Randy Clark: Power to Heal

Randy Clark, Power to Heal: Keys to Activating God’s Healing Power in Your Life (Shippensberg: Destiny Image, 2015), 248 pages.

The Rev. Dr. Randy Clark, one of the most important and influential figures of the present Pentecostal/charismatic movement, has just published his latest book, Power to Heal. It is a significant work as it encapsulates over four decades of experience of a major healing ministry. This ministry, Global Awakening, has been responsible for hundreds of thousands of healings in the U.S., Brazil and many other countries.

Randy Clark was born to a humble and hard-working family. His father worked in the oil fields, and young Randy learned both frugality and perseverance. At seventeen he was in an auto accident and severely injured. He was miraculously healed of his injuries and walked out of the hospital, way ahead of the expected time, and committed his life to the Lord. He had a backsliding period, but was brought back to his calling as minister with a visionary experience from the Lord. By 1977 he received a degree from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Two decades later he earned a Doctor of Divinity from United Theological Seminary in Dayton OH.

The Rev Clark began ministry as a Baptist preacher, but by 1980 experienced the power and gifting of the Holy Spirit, and joined John Wimber’s Vineyard Fellowship. In 1984, Wimber prophesied over him, proclaiming that he would be sent to many nations and empower many great ministries. For ten years Clark continued as a local Vineyard pastor as he grew in healing gifting and experience. Fulfillment of Wimber’s prophecy began when he received a call from a Canadian pastor John Arnott to do a four day preaching and healing mission at the small Vineyard church near the Toronto Airport (January of 1994).

The four day engagement lasted twelve and a half years, the longest running revival in North America. Over 3,000,000 people were touched by it, and thousands of church plants resulted. (I had the privilege of speaking at one of the Toronto Vineyard “Catch the Fire” conferences for pastors in 1996.)

One of the persons especially touched by Randy Clark at the Toronto revival was a young missionary called Heidi Baker. She came up to Clark’s podium one evening and insisted on an “impartation.” When Clark laid his hands on her head she experienced waves upon waves of God’s glory and power come upon her. Her ministry in Mozambique has transformed that nation from Marxist to Christian and is further transforming other nations. Critics of the Toronto Blessing often cite its exuberant manifestation (at one point animal sounds) as proof that it could not be from the Lord. But certainly impartations that resulted in the vast orchards of good fruit of Baker’s, and many other significant ministries, could only be of the Lord.

Power to Heal is divided into seven sections, each with several chapters. These are, “Activate,” “Intimacy,” “Prayer,” “Testify,” ‘Perseverance,” “Words of Knowledge,” and “Faith.” The first chapters are heavy on scripture to provide the reader new to the healing ministry ample evidence of the validity of the healing ministry, and that the healing ministry is something that every believer is mandated to carry out. (It may seem strange to most Pneuma Review readers, but there are many Christians out there who still have to be convinced of these things.)

Chapter nine in section three “Prayer,” is the heart of the book. “The Five Step Prayer Model” describes how Clark’s healing teams carry out their highly effective healing ministry. The steps are: the interview, the prayer selection (the use of either command or petition prayer), the prayer ministry itself, the re-interview, and lastly, post-prayer suggestions.

The Rev. Clark’s book is especially good in stressing the importance of perseverance in prayer. For instance if in the re-interview it is found that the supplicant has experienced a little healing change, it is important to pray again, perhaps several times, until real relief and healing is obtained.

Randy Clark’s insights and style of healing show much influence form the ministry of John Wimber. For instance, the Rev. Clark wants the healing ministry to keep eyes open so that he or she may monitor bodily changes on the supplicant as they are being prayed over. Also from the Wimber tradition, there is much accent on the Gifts of the Spirit as part of the healing ministry. Clark urges his readers to use “words of wisdom” during the healing prayer process. That is, saying things under the Lord’s prompting that the healing minister does not know naturally about the supplicants’ life, but are pertinent to the injury or disease. This is the major stress and innovation of The Power to Heal.

One of the best parts of this book is his understanding that there are healing principals, but not laws. God is sovereign over the healing ministry. For instance, a high level of faith facilitates dramatic healings. Yes in general, but God can and at times heals persons even when the minister’s faith is weak and expecting little. Power to Heal also contains many stories of miraculous healings, such as from Parkinson’s disease and inoperable brain tumors. It also has the innovation of “prayers of impartation” directed to the reader. I found that especially refreshing. (Yes, I have been baptized in the Spirit for a long time and been in the healing ministry for a long time, but we “leak.”)

I have been reading books on healing prayer since I first came to the Charismatic Renewal in the 1970’s. There are many books out there that are excellent, including the works of Francis MacNutt, and the break through work by Charles and Frances Hunter, How to Heal the Sick,[1] which brought to attention the fact that command healing is normative to the New Testament. Formerly, as I taught a healing class my text would be the Hunter’s work, with references to the MacNutt’s classic Healing, especially to his chapter on “Eleven reasons why people are not healed.” [2] Now I will add the Power to Heal as a principal text. I suggest the Power to Heal for all teachers of the healing ministry, as well as Christians who have never read a single book on healing prayer.

Reviewed by William De Arteaga

Publisher’s page: http://destinyimage.com/catalog/power-to-heal/

Notes

[1] (Kingswood: Hunter Books, 1981).

[2] (Notre Dame; Ave Maria Press, 1974).