“What is Sozo prayer?”……Sozo prayer, or Sozo ministry (from the Greek for "save" or "deliver") is defined as "a unique inner healing and deliverance ministry in which the main aim is to get to the root of those things hindering your personal connection with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit." Sozo was created by a group of people from BethelChurch in Redding, California, and modeled after spiritual practices observed at revivals in Argentina. Sozo is strongly mystical in its approach and relies heavily on ideas about God and the Holy Spirit that are not based on biblical fact.……Sozo prayer requires the presence of a mediator / guide, who is trained to walk participants through a time of prayer and reflection that is supposed to facilitate intimacy with God. Intimacy with God is definitely something to be sought; however, the method of attaining intimacy via a journey through the subconscious is questionable at best. Intimacy with God is achieved by Bible study, prayer, regular church attendance, and obedience, not by a mystical "journey" through our past. The Bible warns us to be discerning and wise, and not to be fooled (Hosea 14:9Hebrews 5:14). The Bible and the Holy Spirit-not our subconscious thoughts or a fallible human being-are our connection to the counsel and the voice of God (John 17:17). Many types of ungodly mystical practices include the presence of a "spirit guide," but the Bible tells us that our connection to the Father is a direct connection, mediated by Christ (1 Timothy 2:5) and guided by the Holy Spirit (John 16:13). No other spirit guide is necessary.……The methods and practices of Sozo are of human invention and require human instruction, without reference to Scripture. In fact, Sozo is much closer to new age mysticism than to Christianity. Participants are encouraged into a mild trance state, while being "led" into a series of mental / emotional rooms or stages where, by connecting to their own deeper feelings and thoughts, they believe themselves to have a new experience with God. Whatever participants feel has happened to them, the Bible tells us it is dangerous to open ourselves up to something that has not been sanctioned by God (Ephesians 4:11-14). Preaching and teaching, evangelism, and the practice of anointing a person with oil, or laying hands on them, for instance, are all shown in Scripture to be spiritually safe and useful. But Sozo prayer does not have that kind of "backing". It's kind of like taking a drug that isn't approved by the FDA. It might not damage you, but why take the risk?……In another part of the Bethel Sozo website, one of the goals of Sozo is to enable participants to "heal your relationship with God to enable you to fulfill your destiny." But the Bible tells us that a Christian's destiny is death to self and obedience to Christ through faith in His power and saving grace (Luke 9:23Ephesians 2:8-9). The things that make us one with God are produced by the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22), and a Christian does not need to be led on a mystical prayer journey to attain them. Every believer is conformed to Christ's image by His power and has already been blessed with "every spiritual gift in the heavenly realms" (Ephesians 1:3).……In summary, we do not believe that Sozo ministry / prayer is a godly practice or something that is needed, or helpful, for a believer's fellowship with God. Sozo is much more closely related to mysticism and spiritism than to true intimacy with God. True intimacy with Him happens by illumination of the Word of God by the Holy Spirit and fellowship with Christ as we show love for the Father through obedience to and imitation of Him (Ephesians 5:1).

“What is Christian mysticism?”……The term “Christian mystic” is an oxymoron. Mysticism is not the experience of a Christian. Whereas Christian doctrine maintains that God dwells in all Christians and that they can experience God directly through belief in Jesus, Christian mysticism aspires to apprehend spiritual truths inaccessible through intellectual means, typically by emulation of Christ. The Bible tells us that Christ-likeness is achieved only by dying to self-not by self-effort at emulating anyone-and that spiritual truth is discerned through the intellect as guided by the indwelling Holy Spirit, who lives in all believers (John 16:131 Corinthians 2:14).……The closest valid experience of a Christian that might resemble mysticism to an unbelieving observer is when the Christian is filled with the Holy Spirit. For Christians, it is evident that the extraordinary wisdom, boldness, understanding, strength, etc. that such spiritual believers demonstrate is the result of being filled with the Spirit, as it is set forth in the Bible. Unbelievers cannot correctly comprehend such things. The Bible tells us why: “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment: ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16).……Consciousness of God is part of the common definition of the mystic's experience, but the only valid experience of this nature for the Christian is that which is allowed according to Scripture. “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children” (Romans 8:16). Most modern mystical experiences suggest either things that don’t really have much substance (make no meaningful contribution to the understanding of corporeal life) or things that would appear to challenge evangelical Bible doctrine, which invalidates the experience.……The closest biblical account that an unbeliever might conclude was a mystical experience might be the apostle Paul’s Damascus Road experience (Acts 22:1-21) or the experience he described in 2 Corinthians: “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know-God knows. And I know that this man-whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows-was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell” (2 Corinthians 12:2-4).……As we examine this account from a Christian perspective, however, we notice particularly that Paul makes it clear God would not allow him to give the details of that experience. Thus, it would hardly be reasonable for us to believe that God would be willing to divulge spiritual truth by the manner in which mystics seem to flaunt their experiences. It is His will to declare spiritual truth through the apostles of the Church by the vehicle of the Holy Scriptures. “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message” (John 17:20). God said, "My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4:6), not from lack of a mystical experience.