This month marks the tenth anniversary of the Lord releasing us to begin sharing the call for the Winnipeg gathering that took place over the Canada Day weekend in 1999. I still remember when the Lord first spoke to us about His heart for the gathering, that He was not looking for formal signed statements of repentance, but a gathering filled with weeping, travail and lament. “Lord, Canadians don’t even cry in their funerals’, I had quickly protested, “How can You possibly expect them to weep over something that happened generations ago?”
“David,” the Lord answered me, “just share the vision. I am able to make My people willing in the day of My power. You don’t know what I have prepared this nation for, for such a time as this.”
In the months that followed, I watched in amazement as the Lord accomplished His desire and fulfilled His purposes. No matter where I was in the country – in a small church in northern British Columbia or a city-wide meeting in Prince Edward Island, I would ask the question “How many of you have been awakened in the night to travail and weep over Canada but you don’t know why?” And without fail, seventy or eighty or ninety percent of the hands would go up. Sometimes I didn’t even get a chance to share about the gathering before people started wailing and dropping to the floor in travail. I saw the sovereignty of God that I had read about in the Bible, displayed in front of my eyes.
Building an Altar
Before we gathered in Winnipeg that summer, the Lord instructed us that each participant should bring with them a stone. These stones would be used to build a memorial altar so that generations to come would be able to see what their forefathers had done to turn a nation from judgment to favour. Over 2300 faithful believers from throughout the nation came to Winnipeg and though we spent many hours before the Lord, late in the day on July 1st, we still had not broken through. In desperation, the assembled fathers team, mature spiritual leaders who were overseeing the gathering, postured ourselves before the Lord. “We have done all we know to do, God,“ we cried out. “Please help us for Your name sake.” I don’t know quite how to describe what happened next except to say that God “gave us a push” and suddenly the burden that we had been carrying for months, the weight of godly sorrow that had led us to this place of repentance for the sins of our forefathers, suddenly lifted. Then the Lord spoke clearly to us prophetically, “I have received your sacrifice, go lay down the stones”.
At that time, one of the worship leaders was given a song from the Lord about the stones and the altar we were about to build. To hear this song and see a video clip of the altar called “Stones of Remembrance”, click here.
I will never forget the scene as thousands of us walked outside the Duckworth Centre on the University of Winnipeg campus to lay down our stones in a makeshift altar. When it was complete, I asked the Lord, “What do you want me to pray over this altar?” And He answered me clearly, “David, make Me and the angels a witness of these stones.” I prayed and when we finished, suddenly we noticed, in the skies over Winnipeg, a huge double rainbow. The rainbow is the sign of God’s promise to Noah to never again judge the earth by flood. And we knew that God in His gracious mercy had given us this sign in the heavenlies so that we might have the faith to believe that God had transitioned us as a nation under judgment to a nation blessed with His favour.
The Next Ten Years
Over the next ten years we continued our journey with the Lord – the Dinner of the St Louis, the Journey of Hope, the Charlottetown gathering, the La Danse tour, the Homecoming, One Heart, and the Consumed gathering were just some of the many steps the Lord spoke to us to take. And as we obeyed, He went before us and many signs followed His appearing. We have seen major healing and reconciliations between the Church and the Jewish people, between the French and English, between the First Peoples. And we have seen the hand of God’s favour on us as the Church of Canada and on our nation.
Throughout these ten years we never forgot about the stones and we often queried the Lord about where and when He wanted a permanent memorial to be built. But each time we felt the Him say, “It’s not yet time”. Then a few months ago, some friends of ours were in Winnipeg and the Lord really put it on their hearts to go and see the stones. The report they brought back to me made my heart heavy. After the gathering, we had arranged for the stones to be housed with a local ministry in Winnipeg, until we could determine where their final resting place would be. Somehow, through a mix-up of communications, the stones were instead left in an unprotected area outdoors where they were subject to the rain and snow and some of them were even taken away by people who probably just thought they had found a nice pile of rocks! A few years later, a family in Winnipeg, hearing about the stones, felt prompted by the Lord to take them into their care. They prayed diligently and asked the Lord how to move the stones and did so with great honour and care. So for the last seven years the stones have remained protected at their home. But sadly, this family has experienced terrible personal warfare in their family and their finances.
When I heard this I was troubled in my spirit and so I asked a member of the counsel who lives in Winnipeg, to talk with this family and provide a more detailed report for the whole counsel at a face-to-face meeting we were having a few weeks later. I felt it was important that we once again open the issue of the stones and the altar but also it was equally important that we inquire of the Lord as to the condition of this precious family who seemed to be suffering so greatly.
From Favour to His Kingdom
As we gathered in our counsel meeting and the report was read, the mood was somber. We had just begun to share with one another when suddenly the Holy Spirit swept into the room and all of us fell onto the ground in travail and weeping repentance. We felt deeply convicted by the Holy Spirit that while we had not forgotten the stones, we had not rightly stewarded them as precious in God’s sight. We repented as a counsel and immediately sensed that we needed to take an offering and make an ongoing commitment to financially help this family who had been so faithful to protect the stones.
As soon as we finished the offering, to our surprise, suddenly the Lord began speaking to us that we are about to enter into a new phase in our journey as the Canadian church. While we have been for the last ten years in a season of favour, now we are transitioning into a new season of the Kingdom and God’s spiritual governmental authority. And as a tangible sign of this shift, the Lord told us to move the stones from Winnipeg to Ottawa and asked us to call the Church to Ottawa this summer for our first national gathering in three years.
These stones of remembrance, which are a witness of the power and mercy and grace and love and redemptive heart of God to turn a nation from judgment to favour, will go by special procession from Winnipeg to Ottawa. Some people will accompany the stones and they will stop in different communities and believers will be invited to gather for a time of celebration, thanking God for His faithfulness to His promise: that as we humbled ourselves and prayed and sought His face and turned from our wicked ways ten years ago, He heard from Heaven and turned His face toward us and began to heal our land.
The Promise
Then from July 22nd to 25th, the Body of Christ from across Canada will gather in Ottawa. The Promise Gathering will be a time of both celebrating the milestones of our ten-year journey and positioning ourselves before the Lord in humility and brokenness to seek His face that He might transition us into this new season of seeing His Kingdom and His spiritual governmental authority released in our nation. More details about the gathering will be released in the next few weeks.
Thank you for your faithfulness and obedience over the last ten years. We look forward to being together again this summer in Ottawa as one family as we take this next step in our journey towards Canada’s destiny!
All my love
David
To subscribe or unsubscribe to these mailings, please go to http://www.watchmen.org/JoinLists.asp.
