FOLLOW OUR PODCAST ON (search opentheword):
PODCAST INTERVIEW NOTES (EDITED)
DEAN: Welcome to our podcast today. We’re doing something a little bit different. I’m interviewing Diane Harrison on the Gift of Prophecy.
Diane serves as the prophetic coordinator of LifeLinks, an international network of churches, and has written several books on the Gift of Prophecy, including The Power of Prophetic Teams, and This is That: 100 Questions and Answers About Prophecy.
And she’s also written, I think, several manuals as well. So welcome today, Diane.
DIANE: Thank you.
DEAN: So maybe we can start off by explaining your role as a prophetic coordinator with LifeLinks and a little bit about LifeLinks as well.
DIANE: Sure. For quite a few years, I was doing workshops in local churches, mostly LifeLinks churches, and doing prophetic workshops and you know, just on weekends or whatever, for quite a period.
And as things progressed, I started being asked to help churches maybe bring in prophetic culture.
So what we had done in our local church, I’m now doing that with churches, not just LifeLinks, but other churches that contact me.
First, they want to know if there is anything healthy about prophetic ministry. The fact that we’ve been a part of the same local church for 40 years, which is really getting to be a long time, I think sort of proves to other local churches, especially pastors and leaders, that you actually can raise up your prophetic people in a local church and that it can be a benefit to the congregation and to the leaders where you’re sort of working together with the staff.
So within LifeLinks, I’m sort of a go-to person on the prophetic.
Last year, for example, Dave Wells [an apostolic leader within LifeLinks] was doing a men’s conference in Vietnam over Zoom. And so he gave me a call a couple of days before. He says, “Diane, we want prophetic ministry for that conference. Can you arrange that?”
So I arrange it, or I’ll get another request can you help here, or can you help there?
And so it’s not that I would have necessarily a yearly schedule. I’m sort of a bit on demand, which is really helpful that I’m no longer at my job.
So I say I have a perfect life now because I just work in prophetic and, and have grandchildren.
DEAN: You actually go into churches and hold prophetic. training sessions.
DIANE: Yeah, exactly. I do that. But it’s not usually just a one-off like that. Often there’s a prophetic leader that I can work with, where I sort of work in a bit of a mentoring role and I’m available to help them as they come across things or they want suggestions for different areas of ministry or how to get started.
So I usually have ongoing relationships with people.
People may not necessarily know me ahead of time, but they know of our network or they might know of Dave Wells and we would get a request that way.
I sometimes get contacts just from a website or just people contacting me directly, where I don’t know the people at all. But the majority of the ministry is through word of mouth or people searching and seeing information on say the Harvest City website.
DEAN: Dave Wells is the pastor ….
DIANE: Joel Wells is now the pastor of Harvest City, but like the 25 years or so where I was just doing workshops it would often be Dave, the apostolic leader at that time who would recommend me to churches.
So it’s actually a great opportunity.
I really like being able to come in initially when people are learning about the prophetic and just sort of helping bridge some things.
Part of the reason is because of my own personal experience over the years. When we came into faith at the tail end of the seventies, we caught the tail end of the Jesus revolution. If people heard of or seen that film.
When we gave our lives to the Lord, we just thought that salvation and being filled with the Holy Spirit was all a package deal.
And so at that time, I got released in prophecy, which I didn’t know what it was. It was very uncomfortable and it wasn’t anything that I looked forward to.
And there wasn’t a lot of teaching at that time, so I blundered through and made a lot of mistakes. After a few years, it gave me the idea, that there’s got to be better ways for people to walk on this track without making all the same mistakes that I made.
I was just fortunate enough to have enough grace with the leaders that we were working with, even though there were adjustments and awkward moments, they called the gifting out of me.
Now I feel that part of my job or my call is to identify giftings in people and encourage them in that respect.
DEAN: So, what exactly is the gift of prophecy? Maybe just elaborate so people get an understanding of what we’re talking about here.
DIANE: Sure. Well, it’s one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. If you want to learn about the gift of prophecy, look at 1 Corinthians 14, that’s probably the main reference that I’m using for teaching on prophecy. But prophecy, I really believe, involves expressing the heart of God towards people or towards a group of people.
It’s a very versatile gift because you can speak to someone individually, or to a group, but we believe that it’s God using a person, like myself, as a vessel for words.
It could be songs or expressions. We would say prophetic expressions to be spoken to an individual. I’ll say individually. I mean, it can be a church or a gathering community of people.
But I strongly believe what has framed the ministry that we’re involved in, is found in 1 Corinthians 14, which talks about prophecy being given for the purpose of comfort, edification, and exhortation.
So I’m very thankful that in the early 1980s, when I was learning and growing and starting to teach prophetic gifting, I came across a book by Graham Cook that was just called Your Prophetic Gifting. He said that the gift of prophecy is a tool to encourage people, to help them in their lives, and to edify, sort of lift them up above their day-to-day problems or experiences. It is like encouragement that comes from the heart of God.
We believe prophecy is an impartation that comes from the Holy Spirit. The way that I describe prophecy is that we’re a vessel, you know, we are a delivery person. As a delivery person, I believe that God gives us love letters that are to be given out to people around us, the perimeter of people that we’re in contact with.
And so I use a quote from Mother Teresa who says, “I’m a little pencil in the hand of a loving God who’s sending love letters to the world.” And that to me expresses the heart of prophecy.
It says in Revelations 19 verse 2, I think it’s verse 2, [Revelation 19:10] where the spirit of prophecy is the heart of Jesus or something to that effect.
With a prophetic gift, I want people to know we need to be expressing the heart of Jesus.
And so the gift is to draw people towards the heart of Jesus and not to push them away. There’s been a lot of bad practice in that area, and so I really feel a call to establish what healthy prophetic culture can do for individuals and for a church setting.
The reason I’m passionate about the gift of prophecy and the reason why now, even though Todd and I are in our retirement years, I’m actually very passionate just about releasing as many people in the gift of prophecy as I can.
So I’m not looking for an end date here.
I might be like the queen and just go till I’m 92 years old or however old the queen was when she passed away because I really feel that if people could just grab a hold of the benefit of the gift of prophecy for their own life and, and for reaching out into their community and family. Through this gift, lives can be changed and saved, actually.
Living in Canada, one of my burdens is our northern [First Nation] reserves where there are massive suicides. I think of young people, especially those who are caught in this trap and, the pit of suicide as young as 10 years old. I feel if they could just have a word of encouragement and a word speaking some promise and destiny over their lives, that it could intercept their lives. This applies to adults as well.
And I have shared some experiences about how I feel a word in season can actually just keep people going the distance in their faith.
DEAN: You cited, I think it was Joel chapter 2 verse 28, where it says, “It shall come to pass I will pour out my spirit on all flesh,” and you believe that the spirit of prophecy is going to become more prevalent.
DIANE: Yes, because the end of that verse talks about the Spirit being poured out on my sons and daughters, where it talks about old men seeing dreams, and young men seeing visions.
So I really see the growth of prophecy happening, and I feel like young people really, can be trained in prophecy.
In fact, this summer we were at a Christian camp and we worked with 60 youth.
And so they asked if I would teach them to prophesy? And I was like, yes, I will. Because I don’t want kids to think they have to wait till they’re 30 years old for God to use them and they can be so effective. I feel for teenagers, it can really just give them a sense that they matter.
God wants to use them. He loves them. He wants them to share with their friends and just to be able to, again, communicate that heart of Jesus. So I believe that children actually can prophesy, which is one of the questions that I discuss in my hundred questions and answers on prophecy.
I do believe that adults have to know how to talk to children, because I’ve seen situations where they’re using adult language, but I’ve also seen, for example, in the Christian school where teachers have said to a grade three class during a time of prayer is anybody seeing any pictures or does anybody have anything they’d like to say?
And so in kids’ expression, they’ll say, ‘Oh, I saw a picture of Stephen and he was fishing and pulling in all these fish off a boat’. And so for a child to use that picture, it’s a relevant picture. But if you used other language, they wouldn’t understand you. They’d have nothing to say.
DEAN: That verse in Joel is very interesting because he talks about your daughters, your sons, and young men.
So he’s emphasizing young people, that God was going to pour His Spirit on the young people, and then Joel says the old guys like us, you’re gonna be able to dream dreams. But he was emphasizing that God wanted to pour His Spirit upon young people.
DIANE: Exactly.
DEAN: Because it’s emphasized three times in that verse, specifically the young.
DIANE: Right. And that verse from Joel is repeated in Acts word for word. So we know that there’s weight when a verse is repeated like that.
And it’s very refreshing. At that same camp meeting [mentioned earlier], for example, we had some teams that offered prophetic ministry. We had a 12-year-old and a 13-year-old on ministry teams with adults.
So one was my granddaughter. So I knew she wouldn’t say I have the gift of prophecy, but she said, I have my Jesus time. And in my Jesus time, He tells me things.
And adults are so receptive to a teenager or young person speaking words that are meaningful to them, but they know that a kid isn’t going to be making those things up. It just helps them have faith that God really does want to speak to them.
So I think we’re moving into a time where we’re going to see more and more young people, more and more children.
DEAN: I think that’s where it’s going.
DIANE: Yeah. Right. Because many, many prophets are actually talking about the next move of God with young people.
And so as part of it, I feel like my husband and I, our call is really to equip young people as the best that we can. So one of the churches that we’ve really had fun working with in Edmonton, that pastor is in his 20s. And he and his wife have such a great heart for the kingdom.
And so it’s a privilege to be able to go into those kinds of settings and just help them be released in the gift of prophecy.
DEAN: So in your book, you also talk about the four levels of prophecy. Maybe you could just provide sort of an explanation of what you’re referring to. I think you were talking about the gift of prophecy…
DIANE: When you look at prophetic material teaching, there is a lot of content that doesn’t always agree with each other. You can find differences.
So one of the differences is that often people only talk about three levels of prophecy. I include four levels of prophecy.
The Spirit of Prophecy: The initial one we would call the Spirit of prophecy and that’s where we would use probably an example from the Old Testament where actually [King] Saul was out to kill David and as he would get close to the group of prophets, the spirit of prophecy came on Saul to the point where the people said ‘Is Saul now a prophet?’
So it’s a setting. In that setting, Samuel had a company of prophets. I believe that’s happened today in some settings where usually there would be a great presence of God, often a worship time.
A spirit of prophecy is where there’s such a sense of the presence of God that almost anybody can prophesy or everybody wants to prophesy.
So there’s like a boldness that comes upon people who wouldn’t feel confident or they wouldn’t even think that was a gift that they had. So that is sort of a big downpouring of a spirit of prophecy.
I would say that it probably only happens occasionally. I pray it’s going to happen more and more.
The Gift of Prophecy: So in terms of levels of prophecy, I actually use a diagram showing a shallower level of a swimming pool and then going deeper.
So, I would say that the gift of prophecy starts out, let’s say on the shallow end of the pool, but it’s a mixture of man’s thoughts and, and God’s thoughts.
But you’re activating what you feel and you’re learning. So one of the things that I do believe is that we don’t get to choose our gift mix whether it’s prophetic, whether it’s, you know, prayer intercession, whatever the gift is.
But I believe you get to decide if you want to grow in that gift.
And so the initial spirit of prophecy is again, that mixture. And like it does say in the New Testament, ‘that we prophesy in part’.
And so there’s nothing wrong with being a mixture, and then as you grow, there should be less of man and more of God as you’re growing in your gift.
DEAN: You’re hearing the voice of God clearer.
DIANE: Yes, you’re just able to hear and you’re more familiar. You’ve learned and you’re more confident because I actually believe a big part of releasing people or helping people be released in their prophetic gift is that they begin to understand what they have.
When I do workshops and seminars on prophecy, I would say a good number of people who come know they have something, but they don’t really know what it is.
It could be they’ve had dreams. It could be that they sometimes know things ahead of time before it happens or they’ve had those experiences.
That’s why I just encourage a bigger, big group of people to come and learn.
Prophetic Ministry: As time goes on, people begin to recognize that a person is likely going to have a prophetic word, especially in certain environments.
So, for example, they become known that if there’s going to be, say, a baptism in the church, people begin to rely on the fact that this person will probably have a prophetic word. So as that begins to get established, that’s, I think, when you move into a deeper level, which would then be a prophetic ministry.
You’re becoming known. for the fact that you can be relied on to hear God’s voice for someone else. And I think before I just go on to the next area, one of the things that we really teach right from the beginning is that prophecy is a gift to serve.
It’s a serving gift, and so, many people sometimes have the idea that they might be doing someone a favor by prophesying over them.
And we actually just teach that whether you’re called to be, your prophetic ministry or using your prophetic gift is actually what you’re called to use as a servant. 
And it’s actually an honor for you to be able to speak over someone’s life, where God is entrusting you with His heart and His words so that someone can be blessed and know that God is real.
The Holy Spirit is real as He touches on areas where there’s no other way that the person speaking would know about, other than God had told them.
So then we go from prophetic ministry. Prophetic ministry can be someone’s whole lifetime and be very effective and valuable. Again, I do believe that you can grow and develop in your gift and you can get to the point of having a prophetic ministry.
The Office of a Prophet: I don’t believe that you can will yourself to be a prophet. And so that’s where there’s a lot of confusion. There’s been again bad practice in this area.
Many people, when they have a very strong prophetic ministry, say to them you’re a prophet and you know it gets very confusing for the individual.
Especially I would say in the 90s there used to be bad practice where there might be a prophet that came to town and set up in a hotel room.
There’d be a whole cross-section of people there from maybe different churches. No churches, a big combination.
This actually happened to my mother-in-law in one of those meetings where she was called out to be an elder in her church, which is a governmental position.
It wasn’t right.
And there was no one there to judge the word or to reinforce the fact it was true or not. And so that’s probably mild in the kinds of things that happened in bad practice.
But I do believe that a prophet’s calling is ordained by God and it’s really a call where the person’s life service is called up to that level with a governmental aspect.
And so Graham Cook, for example, as I mentioned him early on, he would say how long does it take to become a prophet? He would say 20 years. Or with teaching and training 12. Now, he would have written that in the early eighties.
I would say it’s less time because there’s more teaching. There’s more opportunity. It’s more widely accepted, but at the same time what I feel has happened is that, and this is going back to some churches, they were only interested in prophets.
And so my heart. began to be for the prophetic people with the gift of prophecy.
You had all these people with prophetic gifting and the benefit that they could be, but they didn’t have any place to function.
And that’s really, I think where I started wanting to go and help people understand you can train your prophetic people. It’ll be a great blessing to you.
And also it was it for the prophetic people. If that’s what you know is your main gift, it was an opportunity for them to grow and function in that area.
So I haven’t totally answered the question on prophet, but we would use that term of a fivefold ministry where in Ephesians people are called to be an apostle, pastor, teacher, evangelist, and the office of a prophet.
And I do think that Prophets have different flavors in their calling, and so that also can get a bit confusing because maybe a prophet’s called to the sphere of a local church.
Maybe they have a different territory, maybe they’re called to a certain people group. Maybe their flavor is something else.
For example, I don’t know if I should mention a name or not, but one of the prophets that I actually really appreciate and the ground that he is breaking is Sean Boltz.
Now he’s probably in his early forties, but he’s been pioneering in prophecy for some time, probably from the time he was a teenager. I do believe he’s a prophet and he’s called to the entertainment industry. And so he’s doing a lot of good work in actually helping to encourage Christian films or films with Christian content.
He’s meeting with different movie directors. God’s given him favor in that area. And, his main gift is through word of knowledge, which probably is one of the prophetic giftings where people can be stronger.
And, you know, that’s probably another little conversation, but I like the fact that we have a lot of agreement in this area that prophets are called to, some people use the term seven mountains, but I would use the term the basic pillars in our society.
So a prophet could be called to business, could be called to entertainment, could be called to a church, could be called to I’m trying to think what all they are off the top of my head.
DEAN: Media, I think was one of them.
DIANE: Yeah, media. Not everyone agrees with that flavor, but I really feel that these are days when we don’t want to box in the Holy Spirit in how he’s equipped people in their gifting.
And I really strive to help people develop in the flavor that God has called them to in their prophetic gifting, not to try to clone themselves or model themselves after someone else.
I’ll use myself as an example. Quite often, on our prophetic leadership team, I had people whose main flavor would have been evangelism.
They still are like that.
They would go into a gas station to pay for gas and lead the person behind the counter to the Lord. They were just so skilled and gifted in evangelism.
I used to be frustrated with myself because I would not think of the right thing to say until I left or long after. Or in my workplace, I wouldn’t catch what I could have done, et cetera.
So I spent some frustrating years trying to make myself be something that I’m not naturally. Now, if anybody asks me a question, or God will sometimes point people out to me, as that happens, I’m quite free to [share with them], but to just put me at an evangelism booth somewhere, I’d just choke up.
DEAN: So you’ve mentioned that the word of knowledge can be a key part of the expression of the prophetic. And maybe you can just elaborate a little bit more about that.
DIANE: So with prophecy, I used to just teach that prophecy could be a word of knowledge, a word of wisdom, prophecy, and it would all sort of flow together, which it can.
But what I realized now is that people can be really strong in a word of knowledge. In fact, that might be their best gift. And with that, I’ve just seen it be so effective as it’s actually a key to someone’s heart.
If an individual knows something specific that could only come from the Holy Spirit, it actually gives a real open door to someone’s heart, whether they’re a believer or whether they’re an unbeliever.
One of the stories, that comes to mind involves one of the guys in our group. He was in prophetic training and he was in a restaurant and when the waitress came over, he asked her, ‘Do you like dogs’?
And she said, ‘Yes’.
And then he said, I’m not even sure that she didn’t leave and then come back a couple of times. He wasn’t just sort of giving the bait in a way of how the Holy Spirit was speaking to him.
So he described the dogs she had. I can’t remember if it was a large white dog and a small black one or the other way around, but she said, “Those are the dogs that I have. Those are my two dogs.”
So she kept coming back to the table to say, “How would you know that?”
And as he explained, Jesus actually really does want to be personal with people and to let people know that He knows who they are. And so then he went on to just explain a little bit of the heart of Jesus and, spent some time with her.
And then she did end up coming to the church, which was in the neighborhood.
And I use that expression because sometimes we limit ourselves because we don’t recognize that we’re getting God’s thoughts.
We dismiss them.
So I would say that it’s one of the biggest advantages of prophetic training is that we learn that we actually are hearing God’s voice a lot, but we tend to dismiss it.
So our mind. is our biggest obstacle.
DEAN: And fear.
DIANE: And yes, and fear. But often people, if they are getting something from the Holy Spirit, will describe a physical manifestation. Like their stomach gets butterflies or they’ll just get a sense, a bit of an intense feeling like I need to do this.
So I find for myself, lots of times I will get words in a restaurant.
It seems when I’m traveling that I don’t know why, maybe because I’m more relaxed or not thinking about anything. I give more opportunity to the Holy Spirit. And so sometimes if it’s a busy place, I’ll write out a word that I’ve got for that person.
DEAN: Oh, is that right? You actually just write out notes.
DIANE: Oh, yeah. I’ll write notes and give these notes to them, and sometimes, even before I leave, the person will come back, and just be very thankful, and sometimes a bit teary-eyed.
It’s usually women that I’m giving the notes to.
I have this sense that God has people in a timeline, and I’m very relaxed now with knowing that prophecy can be one deposit of the Holy Spirit.
And I used to try to put pressure on myself to think, I’ve got to try to lead them through a whole salvation prayer, etc, etc. And I don’t think like that anymore.
You know, the Holy Spirit is very capable of moving people through a timeline, drawing them to really having an encounter of who Jesus is.
And I look back over our life and that’s how God drew me. It was step by step.
And so as I am actually teaching people, and having them be released in prophecy, I really want to help them be confident that they are hearing God and if you step out in what you’re hearing, the Holy Spirit doesn’t disappoint you.
And what’s the worst that can happen? Somebody can think you’re a little bit crazy.
You know, I have a guy right now where it’s been a sort of a silly situation in the sense of we’re decluttering and I’m doing a drop-off.
And this young guy has just been on my heart. And so I find myself praying for him at different times.
I’ve tried to have an encounter. So right now I’ve got a note in my purse. I invited him to come to come for an opportunity where he can hear what God wants to speak to him.
That didn’t work out.
So I have a letter now for him. So. I’ll give him the letter with my contact if I’m local. Lots of times I’m away.
Another encounter, we were at a timeshare experience and I was walking over to a clubhouse and there was a young girl out tending to the lawn.
And this is the thought that went through my head. She’s doing the wrong thing. I immediately had a picture of her with a whole bunch of young children surrounding her.
So I went over and I said ‘hi’ and asked if this was a summer job and just chatted in general conversation
And I said to her, you know sometimes God will speak to me about people.
And I’ve had this picture of you. And this is the picture that I have I said, “I see these children around, but you’re actually teaching them. And I feel like God has given you a teaching ability to work with young children. And this gardener work, isn’t really what you’re called to?”
And she was deciding whether she was going to enroll in university the next month.
And so helping her identify her heart’s desire to be a teacher, helped her take the right course. And, you know, they’re just simple, little things, but at the right timing, they can help guide people.
And it also gives them an awareness that God sees them, which is the most important thing.
DEAN: Yeah, God sees you. He cares.
DIANE: Yes, and He cares. And so, to demystify prophecy, I feel like the more that we can be relevant with our day-to-day experience, the better.
And that actually held me back for a lot of years because I thought what I do is every day and, people really are only interested in prophets or they’re interested in end-time prophecy.
You know, so it’s actually delightful for me that what people actually really want is the day-to-day practical.
And I held off writing a book for 10 years because I just thought, what I do was too basic,
DEAN: But it’s really important.
DIANE: It’s turned out to be what we do now in full-time ministry.
DEAN: So what advice would you give to people who feel they may have a prophetic gift?
DIANE: I would say try to find someone that they have trust or confidence in because there are a lot of options out there. If they know someone who’s prophetic, try to make contact and even get a recommendation.
For example, on my website, I have prophetic teaching videos that are helpful.
I’ve got a workbook, it’s got 10 practical lessons in prophecy. Why don’t you get a hold of that? It’s on Amazon.
Depending on the situation, I’ll say, feel free to contact me.
Quite often, it might be a person, that one person, but they do belong to a church or a community group and they’ll say, would you consider coming in and talking to our group?
DEAN: And your website’s dianeharrison.ca?
DIANE: That’s it. DianeHarrison.ca. And the materials that I use for teaching are on Amazon. And so, again, Diane Harrison, if you look me up.
DEAN: So you have, This Is That? 100 Questions and Answers About Prophecy, which I’ve really enjoyed. I’ve gone through it. Well, even underlining stuff, so, and you have a couple others.
DIANE: That’s my most recent book, it is a quick reference guide.
Another book that I published in 2013, The Power of Prophetic Teams, talks about my journey growing in the prophetic, but also how we incorporated prophetic ministry in our local church.
But to be honest with you, what people find the most valuable is this workbook, Prophetic Team Workbook Student Guide, on the 10 lessons. And there’s been, there’s an instructor guide that goes with that. It’s actually been translated into Spanish. So it’s probably the best tool.
And then the other one I have is 30 Days of Inspiration, which just gives some thoughts on the prophetic. Every day it gives someone a little prophetic exercise.
DEAN: Something they can practice.
DIANE: Yes. Because I actually don’t like just using content unless you’re using exercises because you can’t really learn about your gift unless you’re doing something. So, that’s why I do workshops. It’s hands-on.
We were just in Florida and there was a group that went through some of the training and they were saying how this book was the thing that helped them the most.
DEAN: Oh, is that right?
DIANE: It made them do something every day. And so they actually grew a lot. So now I’m, you know, now I’m thinking, okay, this is helpful.
DEAN: And you also have a prophetic conference coming up on March 8th to 9th, this year 2024 in Regina, Canada, where there will be more teaching on the Gift of Prophecy and the prophetic ministry.
CORRECTION: The price is $40 Canadian to view it online and $65 to attend the conference in person. FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO LIFELINKS.ORG.
DIANE: So it is Friday night, there’s a worship and speaker on Friday and then all day Saturday on the 9th, and so it’s either in person, in Regina, at Harvest City Church, or online.
Last year, we had 300 people attendance, 200 in person, and 100 online. Yeah. And so we just invite anybody, it was great, I’m excited already for March.
DEAN: So they can sign up at lifelinks.org as well you get a link at dianeharrison.ca I take it.
DIANE: Yes. I better double-check. I’ve got a link there, but to get more information on the conference go to lifelinks.org because that’s where all the up-to-date information can be found and where you can register.
DEAN: Well, thank you very much for joining us today…
OpentheWord.org 