Friends and Family,

It’s hard to believe that three months of Intro to IHOPKC Track 1 have passed! It has been a wonderful time of being refocused in the place of prayer and reignited with passion for Jesus and His purposes and plans in the Church and the world. I have been stirred by the diverse range of in-depth teachings at IHOPKC to go deeper in Bible study and really “own” at a heart level the beliefs to which I give lip service. I have a renewed desire to “eat the scroll” and be a mature student of the Word, and to be an anointed voice and not just an echo of what I’ve heard from this or that preacher.

This has been a busy time for Jay as well, as he began an iPhone app development job at Sporting Innovations in July! This is such an answer to prayer, as he only has an associate’s degree but was able to write a basic application for the interview and be hired with their commitment to train him. He’s getting paid to learn! On the weekends when I am busy with the internship, he is at home with work or teaching himself new programming languages. We are so thankful for this opportunity versus working through college or taking on hefty student loans!

Today was our first regular day of Track 2! There are significant differences between Track 1 and Track 2 as we continue in teachings and prayer room time, but are trained practically to lead small groups, lead “Harp and Bowl” prayer meetings, minister deliverance, and to be exposed to many “works of justice” ministries here, such as Hope City (the inner city soup kitchen and prayer room ministry), the Orphan Justice Center, praying with Exodus Cry (for the ending of human trafficking), evangelism outreaches, LIFE sieges praying for the ending of abortion, and ministering in the healing rooms and prophetic rooms. We will also be the primary ministry teams in the main services.

God has clearly led me to continue to Track 2 and provided the way financially, but no sooner have I begun but I am seeking Him for what comes afterwards...J My greatest desire is to join full-time staff at IHOPKC, serving on a worship team and in one of the other awesome ministries. I’ll know more after I get to do a little of most of them over these next three months and see what God places on my heart. If necessary, I will join part-time staff and seek part-time employment teaching or tutoring. I would love to be full-time for at least a season, but I put my trust in God that He will make my paths straight. 

Prayer Needs

1) Please join us as we continue to pray for my dad, Ron Schachner, for his healing from ALS/Lou Gehrig's disease.

2) Praise!!! Jay began as a junior app developer for Sporting Innovations two weeks after I began Intro! Pray for inspiration to make apps for the iPhone and iPad that glorify God and are successful!

Giving

My tuition for Track 2 is covered, praise God!!! :) However, we are about $200 short of our monthly budget, as well as in need of paying off several car repairs.  If you feel led to support us financially, you can make a tax-deductible contribution by writing a check to "IHOPKC" and attaching a sticky note with my name on it. (Please do not write my name in the memo):

1. Angie Stratton
   11332 Colorado Ave, Apt 339
   Kansas City, MO 64137

I would LOVE to hear what you are up to!  Feel free to comment or Facebook or e-mail me:

angiestratton@intern.ihopu.org

Love in Christ,

Angie and Jay

Missions and Prayer Movements Merge

Friends and Family in Christ,

I feel great excitement this week at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City.  God is doing what I believe is a historic event.  The IHOPKC leadership team is hosting 300 missions and church planting leaders from 120 different organizations for a three day “Call2All Congress”.  YWAM and Campus Crusade have come together to birth this vision, giving leadership as two of the largest missions organizations in the world.  There are a few major focuses: To connect strategically at a practical level to see the gospel of the kingdom go forth to every nation, people, tribe, and tongue; To empower communities, as prayer furnaces pop up throughout the world, to pray strategically for world evangelism and the fulfillment of the Great Commission in our generation, unto ultimately crying out as one voice for the return of Christ, “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come!’“; To empower leaders from the persecuted Chinese underground church to raise up a MILLION missionaries for the “Back to Jerusalem” movement, which is the vision to carry the gospel BACK across Asia and specifically reaching the Muslim nations such as Iran, which originally brought the Gospel to China!

            There has been a noticeable shift in intensity in the prayer room this week as we, the staff, interns, students, and greater IHOPKC family have been paving the way in prayer for God to impart vision this Thursday through Saturday and to unite across denominations and ministries and to do “above and beyond all” that the leaders who are coming can ask or imagine!  I feel so humbled and blessed to have these beautiful leaders from the thriving though terribly persecuted Chinese underground church here in our midst.  They will be staying here with YWAM and IHOPKC for three more months to be built up before they return at great risk to raise up the “Back to Jerusalem” missionaries.  I won’t risk endangering them more by naming names, but I will say that at least two of these leaders have impacted many in the Western church through a book written about their imprisonments and persecutions...and I will be here in the prayer room at the same time with them each morning for several hours!  So humbling.

            So I just wanted to share such exciting news, especially for someone like myself who feels equally called as a "musicianary" to both the prayer and the missions’ movements.  “On earth as it is in heaven....” we pray, so please join us over these next three days and three months.  My internship will be in the prayer room 8 hours today and 9 hours tomorrow covering them in prayer as they meet down the road. Unity commands a blessing, and I am anticipating great breakthrough from this step of unity on the part of 300 leaders.  We believe that our prayers and actions actually make a difference in the kingdom, as 2 Peter 3:12 says, “You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.”  There is a day in the heart of God when the Great Commission will be fulfilled.  Let it be in our generation!  Let us rise up in this hour as an army of laid down lovers to bring the gospel of the kingdom to all peoples, being built up to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13), until the Church in every nation is crying out with the Spirit, “Come Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:17)

           Three more days left of Intro Track 1!  Update from this experience to come!  They run us pretty hard, so it won't be till my 4 day break between Track 1 and Track 2 next week...Praise God, I get to do Track 2 right away!

Needs

    Prayer Needs

      1) Please join us as we continue to pray for my dad, Ron Schachner,  for his healing from ALS/Lou Gehrigs’s disease.


2) Pray for Jay as he masters iOS app development and seeks to transition to the tech industry. Pray for inspiration to make apps for the iphone and ipad that glorify God and are financially successful.

Giving

Cost of Track 1 (July-Sept) = 900

Cost of Track 2 (Sept-Dec) = 900

As I am not yet staff, contributions toward the internship are not tax-deductible.  (This will change after the internship begins.)  

If you feel led to support us financially, you can write a check it to:

  
  Angie Stratton                 

   11332 Colorado Ave, Apt 339        

   Kansas City, MO 64137

What is the Biblical Basis for Night and Day Prayer?

“...for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”  Isaiah 56:7

HE IS WORTHY. The angels, living creatures, and 24 elders around the throne of God—those who see Him best—worship Him day and night without ceasing.  Jesus taught us to pray, “Let your kingdom come...on earth as it is in heaven.”

GOD COMMANDED King David to institute 24/7 worship with 4,000 musicians and 288 singers whose primary occupation was ministering unto the LORD. Every time a king of Israel re-instituted Davidic worship the nation experienced revival and victory.  (David 1 Chr. 15-17; Solomon 2 Chr. 18:14-15; Jehoshaphat 2 Chr. 20:20-22, 28; Joash 2 Chr. 23-24; Hezekiah 2 Chr. 29-30; Josiah 2 Chr. 35; 
Ezra & Nehemiah Ezra 3:10, Neh. 12:28-47)

Prayer is God’s chosen tool to release REVIVAL and JUSTICE in the nations. (Joel 2:15-20; Acts 1:14, 4:31; Luke 18:7-8)

“And will not God bring about justice for His chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night?” Luke 18:7a

International House of Prayer-Kansas City

What is the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, and what do they do?

The heart of IHOP-KC is the prayer room where 24/7 worship and prayer have been unceasing since 1999.  Anyone is welcome to come, pray, read, journal, worship and intercede.  Many are students at the four-year Bible school, interns, or staff members.  Others are members of local churches, visitors of all kinds, or foreign missionaries in need of refreshing.  Many ministries have sprung up out of this environment of “onething” (Psalm 27:4). As we gaze on the beauty of God in the face of Jesus Christ, the things that burn on His heart begin to stir our hearts—whether it is justice for the oppressed, salvation for the lost, or healing for the broken.

IHOP is currently home to Exodus Cry, a human trafficking abolition ministry; Hope City, an inner city prayer room and soup kitchen; Hannah’s Dream Adoptions agency; Healing rooms; Strike Teams, which travel to foreign cities and partner with local churches for targeted prayer and fasting for breakthrough; and many other ministries.

For more information and a statement of faith, check out www.ihop.org For director Mike Bickle’s sermons and notes, go to www.mikebickle.org

June 2012 Update: Intro to IHOP internship

Thank you, friends and family, for your prayers and support over the years as I have participated in mission trips and training!  Two years ago when I returned from Mozambique, God called me to Kansas City to the International House of Prayer community.  I saw this as a training ground with plans to do an internship and hopefully join the prayer room staff for a season as a worship leader.  At the same time God brought my husband Jay into my life.  It was clear God’s immediate timing was more about pursuing a relationship with Jay than the internship for the time being.  Many of you were at our wedding on April 9^th, 2011!  J  Since then we have had a great first year, working and enjoying life together.  God provided a great job for me teaching 1^st-6^th grade Spanish at a very nice Kansas City, KS public elementary school, and a timely job for Jay doing maintenance at our apartment complex.

However, we believe the season has come for me to do the six-month internship, to be trained in the Word, ministry, worship and intercession. I look forward to going deeper in living understanding of the Word through prayer and a greater love for our Savior as I seek Him first.           

My objective is to join IHOP staff at least part-time upon completion of the internship.  Jay and I expect to be in Kansas City for the next several years.  However, we have a long-term vision to go to the nations, to reach unreached people groups with the gospel, to bring freedom to the oppressed such as victims of sex trafficking, to establish prayer communities, and ultimately hasten the return of Christ. J

Jay has a gifting and passion for technology and our hope is that his marketplace calling will help support us and foreign missions as well as be another mission field.  We can’t wait to see all that God has for our future!! 

Love and peace in Christ,

Angie and Jay Stratton

Who said this?

Here is your challenge: Read the quote below and tell me, who said this? Was it:

a) Leonardo da Vinci

b) George Washington

c) Jonathan Edwards

d) Napoleon Bonaparte


"I know men; and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a man. Superficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires, and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist. There is between Christianity and whatever religions the distance of infinity…

"Everything about Christ astonishes me. His spirit overawes me, and His will confounds me. Between Him and whoever else in the world there is no possible term of comparison. He is truly a being by Himself. His ideas and His sentiments, the truth which He announces, his manner of convincing, are not explained either by human organization or by the nature of things.

"The nearer I approach, the more carefully I examine, everything is above me; everything remains grand—of a grandeur which overpowers. His religion is a revelation from an intelligence which certainly is not that of man. There is there a profound originality which has created a series of words and of maxims before unknown. Jesus borrowed nothing from our science. One can absolutely find nowhere, but in Him alone, the imitation or the example of His life … I search in vain in history to find the similar to Jesus Christ, or anything which can approach the gospel. Neither history, nor humanity, nor the ages, nor nature, offer me anything with which I am able to compare it or to explain it. Here everything is extraordinary. The more I consider the gospel, the more I am assured that there is nothing there which is not beyond the march of events, and above the human mind."