My Journey to IHOPKC

 I am presently on staff at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Missouri with my wife Kathy, we relocated to Kansas City from California in March of 2012, I sometimes say "it took us 23 years to get here." 

                        This is a short excerpt of my journey from 1989 to March of 2012.

In 1981 God began to engage me with intimate conversations by His Holy Spirit which led me to the knowledge of God's love for me and to the revelation of Jesus as a resurrected man who had shed His blood for me. I began immediately to attend Open Bible Church in West Pittsburg California and was baptised there on November 10, 1981.

I began to experience different levels of new experience in gifts of faith, miracles, revelation and healings in what seemed like momentary visitations. 

I would often become aware of things in an instant of which I had no previous knowledge, both about people and situations sometimes mid-sentence to correct my uninformed appraisal of any particular situation or circumstance. Like, one time when a man and woman approached me together for prayer, I assumed by their behavior they were married. Just at the moment, I was about to speak, the Lord said "They are not married." I immediately checked in with them on this information. It was true, that Jesus very much helped all three of us in that moment, and the subsequent prayer was filled with much reverence for God who had made Himself known in the midst of us.

I was periodically engaged in prophecy, word of wisdom, and word of knowledge much to my surprise before I ever knew or understood these terms to define the experiences. 

During a certain period of 1989, I was often engaged by a strong sense each Sunday that God was not finished ministering among the people when the weekly service was being dismissed.

On one particular Sunday, I took courage and announced it, publicly with a loud voice I cried out, "God is not finished yet! Let's stay here and continue in prayer for a while."

The Pastor, Glen Biles at the time, made immediate eye contact with me, in a short pause, he seemed briefly to survey the moment, but then turned from the platform and retreated into his office. Everyone else then continued their departure passing by me without eye contact or acknowledgement.

One of my friends as he passed by placed his hand on my shoulder and said "Dave, maybe God is just speaking to you about this."

From that day forward, I pledged myself to remain at the church for several hours after the service each Sunday engaging the Lord in prayer.

One particular Sunday, when I was worshipping and going through my prayers as normal, the heavens opened above me and the presence of God began to descend upon me tangibly, I could no longer utter my prayers but was fully engaged in the experience and began to be terrified. 

Even so, I began to force myself to say "yes God, yes God," and the intensity of His presence continued to descend upon me. 

When I began to think I could no longer endure it, He began to speak and I was comforted by His voice, though perplexed by His words, not knowing what to make of them. 

He said, "Why are you still here weeping for Saul, rise up, fill up your horn with oil and anoint the one that I have chosen."

As soon as I understood these words, He began immediately in my sense of His presence to ascend away from me. I recognized the phrase in similarity of His word to Samuel the prophet when He was sending him to anoint David as recorded in 1 Samuel 16. 

I began to say, "God why are you saying this to me? These are your words to Samuel, but I am not weeping, I don't know who Saul is, how can I understand this?" 

"Help God, why are you using this language? I know you are speaking to me, what does this mean?" All the while, He kept ascending away from me, even though I was shouting out at this point, He kept ascending, I longed for Him to remain near to me.

I cried out loudly,"God have mercy on me", "I don't understand, but I say Yes God", "I know you have spoken to me," I say "yes to You." "Yes God, do you hear me? I'll go anywhere, I'll do anything!!!" It was at that point, He stopped ascending and remained tangibly upon me at what became a new normal for me. From that day forward, I had an increased tangible sense of His presence constantly with me. 

Although, I did not know where He wanted me to go and I did not understand His reason for using the words He used. 

I was strongly convinced; 

1.) I had heard these words from God.

2.) He had accepted my 'YES' to "go anywhere and to do anything."

Over the next two years periodically, He would remind me in more gentle expressions of remembrance and I tried to please Him with lessor sacrifices, like moving my job duty locations around the bay area within a 50 mile radius even once for a short period I worked out of Salinas as my home terminal 120 miles from our home. This was not enough.

All the while as a family we were still deeply attached in fellowship at the little Church where we had all gotten saved. 

I began to be more keenly aware of small variations in the sense of His nearness to me to help guide me, sometimes it would be as though He were pulling away from me gently, this helped me to continue in daily prayer and kindled my desire for newer levels of sustained intimacy and cultivated a willingness for greater risk. 

During most of the period, I was expecting Him to also speak directly to my wife about this move by a dream, vision, or the internal audible voice, and I reminded Him of my expectation as often as He reminded me of my pledge. And I asked her often about it.

Finally, I would say "God, if you want us to move, I have said yes, but you have not spoken to my wife". 

He firmly replied "I am speaking to you!" this both startled and perplexed me.

For two days, I soberly pondered His answer. During the two day period, while going through my prayers as normal I began to notice a growing distance in my sense of His nearness to me. 

I then began to yield as I prayed "Oh God I believe you have spoken to me and you want me to move away from here, I also accept You are not speaking to my wife", I could sense His presence gently draw nearer to me again. So, I then began to redirect my prayers for mercy and help in my willingness to yield to His desire and leadership. I still did not understand it very well at all. 

I began by saying, "But Lord, how can I do this if You're not telling my wife?" "I don't know where you want me to go." It was then as if the Lord smiled and said "Ah, now your asking the right questions."

I could sense His pleasure over me and my decision to yield and lean into His leadership.

I was working as a Locomotive Engineer at the time, and the following day, I was called upon to take a train from Oakland to Salinas the extreme southward limit for crews operating out of the Oakland home terminal district at that time. 

At the end of the trip I arrived at Salinas to transfer the train to the relieving engineer named Jim Outland. 

While we were talking in the conduct of the turnover he said abruptly, "JD you should move down to San Luis Obispo".

I was so surprised to hear him say this, and it was an address to the "where" topic of my secret deliberations, I barked out "why should I?". He paused as though taken back by my response, (I was also a little surprised by answer came out a little too roughly) then he gently rolled his head back and forth, as he smiled, and said "well I don't know why you should", but I can tell you this "if you ever do, you will never want to leave." 

And that part was proven to be true the region is beautiful and ever inviting and for many years we thought we would never leave.

As I went to my hotel room for my lay over rest, I knelt by my bedside asking God, "is this the direction on where You want me to move"? As I knelt there that day an idea for moving my on duty home terminal to San Luis Obispo without requiring my wife and family to move occurred to me. 

In exploring the idea, I discovered, I would make more money and be with my family on layover in Oakland, (we actually lived in Walnut Creek at the time) the same amount of time working from San Luis Obispo as my home terminal, because while I was considering it, Union Pacific in the same instance changed the crew change location to extend all the way from Oakland to San Luis Obispo instead of breaking in Salinas. 

The distance between these locations is 252 miles and would represent my biggest risk yet. I was day after day encouraged in my prayers to follow through with this idea.

When I shared this idea with my wife to my surprise she immediately agreed.

I called a cousin of mine named Randy Witcher who I discovered lived in the area and though we had not previously spoken for years, he invited me to come stay with him and his family while I was laying over between train trips. He lives in a small rural town called Nipomo, only a short distance from San Luis Obispo. 

I had only heard of the town because my cousin Randy lives there. 

I engaged the transfer with my employer in September 1991. 

I was going back and forth from San Luis Obispo to Oakland and staying at home in Walnut Creek with my family during layovers in Oakland. Whenever called  I was called back on duty to take a train to San Luis Obispo arriving at my new home terminal, I would stay with my cousin Randy and his family in the room he was providing for me.

I began to notice a little church near my cousin's home in Nipomo and frequently while passing by it on my way from work to my cousin's home the Lord began to say "turn in here" the conversation was accompanied by a certain pulling on my spirit in that direction as I drove by as though it was more than a suggestion. And each time it seemed He was soliciting an immediate response of action or conversation why not.

I was resistant because I thought my wife would view my adoption of fellowship and friends in the new location as an attempt to solicit a premature decision by her to move the whole family down there. 

Which reason I promptly replied to the Lord each time, and for many times, He seemed to be okay with my answer and decision not to pursue a visit to the little church. 

However, even though He did not engage me on this particular pass by to my cousin's home because I arrived in the middle of the night some time around 2 or 3 am. On this certain morning, immediately as I awoke unusually early, compared to my arrival time, it was as though the Lord had departed from me altogether. 

An unbearable intensity of accusations were being forced upon me and were of the nature that, I was very much outside of the will of God, and I had made the biggest mistake of my life by moving down to Nipomo and also my marriage would be completely wrecked by this decision. It was such a dreadful foreboding and sense in absence of His comfort and presence as I had ever experienced since I had become a Christian. 

The anguish was only broken by God's conversation when He initiated it.

After much pleading with no certain answer, and a very fearful absence of any comfort from the presence of the Lord, as I was pacing back and forth within the room in anguish of soul, and in prayer. 

He finally spoke to me softly.

"What time is it"? He said. Looking down at my watch, I said "6am," there was an instant small but unsettled relief from the discomfort of the moment whenever He was speaking, but an continued uncomfortable pause between His words to me that made me continue to pace and plead some more. 

He then spoke again.

"What day is it?" 

Each time He spoke I would stop momentarily from pacing.

As a Locomotive Engineer I was on call every day so sometimes I would not be presently aware the day of the week upon awaking so searching my memory for reference it came to me, "Sunday" I replied, wondering still in uncertain anguish how that might be important in this case and line of question from God's internally audible voice.

Then His beautiful voice broke in again and I understood the possible solution and reason for His questions. 

"What about that little church I have been telling you to turn into?"

"Oh yes," I began to say excitedly, expecting more relief and the return of His comfort which did not readily ensue, "Oh God, yes, is it just that? Of course I will go! I will go there today, I am starting to get ready? See? Even now I am on my way." 

I was hoping that my eagerness to go, would solicit the greater peace and nearness of His presence that I longed for. But no one would even be there yet for a couple more hours.

And, so, it was not until I turned into the parking lot to that little Church, that the presence of His peace began to return to me. The longer I was there the more peace and sense of His presence and pleasure, He returned to me.

I was ever so glad to arrive at the small church early that morning, and then I stayed after the service to approach Jeff Eggers who was the Pastor, requesting prayer for specific confirmation of my direction in God's will to move my family down or move myself back to the bay area. 

He seemed to like me very much from the moment I introduced myself, and after he prayed for me, he called his two elders, one after the other to come and meet me. Rick Allen and Rick Taylor, both seemed to like me very much also, as soon as Jeff told them my name and the way he said it, their faces would brighten. 

Each of them said, "oh... Dave, so nice to meet you". It was not quite awkward, but more than noticeable, as they were all looking at each other, "like the cat that just swallowed the canary" as my grandmother would say.

Due to the horrible sense of displeasure that I had awakened to that day, I was ready and willing to pack my bags and move back to the bay area that very moment should it be confirmed I had made a mistake in coming to Nipomo. 

I called my wife after the service and listened as she declared with excitement, a certain woman Patty Glaze, whom she highly respected told her at church that morning, "your husband is obeying God, your whole family should move, God is giving you and your family a new beginning" and "great things are ahead!" 

You may be able at this point to imagine my overwhelming emotions with tears and thanksgiving at this report. 

This is the day that God had chosen to speak to my wife and with such wonderful words full of grace, confirmation and comfort to her, as well as to my own soul!!

This was around November of 1991. 

By January 1992 we had arranged for our whole family to move to Nipomo, in the Central Coast of California. 

As I said above, Jeff Eggers, was the Pastor of Lighthouse Christian Center on Tefft Street at that time. 

My wife and I began to attend that little church in Nipomo. And through Jeff we became acquainted with the Vineyard Church in Santa Maria and heard of Paul Cain, Bob Jones, the Kansas City Fellowship and Mike Bickle. 

We were so hungry for all that God had intended for us in bringing us there. 

After we had been there for just a few months, Rick Taylor told me about the prophecy by John Paul Jackson, and that they were all waiting for me to arrive, because I really needed to hear it on that certain day I showed up at his home for advice.

Then after we had been there about six months, Jeff informed me that before I had arrived, he had received my first name from a prophet named John Paul Jackson who had told him I would come and played for me the prophetic utterance that had been recorded on a cassette tape as given to him and his wife before I came.

How shocked I was, when I first learned it, that God had strongly confirmed my relocation in such a wonderful preparation of introduction as this! No wonder, I thought, Jeff and the elders of his church seemed to have liked me so much from the moment they had heard my name in our first meeting. 

I came with Jeff for my first visit to a Passion for Jesus Conference in Kansas City in 1993, and made several more trips annually thereafter.

However by the time 2003 rolled around I had not visited Kansas City since 1998 though Jeff's daughter Chara had come and joined on staff in 1999. 

So I had not seen the prayer room yet. 

I had been informed of the Lord to go with Jeff when he resigned the Church in Nipomo and moved to Santa Maria Vineyard, but after he had moved away to Sacramento and moved back again, I asked God "what will become of this?" 

Because, Jeff is moving away again, this time he was moving to Kansas City. 

God replied "just show up for the invitations" although I previously did not have any. 

I was the associate lead intercessor for the Healing Rooms of the Santa Maria Valley at that time, and the day before our weekly prayer session this particular week the lead intercessor asked me to lead the session. 

It happened to be just a few days before I would help Jeff move to Kansas City and spend a week here before flying back home to California.

This was my first "invitation"! 

Something happened that had never happened before on this morning, I brought my guitar and as I led worship the presence of God descended upon me in a remarkable way. I had superior instant memory of scripture and began to offer scripture quotes with short prayers in the midst of songs.

At a certain point as I pondered what to do next, I kept playing the same chords with no vocals. I was suddenly surprised by a woman well known in our group who stood to her feet and shouted out a prayer, she had never done this before. However, immediately the pleasure of God swept over me, and I sang a simple line from the prayer she had prayed, everyone else began singing it together with me exuberantly. 

I could tell something unusual and surpassing was happening as we let God lead us by His Holy Spirit in music and prayer.

Then after several joyful repetitions of the spontaneous sentence of prayer, and the zeal of our song was subsiding, I began again wondering what to do next.

Suddenly, another person in the room stood to their feet and prayed out a zealous prayer in the same example.

We had never done this nor seen it done this way before. 

Again I sang out a simple one line song from the prayer, we then continued in this way person by person for the whole prayer session, while the Spirit of Christ moved among us with more or less intensity to help us know how long to stay on something we were praying or singing or to move on. 

They all exclaimed at the end of our appointed time, "we want to do it like this all the time." I told them I could not be with them for a couple weeks, because I had to help my friend Jeff move to Kansas City.

Then they prayed over me, offering words of encouragement, one man named George Fuller called out "Dave you were born to do this."

One week later I arrived in Kansas City with my friend Jeff having helped him drive a moving truck here with his household belongings. 

I came to the prayer room seeing it as it is, for the first time. I recognized immediately that this is what the Lord had lead us into during our little prayer session the week before in Santa Maria, California. 

A notable experience my first day in the prayer room at IHOPKC was when a little girl with a baseball cap in the 3rd singer position, began to give a prophecy over me in a bold expression of song.

Shocked at the encounter, I peeked open my eyes to see if she knew she was talking to me, and she was staring right at me, I came to know her name after that, it was Misty Edwards.

The focus of my periodic internal prayer for the first six hours I spent there was, "God could You do this in California?"

I saw in my minds eye a stream of fire rising up from the room in Kansas City and extending out to the Central Coast of California shaped in the form of an arc like a rainbow only it was all fire, a small stream of connection in the same fire that was burning so strong in Kansas City.

After returning home to California, I first pledged to three hours of prayer per day in my bedroom at home. 

And then, I began participation in prayer sessions wherever I was invited to come.

I was powerfully discovering God's delight to encounter me through intentional and extended times in daily personal and corporate prayer over the next year. And I began through Jeff's solicitation partnering with Mark Perry at that time, who had recently returned from planting a Church in Ohio, and become Pastor of a small preexisting congregation in Nipomo, a preface it turned out to planting what became Every Day Church in Arroyo Grande. We worked together for three or four years.

Over one particular period of harp and bowl sessions at the very church building where I first met Jeff called Light House Christian Center, it dawned on me; the word of the Lord I had received in 1989 was opening up to me, like a timed capsule and giving me greater confidence and clarity for the days ahead. 

We labored as a family in the Central Coast of California for the next 8 years from 2003 to 2011 yearning for a context and culture of worship and prayer not common, nor even understood by the existing congregational gatherings at that time. I was fueling harp and bowl modeled prayer sessions, training and providing emphasis for prayer team development at varied locations on the Central Coast through a variety of invitations. 

The first dedicated multi Church prayer room location we helped establish after two years while helping to plant Every Day Church simultaneously, included Mark Perry and members of Every Day Church, members of Jose Rivera's Church and sometimes sessions at his location, Sharon Webster at the Solid Rock Life Center with some level of participation by Mike Sparrow from San Luis Obispo and Pat Sparrow from Shouts of Grace Church in Arroyo Grande with visitations by people generally from throughout the Central Coast. 

The dedicated room was located in an adjoining space next to the Solid Rock Life Center in a small strip mall and partially funded by them. It was there I received an emphasis from the Lord on Joshua 22:34 as a verse related to the building of a Prayer Room community, as an altar of "witness" between Congregations.

Then when the multi congregational partnerships began to fail and because we could not yet support a building for ourselves financially, we moved our main efforts into Santa Maria, by request and invitation from Steve Dastic at the Santa Maria Vineyard, where the Healing Rooms ministry in partnership since it's birth in 1999 by Rick and Lori Taylor was being hosted.

I had known all of them for many years, as I stated above, I met Rick Taylor from my first visit to Light House Christian Center in 1991, and they also knew us and of our efforts in the region, so when we explained more closely our vision and purpose to build a night and day prayer community among them and in Santa Maria, they invited us to come.

The nature of the Healing Rooms ministry and partnership with many congregations in the City of Santa Maria and throughout the Central Coast lent itself to the greater concepts of multi Congregational effort that is necessary for fueling night and day prayer in a City or in a Region.

In March of 2008 I decided to release our teams to their own congregations and attend the Commission with Dale Anderson here in Kansas City. Just before I left, 5 or more congregations in Santa Maria partnered to do a 40 mile prayer walk around the City, and maintain a 36 hour live prayer room to fuel the walk and maintain a center of contact for shuttling people to and from check points of which me and our harp and bowl teams took part.

When I returned to California after the Commission it was like starting over again, and I spent 6 hours per day in a travel trailer I converted to a prayer room at my home, without much public exposure at all, at a certain point I heard the Lord say, "I want you to go back to the public prayer room" and so I began with a small public team presence at Santa Maria Vineyard in the fellowship hall daily again as we had before.

 It was not long until Rick and Lori moved out of Santa Maria Vineyard to their own unique location.

In November of 2008 we began to partner with Santa Maria Foursquare as a single congregation that was willing to offer a dedicated prayer room in Santa Maria, as was situated on a separate lot from the Church in buildings that had previously been a school. 

During the time period from 2006 to 2010 all three of our daughters moved to Kansas City, my oldest daughter and her husband also took our grandchildren with them! Then after we had moved here my son Jacob came to live here in 2013.

It was immediately after the December Onething conference of 2010 my wife and I became convinced and decided together, "God wants us to move to Kansas City." 

After we had said YES together, it was a process that took a little over one year to accomplish. 

We arrived in March 2012, 23 years from my encounter in 1989 where God first spoke to me of His election to transition me away from the structure of congregational church as I had known it, to the model of priesthood in the house of prayer.

He had said "why are you still here weeping for Saul, rise up, fill up your horn with oil and anoint the one that I have chosen". 

In this way He called me:

To depart the structure and model of the congregational church as I had known it, into a context that did not yet exist in my understanding or in any expression I had witnessed before at that point. 

To pursue intimacy with Jesus the anointed, and exalted One who ever lives in the body of His own immortality, through daily prayer, dedication and obedience to His calling, purpose and leadership over and throughout my life.

To continue the pursuit of His vision, and purpose revealed in a new context called the night and day house of prayer in the Spirit and tabernacle of David for building up, and gathering the Churches in bridal union with Jesus and one another in the same Spirit of Christ for mutual blessing. 

I began to understand, He is calling every believer to responsive bridal union and partnership with the intercessions of Christ through His house of prayer in whatever vocation He has ordained for them otherwise. 

It is my sincere hope everyone who reads this report will be greatly encouraged to call out to God for the wonderful leadership of Jesus, and the revelation of His present kingdom and to be filled with His desire for intimacy and partnership with every believer, to the effectual building up of His house of prayer in every city on earth as it is being ordained and ordered by Him from heaven. 

May God Himself command a blessing of everlasting life in the oil of intimacy according to Psalm 133 

on every gathering in worship and prayer deeply engaged in the constant intercessions of Christ.

He is the author and finisher of our faith. Amen!

Sincerely in the eternal affections of Christ,

Dave Thomas