For those of you not familiar with Jim Goll, he’s a prophet, intercessor, author and speaker – and has one of the greatest laughs you’ve ever heard. In January, he spoke at PIHOP about an overlooked aspect of intimacy with God: “If you want to participate in intimacy, I’m going to tell you about something that’s more than just soaking worship … it’s called God’s heart for the poor. God’s heart for the poor will bring you into greater intimacy with God. If you want to be closer to God, love the people and places that God loves. And the poor are close to his heart. The lost are close to his heart. The sick are close to his heart.”
He challenged those at PIHOP to engage in a new level of servanthood kindness that will lead to greater displays of the power of God.
In the midst of this message, he twice heard the Lord speak to him about something called “Pisgah” not far from PIHOP. He had no idea what it meant. The second time he heard it, he interrupted his message: “There’s something about a Pisgah Tabernacle or something in the region. Go visit it because it’s an overlooked Pentecostal well. Go look it up and maybe do some onsite locational prayer.”
Being the research nerd that I am, I headed for Google and typed in the words Pisgah and Pasadena. I discovered an overlooked Pentecostal well called Old Pisgah Tabernacle in Highland Park (between Pasadena and Los Angeles). The Lord has since confirmed that this is the same Pisgah that Jim Goll spoke of.
Pisgah began in 1895 when Finis Yoakum, a medical doctor, was miraculously healed of life-threatening injuries. Dr. Yoakum received supernatural visions directing him to create a mission that would serve the needy. He and his wife turned their home at 6044 Echo Street into a mission and moved into a tent next door. He named his ministry Pisgah Home after the mountain where Moses stood to view the promised land, and he vowed to spend the rest of his life serving the chronically ill, the poor, and the social outcast.
Dr. Yoakum created a number of outreach ministries throughout the Los Angeles area, all headquartered at the home in Highland Park. The mission’s website states: “In 1911, Pisgah Home provided regular housing for 175 workers and stable indigents and made provisions for an average of 9,000 clean beds and 18,000 meals monthly to the urban homeless, the poor, and the social outcasts, including alcoholics, drug addicts, and prostitutes. Each week, Yoakum sent his workers throughout Los Angeles to distribute nickels for the cost of trolley fare to Pisgah Home. Other activities included the nearby Pisgah Store, Pisgah Ark (recovery House for Women), Pisgah Gardens (rehabilitative center, orphanage, and farm in North Hollywood), Pisgah Grande (3,225 acres for a utopian community in Chatsworth), and a later donation of a 500 acre retreat center and farm in Tennessee.”(1)
The mission is also closely aligned with the founding of Pentecostalism in Los Angeles. Dr. Yoakum promoted divine healing, the baptism in the Holy Spirit and during the Azusa Street revival hosted many followers at the mission site. Pisgah is prominently featured in Tommy Welchel’s book “They Told Me Their Stories,” which gives first-hand accounts of the Azusa Street revival by people who were there as children and teens.
Dr. Yoakum went to be with the Lord in 1920, and the mission changed over the years. It published a newspaper focused on healing and salvation, and for 30 years broadcast a syndicated radio program called “Herald of Hope.” It eventually became a retirement community for many of those who ministered with William Seymour during the Azusa Street Revival of the early 1900’s. Today the site is known as Christ Faith Mission/Old Pisgah Home and is a senior residential living center with the goal of serving the needy.
It is interesting that Jim Goll heard the word Pisgah – “an overlooked Pentecostal well” – on the same night that he spoke to PIHOP about servanthood kindness. He spoke of a “Good Samaritan’s anointing” to love and provide for those who don’t have families, the disenfranchised, the poor and the outcast. “Sometimes all that is needed is to just love them,” he said. “Take the little bit that you’ve got and do something with it. Move in a conspiracy of kindness.”
Jim Goll finished the evening by prophesying over PIHOP. His word gives greater insight into the spiritual link between PIHOP and the Pisgah mission, and shows the importance of praying at the mission site to re-dig its Pentecostal well. This is his word in its entirety:
“I believe God wants to establish the poor man’s watch in this house. I declare an impartation for the watch of the Lord for the poor. You’re to cry out for the homeless, you’re going to cry out for the poor, you’re going to cry out for the displaced. I speak the burden of the Lord for the displaced, those who are called foreigners, who live in this region, some of whom some people want to send away – back to other countries. God is going to give you God’s heart for the displaced. And you’re supposed to put on a different set of lenses. And you’re not to have on the lenses of judgment, but you’re supposed to have on the lenses of refuge, refuge, refuge – the City of Refuge, the region of refuge. Los Angeles, the City of Refuge – I see it right now. It is an international, cosmopolitan city of refuge and some might want there to be laws passed to do this and do that, to put penalties here and put penalties there, but I am telling you God in his redemptive understanding has a heart for the displaced, for the foreigner and for the alien, for those who are alone, for the sick and for the poor, and for the outcast. And I call forth God’s heart for the displaced, and I call forth the watch of the Lord for the displaced, for so many from Mexico in the name of Jesus, and so many from Central and South America, in the name of the Lord. I speak forth the heart of God for the displaced, but I speak forth a prayer watch for the City of Refuge. And you’re going to pray it, you’re going to call it, you’re going to birth it, you’re going to call it into being: the City of Refuge in the name of Jesus. I see multiple, almost like Dream Centers. Not like one Dream Center, but a lot of Dream Centers getting set up, a lot of places of refuge. I see like ten, twelve Dream Centers getting set up. I see multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple. Each have different fortes, each have different apostolic applications, each have different anointings. But they are for the displaced, for the City of Refuge. It’s all going to be tied to prayer. I see a wedding that is going to happen between the House of Prayer and the poor man’s watch. There shall be a wedding between the House of Prayer and the poor man’s watch and it shall birth justice in this generation. When the House of Prayer and the poor man’s watch are ready to come together, there shall be a wellspring of justice in this generation. The justice riders shall be birthed out of the womb of the poor man’s watch and the House of Prayer coming together for such a time as this, in the name of Jesus.”
(1) Source: www.pisgah.com.
