God the Architect

  The Bible is the history of God taking men beyond themselves, of His building the church and leading men down paths they often didn't want to follow. The tabernacle was only built by divine help and guidance and David wasn't mans' choice for a king. The New Testament Church would have never chosen Paul for a leader, or picked persecu- tion as the best method of growth.
  The Prescott church learned to flow with what God was doing. The music group had touched a powerful response. It had evolved naturally, as a result of several young men's burdens. Pastor Mitchell didn't crank up the typical follow-up programs, camps, clubs and benefits, or Sunday schools so complex that one needed a doctorate in childology to run them. He just had church. He preached and trusted God to speak to those He wanted to use.
  God began to put desires into young men's hearts that would lead them to His goal. He closed some doors and opened others. Many of the things that were happening in the early days of the Prescott revival seemed insignificant, but would later prove to be vital.
  As the church experimented and Pastor Mitchell released the people, new concepts began to rise. Some ideas were good and are still in use, others have drifted into obscurity.
  Jack Harris had gotten Jim Terry saved, and the two became good friends. After work one day, as Jack was playing his guitar, the front door burst open and a body came rolling in. It was Ben Terry, Jim's brother. As he picked himself up off the floor, Jim came storming in, shouting, "You're going to listen to what this guy has to say." Jack started to witness and Ben started to listen.
  Later, Ben told his cousin about what had happened and asked Harris if he'd come to his house and share his testimony with some kids he knew.
  Jack said, "Sure!", and showed up to find twenty young kids waiting to hear him. He brought with him some rock albums by Jimi Hendrix, King Crimson, The Doors and others which he had marked at critical spots. He played cuts from these albums that showed what the modern generation believed, and related how that was what he'd believed until recently. From there he launched into his testimony and gave an altar call. Five people got saved that night.
  As a natural flow out of that experience, people began to get together to share the Word and to fellowship. This led to the founding of home Bible studies. Before long, these studies became outreach points to different areas in the Prescott Valley. Those who attended would show movies and have potlucks to reach people in their neighborhoods. It became a great tool for developing leaders and outreach. None of this came out of a programmed structure or even a book, but just naturally developed to meet the needs of people.

Preachers

  The whole concept of raising up preachers followed this same pattern. There was nothing said about anyone preaching, yet in these young men's hearts was a desire to be like Mitchell. Something rose up inside them that made them want to share the gospel like he did. They saw his vitality and craved it just as they had craved drugs and rock and roll. Mitchell made it clear that he wasn't just the result of his heredity, but that his strength was from God, and that if they sought God that same authority and purpose could be theirs. Some sought it and eventually began to find it.
  Mitchell didn't set up Wayman University. There were no special "evening Bible school" classes. These would have violated his concept of the church. He didn't believe in a special class of Christians that had mystic properties to bring redemption. To Pastor Mitchell, every believer was vital, needing time and training. The church became the Bible school. He preached sermons that challenged every member to do their absolute best. These sermons drove out the uncommitted, but it fed the hungry hearts that listened.
  There wasn't a special program; he just made his life available. He believed in the "radical" concept of being an example. While many were saying, "Don't look at me, look at Jesus," he saw this as a copout used by some to escape really living the Christian life. Paul had said, "Look at me, imitate me," not to take away from Christ, but to make Christ available to those of his generation. Mitchell lived his life as a pattern, and wasn't ashamed to have these young men do as he did.
  He went out of his way to help those who wanted to be helped. He stopped by people's houses, took the men to lunch, and over many a hamburger they laughed and discussed the future.
  Probably his most important decision was to put his trust in these young men. From the first he handled what went on in the church itself and allowed the men around him to handle the outreaches around town. He could have done a better job than any of those inexperienced young ministers did, but he could never liberate the church by playing the dictator and holding the reins too tight. This was where young men began to get practical experience in sharing the gospel and felt the pull of God's call to make this a total lifestyle.
  After outreaches, it was only natural that the conversation would drift towards the practical side of the task of reaching the city. These discussions were not from dry textbooks, but from observation of the realities of their lives. This was Jesus' method, demonstrating and explaining, answering questions that arose out of the natural flow of ministry.
  Mitchell wasn't turning the church over to the congregation. He never left any doubt that God had put him there to lead and not to be led. When disciples were given responsibility he made it clear that they must do their best. He threw real responsibility onto their weak shoulders and made them carry the load. If they failed, he helped them out, but he took a pound of flesh to compensate if their failure was due to their playing games with God.
  The band never forgot the night they were to play in a regular service and got the great idea of taking hands and praying before they went out. They ran and asked Mitchell to join them for this sacred moment, and he shocked their young senses when he snapped, "If you haven't prayed yet, it's too late." At first it shocked and even offended them, but they soon realized that the weight of responsibility was resting solely on them.
  Though Pastor Mitchell could be explosive at times, there was no doubt in these novice exhorters' minds that they deserved ten times the abuse they actually received.
  Pastor Mitchell had to have a redemptive heart. It's hard to see how Christ could have endured the young thugs, James and John, who went under the popular handle "Sons of Thunder". Who knows what inner reserves of grace He had to tap to deal with women of broken morals and disciples who were extremists? But He did, and if Jesus could, then so could Mitchell. He had to overlook much to bring confidence in these vessels of clay. There were young cocky punks just out of the local county jail, and others whose drug scarred emotions could send them from the heights of ecstasy to the depths of melancholy almost instantaneously. But Mitchell had been labeled and rejected, too. He knew how to instill a sense of worth and destiny.
  At the end of the music scene an altar call was always given. Often, Pastor Mitchell would lean over to a young man and tell him to "share" that night. Nothing was said about preaching, but that's what they did. With no intention of developing pastors, it started to become obvious that God was doing that very thing. At first Mitchell followed the denominational pattern. Not long after the church started moving, two young men expressed a desire to go to Bible college. Mitchell sent them off with his blessing. When Spring break came, these two who had left on-fire for God came back infected with the "institutional disease". The fire was banked and their hearts were cold. Like a horrible flashback, he remembered his own battles in school. He had no idea what to do, but he knew school wasn't the solution.

Gospel Stars

  The church had started following the same well marked trail others traveled in the Jesus People movement, but as time went on they fi.mnd God directing them down a more and more unique course. Just as the road toward education turned out to be a dead end, so did the roads leading toward gospel superstars and deeper truth.
  The Jesus People movement found much of its life and force in modern music. The generation of the 70's were bred to respond to guitar and drums, and for once the gospel wasn't ten years behind the times. Kids that hated the name of Jesus and the church began to open like flowers in Spring as musicians shared their same fears, aches, and hurts in a way that spoke to them. It wasn't a message of hate, destruction, and immorality like they heard on AM radio but an answer that came with hope and spoke of a Jesus who sounded alive and modern. At first all that motivated these artists was the sincere desire to express their joy and testimony in a contemporary style, but before long it became big business.
  Gospel groups were cutting albums and making tours. Something that had started simple was rapidly becoming unbelievably complex. The group, Eden, had been ready to cut an album with Electra Records just before they were saved, and their talents were as good or better than anything in the Christian music scene. As they played Christian concerts on the weekends and went on outreaches it was obvious they could be a big hit. There was life in their music. The lyrics were simple yet they uncovered the shallowness of sin. Kids were gripped by lightning speed guitar leads that gripped the hearts of every rock and roll junkie within hearing range.
  Don Matison had come out from Los Angeles and heard them. His excitement about the band was contagious. He set up a tour across the country. Here was the big time. It seemed like a great opportunity. Mitchell got behind the group and sold his car to buy a van they could travel in.
  The "gospel groupies" loved the guys from the start. Their hard rock beat was unique in Christian music at the time. It created a powerful forum for the message that was preached afterwards. At a concert in Illinois, they even saw a miracle. A girl was at the concert in a wheelchair, and when the last song finally died down she asked for an album. Somebody in the band casually said, "In the name of Jesus come out of the wheelchair and get it." Everyone was dumb-struck and ecstatic when she, by faith, stood up and walked over to claim her album.
  The only problem was, that while the people cheered, something unclean had started to come between the members of the band. Pride started to rise up, and divisions developed. These redeemed sinners necded the constant contact of a real church to maintain there spiritual equilibrium. They knew that they had made a mistake in leaving Prescott. They returned to find the coffeehouse in Prescott limping along without them.
  Mitchell made a critical decision. He took the group aside and challenged them to make a commitment to the church. He asked them if they were willing to give up their dreams of glory and dedicate their music as servants. From that point there would be no record albums or big money for playing the concert scene.
  These men made the quality decision to settle in and come under the discipline they needed. Prescott became their harvest field, and out of it came a solid foundation for God's work in their lives.

Illinois

  Ron Jones had been running the weekly Door scene. Twice on Friday and Saturday nights he would stand after the group played to cast the net for souls, and a catch always came in. As the flames of revival were fanned, so was his desire to go out and see the same thing happen in his own ministry. Jones was restless by nature, and Mitchell didn't know what to do with him. He went to Mitchell and told him that he felt he was called to be an evangelist. Pastor Mitchell didn't feel real good about it, but because he had no desire to dominate Ron, he let him go.
  Jones preached a Wednesday night service, received a love offering and headed out with his family. With a pickup truck and a trailer, they started moving from revival to revival. Those first meetings offered slim pickings. The churches that let him preach were barely surviving themselves, and about all he got was gas money to reach the next town and a few cans of food to put under the car seat. God showed up in the services, though, and they were filled with energy and hope.
  Jones and his family traveled like this for about six months. Then they drove into Creal Springs, Illinois. The Assembly of God church needed a pastor. It was a city that was just a dot on the Illinois road map, with a population of 900 (including cats and dogs), but Marie was expecting her second child and they figured that it was as good a place as any to stop for a few months until after she had the baby.
  Jones started preaching. His stay in Prescott had shown him what God could do. He'd touched the fire of God and brought a spark of it with him, trapped in his heart. Here was the power of impartation. Potatoes breed potatoes and dead churches breed a stifled gospel, but revival births revival. After seeing real revival, Jones would never be able to settle for anything less. He knew what God could do and wasn't willing to just have "church as usual". He began to pray desperately for God to move, and it was only a matter of weeks before a tremendous revival broke out in that little hole-in-the-wall town. People began to get saved in such a frenzy that Ron ended up sleeping in the church so he could be available to help sinners who came begging to be prayed for in the middle of the night.
  Outstanding things were happening. He was burdened for one old gambler who was notorious all over the area, and his feeling was that if this man could change, anyone could. Conviction was on Jones so heavy that he was unable to go to service one Sunday morning as he pleaded for this man's soul. The man was across town playing cards when all of a sudden he stumbled out from his friends and went to the house of Dion Thompson (a deacon in the church) and begged, "I've got to get saved!" The two of them went out into a field where the gambler broke down and repented.
  Word about the revival began to spread. One Baptist preacher had heard about it and got so mad that he preached that Sunday night against speaking in tongues. He came home after the service and sat uncomfortably in his easy chair. Looking over at his wife, he said, "I believe I've grieved the Holy Spirit tonight."
  The next morning the uneasy feeling had gotten worse, and he got a preacher friend to go with him to the church and pray. He was kneeling about three-quarters of the way back in the sanctuary when the Holy Spirit began to fill the place. He didn't know what to do, or what it was that he felt. One thought came to him; "run for the altar!" He parted the folding chairs like water. Running for his life, he dove for the front of the church, and like a baseball player stealing a base he slid into the altar speaking in tongues. His pastor friend was completely baffled. He'd never seen anything like it before. He ran up to his friend who was babbling away in what, to him, sounded like nonsense. One moment he was laughing and the next he was in tears. The other pastor did the only thing he could think of; He grabbed a glass of water and threw it in his friend's face. It never even registered on the man, he was to too gloriously soused in the Holy Ghost to notice a little water.
  The Creal Springs church throbbed with life. One of the girls who had gotten saved was married to one of the town's most infamous bikers. Jones had promised Connie Campbell that he would come and witness to her husband Joe. He arrived at their house scared to death. Joe's Harley was outside, intimidatingly parked near the door. He knew that Campbell was unpredictable, and had only gotten wilder since his wife got saved. Partying day and night, Campbell had even taken to carrying a gun. Word was that he was mad that his "old lady" had gotten religion. Jones entered the house to find him still asleep at 1:30 in the afternoon after a night of debauchery. Jones was ready to leave, but Connie begged him to stay long enough to wake Joe up. Awakened from a drunken stupor, he wasn't a very receptive audience, but just before Jones left, he asked Campbell if he would mind if he prayed for him.
  Joe figured that it wouldn't hurt him if this little skinny guy prayed for him over at the church and said, "Sure. I don't mind." Jones shocked both himself and Joe when he dropped to his knees and started to bombard Heaven, pleading, "God let this sinner get saved and start to love his wife!" Campbell was amazed. He couldn't forget seeing that preacher kneeling down in front of him calling out his name before God. It was a picture he couldn't shake. The next thing he knew he'd promised Jones that he would come out to church.
  He came several times to different services and felt each time there was something here he needed but he wasn't sure what to do. He had a feeling that Jones wanted him to do something, but Campbell was so ignorant of the gospel that he didn't know what Jones meant when he asked the congregation, "Who wants to get saved?"
  Campbell went to a revival Jones was preaching for Art Goddard in the nearby small town of Tams. When Ron gave the altar call, Art went to the back and practically dragged Joe to the front, where he insisted that he pray.
  Joe was sitting at home the next morning, wondering if anything had really happened, when some old friends of his stopped in. They said, "We heard you got religion. Is that true?" He took a minute to answer, then said, "I guess it is." As the words left his mouth the power of God hit him. The more he spoke, the more excited he got. When his friends finally left, he felt he had to go downtown and tell everyone. He went from building to building telling the world what Jesus could do for them. He thought he'd only spent an hour at it, until he noticed the sun starting to set and realized he'd spent the whole day preaching.
  It was only three days later that Joe was filled with the Holy Spirit at Ron's church. He was praying in the front when the whole chureh came to a hush waiting for God to speak. Joe began to feel a wind blowing on him. He wondered who had brought a fan into church and looked around, but couldn't see anything. He turned around to pray again and the wind began to blow harder. Everyone was waiting for one of the "old hands" to speak out a prophecy, when all of a sudden Joe's head snapped back and he shouted out, "Come out from the dead to among the living!" Jones was ecstatic that God had used this new convert. He was so excited that he jumped over the altar and ran around the building, jumping a pew as he returned to the front.

Rebellion

  The old saints were rising up against Jones just as they had against Mitchell. Some were mad at the revival; they felt that too many new people were coming in.
  Jones took Joe's prophesy as a confirmation of God's hand of blessing. He had Mitchell's touch of revival, but he also had his knack to stir up the uncommitted. The breaking point came when he had Larry Reed come in to preach. That little midwestern town had never seen or even dreamed of anyone like Reed. He came in wearing his pink half boots, along with an orange pastel coat and long hair that made him look like an Indian. This was too much for the old religious hands. Though people were coming into the church in droves, the deacons walked out.
  Jones was heartbroken. Nothing had prepared him for this, and in the confusion and hurt he quit. After loading his wife and kids on a plane, he and Larry drove back to Arizona. Jones was totally confused. He was filled with anger at these devils who couldn't see God's hand. He was thrown into despair when he realized that God had wanted him to stay and work things out. He tried to go back to Creal Springs and catch the revival again, but it was impossible. It was a heartbreaking trial. Marie, afraid for her family's future, gave Brother Mitchell a call telling him about the desperate situation they were in.
  Pastor Mitchell called Ron the next day and asked him to come back and work with him as head of outreach. It was a learning experience for both Ron and the Prescott church. It was becoming obvious that these young men wouldn't be able to just slip into the religious world. God's favor was on thenj, but they needed to be in closer contact with Prescott and find situations that supported them, instead of attacking.
  However hopeless it seemed, the fruit in Illinois wasn't totally lost. In future years God's plan would unfold. Joe Campbell entered the ministry, first in another organization, but finally as a part of the leadership of the fellowship. Many ministers have been touched by Campbell and brought in contact with Mitchell, and churches started all over Illinois and its neighboring states that are experiencing a tremendous move of the Spirit.
  One of Mitchell's unique marks has been his redeeming of those who found themselves in impossible situations. The religious world often functioned in a heartless manner, leaving those that had failed or panieked to spiritually die. Just like the axis powers in World War II, they had no respect for life. The Germans and Japanese sent out their pilots, and if they were shot down, they left them to drown or be taken prisoner. In contrast to this, America went to extraordinary lengths to save these men. At first this seemed foolish, but over time these rescued men gained an experience that the enemy pilots could never mateh and dominated the skies.
  In the same way, Mitchell saw that there was too much of an investment in these young men to just allow them to fail. He would go to extraordinary lengths to redeem a man, and over time it proved a policy of great foresight. It became a law for him; all discipline must be based in redemption.
  Almost every leading man in the fellowship has at some time needed to be helped through a difficult time. That willingness to help only sealed their loyalty more solidly to what God was doing.