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An Interview with Sue Bowman
It was for freedom that Christ
set us free;
therefore keep standing firm
and do not be
subject again to a yoke of slavery.
Galatians 5:1
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Q. Tell me what you are currently
doing in the body of Christ.
A. I am the leader of the Pool Ministries, a teacher and a
practicing prayer minister. Prayer ministry, as I understand it,
includes generational
restoration and deliverance as well as inner healing. I am
building a prophetic ministry team (they are awesome!) that is
equipped to move in inner healing, generational restoration, and
deliverance as well as ministry to the land and heavenly appeals.
Sam’s role is different from mine. I am more of a hands-on
practitioner, while he is more of a scholar in that he searches out
the Word of God and engages in extensive study of church history and
the development of religious thought.
He is an excellent teacher of the foundational truths of our
faith and much respected by our people for his knowledge of the
scripture and his love of God’s people.
My husband and I co-pastor a church. Unlike the traditional
American church, we meet in homes.
Q. How did the Lord call you to the ministry?
A. Through a number of avenues. I am a firm believer that we
should wait on the Lord to clearly confirm His direction for our
lives. The Lord confirmed His call on my life in five distinct ways.
1. Through an Open Vision: I had been seriously seeking the
Lord for guidance about where He was leading me concerning ministry.
On the morning of November 7, 2003, I saw a flock of black birds in
my backyard. I saw myself spreading seed for the birds, who were
calling me to feed them.
2. By a Prophetic Event on the following day: I was eating
an enormous muffin for breakfast at Atlanta Bread Company when a
nonverbal, handicapped man appeared by my table. Through signs and
grunts he made it clear to me that he wanted me to share my muffin,
so I gave him half of the muffin. Then the man disappeared, or at
least I didn’t see him leave. He was just gone. I didn’t think
anymore about it, but as I got into my car and began to drive away,
the Lord spoke to me. He said, “Feed my people.” I have never seen
the handicapped man again.
3. Through the Word of the Lord in April 2005: The Lord
illuminated John 21:15-17 to me.
4. Through Prophetic Acts: Over a period of about 20 years,
I have had three prophets prophetically equip me for ministry. In
1983, David Ingles imparted joy to me so that I would be able to
endure my calling. In 1987, Barry Taylor, a prophetic teacher from
Norvel Hayes’ ministry, prophetically asked the Lord to anoint me
for service. In May 2005, during a conference at the Advocate
Center, James Goll called me out and imparted fire to me. He only
called two people out. One was a missionary to Russia. I was the
other.
5. By the Hand of the Lord: I have never been a leader in a
ministry that has not borne good fruit. Currently, my husband and I
are ministering to people in a pastoring, mentoring, equipping
capacity from home meetings. It was our wish to work within the
traditional church structure, but the Lord is not allowing that at
this time, so we are doing the work of the ministry from our
house-based church, The Pool.
Q. Tell about your Christian experience.
A. I was living in Montgomery, Alabama, with my young son. I was
recently divorced and very very lost. A friend began to pressure me
to read the Bible, so, just to get her to leave me alone, I began to
read the book of Proverbs. I was fascinated. Then I moved to the
Gospels. I was born again in December, 1982, in my bedroom after
finishing the Book of Matthew. Shortly after that, I was baptized in
the Holy Spirit with evidence of tongues at Christian Life Church.
Steve Vickers is the pastor there. I didn’t know anything about the
Holy Spirit. A man that I admired had told me to get baptized in the
Holy Spirit and then I could speak in tongues. I thought that
sounded really cool. So I told the altar counselors I wanted to be
baptized in the Holy Spirit and they prayed with me.
Wow! All I can say is that the Holy Spirit is absolutely amazing
and wonderful. I had never felt love like that. All I could do was
cry.
I was in college at the time, finishing my BA in
Communications. A year later, I received my degree and moved to
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to attend graduate school at the University of
Alabama.
I entered voluntary service as a children’s church pastor at
New Covenant Church. At the time, New Covenant had no children’s
church, only a Sunday School. I started a children’s church based on
Willie George’s model. It was very successful and hugely fun. I also
conducted New Covenant’s first children’s outreaches. Ed and Ginny
Rickles are the pastors of New Covenant Church. At the same time,
kids just started showing up at my apartment. I was living in
graduate student housing at the time. So, I began a house-based
children’s ministry. This ministry led dozens of international
children to the Lord, filled them with the Holy Spirit, and trained
them in basic Christianity.
I went on to serve as a children’s pastor and youth pastor
at New Covenant for 19 years.
Q. Who is drawn to your ministry?
A. Two types of people come to the Pool. Either Christians
seeking freedom from deep emotional wounds or Christians seeking to
become more effective healers themselves. For the first, we seek to
establish them in sound doctrine, heal their wounds, foster maturity
through wholesome community and ministry opportunities, and equip
them to bring healing and freedom to others. Some of the people we
serve are the most wounded, the sexually abused, the homosexual
seeking freedom, those with dissociative identity disorder. But many
of the people who turn to us are Christians who appear whole
outwardly, but are in terrible pain inwardly.
We believe that nothing is too difficult for God. If we
don’t know how to minister to a particular kind of wound, we seek
out those who do and learn from them.
Q. What is your goal or dearest desire for the body of Christ?
A. It is my desire to see the body of Christ healed and equipped
to take God’s healing to the world.
Q. What training do you have?
A. I am
Elijah House-trained for prayer ministry. I study the work of Dr.
Tom Hawkins—his ministry is called Restoration in Christ Ministries—
for help praying with those with
dissociative identity
disorder. I have studied Charles Kraft’s work, and the work
of Arthur Burk at Plumbline Ministries for help with generational
deliverance, spiritual discernment and many other good things, the
latest of which is his work with the human spirit. I have also
studied James Goll’s material, Patricia King’s and some of Rick
Joyner’s work. The Pool is currently studying Mark Virkler’s work on
hearing God’s voice. I like his dream interpretation teaching. I’ve
studied John Paul Jackson’s material on dreams and visions. I am
completely sold on Dr. Jim Wilder’s views on creating a healing
community (Shepherd’s House). I’ve also studied some basic
theophostic (Dr. Ed Smith) as well as the THRIVE model. The website
is
www.thrivetoday.org.
I believe it is important to drink from as many streams as
possible, then to sort through what I’ve learned, pray about it and
experience different things. The Lord will confirm what is of Him. I
believe that understanding and insight grow as we mature.
Q. Do you ever regret going into the ministry?
A. Sometimes the needs of the people feel overwhelming. There
is so much about human development that the church doesn’t
understand. We are trying to accomplish the great things of God on
the earth and we lack so much understanding of what it is to be
human and what it takes to bring healing to others. The brokenness
of our culture is distressing and the increase of darkness sometimes
feels intimidating.
Q. What keeps you going in ministry?
A. We have so many reports of measurable good fruit from our
work. That is so encouraging and exciting - to enjoy God’s people
coming into their freedom.
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