This series of interviews and testimonies with our full-time staff is meant to encourage you in what God is calling thousands to across the globe: intercessory missions.

Perhaps you feel called to minister before the Lord and impact this generation with the Gospel as a vocation. Check out these interviews as you pray for direction!

Read all the interviews »

Interview With Intercessory Missionary, Karina O.

Where were you in life before taking the internship?

Before taking the internship, I was extremely passionate for the Lord but had little knowledge of Him or what to do with my zeal. I knew I wanted to encounter Him on a daily basis and operate out of a close relationship with Him, but I had no idea how to start.

Why did you take the internship?

One day I realized that the steps I needed to take required the first step of making a commitment to be consecrated before Him by taking the internship and joining staff in a full time capacity. When I realized I would be in the perfect environment every day to build closeness with Jesus, my heart leapt with joy!

What did God accomplish in your heart during the internship?

During my time of being an intern and staff, I confronted many false beliefs about God that I had unknowingly agreed with. I thought that He was just too hard to please, that He didn't care about how I felt, and that I had to fight to win His approval & affections. There were months that I felt myself striving through, while He was inviting me to rest and receive. The most important thing I learned about Him was that I can get to know Him the way I get to know anybody-- spending time with Him and spending my life speaking with Him. I didn't have to try so hard to achieve something when I was with Him, I just had to enjoy Him.

You had many classes during the internship. Which one was your favorite class, and why?

My favorite class during the Relentless Internship was the Song of Solomon class. I related so well with the Shulamite who had to tend to other vineyards before her own, yet Jesus wanted to draw her away from work to the ultimate "work" of loving Him. This bridal paradigm shapes my life each and every day.

Imagine what would your life have been like without taking the internship.

If I had never taken the internship, I know where I would be. I would be reaching for success in the world's eyes, trying to accomplish all of the things that would seem to make me happy. But I would feel the same desperate ache in my soul the way I had before the internship--- the one for relationship with Him that I had no knowledge of how to satisfy.

Has your life been impacted because of the internship?

Because I made the decision to take the internship and join staff, my life has been changed forever. I am confident that I know my Father in heaven, and how He feels so happy with me. I love His plans for my life! I have hours each day dedicated to encountering Him. I can join alongside a community of believers who live in this way too!

What course has your life taken since completing the internship?

Since the internship, I joined staff in a full-time capacity. I am dedicating this time in my life to be a strong foundation of growing close with Him, and I love it!

I want to allow you to speak to anyone reading this interview that may be considering the internship. What would you say to them?

I would recommend this internship to those who have great passion for the Lord but don't know what their first steps should be. No matter what path you feel eventually called to, take the 3-month season you are facing right now and dedicate it to Him. He will give you a strong foundation of confidence before Him and knowledge of who He is before He sends you out.

What is your current role at IHOP-TLH?

I am full-time staff at IHOP-TLH, a worship leader, and the Director of the Worship Teams.

This series of interviews and testimonies with our full-time staff is meant to encourage you in what God is calling thousands to across the globe: intercessory missions.

Perhaps you feel called to minister before the Lord and impact this generation with the Gospel as a vocation. Check out these interviews as you pray for direction!

Read all the interviews »

Interview With Intercessory Missionary, Evan O.

Where were you in life before taking the internship?

At the time -- I wasn’t fully aware of it -- but I was a mess living a very godless life. I was sincere in my desire to want to love God, but my life was full of pursuing other desires that contradicted my desire to love God.

What desires were you pursuing?

I wasted a lot of time hanging out with friends, online, and just generally wasting time. In retrospect, I know I was trying to pacify a longing that I now know was meant to be satisfied in God.

What was the turning point that made you decide to take the internship?

I saw other believers living a life of passionate love for God and for people, and I wanted to live that same lifestyle. Before that, I had only seen a very shallow Christianity: people who professed to love Jesus, but never really lived it. I was in that same group of people. God has been bringing me out of that mindset and daily calls me into living a life of surrender.

Name a few things God accomplished in your heart during the internship.

I took the internship in 2007. God began to speak to my heart that He really did love me, and even more impacting was that He liked me. God doesn’t just see us as His pitiful creation that screws everything up, but He greatly desires us to come to an understanding of how much He loves us. Even while we were enemies (completely against Him), Christ died for us (Rom. 7-10).

This series of interviews and testimonies with our full-time staff is meant to encourage you in what God is calling thousands to across the globe: intercessory missions.

Perhaps you feel called to minister before the Lord and impact this generation with the Gospel as a vocation. Check out these interviews as you pray for direction!

Read all the interviews »

Interview With Intercessory Missionary, Hannah K.

Before I took the Relentless internship I had just graduated from nursing school. I lived in another city and as I finished school, I felt God leading me to Tallahassee—which I assumed meant He wanted me to work as a nurse here in town! I was most definitely in a short and intense season of transition. Simultaneously, the Lord was awakening a serious hunger in my heart (I had reread Appointment in Jerusalem by Derek Prince) and I was very eager to learn how to pray. I heard that there was this place “IHOP” where people could come to pray—I was very curious!

What made you decide to take the internship?

Previously, one of the major motivators to press on while in school was to imagine myself as a confident, competent nurse. But now, that future began to leave me unhappy and in search of ‘more’ from my life. I wondered if there was a job where my title would be: Jesus’ Best Friend. It was all of these swirling changes that lead me to take the internship.

Name a few things God accomplished in your heart during the internship?

What a summer! I knew very little about myself and probably even less about God. I grew up in church but was full of false ideas about God’s heart and His love. Unfortunately, I was under the impression that God only loved us because He was a nice guy and was putting up with us ‘pathetic sinners’. But what joy I experienced as I began to believe that He likes us (even now, this truth amazes me) and enjoys our company. When this reality began to strike my heart, prayer became a joy, because I could approach God from a place of security and confidence, knowing He enjoys even the sound of my voice.

We just completed our second "Burn Weekend" of continuous worship and prayer for 24 hours -- this first weekend in November. We feel the Lord is releasing a unifying work in our region as individuals from many other churches and congregations are participating in the "incense ministry" of continually exalting Jesus through worship, prayer, and works of justice. You can watch some of the archived sets here.

One of the worship teams who traveled from various cities

These weekends hold significant impact as night and day prayer actually shifts the spiritual climate and sends "speedy" justice to a region, as Jesus taught in Luke 18. At our first Burn Weekend two young adults got saved within the first 3 hours! As the Lord builds His house we are praying for an increase in the "water level" of the Spirit!

"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." (2 Cor. 3:17)