Forgiveness and Healing - The Power of the Cross with Ryan Delling (2/13/26)
- Kristina Gonzales
- 6 days ago
- 15 min read
Ryan Delling
Husband to a wonderful wife named Sara and father to three beautiful children.
A huge Bills football fan, lover of steak, and a follower of Jesus Christ.
I met Ryan at the first church that I attended when I got saved. He was the worship leader there at the time, and I don’t remember exactly how we met. I imagine that one of our mutual friends told him about my testimony, or Ryan heard me share it at church, and from there the rest is history.
It’s a running joke between him and I that whenever he introduces me to someone new he always introduces me by saying, “You have to ask her about her testimony,” (he really does do this).
Ryan and Sara now lead The Altar located in Manalapan, New Jersey and it is here that I help serve in ministry. I see Ryan and Sara as one of my spiritual parents, one of my coverings, and co-laborers in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Tell me a little about yourself, and how you came to Christ.
“Well, it’s not as cool as your testimony,” Ryan says as he opens up the first question with a joke.
Ryan grew up in church his whole life, and it was when he was about five years old that he gave his life to Jesus.
“I remember laying in my bed and just saying, ‘You know what, I think I’ll just want to give Jesus my heart.’ And I remember just doing it in bed at five years old.”
That was his first “personal experience". After making the decision, he says he didn’t really feel anything. Nothing was really different. He just rolled over in bed and went to sleep. But when people ask him, “when did you give your heart to Jesus?” It's this memory that he always brings up.
I know that you went to Eagles' Wings for ministry. Can you share a little bit about that?
Eagles' Wings is a ministry that focuses on prayers for a just and lasting peace over Jerusalem, fostering community, and building bridges over cultural divides. To read more about Eagles' Wings, click here.
Ryan attended Eagles' Wings around 2001 and served there for a couple of years. At this time, it was more worship and revival focused. I was surprised to hear this because Eagles' Wings is more known for their heart for Israel (in my opinion), and that's how I first heard about them. I assumed that when Ryan went it was the same way.
But, it was the focus on worship that was the reason why Ryan was drawn to Eagles' Wings. During this time, he was in a graduate level music school and then he left to go serve in full time ministry.
“I literally just up and left,” he says. “I wouldn’t recommend that to anyone. Unless, I mean, of course if the Lord says it like he did to me then do it, but don’t do it on a whim. I literally walked away from six years of school. I didn’t finish my master’s degree because I was so sure that the Lord was asking me to lay it all down. So I went to Eagles' Wings.”
When he attended this ministry, Ryan played on the worship team at times, but the main thing was that he was an intern who had tasks such as packing packages for donors and sending them out, and other types of intern work.
“It was very humbling. But I knew it was what the Lord said.”
For anyone who has worked in ministry, you know how easy it is to come from a place where your background or resume says that you have all the credentials. It’s easy to say, “look I’m anointed in this so I have the right!” Humility is being able to lay that all aside, and to serve the Lord as He calls, even if that means laying aside your accolades and experiences to allow the Lord to do the work of refinement He wants to do in you.
He describes his time at Eagles' Wings being like the army.
“SWAT team training. You live in community housing and your schedule was determined by the ministry 24/7. Coming out of graduate school I never lived in that type of situation. It was very, very challenging, but it’s what the Lord used to start forming me into discipleship.
The question always came back to, ‘did the Lord really say to do this?’ And I knew it was a yes. So it didn’t matter how hard it was. It meant I was supposed to give myself to it.”
His time at Eagles' Wings had purpose. Not to mention, it’s where he met his wife Sara! Sara also was an accomplished singer before Eagles' Wings, but once she came to this ministry she wasn’t doing much singing and questioned if God really did call her there. Their time of serving rather than leading really allowed them to know what it meant to be in true discipleship and that death to self.
“Because of that death to self (his time in Eagles' Wings) it’s what really led to discipleship and healing and all of the stuff that we teach you guys (at the Underground). It’s because of that season.”
The Underground is a part of The Altar, and it is Ryan and Sara’s discipleship school in which we learn about inner healing, intercession, worship, and many other topics. I took part in this and it helped me to go deeper in my walk and consecration to the Lord, along with learning what it meant to be a disciple and to grow as a leader.
That goes to my next question. Obviously, I know about the Altar, but I want to hear from you (for this interview). Can you share about the Altar? What is it? How did you grow in learning and discerning that God was calling you to start and build it?
The name "The Altar” describes what Ryan and Sara believed the Lord told them it was supposed to be. That wherever The Altar team goes, they’re supposed to build an altar that confronts other altars where they are at with the sound of worship. Altars such as altars of witchcraft, political structures, and any altars that are anti-Christ and anti-God, and so on. That’s how the name came and how it got started.
“But really the motivation for starting it was slightly different because in addition to being worship heavy and using the sound of worship to confront other sounds, the other thing the Lord said is that we were to very intentionally teach the word of God every time we get together as well," Ryan says.
“And I think there’s only been once in two and a half years or so where we just kind of worshiped all the way through and didn’t do some sort of biblical teaching. Sara and I noticed that in a lot of the worship and house of prayer, the presence focused places - which we love! - there’s not a lot of teaching of the Word and discipleship.
So people can get excited about the presence of God, but end up drifting and not being grounded in the Word.”
I can attest to this structure, as someone who has attended sessions from the very beginning when The Altar just started at Ryan and Sara’s home. As great as worship is, whenever I think about attending our get-togethers on Thursdays, it’s actually the Word being preached that I find myself hungry for in order that I may grow and learn in my walk with Christ.
Ryan brings up an important part of The Altar coming together, which was when Sara and him went to Israel in 2023.
“The Lord spoke so clearly to us on that trip. That now is the time to really launch the Altar, instead of just going to places and doing nights of worship. Now is the time to actually start something where we meet regularly in our own place.”
You’re a spiritual father in the region, and my very own. I never grew up in church, but you have since you’re a PK (pastor’s kid). Can you describe your experience a bit more on dealing with the orphan spirit as someone who was raised in the church, and how you found out you were dealing with it? What was your response when you first heard about it?
The orphan spirit can show up through performance to earn love from the Father, rather than intimacy and authenticity with the Lord in knowing that we are children of God. It keeps us striving, yet never feeling fully accepted and convinces us that we're unworthy and that we are on our own. It carries feelings of rejection, abandonment, lack of belonging and acceptance, and so on.
Ryan shares that many ministry kids can grow up feeling a lot of pressure from almost everyone in the church because they’re seen as being just like their parents.
“I remember being three, or five years old, and people grabbing my cheek and being like, ‘You’re such a cute little pastor, just like your dad.’ It’s funny to think about that now, but I started to resent that even at the young age I was at.”
Because of these little seeds (that Ryan says were from the enemy) of feeling this pressure from people in church, and resenting when people would compare him to his parents, he started to not want to go into ministry and be like them.
“It led to, ‘well, I don’t want my parents' faith. I’m going to choose what I want to believe or not," Ryan says.
As Ryan grew up, he had friends who were doing all sorts of stuff, but because of his background growing up in Christianity, he wasn’t allowed to do some of the things his friends were doing. His perspective back then at the time was that he didn’t want to miss out on what his friends were doing, so he started questioning why he had to believe in what he believed in, and why he had to follow certain rules. This questioning led to a chunk of time where Ryan walked away from the Lord.
I went back to ask him about his experience and his response when he first heard about what the orphan spirit is.
Ryan shares that his dad was a well-respected and awesome preacher and pastor. He led a big church and was really good at teaching, preaching, and pastoring. The problem was that Ryan had zero relationship with his dad that showed a genuine father to son heart-to-heart type of relationship. Important to note to the reader that Ryan and his dad are good now, but the real issue was that Ryan's dad was like that with him because that’s how his dad’s dad was with him. It just got passed down generationally.
Orphan wounding, and he would add fatherlessness, leaves a mark on a boy and carries on into manhood. "It really is the question of, 'who am I? Am I worthy? Am I worthy of anything? Am I worthy of a wife? Am I worthy of children? Am I worthy of a good job?' It becomes a question of worth."
He first heard about the orphan spirit when he came back to the Lord. He rededicated his life to Jesus and was following Him, but he was still completely wounded. No one told him anything about inner healing or dealing with soul issues.
He remembers first hearing about the orphan spirit during a sermon and when he heard it he thought, “that stinks for all those people dealing with that. I hope they get help. I’m glad I don’t have any of that.” It’s laughable now because of God freeing Ryan from the very thing he thought he didn’t have, and if you know Ryan, being candid and honest like this is usually how he is with the Lord.
At this point in his life, he didn’t think he needed deliverance or healing. It was the longer that he went on his walk with Christ, the more he started to see that something wasn’t right. He started to hit a ceiling in his walk with the Lord. Even if he would read the Bible more, pray more, go to all the conferences; he just couldn’t get past a certain point.
Then, it was one night at Robert Stearns house (who is the founder and leader of Eagles' Wings. Robert and Ryan grew up in the same church and have known each other for years). They used to meet at Robert's house for a night of worship, prayer, and teaching once a week. After one of these nights were over, Ryan went up and asked for prayer. He said that he didn’t know what was going on, but he felt like something just needed to be released. It wasn’t a deliverance that he got that night, but it was the start of the Lord revealing all about the soul wounds that he was still carrying.
His real healing started when he started doing inner healing/prayer sessions with a woman named Rodlyn Park. Ryan and the people who know her (who went into these inner healing/prayer sessions with her) jokingly call her the Oracle - the character from the Matrix because of how gifted she is in the prophetic.
The sessions all had a snowball effect where they all rolled into the next and would build on each other, and it was in the last inner healing session that he had with her where the breakthrough came. In the last session, he doesn’t remember how they got there, but it got to the point where he realized that he had to forgive his father. No one ever told him to do this, or even brought it up. The Holy Spirit led them there.
Rodlyn eventually said, “it’s time to forgive your father,” and Ryan’s response was, “I don’t want to. Why should I? I don’t want to, he doesn’t deserve it.”
Rodlyn’s response wasn’t answering Ryan herself, but instead she said, “We’re going to ask the Holy Spirit to answer that right now for you," (as to why he should do it).
So they did. Ryan asked, “Jesus, just show me why I should forgive my father.” He remembers saying that and being so triggered by it.
Then, he heard so clearly the gentle whisper of God saying, “because that’s exactly what Jesus did for you when you didn’t deserve it. He forgave everything you ever did.”
After hearing that, Ryan broke down crying and forgave his dad. He notes that that was the moment where not only his healing happened from the orphan spirit, but his forgiveness released him from the very thing that was keeping him bound.
“I think for the first time, having grown up in church and even giving my heart to Jesus at age five, that was the first time I really understood the gospel. It was the revelation of ‘oh my that’s what the cross was. That’s what he really did.’ I knew I could say a prayer and be forgiven and get to heaven, and I knew there was abundant life and there was joy and peace and levels of freedom. But now I understood what I had been forgiven of and why I had been forgiven. And that required me to extend that same forgiveness to everyone else.”
As Ryan was explaining the ending of all of this to me and his revelation of what the cross really meant, I was about to cry. He joked in the beginning of this article about how his testimony isn't as great as mine, but writing this and hearing him say it again (as he's shared this before with me and others) really shows how powerful his testimony is, especially in a day and age now where there are so many people walking around with father wounds. It is only the true revelation and understanding of the cross and what Jesus did that can set us free.
What do you see that the current generation struggles with the most in the church (specifically the Gen Z generation, which as of 2026 is about the age range of 14 to 29 years old)? And if you would give believers in this current generation any wisdom or advice in their walk with Jesus, what would it be?
“In one word - identity. It’s a struggle. It’s a question of identity. It’s a question of who am I, and what is my worth? And I think the only way to really answer that is to understand the power of the cross.
You can understand it in your mind, but if you don’t have a revelation of your worth; that God gave his only son for someone who deserved it the least, a sinner - when you understand that, then you understand sonship. You understand, ‘I’m being adopted into a family.’ You understand the cost, and until you have that revelation, there’s always going to be an identity question.”
He goes on to mention that most of those soul wounding's can come from parents, and from other places as well. But wounding from parents leaves a big question mark on identity.
“Do I belong? Who am I? What’s my worth? It’s what’s feeding into all the gender confusion right now and the LGBTQ movement. At the root of it is an identity question, and when there’s an empty space or vacuum of identity, the enemy loves to - if he’s allowed - to come and fill that with all sorts of demonic stuff.”
If you could just give any advice or wisdom to Gen Z in their walk with Jesus, what would it be?
“I would say number one to understand, or to pursue, a revelation of the cross, and of who Jesus is. You can know it in your head, you can attend church, and you can know all the scripture. But until you have, like I explained with forgiving my father, until you have that moment of, ‘oh my goodness. That’s what the cross is,’ until you have that revelation and encounter Jesus and who He is, you’re never going to answer all these questions for yourself."
"Because I can tell you all the right answers about being a good Christian and why you should believe it and what the cross is and what Jesus did, but until you have an encounter yourself you’ll always be questioning. And once that encounter/revelation happens, you’ll never look back.”
“Number two is to understand spirit, soul, and body. When you get saved, your spirit becomes one with Jesus. It’s perfect. Your body is your physical body, of course. But the area of the soul, we don’t talk or teach enough about. And so many people, like I was in with my testimony, are bound and hurt and angry and living in unforgiveness and bitterness, and not able to get breakthrough and freedom. And they don’t understand why, because they’ve given their life to Jesus.”
It’s that understanding of the difference between spirit, soul, and body. It’s easy to take care of our body, and our spirit automatically becomes one with the Lord when we get saved, but it’s the things in our soul in which we must learn to deal with and allow the Lord to heal and restore. Our soul consists of our mind, will, and emotions. It shapes our thoughts, our beliefs, and even our responses consciously and subconsciously. Jesus came to not just leave us in our mess, but to make us new and to restore us.
You're an apostolic voice in this generation. If you could give a message to the church right now, right now as we’re doing this interview (2/13/26), what would it be?
“Yeah it’s linked to everything we’ve talked about, but I would answer it like this. Everyone loves talking about fivefold ministry and everyone wants to be an apostle and a prophet. And I believe in all of that. I believe those offices are 100%. But I would say that the message clearly that the apostles preached was Christ and Christ crucified.”
Paul said that was the message that he came to bring. Not to give deeper revelations and teachings, but the message of Christ and Christ crucified (1 Corinthians 2:1-4).
Ryan goes on to say, “what I would say to the church is that that needs to be the foundation of our message, of what we’re teaching and preaching and discipling, because out of that comes all the other stuff. Out of that comes spiritual warfare and out of that comes deliverance. Out of that comes the supernatural and the gifts.
"But first, what we love to do is we love to jump to all of that stuff and kind of live in those places. Like spiritual warfare conferences and deliverance conferences and healing conferences and worship/presence conferences. I love all of that stuff and it’s all important. But the apostles never taught any of that. Paul never talked about worship. He never had a worship or deliverance conference. They taught the power of the cross.”
Ryan goes on to express that he’s really speaking more to the charismatic movement, and that’s why we’re seeing a lot of the mess that we’re seeing.
“With all the leaders falling and all this crazy sexual sin that’s been hidden for decades; it’s because the message of Christ and Christ crucified was kind of put to the side. It’s as if we’ve taught it as a beginner level teaching. That once we learn Christ and Christ crucified and teach it, suddenly we can move on to the exciting stuff and to the deeper revelations. But sometimes, people don’t even get to that first revelation of the power of the cross."
The thing that then leads to all the other things (the gifts, the supernatural encounters, deliverance, etc.) is that once you get the revelation of the cross, you pretty much have to stay there. I know I can attest, and Ryan to, that no matter what seasons you go through in life - it will always lead back to the cross. It will always lead back to that death to self, and then being made new (resurrection) in Christ.
At the Altar, we contend for, believe, and cry out for revival and outpouring. We crave it happening again for this generation. But Ryan says, “But we have to do it from a place of that primary message (Christ and Christ crucified). Or it’s going to just drift into weirdness and be over in three years.”
