March 3, 2024, at Calvary Wesleyan Church in Harrington, Delaware, started out like any other Sunday. The staff unlocked the doors and turned on the lights. There was a sound check and prayer time. Nothing out of the ordinary. "It was a normal, good Sunday morning," Pastor Caleb Dunn recalled.
The morning’s events stayed on course well into the first service, that is until a staff member encountered one family’s deep need and the Holy Spirit’s unexpected invitation. During the first service, Worship Leader Thadd George’s wife told him a young mother, Jessica Kemp, had come hoping Pastor Caleb would pray for her son, Jeffrey.
Earlier that week, six-year-old Jeffrey had been diagnosed with stage 4, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma — a cancer in the lymphatic system.[1] And in Jessica’s words, the week “had been a nightmare.” Jessica shared, “I went from having two healthy kids to being told my son was sick, and I was fearing losing my son.” Five specialists looked at the pathology and confirmed the diagnosis.
So, Jessica had come to church, ready to ask for prayer. She went on, “I just wanted to reach the Lord so bad.”
Thadd, Calvary’s director of Worship and Creative Arts, reflected on the moment he learned about Jessica’s request. It’s not unusual for staff to receive prayer requests on Sundays and at first this request felt routine. Thadd listened and planned to tell the staff later so they could pray throughout the week. However, “Something shifted, and I just knew, this has to happen today.”
As Thadd described this decision, he recalled one of Pastor Caleb’s favorite expressions: “The worst thing we can do is stay on track.”
Reassured by this cultural value, Thadd stepped off track. He quickly decided to interrupt the service with this prayer request, all along reminding himself, “This is why we are here. We can interrupt this.”
From there, Thadd worked with the tech teams to get the message to Caleb who was already delivering the sermon. Pastor Caleb describes looking at the monitor and reading, “Pray for Jeffrey.” Without hearing that morning’s conversations, Pastor Caleb, too, went off track and added prayer time to the service.
“I was just thinking, what are we doing? I’m preaching a message from Luke 14 where someone is healed. Jesus tells us to pray for healing,” Pastor Caleb explained. “So, we’re going to pray for healing.”
These seemingly straightforward decisions were not without risk. At the time, Pastor Caleb had only been lead pastor for a little over a year. He’d just completed a succession process and was following Pastor Ken Figgs, a well-loved leader who had been serving Calvary for 20 years. The staff was new. And like nearly every believer, Pastor Caleb and Thadd could recall their own painful stories of unanswered prayer. What if they decided to pray for this young boy and he wasn’t healed?
While there are clear commands and examples of how to pray for healing in Scripture, not every healing prayer is answered. In fact, the Bible records instances where people in need of healing don’t receive it. The Apostle Paul prayed for healing from “the thorn in his flesh,” an ailment that never resolved this side of heaven (2 Corinthians 12:7-9). Believers like Timothy, who suffered from stomach ailments, and Trophimus, who is left “sick at Miletus” in 1 Timothy 4, and is not healed by Paul who had successfully prayed for healing for countless others.[2]
Despite this knowledge and their experiences, both Pastor Caleb and Thadd responded in obedience to the Holy Spirit’s prompting. In Caleb’s words, they decided to “take Jesus at his word,” following the practice of healing prayer as described in James 5.
At the sermon’s conclusion, Pastor Caleb announced the church was going to pray for Jeffrey. His mother, Jessica, went to get him from children’s ministry as the congregation silently waited. When they walked into the sanctuary, Pastor Caleb invited them on stage. The mood in the room was reverent yet weighty. As Jessica reached center-stage, this loving mother fell to her knees and began to weep, with Jeffery standing at her side.
At that moment, nearly the whole congregation came forward and laid hands on them. Some came on stage, others stood reaching their hands forward. No one had invited them to come. But in unison, the congregation responded to the needs of a mother and son and the Holy Spirit’s prompting.
“There were more people around the stage than there were in their seats,” Pastor Caleb recalled. Together they prayed in agreement for Jeffrey’s healing.
After the prayer Pastor Caleb dismissed the service and everyone went home. Jeffrey’s pathology was sent to the National Cancer Institute. No one heard any news for several days. Then the results came back. There was no sign of cancer.
“The Lord answered my prayers and healed my baby!” Jessica exclaims.
When this healing story was shared with the church two weeks later, four people from Calvary were baptized. God had performed a miracle! This was over a year ago, and as Jessica describes, today her son is “happy, thriving and most of all healthy.”
While it’s not clear why God decided to move in a special way at Calvary that ordinary March morning, that Sunday’s events bolstered a community’s faith and pointed to a kingdom and power beyond that which we can see. When describing this healing, Pastor Caleb summarized it beautifully, “All healing that we see is a foreshadowing, an anticipation. It’s a sign of the reality in which all things will be brought to Jesus.” Earthly healings aren’t meant to lead to eternal life on earth but rather to demonstrate the reality of an eternal kingdom.
Pastor Caleb went on, “Healing needs to be celebrated because it’s the assurance that the people who aren’t healed on this earth are ultimately healed. If God’s able to do it now, he’ll be able to do it then.”
[1] "What is diffuse large B-cell lymphoma?" Cleveland Clinic (2025, June 2), https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24405-diffuse-large-b-cell-lymphoma.
[2] Deere, J., "Does god promise healing to all?" Seedbed, (2020, May 4), https://seedbed.com/does-god-promise-healing-to-all.