PROPHETIC WORDS

MATURING THE CHURCH

by Lyn Packer

February 2026

Healing the Soul and Renewing the Mind

The past few years have seen pressures and upheaval on a scale that many have not ever experienced before. Amidst that, I firmly believe that one of the big things God is emphasising is the need in the church for a greater level of emotional and mental health, through the healing of soul wounds and the renewing of our minds(metanoia). This is so that we may develop a greater trust in the unfailing love of the Trinity, and a perseverance in faith, becoming mature sons and daughters who are able to release the Kingdom of Heaven into Earth with wisdom and love.

James 1:2-4, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

Within that, the Lord is calling us to recognise that the emotional and mental health of His children is critical for what lies ahead – both in the shifts that society will face, and in the harvest field. While for years we have seen an emphasis on the healing of the body, the Lord is also calling people to a fresh recognition of the need for the healing of their soul. And, out of that, He is issuing an invitation to His people to step into a new era of mission, discipleship and training.

God is calling us each to recognise the wounds we carry, open ourselves to His searching eye, and allow Him to heal our pain. Psa 139:23,24 is a particularly pertinent Scripture passage at the moment… “God, I invite your searching gaze into my heart. Examine me through and through; find out everything that may be hidden within me. Put me to the test and sift through all my anxious cares. See if there is any path of pain I’m walking on, and lead me back to your glorious, everlasting way – the path that brings me back to you.”

However, many will want to stay within the perceived safety of the way they currently believe, see things, and do things. This inability to see that their minds need renewing and their soul wounds need healing is not only causing them to be stifled in their personal growth, but is also causing a log jam in the flow of living water from their lives personally, from the church corporately, and a delay in the healing, restoration and discipling of the nations.

We need to pray for eyes to be opened!

A call to train and equip

God is calling church leadership (apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelists, pastors, and elders), to personally be more trauma informed, to allow the Lord to heal their hidden wounds, and to provide trauma-informed training for those in leadership positions in our churches, so that we don’t continue to minister from a narrow, out of date understanding e.g. where everything is thought to be a demon, or counsellors are scorned and belittled (as some leaders currently do, either behind closed doors or openly).

While verses such as Jer 6:14 were originally written concerning the priests and prophets in Israel, they also have a wider application to the church today. “They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, Saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ But there is no peace.” (NASB). We must consider that some of what we have done has not produced true or lasting fruit, because we acted out of ignorance in years past.

It is only as church leaders open their hearts to become trauma informed, healed themselves, and then train their people to recognise woundedness and trauma responses in themselves and other people, that we will see good progress made in the healing of the nations.

God is calling us to get ready for an influx of hurting people by allowing Him to challenge our mindsets and heal our woundedness, so we can minister to their distorted identities, trauma-based beliefs, behaviour, and broken heartedness.

This mission field is potentially one of the largest mission fields ever, and is being opened to those who will allow God to go deep and first bring healing and the renewing of their own minds and healing of their woundedness. God is wanting to release soul wound and trauma-informed evangelists and healers into the harvest in all arenas of life – people who will bring the good news of God’s plan for healing and wholeness to those they meet, alongside those who counsel and minister healing to the broken-hearted.

The Lord promises to give insight, discernment, strategy and training to those He calls, as well as giving us insight, discernment, and providing training opportunities in therapy modalities that currently exist.

While in some ways this call is to all His children, there are those that He will call to make it a priority and focus, and it is especially important for leaders to embrace and action.

2 Cor 1:3–4, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”

Addressing an Imbalance

One of the things that will be critical in seeing the fulfilment of God’s heart and plans for this range of healing He desires to do, is to bring a balance to the way many in the church currently view God.

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them”, Gen 1:27.

Jesus himself revealed both masculine and feminine attributes of God in His nature, teaching, and His lifestyle, in the way He treated people and cared for them.

Yet for centuries the focus of the church has been on what we perceive as the male attributes of God and, as an outworking of that, the feminine attributes of God have been largely overlooked. In the coming years we will see God addressing this imbalance.

Where we have seen a revelation of the Father’s heart, we will begin to see a deep revelation of the mother-heart of God released within the church. Neither the expression of the church corporately, or the healing and restoration of the individual human soul, can be fully realized without the expression of the feminine aspects of God’s nature being outworked in the church.

One of the precious things that will emerge from this is that we will see not only an emphasis on healing the mother wounds that so many men and women carry, but a fresh appreciation for the full expression of who God is.

Fresh Tables

Traditional church models that have become ineffective, and church models based on strong charismatic leadership personalities, will continue to undergo an exposing and pruning process to bring them back into line with how Jesus led, and what the early church fathers believed Jesus himself taught and modelled.

God is calling us to remove the pedestals we have placed people on, and challenging our mistaken belief that charisma/celebrity, strong, driven leaders provide the best leadership model.

As an outcome we will see less personality driven expressions of church and more relationship-based tables of gathering established – to eat from, to be refreshed at, to disciple and look after the babies (New Christians) – as well as providing places to build together, and to reach out from.

 More Verses

1.     Some more verses relating to soul healing.

• Psa 56:8 (God keeps track of our sorrows, pain and tears) 

• Psa 34:18 (God is near the broken-hearted and saves those crushed in spirit),

• Isa 41:10 (God offers strength and help),

• Isa 53:4 (He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows.

• Matt 11:28 (Jesus invites the weary and burdened to come to Him and find rest)

• Rev 21:4 (promising an end to sorrow, providing comfort and hope for recovery)

2.     The following is a non-exhaustive list of the ways the Bible reveals feminine aspects of God’s nature; by using feminine characteristics and metaphors:

• Deut 32:11.God is like a mother eagle hovering over her young .

• Deut 32:18. We forget the God who gave birth to us.

• Psa 22:9-10, Ps 71:6, Isa 66:9. God cares for us like a midwife that cares for the child she just delivered.

• Isa 42:14. God is like a woman in labour bringing forth a new creation.

• Isa 49:15. Like a woman would never forget her nursing child, God will not forget us.

• Isa 66:10-13. God comforts his people like a mother comforts her child .

• Hos 11:1-4. God is described as a tender parent who taught their children to walk, who bent down and brought this beloved child to their cheek and who feeds them.

• Hos 13:8. God experiences the fury of a mother bear robbed of her cubs.

• Luke 15:8-10. God seeks the lost like a diligent housekeeper, trying to find her lost coin.

• Luke 13:34. Jesus longed for the people of Jerusalem, like a mother hen longs to gather her chicks under her wings.

• John 1:12-13 Those who believe in God are born of God.

• John 3:3. “Jesus answered and said to him, Truly, truly, I say to you, except anyone be born from above, he is not able to see the kingdom of God."

• John 16:21. God is bringing forth a new humanity like the pangs of a woman in labour; her hour has come.

• Proverbs. Wisdom, the main character in the book of Proverbs, is presented clearly as a feminine persona who is said to have been at the creation of the world (many theologians believe Wisdom is another name for the Holy Spirit).

BIO