Practical Steps Toward Community Deliverance
                                                                                                             

                                                                                                                             by Bob Beckett


BOB BECKETT IS THE FOUNDING PASTOR OF THE DWELLING Place Family Church in Hemet, California. He began spiritually mapping his community in the 1970s and is now helping to coordinate Christian leaders in Southern California for extensive mapping projects. Bob is a member of the Spiritual Warfare Network and is in wide demand as a speaker on the subject of spiritual warfare.

In 1974, my wife Susan and I were asked to become directors for a minimum security juvenile facility owned by a large church based in Orange County, California.
The 360-acre facility was located in a remote community called San Jacinto in the desert southwest of Palm Springs. .
I will never forget wondering why the Lord would move us into the middle of nowhere. After all, I somewhat haughtily thought the Lord had called me to minister His Word and stand against darkness in some place of significance. Instead, here I was living in a remote retirement community almost as far from anything seemingly important or crucial to the Kingdom of God as one could get! At least this is how San Jacinto appeared to us in the natural. Little did I know at the time that I had moved into a stronghold of darkness for a major portion of the Southern California Inland Empire!

THE NAVEL OF THE EARTH?
Shortly after arriving on the facility we were to call home for the next three years, I learned from the former owner that the property had previously been used as a metaphysical retreat and training centre for Transcendental Meditation. During one of our first conversations, the former owner asked if I would be interested in visiting one of the "navels of the earth." At the time I was not sure I knew what he meant. But curiosity had a good grip on me, so off we went.
We proceeded to hike up a now dry streambed to a remote comer of the property nestled against the foothills. Along the way, he began to tell me how this was a very sacred location to those who were spiritually in tune with "the cosmos."
We finally stopped at the location of what was once the sight of a waterfall that had flowed year round. He carefully pointed out how the walls of the canyon had been scarred over the centuries by the water as it fell in a circular motion. He went on to explain that this location was a "navel" or vortex of the earth, a useful power center in training persons desiring to engage in upper levels of Transcendental Meditation.
One of their highest spiritual exercises for those at the TM retreat center would be to go to the waterfall any time the rains would fill the canyon. They would meditate at the vortex of the waterfall until the water no longer swirled in a clockwise motion, as water naturally does above the equator, but in reverse of its natural course. The waterfall was a key part of their training facility. My guide went on to point out that the walls of the canyon had been scarred over time in a clockwise motion, but the sand and earth of the dry streambed had clearly been marked in a counterclockwise motion.
All this was intriguing and mysterious, but I had a juvenile facility on my mind. I was not ready to debate the validity of all this and how it would ever relate to me. I must admit, however, that some time after our encounter I was puzzled why he felt so strongly about sharing all this with me. I now believe it was the Lord slowly nudging me in a direction I would never have gone on my own.

THREE POWER POINTS ON THE MAP
One day, not too long after my conversation with the previous owner, I was planning to hunt in our area. While browsing over a map, I casually marked down the location of the navel. I was interested to see that our property and the navel were adjacent to the local Indian reservation, which was reported to be active in traditional Indian shamanism.
Not long after this, a rumor began to circulate in town that Maharishi Yogi had purchased property in our community. I happened to notice that the rumored location was also adjacent to the local Indian reservation. Curiosity began to grip me now. Why would he purchase property in this quiet little community? On one occasion I spoke with someone who was working on the newly acquired property. When I asked him why the Yogi had chosen this specific location for his retreat facility, he said, "This area is very conducive to meditation and has a spiritual aura about it."
Though at the time I did not give a great deal of credence to such claims, I felt impressed also to mark this location on the same map. My map now showed three reported locations of spiritual activity: the navel, the Indian reservation and Maharishi Yogi's property, all adjacent to one another.

A BEAR HIDE WITH A BACKBONE
In my times of personal prayer, I began to have a recurring vision that would flash before me. It looked something like a bear hide laying on the floor. Each of the four comers of the hide was that of a leg area with the claws attached. The hide had no head, but appeared to have a backbone. Each time I would see this animal's hide it would be centered over our local mountain area. Each set of claws in the vision was embedded in specific locations, including the Hemet/San Jacinto valley. All the other cities were within a 30-mile radius of our community.
I should mention that I would never see this in a dream. It
was always while I was awake and almost always in times of prayer. Each time I would see this vision I vaguely felt it could have something to do with ruling spirits of darkness such as those referred to in Daniel 10, namely the prince of Persia and the prince of Greece.
During one prayer time, I felt strongly impressed to take a group of 12 church leaders to a specific cabin located in the mountains covered by this vision. By this time, Susan and I were pastoring a small church we had planted in the small city of Hemet. As I approached the elders and several other seasoned leaders in our congregation with my sense of direction from the Lord, they agreed to go with me to the cabin, which belonged to a woman in our church. We were to pray there until we broke the "backbone" of this ruling spirit and forced it to loose its spiritual grip upon the people living under its control.
God greatly encouraged me when I approached the woman who owned the cabin. I entered the store in town that she operated. When she saw me, she reached down behind the counter and tossed the keys of the cabin to me. Then she said, "In my prayer time this morning God told me you would come and I was to give you the keys!"
As we all gathered in the cabin the following Friday, I explained in detail this recurring vision and what I felt our purpose was on this mountain. I shared with the group that I thought we would all know when we had broken the back of this thing by hearing or feeling the breaking. Many hours of praying and agonizing and ministering to the Lord, we spontaneously began to sing, "There Is Power in the Blood." Each of us had been alerted by an immediate and gripping sense of
evil all around us. While singing that song we all felt it break! Many of us even heard an audible sound as if vertebrae were not exactly cracking, but popping or disjointing. The whole cabin physically shook!
A deep sense of relief came upon all of us as we drove down the mountain the next day. We did not understand exactly what we had done, nor what to expect as a result of our time together. Things, however, began to happen spiritually in our seemingly dull and sleepy little retirement community. We all sensed that something was different in our town.

THE LONESOME GODS

Many years later Peter and Doris Wagner came to visit, along with our old friends Cindy and Mike Jacobs. Up to that point, I had kept the well-worn map I had been making confidential. I had added several other power points including the huge, opulent, and well-fortified Church of Scientology Media Center and resort, which L. Ron Hubbard built. I had never said much about my map, because few in the Christian community had been talking about such things and I did not want to appear as if I were on the lunatic fringe. But Cindy encouraged me to show it to Peter and Doris, which I did with trepidation. Displaying such a thing to a seminary professor was somewhat intimidating.
I was greatly encouraged when I received total affirmation. Peter said that his contacts through the Spiritual Warfare Net- work had confirmed that doing such spiritual mapping was one of the strong new words the Holy Spirit seemed to be giving to the churches all over the world these days. He then confessed he was an avid reader of Louis L'Amour's frontier novels and asked me if I had read The Lonesome Gods (Bantam Books). He said the setting was located here in the San Jacinto region and it dealt with the early Indian legends. The next week I bought the book and read it. I was intrigued by the clear description of Taquitz, the ruling spirit of the San Jacinto mountain range.
You can imagine my amazement when I researched this further and discovered that the huge rock right behind the cabin in which we had prayed to break the backbone was none other than what was called Taquitz Peak!

DISCOVERING OUR COMMUNITY'S SPIRITUAL HERITAGE
I had kept the map to myself for 17 years, marking what I thought might be of some importance. During this same time, I became very interested in knowing more of the history of our community and its founding fathers. Often I would spend my days off hiking into remote areas and unexplored canyons, investigating caves and looking for old cabins and Indian relics. One canyon, known as Massacre Canyon, was the sight of the slaughter of the Soboba Indian tribe by another neighboring tribe, the Temeculas. Having some understanding of the scriptural basis for land defilement, I began to wonder if this incident and its location had any spiritual significance. I dutifully marked Massacre Canyon on my map.
Another important past event in the life of our community was an attempt by a local water company to drill a major water line through the foothills on the north side of our valley. This proved to be very significant. The water company miscalculated their drilling and tapped into the underground water table nourishing the whole area!
For 18 months water flowed unchecked. All efforts to stop the flow of water resulted in disastrous consequences. The cost was great, not only financially, but also in the loss of human life. Eventually, the water table for the entire valley and surrounding mountains deteriorated. The area would never be the same.
This explained why I would find abandoned citrus and poultry ranches high upon the hillsides on numerous excursions into the foothills. They seemingly flourished prior to the water drilling disaster. All had irrigation systems and large holding ponds for water, diverted from the streams that once flowed year-round. But after the drilling disaster, even the local Indian reservation had lost its abundant water supply and its agricultural base, sending the inhabitants into poverty. .
Many on the reservation today can still recall how infuriated the tribal council became over this. Their shamans cursed the white man's water company for the error. Matters were made worse when rumor had it that the water company was deliberately diverting the water and selling it to other water companies, secretly making no real attempt to stop the water flow, much less to compensate the Indians for their losses.
After locating the sight of the drilling on my map, I noticed it fell along the same range of foothills where the navel of the earth, the Indian reservation, Maharishi Yogi and the site of the Indian massacre were located! I knew this was somehow significant, but I was still unsure what to do with such information. So I continued to mark my map with findings I felt were affecting the spiritual heritage of our community. ~
At that same time, L. Ron Hubbard and the Church of Scientology moved into town. They had purchased on old country club located on a specific piece of property along the same range of foothills as the Massacre Canyon, the water line disaster, Yogi, the reservation and the navel. As a matter of fact, the place they purchased was called Massacre Canyon Inn. Some- thing was going on in this area and my map was beginning to make it very obvious. If I had not seen these things on a map I would probably never have made any association between these locations. But seeing them plotted on a map gave it all a coherent perspective.

UNANSWERED PRAYER FOR THE COMMUNITY
As I mentioned, I remained silent about the map and my suspicions, even though our congregation by this time was deeply committed to prayer and intercession early every weekday morning. In our church, The Dwelling Place Church, we would pray briefly over one need after another, hitting international and national issues as well as praying over individuals and community needs for our area. But all along there was a deep sense of frustration building in all of us who stood faithfully in prayer for our people and our community. This frustration came from a growing realization that in all honesty our prayers had not been very effective.
We had learned to pray effectively for people and we were seeing men and women freed from emotional, spiritual, financial and physical bondage. Many had been saved in The Dwelling Place Church because they had seen God's power in physical healing or had been delivered from demonic oppression.
Why were similar things not happening in our community? Why could it be that our prayers for people were answered but our prayers for Hemet and the surrounding area seemed ineffective? We looked to the north, the south, the east and the west ." from our church and saw little change. It seemed as if in some 11/ aspects our community was losing ground. Social conditions were deteriorating and we could sense encroaching darkness.
We felt we were being faithful and diligent, but to little avail.
As I agonized over this, I began mentally to walk through the approach we used for freeing people from demonic bondage. Would it be possible to apply these same principles in the social realm just as we do in the personal realm? Could it be that cities have a personality?
This led me to dig into the Scriptures and seek a biblical base for the concept of a city having a personality. If this premise turned out to be biblically valid, new steps might be taken to see our community as a community, not simply as people, delivered and set free.
Evil spirits, I knew, seek to control a personality or character. They find their entrance into a person's life through past sins, current sins, generational curses and iniquities, idolatry, victimization, trauma, forms of personal defilement and so forth. When a person's personality is defiled, the door is then opened to darkness in that personality, because Satan dwells in darkness. My search to confirm a city's personality led me to Jesus' comments in Matthew 11:20-24:

Then He began to upbraid the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent: "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you."

Here it is clear that Jesus is referring to a city's personal responsibility. Each city, it appears, is addressed as a personality having responsibility for its actions and its response to the gospel. Of course, Jesus is not saying that a city has an eternal soul, but He does refer to cities as corporate entities. He addresses each one directly by name.
Still desiring more biblical confirmation I searched the Word, studying cities and looking for any information that might lead me to uncover more truth in this area. Hebrews 11:10 says, "For he [Abraham] waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God." Abraham was looking for a city that had incorporated godly principles into its very foundation. The Greek word for "foundation" can also be translated "rudimentary principles and precepts." This speaks of a city's morals and ethics. So built within every city's walls is its character and personality!
I also discovered that this Greek word for foundation is the very same word Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 3:11,12 as he instructs the church regarding the foundation of human personality: "For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw." We began wondering what the foundations of our own city could have been built upon. Was it Jesus Christ? Is our community built with gold, silver and precious stones, or does it have some wood, hay and stubble? Sadly, we saw much wood, hay and stubble in the Hemet area.

COMMUNICATING WITH THE CITY
I began to believe that ministering deliverance to a city might indeed be possible. My community, as well as your community, can be thought of as having its own personality with very real spiritual foundations! A key would be to communicate with the city and, of course, this presents us with a unique challenge. How can we get our city to "speak" back to us as a per- son would? How can we get it to tell us about the things that have happened to its land? How has it been defiled and opened up to territorial spirits? Just how could I get my city to open up and talk to me?
Again, after prayer and searching the Word of God for answers I found a hint. "Call to Me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things, fenced in and hidden, which you do not know-do not distinguish and recognize, have knowledge of and understand" (Ter. 33:3, AMP, emphasis mine). This verse indicated that the hidden and unseen things, which I could not understand, could be important to the Lord. As we seek Him in prayer over these hidden things, we believe He is faithful and will answer us and show us these hidden truths. The Lord indicated that a key to dealing with the community would be to ask the same questions we would of a per- son seeking freedom from demonic oppression, and that He would lead us in the specifics of actually setting our city on the road to deliverance.
We now needed to find out how our city's spiritual foundations had been laid. What were the foundations made to? Where were the aches and pains located? What were the events that led up to bondage in the city? How does past history relate to current happenings? Is there occult involvement in my city? Has anything else played a role in leading up to my city's cur- rent spiritual, emotional or physical condition?
Little did I realize I had already been communicating with my city for nearly 19 years! A way to communicate or talk with a city is to study and research the city's history and heritage.
Could my mapping and historical knowledge of my city somehow be linked together to speak to me about the city's foundation-good and bad? As I began to pour through this information once again, I gradually began to see my community's spiritual personality emerge. It was somewhat like taking a jigsaw puzzle out of a box, dumping it all out on a table and watching piece after piece fall into place.

SCUD MISSILES AND SMART BOMBS
Suddenly I found myself looking at a picture of my city's personality as I had never seen it before. It was exciting to think we would now be able to minister deliverance and initiate the process that might bring spiritual freedom to our valley. Could this also be the missing element that our prayer and intercession was so desperately in need of? Had we really been hitting our targets in prayer or were we actually just praying around the need, in a vague and ineffective way.
I thought of the Scud missiles Saddam Hussein launched during the 1991 Gulf War. Even though these missiles were aimed in the right direction, and they did strike some vague tar- gets, their obvious lack of accuracy prevented the missiles from achieving their full destructive potential. I began to see that our prayer for our community was somewhat like the dictator's misguided missiles. We were striking out at the enemy but because of our lack of strategic information, we were incapable of isolating or discerning a specific target, aiming at it and hitting it. Now that we were beginning to accumulate strategic information on our city's personality (e.g., its heritage, foundation, spiritual background), we were able to form a strategic war plan and to strike precise targets. This was much like the smart bombs the allies aimed back at Saddam Hussein. Those of us who watched TV were amazed as these smart bombs were directed into specific doors, windows and air vents of buildings. But for any spiritual smart bombs to be that precise, some one must first gather reconnaissance information. An exploration of the area must first be done. For us, this means doing research, studying the land and the primary settlers, mapping and digging into the history of our city. Spiritual warfare, like conventional warfare, benefits greatly from accurate intelligence. Spiritual mapping has proved to be an effective tool for strategic intercession and strategic acts of intercession for our community. As I sat back and reviewed my years of information gathering, I realized I had intuitively plotted significant parts of my area's history onto my map. There, in front of me, was historical, physical and spiritual information. Little had I realized the significance this map would have in the years to come. This worn map proved to be invaluable in forming a strategy against territorial strongholds and spirits that had lodged themselves into our community. Once we, as a congregation, learned to communicate with our city's "personality," the results of our intercession escalated dramatically.

MAPPING A CITY
"What. then are the necessary steps for a pastor, lay person or congregation to begin spiritual mapping?

The City's History
First, research the history and the foundation of the community. Look for points of defilement, such as' bloodshed, broken contracts, broken covenants and racial prejudices that may have old city laws attached to them, which still remain on the books 'at city hall.
I had staff pouring over local history books, visiting muse- ums and sitting in our local library going through city documents. One of the interesting things we discovered was an old historical landmark located on the property of a local church in the community. This was a large archway the county had preserved and declared a historical landmark because one of the first high schools in the county had been built there.
The pastor of that local church is a close personal friend and we had both become very interested in the history of his church property and its possible relationship to this landmark. His research had uncovered some interesting information. His church and the historical landmark were located precisely on the site of the village of the Soboba Indians who, as I mentioned before, were massacred by the neighboring Temeculas. They began the slaughter in what is now San Jacinto and, as the warriors were fighting, the women and children fled from this village to Massacre Canyon where later they all met their death. Our research went on to reveal that since the church was founded in the early 1900s, every single pastor or pastor's family member had experienced a violent death, with the exception of the present pastor and the pastor prior to him. We could not help but wonder if the violence and bloodshed in the past had defiled that piece of land and given a foothold for a spirit of violent death to operate. We also thought this might help explain why that particular neighborhood had become the geo- graphical center for gang violence in the whole area.
When the pastor learned about the Indian bloodshed and the history of violent deaths among pastors, he called a meeting of his elders and intercessors. They engaged in a time of sincere intercession and deep repentance for their land and their church.
What happened? Less than two months later, gang members began to come to the Lord. At least one walked into the church during the Sunday service and said, "I want to be saved!" Another gang leader, his mother, and then the entire family came to Christ. Gang violence in the area has dropped since then, although it has not yet disappeared entirely.

"A vital area not to be overlooked in our desire to see our community freed from spiritual bondage is that of repentance and remitting the sins of communities."

The City's Personality
The second step we took in the spiritual mapping of our community was to research the formation of our city's personality. In other words, what was our city known for? Las Vegas is known for greed and gambling; Chicago for mob violence and San Francisco for its gay and lesbian strongholds. Our own community is known as a retirement community, a place where older people come to spend their last days in ease and then die.
In this second step of mapping, we searched out financial institutions and any businesses or buildings the city seemed to cluster around. We discovered that Hemet has the largest amounts of bank deposits per capita of any city in the United States. We located bars, pornographic theaters and drug centers.

The City's Cult Centers
The third step of our mapping process was to search out psychic, occult, New Age, metaphysical, holistic and cult centers. We took note of shrines, Mormon temples, New Age book stores and all churches and properties operated by cults. Along with this third step we searched out occult activity. We talked to high school kids involved in drugs and Satanism and we interviewed descendants of local Indian witch doctors. Many times vacant and abandoned houses are used for animal sacrifices and rituals, so these were checked out as well.

REPENTING FOR SOCIAL SINS
We were to learn that another vital area not to be overlooked in our desire to see our community freed from spiritual bondage was that of repentance and remitting the sins of communities. This topic is covered in more detail in John Dawson's book Taking Our Cities for God1 and in Cindy Jacob's book Possessing the Gates of the Enemy.2 In September 1991, Peter Wagner and Cindy Jacobs spoke during our church's Strategic Warfare Conference. At the conference we were able to put into practice this concept of repentance over our city, seeking God's forgiveness for social sins.
Upon Cindy's coaching, local Indians and a representative of the water company came together in front of the conference and publicly repented to each other for the misdeeds of the past. A local Methodist pastor stood on the platform with a Pentecostal pastor and each apologized for pride and divisive- ness between evangelicals and charismatics. Finally, a white man and an Indian stood face-to-face and repented over sins and hatred between the two races. As each of these repented one at a time, forgave each other, and then openly embraced each other, many in the conference wept aloud as years of division and hatred were broken in the spiritual realm. The principalities and powers received serious setbacks that evening.

PASTORAL COMMITMENT TO A TERRITORY
During my early days of prayer for my community and its people, I felt the Lord begin to stir within me a strong love for the land and its people. I had never seen myself anchored to this community. I always hoped in my heart that someday I would be off somewhere with a worldwide ministry of some sort. But the Lord began to show me that I could never begin to bring deliverance of any real and lasting significance to my own area if I was living here with my emotional and spiritual bags packed, always waiting for the day when the Lord would call me to a larger community with greater influence and significance.
Yet that is the very thing I was doing; I was always waiting for that "higher ca1l!" I realized that what I lacked was a territorial commitment. I feel that this turned out to be a key element toward initiating the deliverance of my city.
If my city would ever know true deliverance from its ruling spirits of religious apathy, financial stinginess, occult idolatry and the like, it would have to start with Christian leaders making a commitment to the people and the land. Someone like me needed to begin by unpacking their bags and setting aside their dream of a more exciting ministry in the future. Pastors, lay leaders and whole churches must join, taking long-term territorial responsibility for the land they are living in! Susan and I began by announcing to our congregation that we considered Hemet a lifetime call and by purchasing our cemetery plots.
A passage in Jeremiah speaks of a time when Israel's lead- ers ignored their responsibilities. "Many rulers have destroyed My vineyard, they have trodden My portion under foot; they have made My pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. They have made it desolate; desolate, it mourns to Me; the whole land is made desolate, because no one takes it to heart" Qer. 12:10,11, emphasis mine).
Our church began as never before to take our land to heart. One Sunday morning I felt the prompting of the Holy Spirit to take our whole congregation up on the side of a hill that over- looks the entire Hemet/San Jacinto valley. There we stood elbow to elbow, hands extended toward Hemet, for half an hour and interceded against the spiritual darkness that gripped our community.
One year my wife Susan felt the Lord instruct our church to enter the annual Hemet Christmas parade. We again dutifully obeyed, entered the parade, and marched down the main street of our city singing praises to Jesus with songs such as, "What a Mighty God We Serve" and "Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord." Last year our church entry had more than 450 people from our congregation participating in song, choreographed dance, flag carrying, banner holding and float sitting. We endeavored to minister to the people in our community through our entry,

I am convinced that when we learn to embrace our territorial commitment and assigned sphere of influence, and as we learn how to destroy strongholds and ruling principalities and powers over our communities, we will, city by city, begin to incorporate ourselves into God's final plan for our cities and nations.

and at the same time make a strong statement to the spirits of darkness. The response from the community has been tremendous; many people are committing themselves back into local churches and businesses are now donating money and materials to help us defray the cost of our entry. Last year the judges of the Christmas parade were also impressed and awarded our church entry the highest award-the Presidential Trophy. I share this not out of personal pride, but to show how an average congregation can really love a city and "take it to heart" as mentioned in Jeremiah.
I am convinced that when we learn to embrace our territorial commitment and assigned sphere of influence, and as we learn how to destroy strongholds and ruling principalities and powers over our communities, we will, city by city, begin to incorporate ourselves into God's final plan for our cities and Nations.

STAKING OUR CITY FOR GOD
Recently while praying about the increasing gang violence in our community, we felt the need to establish a prayer canopy over our city. We had prayed for a spiritual covering over our city previously but had never done anything quite as tangible as we felt the Lord leading us to do.
In prayer, I was drawn to Isaiah 33:20-23, a passage I had read many times, never feeling that this prophecy to Assyria had any direct connection with my ministry. This time I felt, however, that God wanted me to pay attention to the literal text and apply it to taking our city for God. It is important to have the Scripture before us as I explain:

Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feasts; Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a quiet habitation, A tabernacle that will not be taken down;
Not one of its stakes will ever be removed,
Nor will any of its cords be broken.

But there the majestic Lord will be for us A place of broad rivers and streams,
In which no galley with oars will sail, Nor majestic ships pass by

(For the Lord is our Judge, The Lord is our Lawgiver, The Lord is our King;
He will save us);

Your tackle is loosed,
They could not strengthen their mast,

They could not spread the sail.

I will be the first to recognize that this passage, in its historical context, has little to do with strategic-level spiritual warfare or taking a city for God. Nevertheless, we felt it was God's prophetic word for The Dwelling Place Church in Hemet, California, in 1991, so we set out to obey it and apply it as we sensed God's leading step-by-step.
Isaiah speaks of a tabernacle held down by a stake driven into the ground. The stake would never be removed. A stake in Hemet? As I continued in prayer, I sensed that the Lord was telling us to drive stakes into the ground. I had never heard of anyone else doing this, nor would I be surprised if no one else ever did it. But I knew in my spirit it would be right for us, particularly if the elders of the church agreed.
I called the elders together early one Sunday morning, explaining to them that I sensed the Lord was telling us to drive stakes into the ground in order to secure the spiritual canopy He wanted to spread over the city. We prayed together and as we did we felt of one mind in the Lord. We agreed to move out and take action in a way that might seem strange not only to our neighbors, but also to us. We decided to do it that very afternoon. One of the elders who had a woodworking shop volunteered to make the two-by-two oak stakes for us.
That morning in both services I shared with the congregation that we were going on another intercessory excursion, or what Kjell Sjoberg refers to in chapter 4 as a prophetic prayer action. "Come dressed casual and meet at the church at 4:30 P.M." I announced. We would break up into five groups. Four groups would accompany an elder with a stake to one of the four main entrances into our valley-all being highways. The fifth group would accompany my wife and me to the main intersection in the middle of town. At precisely 5:00 P.M., each elder would drive his stake into the ground as a memorial unto the Lord, and the resulting canopy of prayer would remain as our declaration of strategic intercessory warfare against the encroaching darkness.
At the same time, Susan and I, standing by the intersection in the center of town, would simultaneously lift up a praise offering unto the Lord as a center pole of the spiritual canopy. We would then return to the church for the normal 6:00 P.M. service at which time we would share our experience together with the whole group.
When directing each elder where to drive their respective stakes, I selected each location by my map. I asked the elder and the group that went to the northern side of the valley to drive their stake adjacent to Massacre Canyon and the Church of Scientology. On each stake was inscribed the Scripture from Isaiah 33:20-24.

Broad Rivers, Streams and Ships
Upon our return, the elder of the group that returned from the northern entrance had made a remarkable discovery. As they were reading the inscribed Scriptures out loud, they realized that Isaiah 33:21 spoke of the Lord being a place of "broad rivers and streams." One of the men noticed that immediately in front of them was the now dry San Jacinto riverbed and to their immediate left sat the now dry Massacre Canyon streambed. Both are now dry due to the water line disaster and the exploitation of the water company mentioned previously.
This would have been encouragement enough, but there was more. The passage specifically mentions ships with tackle, mast and sails. We live in a desert community, far from nautical objects. Nevertheless, the elder explained to the congregation that night that after they had driven the stake and on their way back to church, they passed by the headquarters of the Church of Scientology and to their amazement saw, on the Scientology grounds and up against the foothills, a huge full-scale replica of a three-masted schooner complete with tackle, masts and sails! We all broke out into a shout of praise to God at the realization of the incredible odds of finding all three of these together: the riverbed, the streambed, and a ship with tackle, mast and sails in the middle of the desert. Needless to say, we were greatly encouraged to press on in intercession for the deliverance of our community. We believed that the Lord Himself had graciously given us tangible signs that He was leading and directing our activities.
After this spiritual canopy was raised up, the flow of information regarding activity of darkness in our community dramatically increased. People seemed to come out of nowhere with information about old buildings, past misuse of land or a "friend of a friend" who knew of a witch holding meetings somewhere. We began to see immediate results from our new, accurate intercession through spiritual mapping.

New Life for the Church
The results of our strategic-level intercession and our prophetic prayer actions proved to have a dramatic effect on the life of our own congregation. In the past, if we were known for anything, we were known for church splits. We had experienced 5 splits in 18 years. Disunity is now a thing of the past. The warm spirit of love and harmony is drawing in new people and our church has been growing as never before.
For 15 years we had met in an old, partially refurbished drive-up dairy where my office was the creamery and separator room, and the nursery was the old freezer box. The upgrades had been few. We had struggled through many fund- raising programs in an effort to raise the much-needed finances to do the necessary remodeling just to meet the basic needs of the congregation.
Our congregational members were mostly blue-collar worker's and our financial ability never seemed to be quite enough to get us under way. The congregation, as well as the Leadership, felt helpless to change matters.
But something was now happening and it was truly the unmistakable hand of God. After entering into this level of intercession, our own congregation raised enough money in a period of only 18 months to build an entirely new children's facility (debt free). In that same period of time we completely remodeled the sanctuary (the old dairy). And the congregation doubled in size in less than a year's time!

New Hope for the Community
The result of this type of intercession and dealing with
strongholds of darkness has openly changed the spiritual face of our community. As many as 35 ministers in our city now work together for evangelism. They meet monthly for a time of prayer and support for one another. Churches share their resources such as copy machines, projectors and other office equipment. One church shares its children's ministries building each week with another church that is without a permanent meeting place. It is no longer uncommon to hear of pastors swapping pulpits with one another on Sunday mornings. One pastor invited the pastor of another church in our city to come to his church, dedicate his newly born daughter to the Lord before his congregation, and then stay to preach the morning service.
Recently 30 churches and ministries of the city came together for a 2-week tent revival. Every night of the revival a different pastor from the community preached and a different church provided the music. Each night, for 2 solid weeks, the tent was filled to capacity with members from congregations throughout our valley bringing their unsaved friends to hear the gospel. Many were saved, healed and delivered in this open show of unity by the corporate Body of Christ in our valley.
I have read in Jeremiah 9:3 how God's people at one time were not "valiant for the truth on the earth." We used to fit this description, but we are changing. I believe we will take our cities, one at a time, by becoming not only a "name and a praise and a glory" unto the Lord, but by stepping out from behind the confines of our church buildings, church activities, church pro- grams and church traditions, and literally becoming a people for the Lord who are valiant for the truth upon the earth!

REFLECTION QUESTIONS
1. Bob Beckett expresses his frustration because, although prayers for individual people were being answered, prayers for the community seemed ineffectual. Can you identify with this? What can be done about it?
2. Analyze the prayer meeting in the mountain cabin dealing with a "bear hide" in light of what we learned in Kjell Sjoberg's chapter on "prophetic prayer actions."
3. Jesus addressed cities as personalities. Do you think you could do this? Could it be done in corporate prayer meetings in your church?
4. How important do you think it is for a pastor to make a "territorial commitment"? Do you know any pastors who have made territorial commitments? Would they agree with Beckett?
5. Does Bob Beckett think that all of us ought to go out and drive stakes with Bible verses on them in the ground? Does it sound like something you and your friends would do?

Notes

1. John Dawson, Taking Our Cities for God (Lake Mary, FL: Creation House, 1989).
2. Cindy Jacobs, Possessing the Gates of the Enemy (Tarrytown, NY: Chosen Books, 1991).