Lou Engle confirmed to Charisma he has ended his 18-year ministry, TheCall.
“The Holy Spirit spoke to me: ‘End TheCall. Don’t try to sustain your ministry. I want you to begin to look for the Jesus ministry in America.'”
Click here to watch Engle’s official announcement.
TheCall has given birth to a new movement called The Send, which will host its first event in February 2019 in Orlando.
The shift has been seven years in the making.
In 2011, YWAM’s Andy Byrd and other members of Engle’s inner circle gathered in Engle’s Kansas City living room to pray over what the Lord was stirring in their hearts.
The group felt the Lord tell them, “There’s coming a shift to TheCall, and there will not be just fasting and prayer, but the proclamation of the gospel, signs and wonders and stadiums will rebuild, and Billy Graham’s mantle is coming on the nation,” Engle says.
The group prayed for two days until a prophet called Byrd with a message for Engle.
“He said, ‘Tell him I had a visitation last night and it had to do with God speaking to me saying that there’s coming a shift to TheCall, and it will be stadiums and fasting and prayer, and Billy Graham’s mantle is coming upon TheCall.’
“And I was shaken. I knew it was the Lord, that there was some shift coming and it had to do with as the brothers spoke in my living room, it was that TheCall would give birth to The Send,” Engle says.
On Feb. 12, 2018, Engle says he was studying 2 Kings 2 when Elisha refused to let Elijah leave until the younger prophet received the double portion of anointing. Engle was prompted to pray the same thing about Graham’s evangelism anointing.
Nine days later, Graham died, and Engle knew it was time for The Send to come to fruition.
“We believe that [Graham’s] mantle is hovering, waiting for thousands to lay hold of it,” Engle tells Shawn Bolz for an upcoming issue of Charisma. “It is a mantle that is a burden for evangelism—for a new era of Jesus the Evangelist—to manifest a new Jesus People movement harvest to take place. I believe The Send will be a flashpoint for the fulfillment of that word. I so believe in this shift that I have ended TheCall.”
Engle says The Send will have similar DNA to TheCall, but the two are not the same ministry.
TheCall served a John the Baptist-type function, while The Send will focus on Jesus.
Engle says the Holy Spirit told him, “‘I want you to begin to look for the Jesus ministry in America.’ I’ve ended TheCall, and I am looking for The Send. I am looking for the Jesus evangelist, and the anointing will come.”
Byrd of YWAM senses Graham’s influence on the movement, too.
“There are clear themes developing … the first is the story line of the passion and zeal of Billy Graham (and other fathers/mothers) falling on a whole generation in a way where many are walking in the passion they carried,” Byrd says.
“The second is that out of The Send, we are really believing it will be another piece of catalyzing a Jesus movement across America (the re-evangelization of America) and a massive missions movement to the nations! The whole gathering is an ‘adoption’ movement. To see the church activated in adoptive love to adopt every high school. university, neighborhood and nation! Matthew 9:37: ‘Lord, send laborers, for the harvest field is ripe.’ He prays it out of his own adoptive love. Great compassion and zeal married together! … In simplicity, activate and empower the all to reach the all,” Byrd says.
For more information on The Send, click here. For the full story on The Send, check out the December 2018 issue of Charisma.
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