(Left) Cornerstone UMC (Covington, Wash.) featured training sessions by Mike Evans of Wholeness Ministries, followed by healing services for those who wished to be prayed over by Evans and members of the congregation. (Middle) Evans is on stage with Cornerstone’s Pastor Doug Waite. (Right) The lobby of Cornerstone UMC is decorated with an army jeep and camouflage netting as in the television show M*A*S*H.
Cornerstone’s Healing Service:
Local UMC congregation is learning to do – literally – what Jesus did
By Marc Kennedy Photos • Photos by Jan Hiatt
Walk into the front doors of Cornerstone UMC in Covington, Wash. and you’re transported back in time to the Korean War – camouflage netting, a full-size jeep and a greeter in combat fatigues welcomes you as you walk in. Enter into the sanctuary and you see sandbags on the stage, more netting, and the makings of an emergency medical unit. On the main screen is the acronym “M*A*S*H,” with a slightly altered subtitle – “Making a Spiritual Hospital.” This weekend is a healing weekend and they want to make sure you know it.
On Friday night, Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon, members of Cornerstone received training from Mike Evans. Evans is an international speaker, trainer, and author of “Learning to Do What Jesus Did: How to Pray for Physical, Emotional and Spiritual Healing.” Evans’ Wholeness Ministries, founded in 1989, is focused on training believers to fulfill the Great Commission by teaching them how to do what Jesus did. In Evans’ words this means, “Taking healing prayer out into the marketplace, where people are.”
Evans defies the stereotypical image of someone leading a healing ministry – no sequined suit, no shouting, no emotional appeal. In fact, Evans is so low-key as to almost seem unmoved by the miraculous things that seem to consistently accompany his prayers. By Evans’ own admission, he used to be very skeptical about the existence of modern-day miracles. But then God showed him a miracle that he couldn’t deny and he became motivated to learn how he could imitate Jesus more literally. Evans’ contained emotions may be due to the fact that he doesn’t claim to be a healer. “God is responsible for what happens. He is the healer. I only have to be obedient to pray,” Evans teaches from the stage.
Saturday night the church hosted a healing service where people could come to be prayed for not only by Mike Evans and his protégé, but by teams of congregation members who had attended the training earlier that day and the day before. Some of the people were invited to raise their hands based on maladies they brought with them that God had impressed on Evans to pray for specifically. Others came forward later to share their requests with the teams. Several people reported being healed from long-term illness.
On Sunday morning Evans spoke at both morning worship services at Cornerstone. During his message, one of the congregation members shared his experience of what had happened to him over the course of the weekend.
Tom, a dry-witted telecom professional in his 40’s who moved to the Seattle area from Philadelphia, came to the training Friday night with chronic back pain that had plagued him from childhood, making it painful for him to kneel or to stand for long periods of time. He was hoping for relief, but as he went to raise his hand for prayer on Friday, he says that he felt God “push my hand back down.” Tom’s eyes begin to well with tears as he relates how disappointed he was to not receive a healing touch from God that night. The same thing happened to him during the training on Saturday. Then Saturday night when Evans asked for people to come forward who had lower back pain Tom felt free to raise his hand and go forward, and with a little elbow-nudging from his wife, that’s what he did.
After he was prayed for, Tom felt no change. “I thought, ‘It didn’t work,’” Tom related, “So I sat back down.” As he sat, Tom suddenly felt a sensation like needles pricking his nerves first in his back then all over his body, and then he felt a weight pressing down on him. He felt the pain in his back disappear. Skeptically, he went to the restroom to see if he could get the pain to come back. As he bent and flexed his back he felt no pain. Still with tears in his eyes Tom shared, “I slept well last night on my expensive mattress for the first time.”
The Rev. Doug Waite, pastor of Cornerstone, believes that facilitating training of the kind that Mike Evans supplied is one of the main reasons God called him to that congregation. Waite’s vision is that the congregation would have prayer teams equipped to engage in prayer with power. “We’re really good at preaching the words of Jesus in this country. But Jesus wasn’t just about words. He was about power.”
Before becoming pastor of Cornerstone in January of this year, Rev. Waite served as a chaplain in the Navy for 30 years, achieving the rank of Captain before retiring to serve in a local church.
Mike Evans, the lead trainer for the weekend, is also the author of “Why Not Waste Time with God?”, a book about deepening your relationship with God and receiving spiritual renewal and refreshment. To learn more about Mike Evans or his ministry you can visit his website at www.wholeness.org.
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