My father was and is a well known baptist minister; my mother an artist singer performer, worshiper with a voice from heaven. My life flows out of the conjoining of those two forces–ministry and art. My mother performed in musicals and was very sensitive to the Spirit of God. My father preached or rather taught from the pulpit. (As a baptist, you learn early on the difference between preaching and teaching!) Both are remarkable people who i would like even if they were not my parents.
I first got engulfed by God at age ten, but i remember seeing angels and talking to animals before that. I always knew that the world was also spiritual, and that there was more than meets the eye everywhere.
My mother taught me to hear and embody God, my father taught me what He was like. It was a good combination, and really my first training in the life of His Spirit. I am thankful for this. At age fifteen a woman prophet told me I had a calling to unusual people who are usually not found. In other words, that my own uniqueness, would lead me to very unique people on earth, and that i was to bring His Spirit to them. The other thing spoken over me from very young, was that the way God would use me, is for me to be authentically myself and to stay “in Him”. That God wanted to highlight identity through my life. From that point on, i always felt permission to be myself, and knew that this was in some ways, my true ministry. I’m thankful for this woman, who also told me I had the gift of words, which in school i used to write poetry and probably woo too many girls. Eventually we grow up though, and find a context for our gifts. And eventually, i did.
In college, i lived with a Polish Jewish artist, whose parents had fled to Argentina. He had fallen in love with an American and moved his home and studio to Virginia. He and I met in a dance improvisation class, and were immediate friends throughout my college years. He taught me performance art, integration of spiritual things with my artistic process, and how to make fish beneath an open fire. A great man, a tremendous artist, and spiritual father when i needed one. A messianic Jewish community eventually moved across the street, and he would take passover with them, and correct their practices. He had humor and was generous to Christians and Buddhists. He also made amazing mobile sculptures which are still spinning translucently up and down the eastern coast of America. He died of a brain tumor, and at the end, was trying to make collages from his X-rays. I learned to live from him, and dialogue with other cultures.
Later, i went to art therapy graduate school and was mentored by Ronald Meck, an irish balladeer, and beholder of people. He taught me to bear witness to people, hold containers for their presence, and to allow people to be exactly where they were on their journey. And sang some of the saddest most beautiful songs i have ever heard.
It was from Grad school in Boston that I heard the call to go into “full time ministry”. I packed my car went to Carolina, got re-baptized (the first time had been by my father in the Jordan river), and packed up my car and drove the farthest away baptist seminary–Golden Gate-thinking i would need to cut my hair and begin to look more baptist. As it turned out, my first day arriving in San Fran, i met the Jones family on Haight Asbury and found my tribe for the next ten years. Spiritual family is not something you can create, it is a result of following God to their doorsteps. That is how it was in California. I continued to do art therapy groups, now with street kids and other christians, and worked at a homeless shelter making art. We were part of starting two creative communities there, before another great influence on my life-Dave-and I started the Stooge House to help recovering christians. These years were my training, and i learned more about myself and God than ever before. And also began to understand the spiritual stages of development. What it means to “press on” into more of The Father through Christ.
After many years, the Jones hit the road in an RV to travel non-stop across north America. At first i did not join them, then the spiritual itch kept itching and i hit the road with them. We met so many people, whom i still love. People would just gather, wherever we stopped, which was usually wherever we broke down. With them, i learned how to disciple people. And live in very close quarters with a very large and beautiful family.
We stopped our tour in NC, and I stayed living in a Border’s book shop parking lot and discipling old arts friends for a year. Then a dream to go to Austin Texas, where I met my eventual wife, and was sent to Europe by an English Vicar confirming what i already somehow knew–that God wanted to expand the circumference of my calling onto another continent.
While in NC, i was led to a street folk festival to find the only two people worshiping. God told me to look for the two people who had their hands lifted in worship. It turns out the singer was a recovering alcoholic who Jesus had found and that he was in fact worshiping through blue grass country music. This couple became my next chapter of ministry. Both had been trained in warfare, deliverance and inner healing in the charismatic church. If I thought California was odd with its witches and floating fairies at night, NC was even more intense, learning how people are delivered from demons, holy water and the charismatic fireworks of the church. We housed mostly artist and recovering worship leaders in that community. While living there, i was also led to another book shop, told to sit at a certain table and wait until a man would sit at the next table, then to tell him he was a teacher and man of God. This man turned out to be my life long friend and co-conspirator in the arts, the reverend Mike Ramsey. An artist and gentleman, who still has a electric ministry among artists and now refugees.
I think all my lasting friendships have started with a divine appointment.
To rewind a moment. I asked for the “gift of tongues” from a charismatic woman pastor on Mt Pilot near my hometown. I figured, if The Holy Spirit manifesting as tongues of fire, was the first gift He gave his own disciples after arriving back in heaven, that He probably wanted me to have it also! God had led me to Pilot mountain but did not tell me why. I had been wanting to pray with more power, and had asked God how. For me it was a matter of wanting to be more effective in my prayer life.That day this pastor and her assistant prayed over me, and i began speaking in “unknown tongues”. Only later did I know you could also ask for a gift to interpret the tongues, so you sort of knew what you were praying. That always seemed like a practical companion gift if you were going to be rambling in unknown languages–that spirit utterances and a spirit of understanding would somehow always both be present, in order to be helpful. Later i read that this was so in Corinthians! The spirit of prophecy and the spirit of understanding work in tandem!
My gift of prophecy was fully activated on Haight street in San Fran, and then augmented by my years hanging with the Morning Star leaders in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina; and cherry topped by an african prophet named Chris Daza, and sharpened again by a German prophetess in Berlin. I have had great mighty people come along at just the right moment to activate the next level of gifting each season. Again, this is not by my design, but something God did. And I am ever grateful.
On my 30th birthday, i asked for a temporary gift of healing (I’m not sure why I asked for it only temporarily, maybe because I had seen how intense the gift was and wasn’t sure i was ready for that). We were doing a parade with homeless kids on Haight Street, wearing masks, and my mother was there, when my hands began to heat up like fire. It actually hurt until i started touching people and praying for them, and 13 people got healing that day! We also did a birthday party for a kid named Blue that day. Turns out he had never had one. I still recall his tears. That was a good birthday.
Anyways, back to europe…so I was told in Austin to go to Prague in central europe and join the Jones again. So one week later I did. But en route, some spiritual adventures happened.
I was in Paris. God had just said, “check you out” as I walked up the Eiffle tower steps. I was about half way up, when He spoke. This was the first time I understood David’s celebration of himself as a poem in Psalm 139. Everything has flowed and hinged on this point for me. From there, i was directed to a bridge near Notre Dame. A man was getting ready to jump. The Spirit told me how fast to walk, and when to slow down. The man allowed me to approach. I started talking gently in tongues, and he understood me. Then I pulled out my sketch pad and drew three images. One of a door. Another of a church, and then of the man’s hand. He understood what was being communicated, came off the bridge, started crying and we walked off that bridge into the city together.
There were many other tales in Paris, where God started directing my steps overtly.
Not long from my Paris trip. I was in the London airport. God told me to buy a ticket on Virgin Air to New York city. I knew the right flight to get. Did so, and in the air within six hours. The day we landed was 911. I was trapped on the George Washington bridge and able to view the horrific unfolding of the events that day. Truck drivers were crying, war jets flew overhead, national emergency blared out of the speakers and it felt like God had lifted His thumb of cover off America. It was more than sad. And He let me bear witness.
I brought a red scarf to America. It was Indian silk and was like a symbol lifted from the Song of Songs. I was to take it to my soon to be wife. She lived in Cincinatti at the time, but I had no idea exactly where. I drove from New York to Ohio and cruised slowly into town. As I did, The Spirit said, ok, take a right, now a left, slow down park here. A built in GPS The Spirit is! Then get out of the car, wait a minute, now go ask that lady arriving across from you if she knows Amy Macdonald. I did, and it turned out to be Kendra, a very close friend of Amy’s. I followed her back to where Amy lived, delivered the scarf, and left town to head towards Denver where I had one more “Divine appointment” before heading back to Europe. There I met a young man that i was to tell to move. I did, and headed back towards the east coast.
When I lived in my car in Harvard square, working with homeless, one day He took me onto Harvard campus and told me to notice how many Jews were there. I felt like a whole community was walking around that day. Now go talk to this girl and help her renew her Jewishness. I did. She played violin and had not thought or felt God in many years. We walked across the quad and talked. She asked me how I knew she was Jewish. I told her my spirit was told. In those years, i was practicing the prophetic–hearing God and then trying to deliver what He was thinking or saying in the way that He was delivering it. He kept calling it prophetic orientation–not just getting words for people, but delivering them in His Heart and manner. Holistic prophetic actions. That has always stuck with me. It isn’t enough to deliver words–phychics can do that. But to deliver them in His Heart and orientation of love is a deeper work.
When I lived in Jerusalem, i was always told which gates to enter and how to depart the city. A few nights i would have appointments with young soldiers and often i would just be there to listen to their stories. I was handing out marbles at that season of my life to special ones God would lead me to. These marbles got me in trouble once in Switzerland.
Just after college, i went to L’abri in Switzerland. My father had told me about the place, and I had read some of Francis Shaeffer’s stuff. I liked that he was trying to find a theology of the arts, and to ground the creative process in a Kingdom context. So I went. On the way, i had a pocket full of marbles. The Swiss, as you know, are ordered. My marbles somehow all rolled out of my pocket on the bus ride up through the alps towards L’abri. The bus driver stopped the bus, went back and hand picked up every marble. This is where I started to learn how to be culturally sensitive, though my father had also been an anthropologist and we grew up with all sort of cultures in our house. On that bus, i realized, I needed to choose where to lose my marbles.
Anyways, L’abri was a great integrative exploration for me. My time there-which turned out to be much longer than originally intended-helped integrate arts and spirituality within my heart, and to this day, i feel the seeds of that place helped me not see art and God as separate fields of knowing. God is One. And desires us to be one or integrated. It turns out, our creativity is part of who we are as humans. And that Jesus is Lord over every dimension of Reality including the arts and cultural aspects. He wants to inhabit or dwell in those spheres of being just as He does in our thoughts and emotions. Basic stuff, but well re-enforced at L’abri during those years. I am still thankful for my time there.
I did however, always feel like L’abri should also have art studios to integrate the practice of art, with the practice of theology. So later when my wife and I started an arts community we put community and training upstairs and actual art studios down stairs so they could symbolically be housed under the same big top roof–but that is another story! We are both fascinating in developing a theology of the imagination which is also modeled in real life. And we are both interested in creating amazing art which is grounded in a Kingdom context. Not using the arts to decorate our theology, but to flow out from our true identities. I’m not sure L’abri got all the way there, but it had the seeds to start such a journey towards integration in Him. The church’s poverty of imagination is slowly changing, and entering a baptism of the imagination and the whole person into a living expression of His Own Oneness–that is my dream. His Kingdom come engulfing and redefining culture as well as the creative dimensions of our own lives. But that, as i have said, is another soap box.
My own life teaching has always centered around two themes: true identity and creative integration. That we like the prophets should be authentic expressers of His Kingdom. Or as David put it, living portents. For we are His Poems created in Christ Jesus to live out the works prepared beforehand to be our way. And oh, how wonderfully made am I. As are you, my friend. Thanks for reading this rough sketch of some spiritual adventures in my own life. May you mind heart body spirit leap in Him in ever new shapes and cadences, dancing boldly into an authentic life in Christ!
Storehaufovic's Blog 