What Happens in a Bethel Sozo?

If you’ve read What Is Bethel Sozo?, you may now be wondering a more practical question:

What actually happens when I have a Sozo?

Perhaps you’ve never experienced anything like it before. Perhaps you’re wondering what you’ll be asked to do. Perhaps you’re a little nervous about what might happen. That’s completely understandable.

A Sozo isn’t something you need to know how to do before you arrive. The people facilitating the session are there to help you.

The important thing to remember is that you remain an active participant throughout. The aim isn’t for someone else to have an experience on your behalf. It’s for you to engage with God yourself.

Who will be there?

An individual Bethel Sozo is normally facilitated by two trained team members. One is the First, who leads the session. The other is the Second, who supports the First, prays and writes down significant things that the guest receives during the session.

You are the guest.

The team isn’t there to tell you what God thinks about you. Their role is to help you ask questions, listen and recognise what you are receiving from God.

What happens when we begin?

The session begins by creating space for you to engage with God. You don’t need to know how to pray in a particular way. You don’t need to be experienced in hearing God. You don’t need to know the Bible backwards, and you don’t need to have everything worked out before you come.

The facilitators will explain what you need to know and guide you through the process.

The emphasis is on relationship:

Father God.
Jesus.
The Holy Spirit.

You may be asked questions

During the session, the First may ask you questions designed to help you engage with God. For example, you might be encouraged to ask God what He wants you to know about something that is troubling you. The facilitator isn’t looking for the “right” answer, and you aren’t being tested. The purpose is to create space for you to hear from God for yourself.

Sometimes what comes is immediate and clear. Sometimes it takes a little longer. Sometimes something emerges that you hadn’t expected at all.

The Sozo tools

The team may use one or more of the Bethel Sozo tools during your session.

These include:

The Father Ladder

Exploring your relationship with Father God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and whether experiences of your earthly parents and siblings, or other significant people, have affected the way you see Him.

The Four Doors

Exploring areas traditionally identified within Sozo ministry as possible points of spiritual and emotional difficulty.

Presenting Jesus

Inviting Jesus into painful memories and asking Him where He was and what He wants you to know.

The Wall

Exploring anything that may be getting in the way of hearing clearly from God.

You won’t necessarily use every tool, and they aren’t a prescribed sequence that every person has to follow.

They are tools, not formulas. Every Sozo is different, because every person is different.

What if something difficult comes up?

Sometimes, as you talk with God, things emerge that you haven’t thought about for years. Sometimes they are things you’ve tried very hard not to think about.

A Sozo can provide an opportunity to bring those things into God’s presence and discover what He wants you to know about them. That can be deeply freeing; it can also be emotional.

We don’t promise that every Sozo will be easy, or that every problem will be resolved in one session. We do believe that God is interested in the whole of your story and that He wants you to experience increasing freedom and wholeness.

How long does a Sozo take?

An individual Sozo usually lasts between 60 and 90 minutes. That doesn’t mean that a longer session is necessarily a better one. Sometimes something that has troubled a person for years can be addressed surprisingly quickly.At other times, there is more to explore.

We suggest allowing about a month for the truth of what God has told you during a session to settle and begin to make a difference. Some people come back for another session. Some have just one.

We’re all different.

The important thing isn’t the length of the session. It’s what happens between you and God.

What happens afterwards?

There isn’t necessarily a dramatic ending. A Sozo isn’t intended to create dependence upon the ministry team. The purpose is to help you develop your own relationship with Father God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit and become increasingly confident in hearing from God for yourself.

What happens after your Sozo may therefore be just as important as what happens during it.

You may want to spend time thinking and praying about what you’ve discovered.

You may want to write things down, and we’ll recommend our 31-day post-Sozo devotional journal ‘Wonderfully Free, No Going Back’ to help you unpack and go deeper into your Sozo session.

You may find that something God showed you begins to affect the way you see yourself, Him or your circumstances, and you may discover that further ministry would be helpful.

There is no single right response.

What if I don’t hear anything?

You don’t need to worry about getting it right. A Sozo isn’t an examination of your ability to hear God. Sometimes people hear something very clearly, sometimes they need time; sometimes what initially seems insignificant becomes meaningful later. The facilitator is there to help you rather than to manufacture an experience.

Because the purpose is relationship with God, we don’t want to tell you what God is saying simply because you aren’t immediately sure yourself. We want to help you hear from Him for yourself.

What if I’ve never done anything like this before?

That’s probably more common than you think. You don’t need to understand Sozo before you come. You don’t need to have a particular level of faith. You don’t need to know the Sozo tools.

And you don’t need to know exactly what you want God to do.

Start where you are. We’ll help you from there.

Is this counselling?

No. Bethel Sozo is not counselling. It is a prayer ministry centred on relationship with God. The facilitators aren’t there to diagnose you, provide psychological treatment or tell you what you should do.

Counselling can be enormously valuable, and there are circumstances in which counselling is exactly what someone needs. That’s why Wonderfully Free also offers Wonderfully Free Sessions, which deliberately combine Sozo and counselling.

But they are different offerings. Bethel Sozo is Sozo. Wonderfully Free Sessions combine Sozo and counselling.

If you’re not sure which is appropriate for you, we’re happy to talk with you.

Will everything be solved in one session?

We don’t promise that. Sometimes a single Sozo can be profoundly significant. Sometimes there is more to explore. Sometimes what God reveals during a session begins a process that continues long after the session itself.

Our aim isn’t to promise instant solutions. It’s to create a genuine opportunity for you to encounter God, hear from Him and discover greater freedom and wholeness.

Your Sozo is your conversation with God

Perhaps the most important thing to understand is that the facilitator isn’t the destination. The team is there to help. The tools are there to help. The questions are there to help. But at the centre is you and God. That’s why one of our favourite ways of describing Sozo is: “Don’t ask me to pray for you when I can help you to pray for yourself.”

Ready to find out more?

If you’ve never had a Sozo before and still have questions, that’s fine. You can read our Sozo Frequently Asked Questions, or simply get in touch.

And if you already know that you’d like to have a Sozo, you can Book an Individual Sozo. You don’t have to know exactly what you need before you come.

Start where you are.