John 16:13-14 But when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all Truth. For He will not speak on His own authority. But He will speak whatever He hears, and HE will tell you things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will from Me and will declare it to you.
One of the greatest pray-ers during the Charismatic Movement (1960-1985) and the Word of Faith Movement (1970 – 2005) was a man named Phillip Halverson. Brother Halverson grew up on a farm in Wisconsin and fell in love with Fern Pihl who lived 100 miles away in Minneapolis, MN. It wasn’t until he was married with children that his prayer life really began to develop. He was filled with the Holy Spirit where He spoke in tongues and began to interpret those tongues in small English phrases. Originally, English words coming out while he prayed in tongues was puzzling to him, but as the Holy Spirit mentored him and he yielded to these interpretations he would be blessed and confident the Lord was using him in prayer. Brother Halverson was so respected in the 1970s and 1980s he was asked by the Reverend Kenneth E. Hagin to be his personal pray-er and intercessor!
In the late 1970’s, he began praying for ‘Hammond Man’ in his tongue interpretations. He would have the Holy Spirit come upon him and began declaring ‘Hammond Man’, ‘Hammond Man’!! Brother Halverson was declaring things to come in the Spirit for this ‘Hammond Man.’ During the Secrets of Intercessions Conference in 1983, called together by Billye Brim, Brother Halverson was introduced for the first time to Mac and Lynne Hammond. Mac and Lynne were pastors of a new thriving church called the Living Word Christian Center (www.lwcc.org) in Brooklyn Park, MN. They started the church in late 1980 so Brother Halverson was praying and birthing this church body before the Hammonds were even sent to Minnesota. Brother Halverson finally had it confirmed who this ‘Hammond Man’ was he had been praying for – he realized he had helped birth the Church from the realm of prayer. Pastor Lynne Hammond has since inherited Brother Halverson’s prayer assignments. This Brother Halverson left the Earth in 1985 from the platform of Living Word during a time of prayer where he just fell out under the power of the Holy Spirit…what a way to go – no known cause of death they said.
This praying by Brother Halverson means so much to me because it was October 1, 1999 that God made this church my home church. I still remember sitting at a Pizza Hut in Lima, OH in late September and pondering my move and wondering what all God was doing in my life with this big change. The first week I was there Kenneth E. Hagin, who I wrote of earlier, was preaching a two-week Faith Conference and I enrolled in their Bible School, then called Living Word Bible Institute (or LWBI as we called it). It was my honor to have Brother Halverson’s wife, Fern, teach me a course called Spirit, Soul, and Body – or as she referred to it “Supernatural Living in a Natural World” in the Spring of 2000 A.D.
This church grew to 12,000 members by the 2000s. According to Dr. Billye Brim (https://billyebrim.org) , the Hammond’s church was strategically set through prayer in Minneapolis as a stronghold of prayer. Minneapolis is one of the central battlefields for the soul of the American nation, so strong soldiers of pray-ers have been set in Minneapolis. If you have never seen Brother Halverson move into intersession, watch this great intercessor in action at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUC4T3tB6L8. You can begin at the 40:45 mark through 100:15.
Recently, Pastor Lynne has come out with a confession to address this battlefield in 2022: https://www.lwcc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Confession_Lynne.pdf. And, as the Lord leads YOU, engage in this battle in your geographical area, don’t back down or back up, God needs His army to engage the adversary NOW!
Further Resources
Unseen Forces Beyond this World. Phillip & Fern Halverson.
Phillip & Fern Halverson. Secrets of Intercession, Session 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nSsMKLhKaQ&list=PLyTQ7pinMhROoNHBTsyqEXLW_PdXYT4_t&index=3
