About Justin Rizzo

I was born in the Buffalo New York area where I was raised as a pastor’s kid. I had a very musical family and parents that believed in prayer! I know for sure that their countless prayers for me are the primary reason why I have stayed close to the Lord through the years.

I was saved at the age of seven at a children's crusade at church and at a young age the Lord began to mark my heart with a desire to be in His presence. I remember times when I would be at church and wouldn’t want the service to end or wouldn’t want to leave the building because I just liked being there. I didn't know it at the time, but now I see that this was the Lord planting seeds in my heart from a young age to spend long hours before Him. I had no idea about a House of Prayer at the time, but the Lord knew what He was doing!

I never liked school and would always tell my mom that “If I ever go to college it will be just to study music, or just to study the Bible.” Though my dislikes for school were many times expressed in the wrong Spirit I am struck at how much the Lord loves me because He actually answered the cry of my heart! Because directly out of high school the Lord led me to come to IHOP-KC where I now devote my life to studying the word and writing music.

When I first came to IHOP I had no idea what I was walking into. I didn't even really know there was a 24/7 prayer room. My dad just randomly showed me a brochure for a 6 month internship with other young people and suggested that I come. It wasn’t until about 2 months into my internship that the Lord really began revealing Himself to me. It was then that I realized that there was such a grave disconnect in my heart from who the Bible said the God was and what I was actually experiencing. This sent me on a journey that I know now will never actually end. It’s the glory of man now and forever to search out the depths of the riches of the glory of God.

Immediately after my internship I joined the IHOP staff and have been here ever since devoting many hours a week to the prayer room. Though worship leading, teaching, and singing is part of what I’m called to do, I know that my primary mandate is to minister before Him and my heart cry is like that of David when he said ‘One thing have I desired of the Lord, to gaze upon Him and to inquire in His temple.’ (Ps. 27:4)

My desire is to see Jesus come back to the earth and establish His literal throne in Jerusalem. I long for the day when Jesus will be the world-wide obsession of every single person on earth and He has supremacy in all things (Col. 1). My desire is to send a clear call to this generation that we must wake up from our slumber, and prepare the way of the Lord.