalley shared a few more experiences she’s had doing crazy things that have meaning and that were actions of surrendering the physical body to the purposes of God. Our job is to pull heaven down to earth. Get to know who you are outside the noise. Get to know what the presence of God feels like. When we get to become aware of who we are, the weapons we have, our declarations, and our worship “...this place is going to change.”

Prayer   Time: 27:39-28:43

“So God, make us aware. God, we offer up to You our whole selves as instruments of righteousness.” Kalley shared that sometimes our imaginations can shut down. Things like pornography and things we shouldn’t have seen can cause our imaginations to shut down. She said that she “...feels like the Lord wants to reopen imaginations today. Imaginations are good, they’re pure, they’re from Him, and they need to be covered by the blood of Jesus because He wants to write His plan on your imagination. So I just speak cleansing of your imaginations in Jesus’ name. I say they belong to Him and I just speak to that screen and projector of the goodness of God, His kingdom to be opened up and working again in Jesus’ name. Reconnection, where you can see the kingdom of God, play out like a movie screen on your imagination. I bless your imaginations. I bless your ears, I bless your eyes, I bless your knowing and your feeling. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”