Kingdom Ministry

By Mitch Tulloch

Last updated 2 September 2025 with additional stories at the end.

[NOTE:  Portions of our free book Simple Kingdom: Home Fellowships and posts from our blog  have been adapted to write this article.]

Healing the sick and exercising authority over demons is part and parcel of what it means to be a follower of the Jesus Christ. Ingrid and I had a fair amount of success praying for the sick in our early home fellowships which we started and led in the 80s and 90s. At the time I kept extensive notes of our efforts at doing kingdom ministry, and after some years had passed I analyzed my notes and discovered that about 15-20% of people we had prayed for were healed immediately while about 40% either saw some improvement in their condition or experienced gradual healing over time with persistent prayer. The rest at least felt loved, for if anyone didn't get healed we blamed ourselves for lack of faith, not the person being prayed for. Those who were healed often went on to pray for others who needed healing, and they carried this ministry out into the world by praying for their family members, at their workplace, and even in the streets. Having taught and modeled healing ministry for those in our home fellowships, Ingrid and I eventually led ministry teams and held workshops where people from different churches could learn how to pray for the sick. And although we are both elderly now, we continue to pray for the sick and demonically oppressed whenever the Lord gives us opportunity to do so. The following are some stories both from the past and from the present of healings that have occurred in our fellowships, with people we met in the marketplace, and even to ourselves. Our hope is that these God stories will encourage you as a follower of Christ to start "doing the stuff" of the kingdom of God by praying for the sick and demonized you encounter in your fellowships, in the marketplace, and even among your own family and friends. To learn more about how to effectively pray for the sick, we recommend John Wimber's book Power Healing.

Persistence in healing prayer

When Ingrid and I started home fellowships in the early 80s we used a series of teaching tapes by John Wimber as our instruction manual for learning how to pray for the sick. Very soon we saw healing begin to occur, sometimes dramatically and other times gradually over a period of time. Ken shares this story for example:

When I joined the house church I was experiencing back pain almost continuously. The group prayed for me every Sunday for over a year until my back was finally healed. I received a lot of love from that group and it encouraged me to pursue God and pray for healing for others. 

Ken's story is illustrates the results we often obtained in praying for the sick by persisting in healing prayer over a period of time, sometimes weeks or even months. 

Healing and spiritual warfare

The following story by Ingrid from when we were first beginning to pray for the sick illustrates two other matters relating to praying for healing:

I was asked by a member of our fellowship to pray with him for a lady who had cancer. After our first prayer session I discovered a lump in my breast. I told Mitch and we laid hands on it and commanded it to leave. Nothing happened immediately, but the next morning the lump was gone. I was relieved!

Ingrid's story illustrates a key point about healing ministry: once you start praying for the sick you can be certain of experiencing spiritual warfare! 

But her story also raises a question worth reflecting on. I've often heard stories from missionaries about how those converted to Christ through their efforts still end up turning to witch doctors and similar traditional healers when they experience a serious illness. Western Christians like us sometimes make fun of this, but is it any different if the first thing we do when we become ill is visit our doctor or go to emergency instead of asking those in our fellowship to lay hands on us and pray for healing? 

Healing a sick car

When we were learning how to pray for the sick it was not only people's illnesses that got healed. Ken tells another story from one of our early fellowships which illustrates that as God's children we can ask our heavenly Father for anything:

During this period I was attending both an independent midweek home fellowship and a local charismatic church. On Wednesday at our fellowship Mitch said we should never be afraid to ask God for anything. Then on Sunday as I was coming out of church I met Betty and she lamented about her car. She said she kept getting it repaired but it kept breaking down again. Suddenly I remembered what Mitch had said and I felt the Spirit tell me to be bold. So I said to Betty, "Why don't we pray for your car?" She agreed, so I laid hands on the hood and said "Let this car be healed in Jesus' name!" Betty got in the car and it started OK and she drove off. Three weeks later I saw her again and she said, "You wouldn’t believe it! I haven't had any problems with my car since you prayed for it!" Her car continued running well until she sold it six months later, and it still ran well for the new owner!" This experience convinced me that God really cares about all the needs in our lives. 

Ken's story is one of many similar ones I could share about laying hands on appliances, vehicles, electronics, even house plants. The lesson perhaps is that when something breaks down, the first thing we should do is pray and ask the Father for help, either to fix the problem or provide direction about what we should do. And we should pray with expectation in our hearts. 

And if you still have problems with the idea of praying for a "sick" car or house plant, read the story in 2 Kings 4:38-41 about how Elisha "healed" a pot of stew that was poisonous so the hungry members of his prophetic community could eat it without getting sick or dying. 

Driving away a demon of dizziness

One time there was a lady in one of our fellowships who had been experiencing frequent dizzy spells for several weeks. I volunteered to pray for her and asked if I could lay my hand on her shoulder. She agreed and closed her eyes and I began to pray. After a while I asked her if anything was happening, and she replied "Still dizzy." I prayed again for a while, but still no healing occurred. Then I thought, I'm doing this wrong, I need the Spirit's help. 

So I laid my hand on her shoulder again and told her we would wait awhile for God to direct us how to pray. After several minutes the word "stroke" came into my mind and also a sense that there was some sort of spirit involved. Speaking softly I said "Spirit of stroke I command you to leave." The woman trembled for a few seconds, then she opened her eyes and said "I feel like something is gone." Are you still feeling dizzy, I asked? "No" she replied. A few days later I called her on the phone and she said her dizziness hadn't returned. Several weeks later I checked in with her again and she was still feeling fine. 

Healing deep-seated feelings of rejection and abandonment

Home fellowships can be the place where those in need of inner healing can receive it because the love they experience from others in the group fosters a sense of trust that gives them courage to share their deepest hurts. Ken, who had been healed from self-destructive behaviors including drug abuse and suicidal thoughts when he became a Christian, shares how he received inner healing in a home fellowship from feelings of rejection and abandonment:

I always did risky things as a kid, like drinking heavily and mixing different kinds of drugs together. I overdosed a couple of times, and I often felt like I had some sort of "suicide mark" on me. One winter day as a teenager, I decided to end my life. So I went to the highway and drank a whole bottle of booze and lay down in the culvert thinking I'd slowly pass out and freeze myself to death. But the trouble was, I got so cold I couldn't fall asleep! So I got up and went home. 

A few years later after I had become a Christian, my mom confessed to me on her deathbed that she had tried to abort me when she realized she was pregnant. I began wondering if this might lie behind my suicidal behaviors, so I went to see the couple who led our house church and told them about it. After I shared my story, the woman picked up her guitar and began singing a Vineyard worship song that starts with "I will change your name, you shall no longer be called wounded, outcast, lonely or afraid." I immediately flopped on the floor and thought "This is so weird." A deep feeling of rest then came over me. I felt something break and I forgave my mom. 

Healing by a word of instruction

In the Gospels and Acts you can find many different kinds of healing prayers used by Jesus and his disciples including prayers of petition, prayers of intercession, words of pronouncement, words of command, and so on. John Wimber talks about these in chapter 11 of his book Power Evangelism. One type of healing engagement John doesn't mention is what might be called a word of instruction. An example of this can be found in chapter 5 of Second Kings where the prophet Elisha sends a messenger to Naaman, the Syrian army commander who suffered from leprosy, telling him to go and bathe himself seven times in the Jordan river if he wants to be cured from his leprosy. After some initial resistance Naaman followed the prophet's instructions, and the result was he got healed. Over the years Ingrid and I have occasionally given words of instruction we received from the Holy Spirit to people whose healing we were praying for. One such example of this involved myself. 

During our early days when we were just beginning to learn about healing from Wimber's cassette tape series and other Vineyard materials, I developed some painful sores in my mouth. This got worse and worse over the next few days until I began having difficulty swallowing. At this point Ingrid laid hands on me and started to pray for my condition. As we waited for the Holy Spirit to lead us in our prayers, I suddenly saw a vision of a red bottle. Ingrid and I discussed this and concluded that God was probably instructing me to go look for a red bottle containing some liquid that would heal my condition. 

So I went to our local pharmacy and started walking through the aisles. When I reached the oral health section, I suddenly saw a red bottle that had the exact same color and shape as the one I had seen in my vision. It was a product called Sterisol, and the bottle's label described it as a therapeutic oral rinse that contained hexitidine, an anti-bacterial and anti-fungal agent. I was unfamiliar with the product, but because of my vision I concluded that God was telling me I should use it to heal my condition. So I bought it and went home and washed my mouth with it several times. The next morning my sores had greatly diminished and were no longer painful. And by the second day they were completely gone.

So when you pray for healing for others, or even for yourself, be open for the Lord telling you to do something in order to be healed. Not all healing happens through divine power released during prayer; sometimes you have to actually take concrete steps to get healed!

Rebuking fear that blocks healing

Some time ago I began to see an rash on my right upper thigh. Thinking it might be jock itch, I applied an anti-fungal ointment that I had used with success in the past. I kept applying this for a week, but the rash began to spread further down my thigh. Worried this might be a recurrence of a severe case of poison ivy that I had experienced about five years ago (I thought this could be the cause as I had done a little yard work a few days before the rash appeared) I tried applying cortisone cream several times a day to try and reduce the redness and relieve the itch. But the rash continued to spread, and soon it became uncomfortably itchy and small bumps appeared. This worried me as I thought it might be a recurrence of hives, something which has plagued me from time to time since my teenage years. In the past they had occasionally gotten so bad that my doctor had to put me on prednisone, but my doctor had recently retired and I've been unable to find a new one I've felt confident about. So I began taking Reactine which has been my standard way of treating episodes of hives. But the rash kept spreading further until it appeared under my knee and on the back of my calf. And now I was really getting worried. 

Sensing my worry one afternoon, Ingrid said "Let me pray for it." She laid her hands on my leg and prayed, first in words asking the Lord to heal the rash and then in tongues. Then she said, "I rebuke fear in Jesus' name." And suddenly I realized, "That's it, I'm afraid. Fear is the Enemy's tool, and he uses it to destroy. I won't let him use his fear against me." I started to relax and I began to feel confident that, without fear oppressing me, we would get to the bottom of this problem and it would be healed and go away. And the next day, the rash began to fade. And a week later there was no more burning sensation, though the skin where it had been was still somewhat red for awhile, but it eventually resumed its normal color. And I gradually weaned myself off Reactine over a two-week period.

Faith, medicine and the power of God

From the previous story you'll recognize that we believe — and make use of — both healing prayer and medicine when it comes to dealing with illness. We believe there's no contradiction in doing this since the the healing power of medicinal ingredients originates with God who created all things. Remember also the story in Isaiah 28 of how the prophet told Hezekiah to apply a plaster of figs on his painful boil to heal it. 

Along these lines let me conclude this article on divine healing by sharing a story which you might find amusing, but which is nothing to laugh about if you've ever found yourself with a similar condition. My story illustrates two things. First, it shows how an integrated approach that combines faith, medical knowledge and the Holy Spirit can effectively result in the person's condition being healed. And second, it illustrates that the hardest person to minister healing to is often ourselves!

Some time ago for several months I was experiencing high-pitched pulsating tinnitus. Repeated attempts at praying for my condition resulted in no improvement. Then my right ear started blocking up at night. I assumed it was wax buildup, but when I used a flashlight and combination of mirrors to look into my ear canal, I couldn't see much wax. So I assumed it was an impaction where the wax goes deep into the ear canal right up against the eardrum. I've had this problem before a few times in my life and had to have my ears irrigated by my doctor. Unfortunately our doctor had retired and we hadn't been able to find another we felt confident with. So I decided to try performing ear irrigation on myself. I should mention at this point by way of disclaimer that I am not trying to offer any kind of medical advice here, I'm simply relating a personal story.

I started by searching for how-to articles about this online, and just as good doctors can be hard to find, good information concerning medical procedures is also difficult to find. Fortunately I stumbled across an article whose target audience was medical professionals, and having a science (Physics) background myself I felt the advice in the article was probably trustworthy. So together with Ingrid I reviewed a number of online videos about earwax removal, and after weeding out a lot of junk we came across a video that had helpful information on preparing one's ears for irrigation. So I bought some mineral oil and a 60 ml plastic syringe with a 16 gauge catheter attached from Amazon. Then after using the oil to soften the wax and with Ingrid's help, I tried to flush the impacted wax out of my ear. No wax seemed to be expelled, but for a few moments I could hear Ingrid's voice very loud and clear. After trying several more attempts, we decided to stop and pray for awhile. Remembering how Jesus put his fingers into the ears of the deaf man (Mark 7:33) Ingrid decided to try this as she prayed, but nothing seemed to happen, so we decided to try irrigating the ear again the next day.

Unfortunately the next day turned out to be a busy one, so we decided to wait another day before trying again. But then that evening Ingrid said, "Let me pray for you again." So she put her fingers into my ears and then suddenly burst out with these words: "Open up! Open up! Let the living waters flow!" I recognized that this was a word of knowledge she had received from the Holy Spirit. Many years ago at the very first Vineyard conference we attended, Ingrid received a gift (or anointing) for healing during ministry time. Her words caused faith to rise up in me, but no healing seemed to occur at that moment.

The next morning I put a good amount of mineral oil into my ear and left it there for 15 minutes to try to really soften up the wax. Then we went into the bathroom again and I tried flushing out the wax. After half a dozen attempts a tiny bit of wax was expelled, but unfortunately now my ear was completely blocked and I couldn't hear a thing! Argh, I thought, I've probably just pushed the softened wax deeper right up against the eardrum. So that afternoon, discouraged and half-deaf, I began searching online for otolaryngologists (ear doctors) in our home city. After doing this for awhile, I decided to review some of the promises God had given us in the Psalms over the years. As I was reading a Psalm however, some words Jesus spoke to Jarius in Luke 8:50 suddenly came to mind: "Do not fear, only believe." (I also realized that the story of the healing of Jairus’s daughter in Luke 8:40-56 is an example of what can sometimes happen when we start to pray for someone sick: instead of things improving, things can suddenly get worse!) Anyways, I realized from Jesus' words that the Holy Spirit was encouraging me to continue the treatment I was doing, so after supper I went to the bathroom, carefully put the catheter end of the syringe into my ear in the direction specified in the medical article I had found online, and began applying moderate pressure to the syringe to squirt a steady flow of body-temperature water at moderate pressure. I looked into the mirror after this and saw a huge gob of brownish-black gunk hanging from the edge of my ear canal. "IIIINNNGRID come and see what happened, the wax came out!" I shouted up the stairwell. Ingrid rushed down and we stared at the gunk after removing it with a kleenex. "Hooray, thank you Lord!" we said excitedly. Using mirrors and a flashlight, I then saw that there was still more brownish-black gunk in my ear canal, so we decided to irrigate a second time and an equally hideous lump of gunk came out of my ear. And suddenly I could hear everything LOUD AND CLEAR. We used mirrors to look one more time into my ear canal and no more wax was visible. Since then, my hearing has been perfect, and my tinnitus has much subsided.

The lesson of this story is that our goal in healing the sick, which is to bring glory to God by extending his mercy to others (and also to ourselves), doesn't depend on the manner in which it's done. It's quite OK, and Biblical, to use a combination of faith, medical knowledge, and expressions of the power of God to bring healing to others — and to yourself!

The team approach

At a Vineyard conference a man who came forward during ministry time said he had been experiencing almost constant mid-back pain for years. After interviewing him, three of us decided to take the man downstairs where we could minister to him in a more private setting. The three of us laid hands on him and began praying for the man, who was standing in the midst of us. One of us took the lead and began asking God to release his healing power on the man's back. The second member of our team was praying in tongues. I remained silent and waited for the Holy Spirit to give us a word of knowledge about the man's condition. 

After a few moments I saw in my mind what looked like a vertebrae that glowed warmly, so I began to pray out loud and say "Touch that vertebrae with your power, Lord, heal it." At this point the man we were praying for was twisting his torso and moaning. It sounded like he was in pain, so we continued with our prayers, each of us praying according to how we felt the Holy Spirit was leading us. For example, one of the other members of our team was praying in tongues while moving his hands over the man's back. And the other team member was "taking authority" over the man's pain and repeatedly commanding it to stop.

After about five minutes of us praying like this, we looked at each other and decided to stop praying and find out if any healing had occurred. "How are you doing?" one of us asked the man. He opened his eyes and began to slowly twist and bend his torso. Then he looked at us with puzzlement in his eyes and said, "The pain is gone." 

"Really?" we all said? "Try bending right over, but be careful, do it slowly." 

The man bent over and touched the floor, then stood up straight and said, "No pain. And I haven't been able to bend over like this without a great deal of pain." 

The three of us who had been praying looked at each other with wonder and some excitement, but the man merely looked puzzled and somewhat apprehensive, perhaps fearing that he might only experience a temporary reprieve from his pain. But since the man seemed to be healed, we blessed him and he left to go back upstairs. 

Looking back on our prayer session, it struck me afterwards how poorly the three of us had functioned together as a team. We had prayed independently of each other and had not shared with each other what we thought might be the root cause of the man's pain or how we should pray effectively for him. We also didn't discuss our prayer session afterwards to see what we could learn from it or what we might have done differently. 

And yet the man was healed, for a few years later I ran into him again and he confirmed that his back was still healed and he was no longer experiencing any pain! But he still looked puzzled when I talked to him about it, and I probably should have probed his mind further in case there was some missing spiritual dimension to the constant pain he had been experiencing. But we were both busy and had other things to do, so we parted and moved on. 

Deliverance from an unclean spirit

In one of our early home fellowships a young theology student joined us. He told us he had been experiencing horribly immoral dreams and asked for prayer. Upon interviewing him it was revealed that he had dabbled in Eastern religious practices while travelling overseas. Suspecting that a demon might be afflicting him, we arranged a time for him to visit us privately. He came to our apartment the next evening, and I began ministering to him as Ingrid prayed for me. It's always good to work as a team when you minister to the demonized. 

I was nervous because I had never done this kind of ministry before. I commanded the demon — if one was present — to manifest itself. The young man shrieked loudly and ran into the corner of the room. I followed him there and looked into his eyes, and I was relieved to discover that the demon was more frightened of me than I was of him! Eventually after repeatedly commanding the demon to leave and with much bedlam and noise resulting (yikes! what's our neighbor going to think?) the demon left and things calmed down. The young man's demonic dreams stopped at this point and he stayed with our fellowship several more months. Then a few years later I heard that he was now happily married and doing well. 

While deliverances like this can take place in Sunday church services, my experience is that they don't happen there very often. The reason for this may be that it's easy to hide your problems when you're surrounded by people you don't know well and who don't know much about you. Churches that encourage their members to also attend midweek home fellowships likely can see more people freed from demonic oppression as well as more sick people healed. 

Seize the moment

This story happened at the end of a time of fellowship in our home when those who came were standing in the entrance getting ready to leave. One of the men bent over to tie his shoelaces and suddenly let out a yelp. "Ouch! My back!" 

"What's wrong?" we all cried. "I can't stand up, I've thrown out my back again!" he said, as he remained stooped over. "This has happened to me before, and it'll be days before I can stand up straight again. Oh, damit!" 

At this point my wife Ingrid suddenly rushed over to the man, laid her hands on his back, and said "Be HEALED in Jesus' name!" The man's torso suddenly jackknifed upwards and he stood up straight. I asked him how his back felt and he twisted his torso and said, looking somewhat bewildered, "Fine, there's no pain". We all felt somewhat stunned, but we hugged each other and praised God and everybody went home. 

There are various ways one could explain how this healing occurred e.g. the Spirit came upon Ingrid, God gave her a gift of faith, she was moved with compassion, and so on. But the point is probably that she saw someone hurting and decided to act by praying for him, immediately and with expectation that God wants to heal.

I wish I was more like that :-)

Anyways, be blessed everyone, and be healed :-)

--Mitch