by Chris Boersma Smith | Feb 1, 2018 | Deliverance, Encouragement and Inspiration, Gratitude, Healing, Maintaining Your Freedom, Unbound
Look at the Instant Pot’s success!
Don’t we all love to get a glowing recommendation from someone affirming the good that our products or services have produced? While thanks are wonderful, positive word-of-mouth advertising shows the greatest appreciation and is the most effective marketing. Let’s talk up God, far more than everyone is talking up their Instant Pots!
Let’s do some spiritual witnessing!
A spiritual testimony is a personal declaration of what God has done for you. Gratitude with thanksgiving helps God raise other people’s interest level. It can be the doorway for bigger, better things for you and for those who hear your testimony.
When you receive Unbound ministry, you’re encouraged by Neal Lozano, Heart of the Father Ministries, and by our 5 Keys to Freedom in Christ team to write down what God did for you. It needn’t be a long essay fit for publication, though it could be! It may simply be responding to our request for an evaluation, and keeping a copy for yourself. It could be notes in your journal or in your computer or smartphone or in social media about what took place, how you felt before, during, right after, and/or upon later reflection. Whatever works for you! Having written down the important experiences is very strengthening, and helps as your memory fades. It can be especially strengthening to read what you wrote later, in a difficult time prior to your next breakthrough. (Yes, it’s common to have ups and downs in our spiritual lives, with multiple breakthroughs as we grow in holiness and intimacy with God. At times like that, looking back can uplift you.)
Questions to Ask in Coming Up with Your Testimony:
The following questions were written by Neal Lozano (in his Unbound Companion Guide) to guide you in preparing your testimony, but of course, you’re encouraged to personalize your testimony as you tell the story of God’s action in your life:
- What has the Lord done in my life through the UNBOUND message?
- What truths has the Lord revealed to me?
- What sins (or bad habits or addictions) have I overcome by God’s grace?
- What enemies or lies have I renounced that I now refuse to fellowship with?
- How has the Father revealed His love to me as His son or daughter?
- What blessing is He whispering to me right now?
You might also ask:
- How do I feel now that I have forgiven a person, an action, an omission, or hurtful words that wounded me?
- How do I feel as a result of telling my story and having it listened to with love and without judgment (if you experienced that, which is always the intention of UNBOUND ministry teams)?
- How do I see my UNBOUND experience affecting my life going forward? Has it already made a positive difference?
How Might I Share My Testimony?
- Send your testimony to the UNBOUND team and let them know whether it’s just for their edification or whether it might be shared (anonymously or otherwise) to help others — this can be done with an evaluation form, an email, by letter, or by recording (even on voicemail), or by taking a video of yourself speaking about your experience and sending it to the team who ministered to you.
- Allow the person doing a follow-up with you to take notes and share some of your story, after getting your approval.
- Share your testimony with others you know, perhaps in your family or among a small faith community — without going into too much detail, except perhaps to a few very well trusted believers or a spiritual director or confessor.
Tips for a Moving Testimony
First, your testimony should be personal.
- You could share what the Lord has revealed to you about lies you believed and the truth the Lord has imparted to you.
- You could share what sins you’ve overcome by His grace, or whom the Lord has led you to forgive (maybe even for what).
Second, it helps most if your testimony is specific and concrete.
- If you’re willing to share some details of previous bondage and specifically how the Lord has released you, others will be able to relate to your story and your words will bear good fruit for the Lord.
Do It, Because Jesus Asks Those He Heals to Witness to Others!
in Mark 5:1-20, Jesus cast out the demon called “Legion,” which had possessed a chained, cave-dwelling, screaming man in Gerasenes. At the demon’s request, Jesus sent the evil spirit into a herd of swine, which then ran off the cliff into the sea. The healed and now free man wanted to follow Jesus as he traveled around preaching, healing, and delivering others from evil. But Jesus wouldn’t let the man join him, because Jesus had greater work for the man to do than just being his follower. He said, “Go home to your family and announce to them all the Lord in his pity has done for you.” Jesus wants us to tell our story and pass on the miracles and healings that transform our lives!
by Chris Boersma Smith | Nov 8, 2017 | 5 Gospel Keys, Individual Prayer Ministry, Maintaining Your Freedom, Mindset, Unbound
Perhaps over the holidays you’ll be around family members who regularly behave in ways that annoy you. Maybe you’ll see people who mistreated you. You don’t want to fall into an old sinkhole and not know how to climb back to the freedom in Christ you’ve found this year!
My family of origin, circa 1968: six people I love and hope to gather with this Thanksgiving!
If you’ve been through UNBOUND prayer, you’ve declared people and their actions forgiven in Jesus’ name. You’ve renounced the patterns you responded with that were influenced by unclean spirits. Unclean spirits, unhealthy habits, harmful words that you once took to heart, and lies you used to believe—these were commanded out of you with authority in Jesus’ name. You gave thanks, were blessed, and had new truths proclaimed to reinforce your identity in Christ and as a child of the Father. Hopefully, you left feeling loved and much freer and closer to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
IF THAT SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING YOU’D LIKE TO EXPERIENCE,
CLICK HERE TO REQUEST AN INDIVIDUAL UNBOUND PRAYER SESSION
I’ve just returned from over three weeks in Florida with my parents and sister during a medical crisis. During that stressful time, I backslid into a spiritually unhealthy pattern, so I have some thoughts to share with you!
I’m an UNBOUND prayer leader, and I’ve been set free in Christ in increments. The first time came through deliverance prayer before I learned of Unbound. It healed my relationship with a daughter and loosened my perfectionism and need for other people’s approval. Later I was set free through an Unbound session, after forgiving very deep hurts I’d buried for a decade. Then at a Freedom in Christ Conference, I profoundly experienced the heart of the Father.
During those weeks in Florida I was grateful to be able to help. I enjoyed seeing loved ones, watching baseball with my Dad like I did as a kid, praying with both parents, faith-sharing with my Mom, and all that. However, I saw myself falling into old snares, including:
- extreme attempts at people-pleasing, approval-seeking, and criticism-avoidance;
- fear of reprimands and of not being good enough, and repeating the lie that “I can’t do anything right;”
- judgmentalism (received and rendered);
- taking refusals of my offers of help as rejection;
- being under the illusion that I had some control;
- self-accusation, self-criticism, self-justification, and self-absorption; and
- not living in the present but buying into guilt, regrets, worry, fear, obsessive thinking, and insomnia.
My usual Quiet Time was eroded, I got no real exercise, and only briefly did I pray with a 5 Keys Prayer Card like the ones we give out after UNBOUND sessions. I was very aware of my sinfulness, yet I knew the struggle could also help others if I grew from it and shared it honestly.
Here are the 7 steps that got me out of the sinkhole:
- Journaling: I wrote about my thoughts and feelings, what triggered me, what I didn’t like, and what worried me. I concluded that my responses were a sign to me that my freedom is fragile and needs T.L.C. I also put myself in other people’s shoes and wrote how I thought they were feeling during the tough time we shared, since everyone was dealing with shock and stress.
- Spiritual Reading: Once home, I caught up on daily readings I’d missed, liturgical and devotional. Jesus Always (by Sarah Young) reminded me not to attach my sense of worth to my performance. What others think of me is really none of my business, because only God sees us as we truly are—far from perfect but radiantly clothed in God’s perfect righteousness. In addition, because we’re precious to the Lord who delights in us, we should refuse to condemn ourselves. When you’re dissatisfied with something you’ve said or done, this book says, talk to Jesus and ask him to sort out what is truly sinful and needs to be confessed. Also, since pride is a deadly sin, it suggests that being humbled is a blessing.
- Conversational Prayer: Repentance and statements of faith, in my own words, were followed by asking for help taking my thoughts captive to Christ and increasing my desire and discipline for more time in God’s Presence. Listening, I heard (once again) that Jesus delights in setting us free, and the Holy Spirit helped me list everything I needed to confess and renounce.
- 5 Keys Prayer: Having completed Key #1 (repentance and faith), I worked my way through out-loud declarations of forgiveness of everyone and everything I’d journalled or identified (Key #2), including self-forgiveness (the hardest part for me). I then renounced out loud all the unclean spirits and lies on the list from my Conversational Prayer time (Key #3). I commanded them out in the name of Jesus (Key #4). And I prayed a Father’s Blessing (Key #5) and my daily novena to the Holy Spirit. At this point, I again felt free, thanks be to God, but I had more to do to.
- Additional Reading and Reflection on Relationships: I read and took notes from a booklet I got on a retreat, Elf-help for Dealing with Difficult People, by Lisa O. Englehardt, illustrated by R W. Alley. This gave me some practical ideas, along with The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict by The Arbinger Institute—a fabulous book on how to improve all your relationships by honoring your own sense of what’s right and seeing others as persons like yourself, with needs, wants, and feelings, rather than as “objects.” After all this, I focused on how to make better choices “next time” to get out of mindsets that are not loving others as myself. I grew in compassion and identified how I contributed to upsetting situations. I resolved to be more understanding, loving, and honoring next time, so as to have a heart at peace and a clearer conscience.
- Sacraments: I made an appointment and received Reconciliation and went to a nice, quiet daily Mass.
- Gratitude: I thanked God for the circumstances that diminished my pride, for we are to give thanks always and for everything. I thanked God that my imperfect performance reminds me that I’m a wounded catalyst for the Lord’s healing and deliverance. I thank the Mighty One who is so awesome that my failings won’t hamper God’s plans to set believers free. And I give thanks because as I was in the midst of that spiritual battle, I saw it for what it was and knew that Christ had already won the victory for us!
How might the 5 Keys Prayer Card or these steps help keep the THANKS and the MERRY in your holidays?
by Chris Boersma Smith | Jul 26, 2017 | Encouragement and Inspiration, Gratitude, Holy Spirit, Pentecost Experiences
The Call Went Out
Two years ago, Pope Francis called charismatics around the world to travel to Rome to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and Pentecost. (This means that of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, he invited roughly 120 million Catholics whose lives have been touched by a fundamental experience of the love of God being poured into their hearts by an extraordinary movement of the Holy Spirit, as better explained here.) The Pope and the other presenters at the Jubilee all reminded us we were there in response to a calling, and they exhorted us to return home, boldly bearing witness, testifying to what God has done in our lives through the Holy Spirit!
Inspiring Talks and Huge Masses
At talks the first day, we heard how to grow our charisms (supernatural gifts) and were urged to “go beyond” like Phillip performing miracles among the Samaritans and Peter and Paul laying hands on believers baptized in water but not yet baptized in the Holy Spirit. [See Acts 8:15-17.]
The next morning we attended a conversational ecumenical symposium where we heard the story of Cardinal Borgolio attending a prayer meeting at which the future Pope Francis asked to receive prayer for baptism in the Holy Spirit! We asked questions and the panelists engaged in storytelling, so we felt like insiders, which reinforced the value of personal witnessing.
Donna MacKay and Chris Smith with beautifully dressed Congolese women we met at the symposium.
From 3 until 11 pm that day, at an ancient chariot-racing stadium, with tens of thousands of pilgrims from 128 countries, we attended Mass concelebrated by about 200 charismatic priests and 50 bishops (at an altar as filled as the night before at St. John Lateran Basilica). I’ve never been so happy that I love languages and have absorbed more Latin than I’d imagined, as well as still understanding a lot of Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Italian. I was incredibly grateful that I could understand much of what was said or sung in its own language, though I was lost with German and Swahili!
In the Presence of Pope Francis
Back at the Circus Maximus the next day, awaiting the Pope’s arrival, the heat of the sun and fire of the Holy Spirit electrified the crowd! The holiness and universality of the kairos celebration transported us to new heights. We heard detailed testimony from Patti Gallagher Mansfield and David Magnin, the first two to experience the “dynamite” release of Holy Spirit at the Duquesne University retreat where the Catholic Charismatic Renewal began. Others at the 1967 retreat also experienced a personal Pentecost. From there, the Renewal began spreading like wildfire, surprising the Pentecostals who addressed us; they couldn’t believe Catholics were experiencing the same fullness of the Spirit as they did, and that the Catholic Church respected it before Protestant leadership did!
A few hours after this pep rally for God began, the enormous crowd rose in acclimation and excitement as huge screens revealed the Pope approaching the stage. His flowing white garments stood out in a sea of colors — flags from many nations, bright African fabrics proclaiming the wearers’ faith, banners, hats and scarves waving — and the Pope not surrounded by dozens of bodyguards and men in black clerics, but rather, to our delight, flanked on both sides by lay women: the President of International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services, and Patti Mansfield. Many of the laity, especially women, were moved to tears, as was I.
With the Pope seated center stage, the Preacher to the Papal Household and various Pentecostal Christians addressed the Jubilee crowd. Stressing unity and reconciled diversity, at one point the thousands shouted together: “Jesus is Lord!” Then, “God raised him from the dead,” and in response to “What does that make us? — “REDEEMED!” — repeated in one language after another.
Then to the song “Spirit of the Living God,” the Holy Father extended his hands over us and prayed for the Spirit to fall afresh on us. Bliss!
When Pope Francis gave his meditation, radio transmissions provided translations. Great joy erupted when he said:
- Either the Christian experiences joy in his or her heart, or there’s something wrong!
- Baptism in the Holy Spirit, praise, and serving one another are inseparable.
- This charismatic renewal, what he calls a “current of grace,” is for ALL the Church, not just for some!
Pope Francis thanked all who’ve entered this current of grace for what we’ve given the Church, and he emphasized that the Church relies on us. He directed us to share Baptism in the Holy Spirit with ALL Christians, praise God ceaselessly, serve in unity, and bear witness to lives transformed by the Holy Spirit. We felt One in the Spirit. If you’d like to hear his talk, in Italian, click here! Spontaneous dancing could be seen everywhere — religious, laity, pilgrims all – previously unacquainted brothers and sisters hugging and exchanging high fives!
Pentecost Celebration at St. Peter’s Square
The following day at St. Peter’s Square, rejoicing continued in a glorious Pentecost Mass. We were blessed to stand within a few feet as the Pope passed by, sharing his joy with the crowd under a cerulean Roman sky!
Click here for a quick video clip.
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About the Author
Chris and her husband in St. Peter’s Basilica after a tour of the Vatican Museum
This was written by Chris Boersma Smith, one of 24 pilgrims on the tour sponsored by the Archdiocese of San Francisco Catholic Charismatic Renewal — www.SFSpirit.com — led by Fr. Raymund Reyes and coordinated by Letty Ramos. A spiritual director and 5 Keys to Freedom in Christ UNBOUND Prayer Team leader who was baptized in the Holy Spirit during Confession in 1989, Chris gratefully reports that the pilgrimage did indeed release greater zeal and boldness in her! It’s already bearing juicy fruit in her San Francisco parish—St. Dominic’s—whose mission is to radiate the Joy of the Gospel in the Heart of the City.
by Chris Boersma Smith | Jul 10, 2017 | Alignment with Values, Empowering and Freeing Choices, Gratitude, Living Abundantly, Mindset
On this date last year, after a light dinner while watching the surfers, I composed an earlier version of this post on a poolside lounge chair as the sun went down in San José del Cabo, Mexico! A few seats away, my husband was on a 90-minute overseas call. This setting illustrated my belief: that I can combine enjoying my life with serving my mission. A year later, I am overflowing with gratitude about how much of what I was trusting God for in hope and faith has actually been unfolding with supernatural grace! So let me please share a process that’s worked for me as I journal, pray about, implement what comes to me in that Quiet Time, and then thank God as I see the outcomes.
All that’s standing between you and what you desire is belief. That the power of belief is key to the outcomes you experience is borne out by scripture and by the myriad stories of motivational speakers. Wise teachers contend that we mostly get what we believe although we may not realize exactly what our beliefs are. Proverbs 23:7 warns us that as you think in your heart, so shall you be. And Abraham Lincoln put it like this: “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
After discerning God’s will and making sure what you want aligns with it, the first step in putting the power of belief to work is to identify what you want—but not necessarily in minute detail; the essence of your goal is best, leaving room for the Holy Spirit to surprise you. For example, to be healthy was probably the goal of the poor, untouchable, hemorrhaging women who believed about Jesus, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured” (Mark 5:28). Indeed, Jesus felt the power going out of him when she surreptitiously touched the hem of his garment; and he told her and the crowd that her faith was the basis of her healing. His words probably gave her respectability as well.
I recently read a 1998 book called So, Why Aren’t You Rich? The Prosperity Secret of the Rich by Darel Rutherford. It helped me see that my beliefs about hard work were not as positive as I’d imagined. Quite the opposite, as I realized after examining the Green Monster dream I discussed in “Honoring Your Dreams Through Creative Expression,” I believed that making money came at an exorbitant emotional cost. I started to do the work described below to change my mindset once I became aware of how that buried thought was holding me back. And now I can attest to this: Replacing a mindset of lack and hardship with a mindset of plenty and abundance is likely to beneficially spill over into many areas of life, including not just finances but also time and energy!
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A simple project can illustrate how to go through a 7-Step Manifestation Process I’m grateful to have learned from my friend, Ericka Jackson James.
I invited anyone with a postponed organizational project to join a client, friends, and me on July 12th, a day we set aside for tackling our individual organizational challenges “together across the miles,” making it fun, productive, and easy to be motivated by sharing virtually, as we’re each in our own places. (See my post, How to Join a Virtual Organize-for-Fun Day.)
Using that project as an example of the 7-Step Manifestation Process:
- Want. The first step is to decide what you WANT—for example, to make organizational progress. Ask yourself: “Who would I need to be in order to meet my goal?” For the organizing project, I believe being prepared, realistic, and in a mindset of abundance will help most. It would help to state this in an affirming “I Am” statement. For example, “I am grateful for the abundance of my blessings and I’m willing to care for my things and share.”
- Hope. The next step is HOPE, so engage in possibilities thinking.
- Desire. After hope comes DESIRE, focusing on the essence of what you long for, such as certain piles to be eliminated and, by the end of the day, knowing where the stuff formerly in the piles now “lives” (whether in your home or off to charity or recycling).
- Decide. With your want, hope, and desire clarified, you commit and determine the project to be done. To achieve success, I’ve urged setting a reasonable goal to achieve in the time participants have available that day. BELIEF is easier if the goals seem attainable from the outset. Alternatively, if you’re willing to trust God and stretch your faith, you might even select a goal that seems humanly impossible, while believing that nothing is impossible for God.
- Believe. We’ll ground the BELIEF by engaging our imaginations about how the newly organized area will look or work and how we’ll feel about accomplishing the task. Selecting inspiring music, breaks, and rewards can enhance our success and make it all more fun. That’s why I had a Scavenger Hunt for participants the day of the Virtual Organizing-for-Fun Day, so we could engage our childlike spirits and make this work more like play.
- Exercise Faith. Taking a “before” photo and planning to take an “after” photo as well, we combined belief + action into FAITH. At this point, try to embrace with 100% certainty that your goals will be fulfilled. As a person of spiritual faith, this step typically involves saying a prayer for persistence, guidance, wisdom, and blessing along the way.
- Embody. Following through in faith with action, good systems, and/or spiritual guidance will allow you to organize in chunks and also practice good self-care by taking healthy breaks and nourishing yourself. You’ll see visual progress along the way, a reward in itself. You’ll be DOING what the person you described in the Step 1 “I Am” statement does! As you execute your plan, you’ll be embodying the MANIFESTATION of your belief: the results become visible. Congratulations will be well deserved!
Yes, adversity and challenges happen. Sometimes one person’s belief conflicts with someone else’s. We have lessons to learn and the journey has its twists, ups, and downs. But living with wisdom and belief is a shorter journey to realizing our goals and aligning with our sacred callings than letting life just happen to us.
I encourage you to put the power of belief to the test. Also please feel free to comment below or email me about areas where you find it most challenging to believe in positive outcomes.
by Chris Boersma Smith | Jul 8, 2017 | Empowering and Freeing Choices, Unbound
Let Peace Begin with Me.
The first time I heard the 1955 song, “Let There Be Peace on Earth” (written by Sy Miller and Jill Jackson) was in1990 during the Persian Gulf War, when the US and other countries launched Operation Desert Storm after Iraq invaded Kuwait. I’m not a good student of history, military operations, or MidEast politics, but I do remember how I felt with the notion of peace on earth beginning with each of us as individuals. I liked the idea because it took away some of the helplessness of being a citizen of a nation at war . . . or planning war . . . or debating decisions that affect war and peace. And here we are again, perhaps feeling helpless, or angry, or some other intense emotions because of what’s happening in the world or could happen soon.
How we deal with these emotions involves mind, heart, and spirit. When that’s our experience, I submit it’s a time to notice that a spiritual battle is also waging and to embrace healing and deliverance, as well as soulful creativity.
Creativity Can Heal.
In creativity, we have the opportunity for mind, heart and spirit to coalesce, to heal and center us by employing varied elements, expression, and processes that often take us to meaningfully depths. Visual art, the performance art of movement, music, tactile arts using ceramics or textiles, music, poetry—follow your own artistic inclinations as we make the Labor Day transition to the Fall, setting aside some time, even just a few minutes now and then, allowing your creativity to rise, to heal, to produce joy, to mourn, to express, led by your mind, your heart, and your spirit, and if you allow it, by the Spirit of God.
UNBOUND Heals.
Almost three years ago, I attended the 43rd annual Southern California Renewal Communities Convention at the Anaheim Convention Center with my spiritual brothers and sisters. We spent four days pursuing a ministry track called UNBOUND. Scripturally-based, UNBOUND’s mission is to love each person as God loves us and to serve God as instruments to set God’s people free in Jesus’s name. UNBOUND disciples of Christ are waging a spiritual battle, and I believe it is just as important, if not more important, than what’s happening in the MidEast. Darkness and evil are the oppressors; and I pray for Light (which has already won the victory on the cross) to shine forth. As for letting peace begin with me, I pray that I may be a channel of God’s peace and a sign of God’s love. Let peace AND FREEDOM begin with me in my heart, and with you in your heart, and in all of our hearts together. Are you with me? Note: This was originally written in 2014 for my blog, and yet it’s all still relevant, especially as our 5 Keys to Freedom in Christ ministry offering UNBOUND prayer is now in full swing at St. Dominic’s in San Francisco.
A Beautiful God-incidence.
I took a shuttle from that convention back to the airport with a woman who, like me, attended all the UNBOUND talks at the conversation. She introduced herself as “Lorelei from San Francisco,” and we had a nice conversation but didn’t exchange contact info. This past May (2017), Lorelei heard about UNBOUND Ministry training at St. Dominic’s—her parish for 15 years and now mine—and when we began emailing about it, we remembered each other, and are now on serving the same team. God rocks!
P.S. By the way, that year’s convention theme was “You are the Light of the World.” I only noticed that after I wrote this!
