“I love you, my son. I will answer your prayers.”

One evening after a class in seminary, guest lecturer and Vineyard pastor John Wimber offered to have a prayer session for anyone in the class who needed prayer. Even though I was a student, I was already serving as a minister to college students at a church and the ministry was not going as well as I had hoped. I had come under some criticism from collegians who wanted the program to be more social and less about discipleship. A church elder had also stood up in a Session retreat and publicly criticized my leadership. I was deeply discouraged, and when Pastor Wimber offered prayer, I went…