Once I was ministering in another church where the meetings had begun Sunday morning and were scheduled to go through Wednesday night. We were having tremendous meetings, with evidence of repentance, healing and deliverance. The church had experienced a breakthrough in its finances. The attendance increased. But Tuesday evening before the service the pastor began to weep. “What is wrong?” I asked.

“John, I am not jealous of you. I just do not understand why I never see God move. I am filled with the Holy Spirit, yet none of the gifts of the Spirit operate in my services. No one is healed or delivered, and everything just seems so difficult.”

So I began to ask questions. It turned out there were two couples on his board who had both been filled with the Holy Spirit longer than he had. Because of this they told him what to do and how to run the church. I explained, “You’re intimidated by your own board. You need to step back into your God given-authority and tell them you are the pastor – not them.”

The next day he spoke with them. Both couples were upset and eventually left the church. The meetings were extended, and on the last evening a group of people came forward for prayer, but the Lord told me, “You are not to pray for these people. The pastor is.”

I looked at the pastor, and I could see the power of God all over him. “Pastor,” I said, “God says you are to pray for the people.”

He began to run through the midst of that group of people. He would merely touch them and they would collapse under the power of God. There were some who fell before he touched them. The power of God was so strong that they were affected even before he got to them.

One girl who was demon-possessed was gloriously delivered. Within a few minutes everyone in that group of people was on the floor being ministered to by the Holy Spirit! The pastor turned, took one look at me and fell over backward on the floor. His wife had to close the service. A half-hour later two men picked him up off the floor. That church was never the same.

The power of God in the pastor was inactive because of intimidation. The result was that the presence and power of God were rare in his church. After breaking the power of this intimidation, the gift of God was released.

Used with Permission. Bevere, John. Breaking Intidimation. Lake Mary: Charisma House, 1995, p. 77-78.