The River: The Story
One of our greatest blessings from the Detling Summer Conference is to receive encouragement from those who have attended, reporting how much the Bible week has blessed them. One constant theme is ‘The River’. If you've never attended Detling you’re probably asking ‘what’s The River?’ The best way to answer that question is by explaining how the ‘The River’ came about.

A few years ago the Lord started to release a new freedom to prophesy in music and song at St. Luke’s. This began during a conference with Guy Chevreau, during which he demonstrated so much to us about moving in prophetic worship. By ‘prophetic worship’, we mean revealing the heart of the Father.

Since prophecy is primarily about revelation (not prediction as people often think) in our times of prophetic worship we are seeking to reveal the heart of the Father through music and song. This often takes the form of singing out small extracts from the Bible; ‘the’ infallible word of God. Though we do believe that God wants to reveal his heart outside of the Bible, in no way would this ever contradict it! Any word claiming to be of the Spirit must also find its confirmation in the Bible; they never contradict one another.

A year after the one of the team of intercessors brought along an article from  ‘Catch the Fire’ magazine to a meeting. The article described a prophetic vision and a call to ‘get back in the river’: it went on to describe a picture of many people who had climbed out of the river of God because they were tired or disillusioned. The writer said that they had seen a bend in the river just beyond the point where so many were getting out and that past this bend was the place of blessing. This picture spoke powerfully to us.

The next part of the story is more of a happy accident rather than a vision given in a dream; the early draft of the schedule for the first Detling conference left the main meeting venue empty during the  afternoons and it was decided to have the worship band in there during this time to serve the delegates by singing and playing over them;  giving them the chance to soak in the presence of God. (‘Soaking’ sessions have been going on for many years at TACF in Toronto so there was nothing original about this idea!) The plan was simple; the band would sing and play and invite people to come and rest in God’s presence and, if they felt prompted, to read out scriptures over the meeting.

‘The River’ is now one of the most popular meetings at the Detling Summer Conference; some sit, others lie down, many bring cushions, some even bring more substantial bedding, whatever! The place is littered with those wanting to be still with the Lord and listen to Him. As James Ryle quite aptly put it, ‘Don’t ask the question, "does God speak?", but, "do we listen?"’ The Lord is pleased when His people make the time to stop and listen to Him!

The River has proved so popular that it's now a regular feature of life at St. Luke's with events being held several times a year; though the format continues to evolve beyond what is possible at Detling it's still all about listening to God.

River Information
 

Stories from the first River held in St. Luke's