In 2013 a small team felt the Lord was calling them to reach out to people groups that haven’t heard the gospel throughout Minneapolis by combining 24-hour worship and prayer and 24-hour outreach. At that outreach they experienced the book of Acts and saw many launched into a lifestyle of releasing the Kingdom of God. From that original outreach, movements in Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago and Kansas City were birthed. Now messengers who have been awakened in all of these cities are coming back to labor in the gospel with local churches until everyone in the Twin Cities has heard and have a real opportunity to surrender to the Lordship of Jesus.
Read the stories of the missionaries that were part of these early outreach expressions and find out why they are burning to see the Kingdom released 24/7 in the major cities of America.
Steven Uggen, Minneapolis, MN
15 years ago in Minneapolis, I had such a powerful encounter with the Holy Spirit that all I have wanted to do from that day forward was to help others to experience and know God personally. I started to share my faith with anyone who would listen and God began to teach me how to partner with Him to invite others into the Kingdom of God. A couple of years into the journey, the Lord challenged me to grow in boldness in sharing my faith and I felt led to join an evangelist named Jed Lindstrom who was leading a short-term mission trip into New York City. It was on this trip that God really poured out on me His burning heart for the lost and began breaking off layers of fear in my life. Not everyone is called to be a street evangelist, but street ministry provides a context for all believers to encounter God’s love and truth in action and to get free from fear so that they can actually reach out to their family, neighbors and coworkers relationally. If we can get them comfortable walking up to a complete stranger and sharing their testimony or the gospel after a few minutes of connecting, then it gets much easier to invite a coworker to coffee and turn the subject to Jesus and the Kingdom. Once they realize that God wants to break into our culture and encounter people, everything changes. Mission impossible becomes quite possible. I remember being in New York and realizing that I was there for the express purpose of sharing the gospel. Something shifted in my heart and I just started to see the people all around me in a different way. God would highlight people and I would just walk up and talk to them. For an entire week, I didn’t stop sharing the gospel with anyone God would put in front of me. I was amazed at how open people were to the things of God even in New York City where they have seen it all. So many people got to encounter God’s love and truth
And then suddenly it struck me, “Why would I ever stop living this way?” That trip changed me forever. We want other believers to experience the transformation of engaging in the Great Commandments (to love God and love people) and the Great Commission (to preach the gospel and make disciples). The Firebase Movement is about awakening the church to a different way of living – a lifestyle of daily intimacy and mission.
More24/7 KINGDOM
After that trip, God took me on a journey deeper into His heart. He began to show me that He was raising up entire ministries dedicated to night and day prayer and worship all over the world. I was intrigued with the idea and started to pursue God’s heart on this issue. I studied the Scriptures and discovered that David had implemented night and day worship and prayer; in 1 Chronicles 23:5, David hired 4,000 singers and musicians to engage in continuous worship before the Ark of the Covenant. While Israel has a sordid history of one leader following God and the next turning away, we can see a clear pattern of spiritual revival coming in conjunction with the re-establishment of Davidic worship. In Acts 15:16, the apostle James quotes a prophecy in Amos 9:11 that God intends to restore the tabernacle of David. Jesus taught us to pray God’s will on Earth as it is in Heaven. What is going on in heaven? Continuous worship. Psalm 22:3 tells us that God inhabits our praises. 24/7 worship creates a resting place for God that, in turn, changes the spiritual atmosphere of cities and nations. I experienced firsthand the power of combining night and day worship and prayer with missions when I was part of a leadership team on a mission trip to Sturgis, SD (a place where 500,000 motorcyclists converge on a town of 5,000). This ministry would wash about 1,000 motorcycles and pray for many every year, but generally never saw more than 3-5 people a year give their lives to the Lord. The year we actually implemented 24/7 prayer with worship over this outreach, they led 80 people in surrender to Jesus. That’s a 1,600% increase! God got my attention. We began to raise up continuous worship and prayer over all of our outreaches with remarkable and dramatic results. It was later that year that the Lord gave me a vision and spoke into my heart that He wanted me to be part of establishing a mission base dedicated to 24/7 worship, prayer and mission. The Firebase mandate was born. Eventually, I reached out to Hal Linhardt, the Director of Evangelism at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City and asked if we could do an experiment by combining night and day worship, prayer, and evangelism for three straight days. We also collaborated with the local YWAM base and took a busload of messengers from Minneapolis to do the first firebase outreach ever. Hundreds were saved over those three days, but even more than that, the believers were transformed. God’s anointing for outreach was so strong. We knew that God was starting something significant. Since then we have seen nearly 7,000 workers mobilized into outreaches across this nation in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Detroit, San Francisco, Dallas, Kansas City and most recently Chicago. Over 70,000 people have been engaged with the gospel in these cities. Love Twin Cities will be ten days straight of the citywide church coming together to engage the heart of God in worship and prayer and out of His presence to go forth and engage our culture with acts of love and the proclamation of gospel truth. Come and be part of history as we do together what we were made to do – know God and make Him known.
Cheryl Allen
I am the Director of the Pasadena International House of Prayer (PIHOP) and in 2014, we hosted the Firebase outreach Love L.A. That week of 24/7 intimacy and mission gave me a taste of the power of combining these core aspects of the ministry of Jesus.
I participated in an outreach that consisted of starting in the prayer room for several hours and then going into the city with a team to demonstrate and share the gospel. My mind was blown. Our team started right off praying for two women at a bus stop. One of them had a brace on her wrist and we prayed for healing. She was healed and then her friend received prayer. From there we entered a nearby laundromat and continued to share God’s love and truth and the Lord continued to open up doors for healing and salvation. We would finish ministering to someone and the next person would be waiting. It was like the book of Acts. Six people later (two who gave their lives to Jesus and 4 who were healed), we heard a knocking on the window. It was the woman who had been healed at the bus stop. She had called her friends and had them come to receive prayer from us. God’s love and power continued to be manifested. After those encounters, a woman walked by and the Holy Spirit nudged us to follow her as she walked right into a health care clinic. As soon as we walked in, a young woman in the waiting room began crying under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. We told her we had come to share the love of God, she said that she knew and that was why she was crying. She told us that she had left her family and God two years ago, and she couldn’t believe that God had sent us to reach out to her. The rest of the people in the waiting room were being impacted by what was happening, so I said if others wanted what was happening to her, to raise their hands and we would pray for them. Everyone but the woman who we followed into the clinic raised their hand. We began having church in the clinic and I began to realize that we can have church anywhere and that God wants to be revealed through us everywhere in our cities. All of this happened in only an hour!
Adam Hood
I have been uniting the church in San Francisco for night and day prayer and outreach since 2005. The first time I heard about the Firebase Movement in 2014, I decided to attend the outreach they were putting on in L.A. with the intention of supporting some friends that were leading it. It pleasantly blew every expectation I had out of the water! After participating, I knew God was starting to birth something grassroots and holistic – and I wanted the same fire to spark in my hometown. Love L.A. was a catalytic event that took everything that I had been sowing into the Spirit to the next level. I am so honored to be a part of this movement and I am convinced that these Firebase outreaches are one of the keys that God is using to unlock a Biblical, Spirit-led church reformation unto authentic, sustained revival. LET’S DO THIS!!!
Russell Wood
I remember it like it was yesterday, I received a phone call from some dear friends in Kansas City inviting me to be part of this crazy group of believers that wanted to combine 24/7 prayer, worship, and evangelism in Los Angeles. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it – this was something I had never heard of. What would that even look like?! When I finally arrived, a crazy thing happened. The closer I got to the firebase, it was like something inside of me was leaping! I began to understand why scripture recorded John as leaping in the womb the closer he was to Jesus.
As I walked into the prayer room, my heart began to beat in a different rhythm. What was going on reminded me of one thing…heaven! We pray, “On earth as it is in heaven” but actually seeing it fulfilled it was beyond words. I was literally seeing parts of Revelation 4 and 5 (continuous worship and prayer) coming to life alongside Hebrews 1 (where the messengers of the Lord are sent). As I sat there trying to take in everything happening around me, I began to notice some amazing things taking place on the sides of the room. As the worship and prayer continued, a large group of people came in the right side of the auditorium and filled into a room behind the stage to get briefed on the upcoming outreach details. Many were already weeping about what God was fixing to do through the gospel in different parts of the city. My attention then turned to the left side where I saw people coming out from the previous outreach’s debriefing. They were also weeping, but this time it was for what God had just done in their own hearts as they were activated into the Great Commission. This was enough to mark me! Normal Sunday morning church services weren’t going to cut it anymore. I began to cry out to God to do this in Dallas and Fort Worth. It was then I felt the call to start interning with The Firebase Movement in Minnesota through Love Twin Cities. After leading Love Dallas, I can honestly say that this event has changed the lives of those in the local body of Christ.
Aaron Jackson
The first time I experienced 24/7 intimacy and mission was when the Firebase Movement held Love L.A.; it made me realize that this was the kind of atmosphere that I wanted to live in. It wasn’t that I just wanted to live there, but that I was born to live there. My heart was completely set on fire, so much so that I didn’t want to sleep. And I wasn’t the only one. There were about 8 of us who stayed up for 48 hours. At the end of the two days, I looked at those people and I said, “How can I come love L.A. and not love my own city, Detroit?” In my heart I knew that Detroit needed 24/7 intimacy and mission. Now Love Detroit is an annual citywide outreach that was birthed out of The Lord’s heart for His church and for the lost.
Teresa Ashkinazi
There are times in your life when you know something has just happened that will impact and mark your life forever.
In October 2015, The Firebase Movement came to New York City and our church was fully engaged in Love New York. I remember when it had ended I said, “Lord this can not stop.” I soon discovered that many New Yorkers who had participated in this citywide outreach felt the same way. It moved me so much; to see people from all over the U.S. come to my city, sacrifice their time, and give of their finances to help us reach New York City with the gospel. During that week, close to 11,000 people had been engaged. What joy filled my heart! Seeds were sown, watered and many harvested. Over the next two years, with a heart filled with appreciation and a fresh vision for this kind of ministry to reach the lost in our nation, I participated in four short-term mission trips to other U.S. cities through The Firebase Movement. I saw the church happening outside the four walls. In Dairy Queen, CVS, parks, college campuses; Jesus was showing up everywhere through us and people were responding.
My husband and I have been in full time ministry for over 30 years. We have served as pastors in Louisiana, New York City, and as missionaries for Jews for Jesus. But something was different about this ministry. No longer was the work just for street evangelists and the young generation. It was the church fulfilling the Great Commission. Businessmen, housewives in their 50’s, young teens, even the shyest people were being awakened to love and were compelled to share their faith with total strangers. Today in 2018, I thank God that here in N.Y.C. it has not stopped and by His grace it never will. I am surrounded by a Love New York team that lives the lifestyle of intimacy and mission. Our joy is not only witnessing souls saved and set free, but seeing believers who were once bound by fear boldly preach the gospel and make disciples. Through The Firebase Movement, our hearts have been gripped for the millions who are perishing. We no longer wait for an outreach to happen. We are the outreach everyday – we are messengers of the gospel.
Olga Calvo
In 2014, I attended The Firebase Movement’s citywide outreach – Love L.A. – and I seemed to be at the right place at the right time when they asked me to join the leadership team in helping with administrative and operations task. I got to see the team “behind the scenes” – a group of people who worshipped the Lord extravagantly, with outpourings of His presence in our meetings. I would then go out on outreach and see the book of Acts before my very eyes – “easy” salvations, healings, deliverances – on EVERY outreach. I was gripped by seeing my two “loves,” prayer and evangelism, being given equal importance and bearing in this movement. I had never seen such a thing.
I have been on staff with the Firebase since 2014 in various roles, and in 2017 I had a meeting with Steven Uggen regarding the status of evangelism in Kansas City, the city where I live. I bemoaned the fact that there was not very much evangelism happening through the organization for which I work. Steven essentially responded, “Why don’t you do something about it?” implying to bringing the Firebase Movement to Kansas City. I laid out some prerequisites before the Lord that needed to be met for me to take on this role. The Lord MET EVERY ONE of them within a month. I was being invited by the Lord to bring the Firebase Movement to my city, Kansas City, and I said “yes.”
Daniel Jackson
I lead a non-profit organization to reach and transform cities called Awaken Ministries; I am also a city leader for the Firebase Movement. I’ve helped to establish Love Detroit and am currently pioneering and establishing Love Chicago.
The passion for transforming cities was birthed in me over 14 years ago as I traveled all over the U.S. and the world. Throughout my travels, I saw the need to awaken and empower believers to be equipped to reach their communities and fulfill their calling.
In 2014, God gave me the vision to start a ministry whose purpose was to awaken the ministry of the believer by equipping and empowering the Body of Christ to walk out the calling that God has given us all: To seek and save those who are lost and to fulfill the Great Commission by making disciples of all nations. Through awakening the ministry of the believer to walk out their calling, our cities will be transformed.
Now, by partnering with individuals, churches, organizations, and businesses my team and I are putting feet to the vision and seeing people and communities transformed.
I believe that what God is doing with the Firebase Movement in establishing 24/7 worship and prayer and 24/7 evangelism, is not only key to transforming our cities, it is at the very center of it. “We are evangelizing the church into the very heart of God where ministry comes out of a place of intimacy, not as an event, but as a lifestyle.”