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Jen Rhynard

7/29/2019

I get to share my experience in attending the Encounter the Holy Spirit nights and how the healing process of my back started after being prayed over and receiving something more from the Holy Spirit than I could ever imagine. I am Jen Rhynard and have been raised a proud Fowler Eagle. I married my high school sweetheart, Chad Rhynard, 12 years ago and together we have one child, Caleb, who will be starting the fourth grade in the fall. We were blessed with this amazing kid who honestly has had a huge part in me jump starting my stalled relationship with God. Caleb has been interested in religious education from his very first class and for that I am very thankful for our religious education program here at MHT. Because of Caleb’s interest in educating himself on what being a Catholic means, has made my interest begin to regrow as well.

My relationship with God has its ups and downs. Being born and raised Catholic, I followed the same traditions that many Fowler graduates partake in. I went to weekend masses, prayed before meals, attended religion classes throughout high school so, I thought I was all set in my spiritual life. Once I was an adult on my own, I put God last to a lot of things. I always knew God was there when I needed him and felt like my relationship with God was more personal, so I didn’t see the value in going to church every Sunday. So, I didn’t go. Life continued to get busier and my relationship with God continued to become less and less of a priority. As time went on, I got to the point where I didn’t know how to be happy with the positive things in my life. Whether it be interactions with friends, connection with my family, or a moment of clarity in my faith, I didn’t know how to be happy with all the good things happening in my life. It was as if I had built an emotional wall.

So that’s when I started my journey to find some tools that would help break down this wall. It was clear to me at this point that I needed to make some changes in order to grow my relationship with God and begin to once again find happiness. Previously to this moment I wasn’t one to attend events outside of the weekend masses that the Church had to offer on a regular basis. I figured the Holy Spirit Encounterwas a good way to begin rebuilding my relationship with God, and upon arriving to the church, I immediately felt out of place. As I sat listening to people’s testimonies, I took note of the amount of people that were in the Church. It was a powerful moment to see all the different ages in attendance, all trying to strengthen their relationship with God. This brought a sense of inspiration over me that I needed to feel. The sense of belonging put my anxiousness at ease, and I was able to truly listen with an open heart, surrendering myself to the Holy Spirit. Father Dennis asked if anyone needed physical healing of the back. I opened myself up and raised my hand. A couple weeks prior I hurt my lower back and was trying everything to relieve the pain and pressure, but nothing was working. I kept saying I feel like I just need to stretch my lower back but couldn’t. The next thing I knew with my hand raised was a small group of people surrounding me who wanted to pray over me. Standing in the middle of this group of people and I can still remember this feeling starting from the top of my shoulders to my lower back, it was the most relaxed feeling I felt in a long time. After the prayer was over, I moved around a little bit and got the biggest smile on my face with a tear in my eye because it felt like my back was stretched. I kept saying, how could my back feel this good with just standing there, the people around me responded the Holy Spirit is working. I was in complete awe and hugged each of them and thanked them as my belief reached a whole new level.

I remembered Father Dennis saying that what we think we need or want, may not be what the Holy Spirit is guiding us to. This struck me at that moment and has continued to guide me in my life. Recently my grandfather passed away, who was the rock to our family. Over the last few months our family grew closer as his health began to deteriorate. In his last week our entire family came together a couple nights prior to him passing and we all prayed out loud together. I witnessed the love from a 61-year-old marriage start to take a different form and the words “I love you” shared between a father and his children. It may be easier to hide our feelings as we may feel embarrassed or don’t know how to show them, but I was a witness to the Holy Spirit working within my family. I witnessed people communicating their love for each other, and putting their faith in the Lord, unlike any other time. This brought me joy in a time where in the past I may not have recognized it. I may have been embarrassed to pray out loud in the past, but I felt as though I was able to recognize the Holy Spirit working. I realized how important my family was and I was right where I was supposed to be, with the people I was supposed to be with, doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing.

I am able to see that attending the Holy Spirit Encounter was the beginning of my journey in repairing my relationship with God and has rejuvenated my efforts to continue to grow going forward. All these events have moved me to make more meaningful connections with other people who openly share their journey in life. These Holy Spirit Encounter nights are a time where you can come to have a peaceful time with the Holy Spirit. For those people who may be skeptical about going, it’s a great starting point to begin growing a deeper relationship with God. I know I still have a lot of work ahead of me in my relationship with God and some days are harder than others, but I remain committed to improving this aspect of life, as I know this will lead to improvement in all other aspects of my life. No matter where you are at in your journey of faith, I highly recommend you can come to next Holy Spirit Encounter at the Parish Festival , as we all can learn from one another and help each other grow.

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Corey Luna

7/23/2019

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I was in a packed pew at St. Mary’s in Westphalia. The church was getting more and more crowded and I was getting more and more nervous. I was coming to Father Mathias’s healing service with a longing for inner healing, but I didn’t come with the expectation that it was going to happen. At that point in my life, I had been praying with people for inner healing for a couple of years. I believed other people could be healed, but I had started to doubt in the Father’s desire to heal my own brokenness. Father Mathias spoke specifically on a reading from the Gospel of Luke,

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Once he read that gospel reading I automatically thought, “I do believe that God would give me a snake or a scorpion.” Right then and there God the Father had brought revelation into my mind. He pointed out the obstacle that had separated me from Him. The obstacle was that I didn’t think that I was worthy of receiving healing. I believed the lie that other people must be deserving, that that’s why their prayers were being answered and mine had not been. During the rest of that healing service, instead of letting the Lord breakthrough that mentality, I decided to hang onto the lie of my unworthiness. I sat watching, in hopelessness and self-pity, while others were being excited by the Holy Spirit’s healing and love. I knew in my mind what everyone said about God being merciful and loving, but in my heart all I could see was the “evidence”. I thought of my sin and brokenness and felt that nothing could overcome them.

Although I thought God wasn’t working during this event, He ended up highlighting a lot of things for me. The biggest things he highlighted was the lies I believed about myself. “I’m not good enough to be healed”, “My sin and brokenness is too big for God”, “I have to deserve God the Father’s love”. All of those things are obvious LIES that the evil one was using. In this moment though, I was falling into one of the biggest traps in the Christian life, which is a performance-based mentality. This mentality/obstacle in my prayer life was that my worth is based off of what I do. So every sin and bad thing that I had ever done defined me in front of God. This mindset is pretty common, especially in our own community. We believe we have to work hard and build our reputation and that defines us. In the Christian lifestyle this isn’t what should define us.

Our identity and worth is not determined by what we do. It’s determined by who we are. We are all adopted by a heavenly Father. He has made us as his sons and daughters and nothing we do can strip that core identity from us. As God’s children, living in this identity and reality is so important for our prayer life and relationship with God. When we are able to recognize God as a loving Father and recognize ourselves as his beloved Children then we are more able to live free and open to receive his Spirit.

This identity that God has given us, is so important that it’s the first thing that Satan attacked in the garden of Eden.

“The serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

The lie that the enemy gave Eve was “You will be like God”. In eating the fruit from the tree of Good and Evil, Eve tried to earn her worth which led to sin and death. She was ALREADY made in God’s image and had access to all he had. She tried to achieve in performance what she already had in her identity.

If our prayer is rooted in performance (which it often can be), our prayer ends up being rooted in death. What that death looked like for me was avoiding prayer because I had committed a mortal sin earlier that week and didn’t feel like I was worthy enough to go back to the Father. I literally wouldn’t even pray because of this mindset. I thought I had to fix myself and then come to God, instead of coming to God in my identity and letting him transform me. What this could look like for you is you thinking about going to a Holy Spirit Encounter and then not going because of believing the lie that it’s only for “holy people”, or you go to pray and only feel anxiety because no one ever taught you to pray and you don’t think you are doing it the right way.

Jesus didn’t die on the cross so that we could earn our relationship with God the Father. He died on the cross so that we could have the same relationship with the Father that he has. He died so we could have the SAME intimacy that he had with the Father. That gift isd what is available to us, and when I came across this idea at an Encounter Conference two years ago, so many instances in my own spiritual life (like the healing service above) made sense to me. All of those past instances of hopelessness or despair could have been different if I had just rejected that lie that I wasn’t worthy and accepted my true identity. I don’t know the moment where my heart changed, whether it was sometime during the conference or the weeks afterward, but I suddenly felt like I was on the same team as God. That instead of feeling like nothing I ever wanted or hoped for in prayer was going to be received, suddenly I felt that my connection to God had power and that we really were working together because He made me worthy in my identity. It was such a subtle transformation, but it truly has changed my life.

If you have felt similar things and think you are in this “performance mentality”, then take this moment to pray for transformation. Ask the Father simply for the grace to see yourself the way he sees you. He sees all the goodness in you and will meet you in prayer, because he truly loves every aspect of you and wants to provide for you like a Father does.

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Andrea Schneider

7/15/2019

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Our Adult Retreat and the Holy Spirit Encounter Evenings are two of our biggest and most powerful events in adult ministry here at MHT. So much growth, healing, and transformation has happened at these events in the last couple years. I see a lot of similarities in these two events. Both are encounter opportunities. They provide an opportunity to meet God, to spend time with Him, and to grow in relationship with Him. The focus of both is to share God’s love and mercy with those who attend. God desires to shower all his children with love and to bring healing and freedom from sin and sickness. That is why we have had such a shift in ministry and provide opportunities for prayer teams at so many of our events. As a staff, we’ve seen the beautiful impact of Holy Spirit Encounters, which are just a couple hours long. Because of that, we’re especially passionate about our Adult Retreat, which allots a whole weekend for encountering God and experiencing transformation. Throughout this article I will describe some of the retreat’s structure and dynamics, as well as share with you testimonies from past retreat attendees, because they capture and summarize the retreat so beautifully.

What I love most about our adult retreat is that everyone who comes gets to experience God! Holy Hours and the Holy Spirit Encounters are great, but there is something special about getting away for the weekend and spending time with God and other parishioners. It really is so good for the soul and I personally am always filled after these weekends.

“I thought the whole experience was amazing and I am so thankful that I was able to go on this retreat. Thank you all for giving us these beautiful opportunities!”

The pace of the weekend is very intentional. We don’t want to throw too much at people and leave them feeling overwhelmed, but we also want to challenge people. Our goal is to encourage them to step out in faith, trust God more, and hand over our worries and fears. We want people to experience the Father’s love!

“I thought the retreats pace was great and there was plenty of time to pray, relax or visit with others on the retreat.”

When asked what do you think was the most meaningful part of the retreat, the majority of the answers are usually Adoration, prayer teams, and people’s testimonies. Having time for confession, Adoration, and prayer teams are a pivotal part of the weekend. We end both nights spending time with the Lord. Friday night we try to settle ourselves in, to get rid of the stress and distractions of everyday life. This allows us to hand over any of our worries and fears and just trust God and his plan for us for the weekend. By Saturday night, people are more comfortable and the excitement going into Adoration that night is amazing! It's in those quiet moments where God shares his heart. Then we get to add the weekend in Mass together Sunday morning!

“AMAZING! The prayer teams were phenomenal in allowing the Holy Spirit to work through them! The music was beautiful!”

“Prayer teams were the highlight of the weekend experience.”

“The Lord’s presence is all I need.”

I really want to encourage everyone to prayerful consider attending our next adult retreat on September 27-29 at the DeWitt retreat center. These retreats can be so life changing! This weekend is what you make of it. God desires time with his children, and these retreats are really for everyone. We strongly feel like God is calling people to this next retreat: people who are struggling, who are looking for a break, who may feel lost, disconnected, or who are searching for more. Come and experience God’s love!

“Thank you for making these such a priority in our Parish! Don’t know what I would do without them! They always seem to come when I need them most & fill me backup with what I need to get through until the next one!”

“Powerful, amazing, indescribable, wow - not sure how else to describe it!”

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Corey Luna

7/11/2019

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In the next couple of weeks our youth group will set out to serve in the community of Flint for a week with other youth from around the lansing diocese. I have been involved with this week since I was a sophomore in college and there has always been a special dynamic to this week that I have always loved and our high school students have been attracted to.

The vision for this week is part service week and part retreat. We go to a variety of non-profits around the flint area in the mornings and afternoons (from food pantries to neighborhood clean-up). We split up into small groups and during our work with these non-profits, each group gets a chance to really meet people, work alongside them, and try to get an understanding of how to love the poor in these different situations. Then after about 6 hours of work, we transition to the retreat part of the day. This is always the exciting part for me!

During these evening sessions, we really get a chance to merge the actions of our day with the movements of our heart. Which is extremely important when we are acting in charity! There are so many times in which charity work is done to make ourselves feel like we did something good and to affirm that we are good people. That isn’t a completely bad thing, but feeling good after doing a charitable act should be a by-product of the action not the main reason we help people. Reaching out and serving others needs to be centered in our personal relationship with Christ. When we can connect those actions to this personal relationship, we start to love the people that we are serving more and we can start to see them differently.

I remember during my first year bringing kids on this week, I had one student that was brutally honest about some parts of their week. She said that at first she was kind of disgusted with the people we were working for. That she was kind of scared of them and also judged them a lot. Although this was her initial reaction, she then said that her heart changed throughout the week and she was able to start seeing them as real people. She said she could see herself in some of them and also see Christ in them. I was actually at her work site, and got to see this switch throughout the week. She went from keeping a distance, to knowing most of the people we were with by name. Her switch in thinking was such a beautiful transformation of perspective that was only possible in contemplating the service during the retreat part of the evening.

I have seen many different powerful moments of transformation like that one above in this service week. When we are truly able to gain God the Father’s heart for other people, we change and the environment around us can also change. Having these sorts of deep changes of heart for our youth is so valuable, and I see how they get to come back and have even more love for those around them! That sort of transformation is completely priceless, and I am so excited to see how the Lord is going to work with our current 27 students who are ready to dive into the week! Please keep us in your prayers for the week of July 21st-27th!!

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Andrea Schneider

7/2/2019

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How do we hear God’s voice? The simple answer is relationship. We were designed to live in communion with God. Adam and Eve got to encounter God in a very real way, they walked and talked with God daily. “Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day,” Genesis 3:8 Our prayer life doesn’t need to look any different. We lack nothing, we have everything it takes to have a relationship with God.  We are all his sons and daughters and because of that we have access to our Father’s heart! The time we spend in prayer is precious insight into God’s heart. The more time we spend with God, the more we become like him. We start to be transformed and desire to know and do God’s will. The Father’s plan flows from His heart. If we are to know his plan we must know his heart, which is love.

“He who belongs to God hears what God says” - Jn 8:47 Most of my prayer life I don’t think I actually believed this. I thought God spoke to ultra holy people. He obviously spoke to different people in the bible and saints, but I wasn’t like those people. I was too ordinary. My prayer life consisted of more formal prayers like the Our Father or Hail Mary. I spoke to God when I had petitions on my heart, or needed something. I had my own agenda and prayer was definitely driven by me, not God. I was selfish in prayer, it was very one sided. I did all the talking. The idea that God desires to talk to me was foreign. Gradually my idea of prayer changed, and so did my style. I would slowly add quiet time into my prayer, and it was so strange at first. I spent more time worried about if I was praying right, then actually having my heart in prayer and speaking to God. With time and practice prayer became more of a conversation and it started to feel like I had a friendship with God. My prayer life was progressing, but I still didn’t fully understand what it meant to hear God in prayer.

I attended the Encounter Conference in January they spoke about how God reveals who he is to us in prayer. God speaks to us all uniquely and in different ways. We see God’s heart through signs, pictures, art, and images. We feel God’s heart through other people, our senses, and nature. We hear God’s heart. This can be internally, like when something or someone is placed on our hearts or externally, like in a whisper.

So how do we know what we receive in prayer is from God and not ourselves? We need to again remind ourselves of the truth that God wants to speak to us, and is constantly trying to encounter us. So we should pay attention to what comes up in prayer. There are 3 voices that we may be hearing. God’s voice, Satan’s voice, and our voice.

God’ voice: speaks TRUTH, brings peace
Satan’s voice: lies, scares, tricks you, confuses you
Our voice: focuses on me, my needs, desires, comforts

Discernment on what voice we are hearing is done in prayer and it takes lots of practice! Pay attention to how your feeling when in prayer. Often times when I’m in prayer and asking the Lord for guidance. I say a prayer like “Lord help quiet my mind and heart so I can better hear your voice” or “Lord help me to be aware of how your working in my life.” Then I sit quietly and listen. Pay attention to what thoughts are coming to mind and how am feeling. It’s okay to ask God for clarification, or to better explain something to you. “Lord I’m feeling really torn about what I desire and what you desire, please give me understanding.” It can be confusing, so if you are unsure about who’s voice you are listening to, seek guidance. The staff is always available to meet up and talk things through. It can be really helpful to get another persons perspective on a situation. I really want to encourage you to be patient with God and yourself as you learn how to better communicate and speak with God.

God Bless,
Andrea

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