Confessions of a Peace Intercessor
© Lucy Andrew-Park Jarasius 2026
Lord, embolden us to go wherever you call us, to greet whoever you send us,
and to do whatever you ask of us, that we might know no fear
except that reverence which leads to wisdom. Amen.
COMMON PRAYER
I have always loved dance!
From my earliest recollections, God revealed in the person of Jesus was real.
I owe both of those formational factors in my life to my mother (Hungarian, born in Romania). Decades after her death, I discovered her hand-written memoir describing her traumatic life in the tumultuous times of Europe shaken by the great wars of the early 20th century. She penned in somewhat broken English (her fifth language) stories about her love of social dancing. She mentioned her belief in the intervention of God in preserving her life on many occasions during escape from Russian military invasion of her homeland, traumatic train travel into Germany, black marketing for survival and many other adventures and misadventures!
However, it wasn’t until I was in my twenties and my introduction to Christian Dance Fellowship of Australia (CDFA), now known as ICDF Australia (ICDFAus), through a dance group in a local church that I discovered dance and faith-life could be marvellously connected! Originally trained in classical ballet for many years, and a “natural” at disco and other forms of social dance, it was a liberating experience to find out that this passion in my life was a God-given talent and that there were many other dancers who had discovered a similar calling. What a joy to connect with a vibrant community of like-hearted dance-creatives keen to journey further in the arts and partner with God for transformational impact throughout the world!
One day, when I was feeling particularly challenged in my difficult first marriage, physically and mentally exhausted with moving house and family after a couple of years of instability and emotional trial, Psalm 87 brought me some welcome comfort.
And of Zion it shall be said,
“This one and that one were born in her”;
for the Most High himself will establish her.
6 The Lord records as he registers the peoples,
“This one was born there. Selah.
7 Singers and dancers alike say,
“All my springs are in you.” RSV
Intercession through dance?
That was a reality yet to dawn on me… and although it was a comparatively slow process, the pace rapidly accelerated as dance gradually became a primary expression of praise, worship and prayer. I recall when my children were tweenagers (before high school age), they saw some reports on television about the shocking treatment of orphans in Romania under the oppressive Ceausescu regime, and asked if we could do something to help them. I then realised that I had been “dancing around the house” to a music track by Farrell and Farrell called The Meek and the Mighty which was a beautiful anthem dedicated to the persecuted believers “behind the iron curtain” (a term used to describe the Eastern European Bloc countries before the fall of Communism).
https://genius.com/Farrell-and-farrell-the-meek-and-the-mighty-lyrics
Whilst dancing some original, spontaneous choreography, I found myself, in a sense, transported in prayer, weeping and yet joyous, serious and somehow victorious, whilst thinking of the people in my mother’s homelands. I told my children that although we couldn’t adopt any orphans, I had been doing a prayer-dance about it, that we could pray together for those children, and we could donate some money to The Bible Society for bibles to Romania because that would help set the people free. It was only a year or two before the news broke… the Berlin Wall was down, the Iron Curtain was lifted and a new era for Eastern Europe loomed bright. Somehow our little prayers and perhaps my dancing had joined with a great many others and something mighty had been accomplished.
At that point in time, I had received no formal theological training, read no books on the subject, wasn’t involved with a prayer-in-movement group, but I genuinely loved Jesus, and loved to dance!
I suppose the Holy Spirit took that as permission to call me deeper and equip me further for some amazing times in store. In fact, I didn’t think of myself as an Intercessor or as particularly creative at all. I just wanted to do happy dances to cool, groovy rhythms and be part of a dance group at whatever church in whatever locality I found myself. Due to the vicissitudes of life in my first marriage, we had a dozen different addresses in about as many years!
Probably the next major impact factor was attending the 1990 CDFA conference in my hometown of Toowoomba, Queensland. I had moved away from that mountain-top Garden City many years before, so it was a special visit to return for what turned out to be a very significant and memorable event! It was then that I had a series of spiritual “God-incidences” whose echoes still resonate in my life – praying with an Aboriginal woman; meeting the members of Sacred Dance Ministries International (SDMI) and attending their Intercession and Prophecy workshops; first brief introductions to various CDFA/ICDF leaders who eventually became faithful friends and comrades in the ministry; and growing in desire to be, as I so innocently termed it, “challenged and developed” in my faith and dance ministry abilities. I still remember many of the details of those particular workshops. Some of the concepts and specific movement sequences formed the basis of prophetic/intercession choreographies in decades to come!
The following year saw me full time at the International Institute for Creative Ministries (IICM) AND sole parenting! Great faith-building combination right there!
However, true to form, the Holy Spirit ramped up the action and I somehow found myself in Jerusalem (the Zion of Psalm 87) at the 1991 ICDF Preparing the Way conference in August of that year, another place of deep calling and expanding experience. However, even though I was kindly offered the opportunity, I do remember feeling too intimidated to dance The Meek and the Mighty in what appeared to me to be an exalted company of pioneers in the world of Christian Dance. At a more informal venue, though, on that trip, I did dance Hope Set High to express a “prayer for reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-indigenous Australians”. That surprise description for the dancework seemed to tumble out my mouth at the time. Little did I suspect that years later, my dreams of dancing with Aboriginal Christian brothers and sisters were to become reality and that the Holy Spirit was to use time and precious relationships with that community to train me more fully whilst sharing their journey. Meanwhile, Isaiah chapters 60-62 had been particularly resonant for me earlier that fateful/faithful year. Never in my wildest imaginations, did I envisage physically prayer-walking through the gates of The Old City (the Jerusalem of the Major Prophets) or dancing in the company of 70 from many nations at such a historic gathering. And yet there I was, as if in a dream, enjoying the privilege of learning from respected dance ministry pioneers and practitioners!
It appeared that I didn’t have to seek anything out, particularly… stuff just kept “falling into my lap”, so to speak. Life continued in all its agony and ecstasy. CDFA/ICDF involvement escalated (vocational development and loads of learning opportunities at committee meetings, workshops, conferences etc) was woven with the occupational necessity to work for a living, books to read (and there were a LOT of them), people to meet, dances to create and teach. It was all happening, forming my being, informing my being, transforming my being, un-norming my thinking AND affecting the way I interceded…
I soon realised that one of the most effective ways to learn something is to TEACH it! It was a thorough baptism by fire to write teaching material whilst delivering a course in Dance Studies at IICM (now Hillsong College). Those brave explorations and biblical Word Studies proved to be the basis for much of my subsequent writing, including over 100 poems, and dance works, and even the basis for a Graduate Diploma in Social Sciences – Adult Education I attained many years later). Prayer, Prophecy and Intercession using Scriptural quotation, flags, banners, fabrics, symbolic props and creative movement (or sometimes with none of them), both spontaneous and choreographed, either in group or solo, continued to colour my life’s twist and turns.
How I would laugh!
I seemed to spend months, or sometimes years, floundering my way through some long-suffering kind of experience, and then a book would come into my possession, ever so eloquently describing the season through which I’d navigated! The Holy Spirit knows how to teach experientially – weaving the lessons into the fabric of our souls!
Despite financial challenges throughout my life, God has always provided, whether it be through family, friends, acquaintances, anonymous donors or paid work. Such faithful provision enabled me to participate in the Christ-partnered work of the Kingdom come. Although it has never been easy for us, my current husband, Andrew, and I are grateful for provision from a variety of sources to serve, many times sacrificially, in the field of arts and mission.
Amongst other amazingly-graced travels, four times I’ve been to Jerusalem and throughout Israel (many locations of both Old and New Testament fame) on intercession assignments including some envisioned by Mary Jones (Founder of CDFA and ICDF), whose call to dance and prayer, and her faithful walk in that vocation, has opened up the way for countless thousands worldwide to participate more fully in the creative callings on their lives! It was a life-changing “surprise” to succeed her as the second Coordinator of ICDF global at a time in my life when I was in circumstances that, in the natural, cried “Mission IMPOSSIBLE”! Intercession, a ministry in the realm of making things possible, became an even more intense factor in my life at that time and continues to shape-shift the parameters of my present, ever-moving me into God’s future. After three consecutive terms, I retired from that role but continue to be involved glocally (global and local) – praying for, being prayed for, as I perpetually learn more about equipping and releasing others more fully into their God-given giftings and callings, whether they be dance-creatives or not!
There are three important pivot points that underpin my experience of intercession:
Jesus (the lens through whom we see)
Jesus (the life through whom we live)
Jesus (the Way through whom we pray)
Hard-won wisdom warns that no matter how tantalising, supernaturally impressive, or exponentially exhilarating any spiritual experience may attempt to dazzle us, if it is not envisioned, initiated and enabled in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, God’s Love incarnate, it is an illusion, and like a puff of hot air is destined to fizzle.
The contemporary world’s fixation with hyper-reality, celebrity status and the pursuit of all things pleasurable, has unfortunately, and far too often, permeated and dangerously diluted the essence of the disciplines and practices necessary for a lifetime journey of spiritual maturation. Jesus walked his human-shaped life for only 33 years. What we know most about, is the last three of them. After 30 years of comparative obscurity, at the outset of that short but inimitable public ministry, he humbly submitted to water baptism by his cousin John, the Preparer of the Way, and then didn’t think it was a waste of time to spend 40 days of spiritual preparation in the wilderness. What did he face after that? Hype and ease? No. Intense temptation came next. Only then, fully prayer-prepped and reliant on the provision, affirmation and enablement of his loving God was he able to walk his destiny – The Way, as he later referred to himself. He walked a lot. He wasn’t carried around in a litter by slaves. He was carried by a beast of burden when in his mother’s womb. He didn’t arrive in Jerusalem’s on a white charger, but on a colt, the foal of an ass. He gave up his heavenly splendour to experience life from our perspective. We await the return of the Ascended One and are indeed, meanwhile, raised to rule and reign with him, but we must follow him as the Descended One, first.
We become what we worship.
What we love, shapes us.
Do we lord ourselves through intercession or do we love the greatest Intercessor of all time, the Lord Jesus Christ?
How will we be formed, informed and transformed by our living theology of intercession?
May the Way of Christ be the most important influence on our development as intercessors, along with inspiration from the examples of the pioneers who have walked in his footsteps before us.
I have also, on many occasions, been inspired by intercessors with whom I co-labour in person and online. What a joy and privilege!
We intercede, meek and yet mighty through our God, our hopes set high in the One who loves us most, who cares for and equips us, so that we may partner in creative works, bridging the spiritual and the natural, co-constructing a New Thing culture/world/universe… Shalom/Peace… the way things were originally destined to be. Catch the Spirit. Keep in step with the Spirit. Pray the Word. Change the world – one life, one prayer-dance at a time!
From the Book of Ephesians…
God, who can see and understand perfectly what we could never comprehend, has let us in on the mystery of the divine plan. God took great delight in opening this up and giving us a preview in Christ. This is how it will unfold when the time is right: God will unify all things into one perfect communion in Christ, reconciling everything, from the depths of the earth to the farthest reaches of heaven…
Always remember where you came from, or you’ll begin to take what God has done for granted…
No matter how far away you were, through his own blood, sweat and tears, Christ has brought you right into the centre of things…
Christ set out to make peace — offering himself to us both equally, suffering on the cross for us both equally — so that in him we might find one shared basis for reconciliation with God…
Perhaps you could think of it this way. God is constructing a wonderful temple using every kind of material that comes to hand, regardless of its origins. The foundations are the apostles and prophets and all they did and said. Now all of us are being added, one at a time, with Christ Jesus himself as the central pillar that holds the whole structure together. With every part inseparably linked to him, the whole structure grows day by day into a holy temple dedicated to the Lord. So there you are. United in Christ we become a place where God’s Spirit is proud to live. ©2000 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net