Is One's Personal Narrative the Key to Evangelism

A Look at Kent Hunter’s “The Future Is Now: How God Is Moving In The 21^st Century Church

I came across an ebook by Kent R. Hunter of Church Doctor Ministries entitled “The Future Is Now: How God Is Moving In The 21^st Century Church.”  I would like to quote from this source since it is so good, and then add a few of my analysis to it.

From Chapter 7 – Church As A Movement, Hunter says:  “Witnessing, in the true sense — what Jesus says in Acts 1:8 — is the key. This means that one of the most revolutionary and powerful “evangelistic programs” any church in the 21st century can accomplish is to patiently, gently, and continually ask people to share what God has done in their lives lately. In time, that becomes a cultural lifestyle for everyone in the church. In the early stages of the spiritual journey, witnessing does not include Bible passages or preaching. What receptive and interested people want to hear is how God has worked in your life recently. Witnessing has become much easier and must become, once again, the lifestyle of all Christians — not a program, effort, or the pre-occupation of just a committee.”

As a retired English teacher, I love narratives.  I have taught them, wrote about them, and even written them.  Narratives have always been an effective way of just telling one’s personal story. The four gospels are basically narrative accounts of experiencing Jesus’ life on earth and the book of Acts, a narrative of the birth of the Church. As a child at church, I remember singing the old church hymn “I Love To Tell The Story”.  Is the power of the narrative coming back?

In the 1980’s I was part of the Lay Witness Movement through the Board of Discipleship of the United Methodist Church.  Lay Witness Missions were basically teams of laity who were invited to invade a local church for a weekend to stay in the homes of the locals, participate in small group discussions, fellowship over pot luck, cover dish dinners, and share their personal narratives of what Jesus was doing in their lives.  It was a powerful ministry.  Common people, the saints of the Church, shared their narratives with one another for an entire weekend.  Even the Sunday sermon was replaced by someone sharing their personal testimony and allowing response to it.

In 1993 I got to go to South Africa for 16 days at the invitation of the United Methodist in South Africa to participate in Lay Witness Weekends in Pretoria and Capetown during the elections when Mandella was running for President.  I could fill blog pages telling of the power of that movement and trip.  I do remember that  South African Missioners, as they were called, or South Africans who would share their testimony or narratives at these weekends, had what I called “canned” testimonies. They recited their narrative to their coordinator just as they would always recite it if called to share.  We, Americans, on the other hand, would not just give our “salvation story” but also what Jesus was doing in our lives now.  We would go with the flow of the Holy Spirit, sharing differently each time we were called.

I did not know it, but we were under the South African Church’s microscope during those missions.  I remember getting a thank you note when returning back in the states.  Included were reflections on their part of what they observed from the weekends.  I was fascinated by one comment, “there is freedom in Holy Spirit.”  They saw the power of sharing our narratives in the “now” rather than reciting a planned dissertation.

I love to tell my stories: how I accepted Jesus, the need for more empowerment in my spiritual walk, wrestling with the supernatural in my natural world, the physical healing of being burned by the hot water from a car radiator, how I prayed with a man in the Super Dome in New Orleans who was healed instantly, how my 10 year old son gave prophetic words to a lady changing her life, my Lay Witness Weekend Missions to well over 50 local congregations, my trip to South Africa, leading a Bible School parade in Jamaica through their small town, going from not being able to physically talk about Jesus to one who can’t be quiet now, etc., etc., etc.

I sit in the church I currently attend that has approximately 350 people attending, and am shocked that I can not tell you the personal stories of more than five people in that congregation.  I wonder, “Who are these people? How did they get here?  How did they get to know Jesus?” Where are they in their spiritual walk?”  Churches need to allow the saints to tell their stories, so their brothers and sisters in the Lord can know who they are in Jesus.

It is good to see that Mr. Hunter recognizes the need for the return of the narrative.  In the ‘70’s, Christian testimony books like The Cross And The Switchblade and The Gentle Breeze of Jesus were powerful narratives that influenced my Christian walk.  I even wrote and published I Was A Stranger And…., a narrative account of the Ilgenfritz family taking in to their personal home and lives over 100 people over a ten year period including my wife and I and the birth of our oldest son.  Christian publishers shy away from printing narratives today, yet the narrative still has the power of being personal, being about a real person, being just a story, and being an effective tool of evangelism.

Low Control and High Accountability is Crucial in the 21st Century Church

A Look at Kent Hunter’s “The Future Is Now: How God Is Moving In The 21^st Century Church

I came across an ebook by Kent R. Hunter of Church Doctor Ministries entitled “The Future Is Now: How God Is Moving In The 21^st Century Church.”  I would like to quote from this source since it is so good, and then add a few of my analysis to it.

From Chapter 7 – Church As A Movement, Hunter says:  “Ironically, most modern churches operate from a position of high-control and low-accountability. With boards, committees, votes, nominations, and meetings, many churches represent a very high-control posture. Some denominations represent the epitome of high control. They are disasters waiting to happen, with an extreme level of organizational bureaucracy.

At the other end of the balance, most present modern-era churches reflect low-accountability. People can gossip frequently and no one will hold them accountable. Many feel an independent isolationism from one another in the church. They have inherited an environment in which “your fellow Christian’s sinful behavior is none of your business.” This is the exact opposite of the New Testament approach to church culture, which is low-control, but with high-accountability. The New Testament teaches we should “speak the truth in a spirit of love” (Ephesians 4:15). Jesus taught that we should follow His teaching in Matthew: confront one another privately; if that does not work, take a witness; if it continues, take it to the church — or church leadership (Matthew 18:15-17).

The reemphasis of proper balance in control and accountability explains why many of the new and cutting-edge movements of Christianity include accountability groups.”

Hunter advocates low control, high accountability as keys to the effectiveness of the 21^st Century Church.  In old Charismatic jargon, one might ask how to keep the flow flowing in each believer.  During the Charismatic Movement many spiritual gifts that had been dormant for centuries began to again to surface in the Body of Christ.  But often “freedom in the Spirit” was directly opposed by the high control of the hierarchy of the institutional Church which eventually capped this freedom of flow by control.  Independent Prayer And Praise Groups that sprung up everywhere producing spiritual life, increased prayer life individually and corporately, and encouragement for regular believers to grow in Christ were eventually controlled by the institutional church by becoming “home groups” or “small groups”, closely and heavily monitored by the institutional church.  Anything outside their doctrinal code or comfort zone was diminished.

The key to the success of the five fold in the 21^st Century Church is the Church’s willingness to “equip” then “release” these five giftings, passions, and points of view.  Those in leadership have to allow the saint whose passion and point of view is to evangelize to evangelize.  To allow the saint whose passion and point of view is to shepherd, nurture, care, and develop to be pastoral in his gifting and passion.  To allow the saint whose passion is to bring the Logos Word, Biblical interpretation to become a Rhema Word, an experiential living out the Word.  To allow the passion of the saint whose desire is to commune with God to be prophetic. Finally, to allow the saint who sees the big picture, the body of Christ, locally or nationally, to be able to “release” the others, in freedom, to do it without control, only “seeing over”, not “overseeing” what the Holy Spirit is doing in their lives.  That is low control.

High accountability comes when the believers of faith, those in communion as the local body of Christ, are willing to practice I John 3:16, knowing love as being willing “to lay down your life for your brethren.”  In the five fold, that accountability comes in “serving” the other four out of your passion, gifting, and point of view, but it also means “receiving” the “service” from the others whose strengths are your weaknesses.  Only when one “dies to himself” can he become “alive to the service of his brethren.”  This concept is so foreign to the current Church, but I believe will become a cornerstone in the 21^st Century Church as it develops.  The five fold could be the ultimate accountability group for the Church in this century.

Unlike today’s institutional church leadership structure where Board meetings, Pastor/Parish Committee Meetings, or Elder’s Meetings become business meetings, often featuring a strong dose of church politics, the five fold structure is not built on a power structure of oversight, but on a “service” structure to and from each other through relationship and laying down ones life for each other.  I have never experienced a church leadership meeting of death, everyone dieing to themselves for the sake of serving the others, though I have attended some dead leadership meetings where everyone pushed their agenda, opinion, or power position.

Low Control and High Accountability are keynotes to the five fold structure of “equipping the saints for works of service.” (Eph. 4)

Relationships in the 21st Century Church

 A Look at Kent Hunter’s “The Future Is Now: How God Is Moving In The 21^st Century Church

I came across an ebook by Kent R. Hunter of Church Doctor Ministries entitled “The Future Is Now: How God Is Moving In The 21^st Century Church.”  I would like to quote from this source since it is so good, and then add a few of my analysis to it. 

From Chapter 6 – Flat Changes Everything, Hunter says:  “The flat world reflects the repulsion today’s young adults have for institutions that act institutionally. The key for understanding this is that if a church persists to be hierarchical, it will not attract young adults. This concept is reflected in the teaching of low-control/high-accountability. Most churches from the modern era have become extreme, with layers of bureaucracy, politics, bylaws, rules and regulations, titles, offices, and all the trappings of institutionalism. This does not fit the relational world that now exists. It is not an effective platform for sharing the Gospel. The flat world Thomas Friedman [his book The World is Flat (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005)] describes simply indicates that now people relate horizontally. Not so many decades ago, it was required to get the “secret information” held, for example, by seminary professors at a seminary institution. Now, students can find any of those books on Amazon while sitting in the comfort of their own bedrooms. The flat realities of our present world are a great blessing for the church that returns to the biblical realities of the priesthood of all believers…. The way churches operate and make decisions is often called church government. The institutional and corporate models that betray biblical truth — on more levels than one can imagine — will be replaced by a way of decision-making that models an apostolic theocracy.  The word “theocracy” means the rule of God or will of God. It reflects the primary driving force in which churches make decisions: seeking what God wants.”

Hunter hits on several themes I have reiterated throughout these blogs: “This (flat world) concept is reflected in the teaching of low control/high accountability.”  The five fold, as I propose it, is a process of “releasing” individual believers in Jesus Christ to do their passion, exercise their point of view, with all the gusto, energy, and heart and spirit felt motivation that is in them with the accountability piece of submitting to the other four passions/points of view through “service”, serving one another.  Low control, freedom in being released in the Church, with high accountability, submitting through service and being served by four distinctly different passions and points of view that differ from your own by laying down one’s life for their brethren.

Another key theme: the priesthood of all believers.  In my ebook, The Blue Print and my accessory workbook, Breakthrough To His Presence, which I hope to soon offer through this web site, I address this topic. The premise of these books is a study of the actual blue print of Herod’s Temple, the temple Christ himself personally visited, and how the physical divisions of the inner courts exemplifies the walls and barriers that keeps a believer from entering the Holy of Holies. When Christ died on the Cross, the veil in the Holy of Holies was torn from top down, breaking down all these barriers, allowing His Spirit to dwell in any and all believers in Jesus Christ. The Blue Print is a fictional account of this principle while Breakthrough To His Presence is a Bible study workbook of scriptures that actually break down these barriers.  In essence, Jesus broke down hierarchal barriers of his time to free the priesthood of believers according to the order of Melchizedek. 

The last principle he described as “an apostolic theocracy” model of “seeking what God wants.”  Although we may differ on the role of the apostle, it excites me that Hunter recognizes the importance of the five fold in a “God’s Will” seeking model.  I believer that all five are empowered to lead when called upon by the Holy Spirit with the backing of the other four to help implement it.  If something is to be birthed, the evangelist will rise and lead with the support of the others.  If something needs nurturing, care, or developing, the pastoral shepherd will arise. If something needs to be Biblically based, the teacher arises.  The prophet arises when the relationship through communication between God and mankind needs emphasis. Finally the apostle will arise to see the big picture, releasing the other four to do their passions freely as he “sees over” what the Holy Spirit is doing. 

Hunter is correct in his assumption that the church must become relational rather than hierarchal. I John 3:16 of “laying down your life for your brethren” is relational and brings accountability.  The Church must struggle with the reality of what I John 3:16 (horizontal relationships) mean to John 3:16 (vertical relationship) in order to understand how the Cross effects the 21^st Century Church.

Good stuff Mr. Hunter!

(Since my ebooks are not yet uploaded, if you email me at popnozall@gmail.com, I will send you a copy in PDF format of The Blue Print and/or Breakthrough To His Presence FREE if requested by the end of June, 2011 [if I am tech savvy enough to do that!).

Five Fold In The Business World

Why Does The Financial World Embrace The Five Fold Before The Church Does?

 I have listened to my son as he has learned about the business world in America and sometimes marvel that they use principles that should be anchored in the Church, but the church does not embrace or practice.  Churches are known to be “cheap” in the business world, wanting hand outs, cut rates, volunteers in stead of paid staff even though they run their institution as a business.  There is a business side to the American church: budgets, staffing requirements, property management, pensions, office expenses, etc.  The budget dictates often what a church can and cannot do.  Yes, God does speak through finances!  Like the business world, it too has created a hierarchy: senior pastor, associate pastors, office staff, and at the bottom, of course, janitorial staff, all who are paid hierarchically by position.  Who ever heard of a janitor getting paid as much as the senior pastor even though both do their work equally as “unto the Lord”?

If the bottom line of American business is to make money, then what is the bottom line for most American churches?  The more money they make, the “more they can do for the kingdom,” we are told.  In Jesus time, the growth of the kingdom of God did not hinge on the Church’s wealth.  When the Church obtained wealth, it was plunged into the Dark Ages of corruption and heresy.  So really, what is the bottom line for the business branch of most churches?

It amazes me that a successful business has a C.E.O. to run it, a visionary in the company to constantly produce new products or new ways to market their product, a C.P.A. who knows and follows financial laws in minute detail and will not waiver, a Business Manager to maintain the infrastructure of the corporation, and salesmen who enthusiastically proclaims and endorses the product to be sold.  It appears to be a five fold model.  Often, the American church has modeled their institutional structure after this capitalistic model: a Senior Pastor to oversee it, a business manager plotting where the church can go next financially, a biblically based teacher (unfortunately often the Senior Pastor through sermons or teaching classes, as if he already doesn’t have enough to do), a pastor (again the Senior Pastor unless he has Associate Pastors on his staff), and an evangelist (again often the Senior Pastor on Sunday mornings).  In the business world power is determined by who “controls” what.  The bottom line is control.  Unfortunately the institutional church has fallen into the same category.

So what makes the five fold as I propagate it among all believers in Jesus Christ as their passionate point of view different from the business world or the institutional church?  The answer: Through their bottom line.  The capitalist’s bottom line is to make a financial profit.  Often for the institutional church’s bottom line is growing in numbers and in their budget.  But to the five fold it is “equipping the saints for the work of service.”  What is each of these groups “investing” in and to gain what?  Business invests in people to acquire wealth; institutional churches invest in people to grow in number and finances; the five fold invests in people to “mature” them into the image of Jesus Christ and to bring “unity” in the body of Christ.

Allowing the evangelistic, pastoral, teaching, prophetic, and apostolic spirits to flow and move effectively has nothing to do with money; it has to do with “releasing” the saints, the everyday believers in Jesus, and trusting in the Holy Spirit to orchestrate that leading.  Unlike the C.E.O. who controls every facet of the business, the apostle only “sees over” what the Holy Spirit is doing because the Holy Spirit is in control.  Unlike the Business Manager “controlling” finances, the pastor/shepherd doesn’t control those he is over, but serves them, nurtures them, cares for them, is willing to die for them.  Unlike the C.P.A. who is controlled by financial laws, the five fold teacher is freed from being under the Law through grace in order to live life fulfilling the Law.  The envisionary businessman looking ahead in the business world to “reveal” future profits falls short to the five fold prophet whose passion it is to “reveal” Jesus Christ to the lost and to the Church.  The salesman whose goal is to sell the product, falls short of the five fold evangelist who not only proclaims and endorses what he knows, but also births the new things through the Holy Spirit. 

Accountability!  The business world is accountable to its bottom line, how much money it makes.  The institutional church is accountable it its church boards, elder boards, ministerial management boards, congregations, etc.  The five fold is accountable to each other through service, giving to each other, receiving from each other, and laying down their lives for each other.

The business world has embraced the five fold in ways that will profit their bottom line in order to be a successful business model making money to the envy of the rest of the business world with the goal of making the top ten Fortune 500 List.  Why has the Church been so reluctant to also embrace a five fold model that will profit the lost, those who need nurturing and developing, those who need grounded, those who need proper relationships, and those who need over sight?  The bottom line: the lost will be found, the hurting nurtured and cared for, those blown ever which way grounded, those with little or no self image or self worth valued in their relationship to Jesus and His Church, and those who are incomplete, become complete in the maturity, the fullness of Jesus Christ!  Why would the Church not embrace the five fold if these were Church’s results, the Church’s bottom line?

Are we investing in the kingdom of God, or are we investing in an institution?

The Church Needs A Chiropractic Approach To Revival: An Adjustment!

How The Church Can Adjust To An Artesian Well Flow

The Holy Spirit is in the Church because it dwells in the “temples”, the bodies, of believers in Jesus Christ.  But how is the church as an institution to react when the Holy Spirit surfaces as a flow out of the believers in their structure?  History shows that most of the time, the institutional church tries to “cap” it rather than let it flow.  By “capping” it, one “controls” it.  The question always falls on “who is in control” and “can you trust the Holy Spirit” to be in “control”?

Almost every church Sunday Morning Worship Service is a very controlled environment.  I joke that it is a morning “controlled” by the pastor, worship leader/choir director, and a scripted program.  In most churches there is given very little room, if any, for the flow of the Holy Spirit to surface from the average pew sitter in the church, except at offering time when the institutional church hopes for a large flow of money to support its institutional system. 

This past weekend I attended my nephew’s confirmation celebration in a traditional Lutheran church.  Given a bulletin, every part of the service was preplanned.  Prayers were written and read by the pastor, congregation knew how to respond in unison verbally or in song, when to stand or sit, when to sing, when to be quiet, when to turn during the processional and recessional, when to participate in communion, etc.  Several scriptures were read, all liturgy was ecclesiastically correct, all passages theologically sound.  It was Pentecost Sunday, the celebration of when the Holy Spirit was released on the Church, yet in this service there were no cracks in the preplanned service for the artesian well to surface, to flow out of the “participants” at the service.  The service was all about receiving, even receiving communion, but not about giving nor allowing the flow of the Holy Spirit from its so called “participants”.  Church members are allowed to be acolytes, altar boys, carrier of the Bible or cross in processions, lay reader of scripture, and ushers, all pre-orchestrated planned positions, but the pastor controlled the flow of the service.  The Holy Spirit can flow out of him through his sermon, comments, the laying on of hands, etc., but not the “congregates”, thus an established the dreaded line between clergy and laity and what each can and can not do.

I am not just picking on the Lutherans, for last night I attended a "worship/prayer" service in the I.H.O.P. style where almost the entire service was scripted. Each participant received the script when entering. Confession, repenting, and intercessory prayers were all read by participants. When the mic was open for "spontaneous" prayer, no one responded because the scripted prayers and the pre-chosen scriptures had covered every point. Music was fantastic; program went smooth, but the artesian well was never tapped nor flowed. The preplanned, well scripted, well thought out program capped the well.

It is a little different at the present church that I attend though the services aren’t as scripted through a bulletin, but the pastor and the worship leader drive 95% of the service.  The congregation is allowed to give their monetary offering, greet one another through hand shakes, hugs, and informal chit chat, and even allow if someone flows prophetically through giving a prophetic word, which is starting to become more of a rarity and only being done by some of the “old timers”.  In a church rich in Pentecostal, Word, Prophetic, and Apostolic history, spiritual gifts flowing in the Sunday morning service is getting scarcer and scarcer.

How is the institutional church to respond to an artesian flow of the Spirit of Jesus Christ arising from the tombs of inactivity in believers?  What happens if a “pew sitter” gets a prophetic message arising from with in?  Can he give that message instead of the sermon? Probably not! Everyone knows the pulpit is a guarded commodity of its pastor.  Even when absent on vacation, illness, etc., it is filled by guest speakers, other pastors, and very seldom from those with in their own local spiritual family.  Most churches don’t equip, prepare, or train any of their members to “replace” the pastor and the sermon if needed.  What if a “pew sitter” gets a “new song”, an original scripture based song arising from within?  Where in the service could that song come forth?  Would it have to be first approved by the worship leader, then written down so the worship team could play it?  That is not spontaneous!  What if a “pew sitter” has an original poem flow out of himself/herself?  Where can they spontaneously give it? Oh, they are to write it down, give it to the pastor, have it submitted to and approved by the worship committee, and printed in the bulletin several weeks later!  An artist? Forget it, for there is no outlet to paint a picture, sketch a drawing, allow a flow of visual artistic creativity to spontaneously flow during a Sunday morning worship service in most churches!

I remember the beauty of hearing an entire congregation “singing in the spirit” in the ‘70’s & early 80’s!  The harmonies were angelic, never to be repeated, powerful with passion and compassion.  Where is there an avenue for “corporate” spontaneous flow of the Spirit in today’s church services? 

If we truly want the flow of the Holy Spirit to arise from the tombs of inactivity, tombs of doubt and disbelief, tombs of complacency, tombs that lacked spiritual self discipline, then we need to give permission to allow the Holy Spirit to dig deep into the wells of every believer in our congregations, into my life and yours, to expose the silt of sin laying dormant on the bottom, and allow the Holy Spirit to erupt from with in, clean up the silt of sin, then rise and flow out of each believer to overflow onto others who are spiritually dry.  If this be the case, then we will have to reexamine how we “do” church, how we “do” worship, how we “relate” to one another in the body of Christ, how we “serve” one another, and how we “lay down our lives” for our brethren.  This simple flow of the Holy Spirit from with in will force the Church to face dramatic changes.  Hey, this sounds like revival!

Revivals Are Always Messy; Get Ready For the Mud!

How Will The Church Address This New Revival?

In my last blog, I shared how I believe the next movement of God, the next revival to the generation younger than myself, will be like an “artesian well” rather than a “Latter Rain” as was the method of last century’s revival method.  Jesus wants to “reveal Himself”, give revelation of who and what He is to today’s generation of believers.  How is He going to do this?  I do not know!  Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal His Plan, His Will, to you personally!  Allow the Holy Spirit to be the “revealer”, the “orchestrator”, the “conductor”, and you be willing to be an “obedient” follower to what He reveals to you!  He is “revealing” Himself to this generation by arising with in the believers of Jesus Christ since His Spirit already reside there!  God IS amongst HIS PEOPLE, His Body, the CHURCH!

The established Church has always resisted revival; that is a historical truth.  The newly birthed apostles first opposed the Holy Spirit’s movement among the Gentiles, thinking that he was only moving with in the House of Israel, His nation, to His people. The “Big Wigs”, or leadership, of that first century did not at first “get it”, but instead tried to “figure out” what the Holy Spirit was doing rather than just following its lead! They had to “experience” “personally” the Holy Spirit’s working through dreams, visions, and being put on the spot of actually having to “do” their faith before they would lay down their theology and interpret the Law the way they saw fit.  Finally in Acts 15 they call a council in Jerusalem to discuss the controversy among the “Pharisees” in the Church, the “Law” abiding believers, and the radicals, those who have “experienced” the Holy Spirit’s movement outside the Jewish culture of Church, a different mindset and theology than they were currently practicing.  They can not deny what the Holy Spirit is doing, address it, accept it, then do a bold move: they move on IN UNITY!  That is the pattern that the 21^st century Church has again been called to follow.  Address what the Holy Spirit is “doing” and “revealing”; this is called revelation.  Then accept that revelation.  Finally move on; be obedient and “do”, yes, actually “do” what the Holy Spirit has revealed!  This will produce UNITY, not division!

Two blogs ago, I shared how the “Big Wigs” of this new Church did not “get it” at first until they were willing to “yield to”, “trust”, then “obey” revelation given to them through the Holy Spirit while the Holy Spirit was already doing His work among them.  The established Church has always resisted revival.  This “artesian well” movement of allowing the Holy Spirit to arise, then overflow gently into the parched, thirsty, drought filled culture now existing in the world, will look, at first, as a “muddy mess” to the “Big Wigs”, today’s leadership, unless they are willing to look beyond the “mud” to the “fruit” that will arise from this watering of “Living Water” that is over flowing out of its believers in Jesus Christ and allow the seeds planted by past and current generations to arise and produce fruit.

Actually, I personally don’t think this revival will look as messy, because the power of God will arise from with in the believers and flow outward from them.  Each and every believer who accepts this revival, accepts what the Holy Spirit is reveal, accepts how Jesus is revealing Himself to His Body, the Church, will have the “power” that is promised in the book of Acts.  The “artesian well” of living water will not gush, not be a gyser, but a slow, continuous, gentle flow out of believers into the lives of people around them, offering, then giving them life.  It will perform as a quiet movement, but a profound movement.  People will sense something happening with in the Church flowing out to a parched community, forcing them to acknowledge it. 

In the 20^th and beginning of the 21^st centuries, the church has produced “forms” through programs.  The church today is great for programs.  They have done evangelistic programs and crusades, offered discipleship courses, experienced “home church” movements as well as “mega-church” movements offering all kind of “services” to different needs with in the Church, experienced a “missional” movement calling the Church to network as well as return back into the communities where they exist, etc.  Our mindset has been, “Lord we have built this form; now fill it with your Spirit.”  We, the Church, have tried to orchestrate, initiate, design, build, and implement these different forms, then asked the Holy Spirit to fill them.  This “artesian well” movement will not fill these forms, but flow outside these forms, actually doing what these forms were designed to do, but will just flow outside the establish bounds the Church has established, and look like a muddy, uncontrollable mess.  Like Japan after a tsumani, it will look devastated.  But unlike a tsunami, a hurricane, a tropical storm, or a devastating flood, this movement will not come forth as a geyser or gush of forcible destruction, but as a gentle flow, the gentle flow of the Holy Spirit, that will dry parched areas, watering seed, and producing fruit in season.  The Holy Spirit will “do” what the Church thought their forms would “do”.  Let’s tear down the “forms”, quit relying on them, and just listen to the Holy Spirit and accept His flow of Living Water to arise and flow out of us!

Prophetic Insight: What Does Revival Look Like Today?

“Artesian Well” Vs. “Latter Rains”

The other day I “googled” to see if what church conferences, revival meetings, spirit-led group meetings, etc. were being offered this summer.  To my dismay, hardly any could be found.  I found large churches offering conferences, revival meetings, spirit led meetings, etc., but the day of the outdoor Camp Meetings of the 19^th & early 20^th centuries, the free lanced Pentecostal Movement birthed at Azusa St. in California, the prayer meetings of the mid 20^th century, and the outdoor Jesus Rallies of the 1970’s, as well as all the renewal conferences from the Charismatic Movement of the mid to late 20^th century are history. I remember, my late brother in the Lord, Harry Rutt, who was so active in the Mennonite Renewal, realized that the era of the Charismatic movement had passed after so much of his life had been immersed in it.  It was difficult for him to fathom, accept, or recover from. God, no longer in a box (look at my last blog), always moves according to His Will, His Way, to His People in their generation!  Harry was realizing God was now moving in a different way, but unsure of what that way was.

So I began to ask the Holy Sprit, “How are you moving in the 21^st Century?  I have been watching, waiting, contemplating God’s movement to the generations younger than myself, so how is He going to move?  If you seek the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit for revelation, he WILL reveal Himself to you!  Only recently I have begun to see the picture.

We have experienced the birth of Pentecostalism at Azusa St. at the beginning of the 20^th century, saw a greater out pouring through the Latter Rains and Charismatic movements in the later parts of the 20^th century, and now in the 21^st century we are about to experience the “artesian well” phenomena.  With the Latter Rains and Charismatic movement, believers expected God to “fall down” on them from above, to see the “heavens open” and experience a “latter rain” of the Holy Spirit to water the Church with Living Water.   I see the Holy Spirit working his revival spirit through revelation as an “artesian well” in this century.

I see where revival will come from his everyday, common believers in Jesus Christ, who will allow the Holy Spirit to arise with in them (according to scripture, our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit) as an “artesian well”, overflowing on to a parched and dry culture “thirsting” for the same Living Water Jesus offered the Woman at the Well!  When Jesus met the Samaritan Women at the Well, he really did not want her to dig deep into that well to give him regular water, but wanted her to dig deep into herself to expose what was down there.  Deep down inside exposed her earlier rough life, going through five husbands and had given up on marriage only to shack it up with a man who was not her husband.  Jesus prophetically reveals that deep truth to her, convincing her that she had just been exposed through his prophetic spirit!  She accepts him not only as a prophet, but accepts this “Living Water” that he offers and immediately gets a “revelation” of who he is as he exposes Himself to her, the Messiah of the world.  He has not yet reveal this truth to his disciples, nor to any other fellow Jew, but to a Samaritan women who just received the spirit of Jesus Christ, Living Water, to reveal the deep dark secrets of her life, then replace it with this Living Water.  Immediately her newly birthed “artesian well” of faith rises, overflows as she allows it to flow among her people in her town who invite Jesus to say for an additional two days to experience this “Living Water” themselves, not on her testimony, but allowing Jesus to reveal himself to each of them, so they personally experience him as truth!

I contend that this generation need not to be “slain in the spirit”, falling down under the power of God, nor pray for the heavens to open producing “Latter Rain” of Living Water, to fall on them, but just needs to allow the “Living Water” that is within them, the Holy Spirit, to first expose those deep hidden areas of their lives, then be touched by Jesus, and finally allow His Spirit to arise with in them, allow His Spirit to overflow on others producing revival.

There will be no fanfare, now extravagant show as often was the case in the Charismatic Movement, but will be a slow watering to a parched ground in our culture.  That parched ground will become wet.  Revivals always look messy, and this revival may just look just as messy as it will look like a patch of mud at first, but deep with in that mud are seeds that have been sown by the Church for years, decades, centuries, and they will then too arise, producing fruit!  Revival is only good if it provides fruit.  Past revivals have brought division, but this revival will be different, for it will not only produce the fruit of the spirit, but bring unity.  Like an “artesian well” it will arise quietly, but effectively.  

Does Revival Starts With You, Or The “Big Wigs”?

 Revival Revolves Around Revealed Revelation!

Recently I heard a teaching video that reinforced a truth that I have known over the years: Revivals always start at the grass roots level, not with the “Big Wigs”!  The speaker shared how the “Big Wigs”, ie. the disciples, especially “the Rock”, Peter never quite get what the Holy Spirit is up to until well past the tenth verse in Acts, the book that records early church history.  They think that since the Holy Spirit fell on “devout Jews” in “Jerusalem”, that this new movement was a “revival” Jewish movement!  God was moving with in the Jewish culture and faith.  That assumption was true, but they did not “see” the big picture:  God was moving throughout the whole earth to all mankind.

The teacher asked, “What went wrong?”  By the time of 70-80 A.D. Jerusalem had been ravished, the temple destroyed, the original disciples deceased, and the center of Christianity was now in what is known today as Turkey (today primarily a Muslim country), primarily as a Gentile movement.  The newly birthed Jewish Christian at the beginning of Acts thought Christ as the Messiah of the Jews who came to reestablish Israel as a nation among nations, but now all that was gone. “What went wrong?”  To that question he shares that Luke in his writing affirms that nothing has gone wrong.  The early Fathers were trying to do what we as Christians try to do today: put God in a box, in a form we think he should fit into.  When Jesus died on the Cross, the veil was rent from top down, exposing the Holy of Holies, God’s Presence, to everyone and anyone. There were no dividing walls remaining in the Temple!  Since Jesus’ death, God is no longer in a box!  He moves according to His Will and His Ways.

The first few decades the “Big Wigs” of the early Church were trying to figure things out through dreams, visions, and councils while the Holy Spirit kept moving, and by the time Saul/Paul gets zapped, unknown leaders in Antioch are preparing and spreading the gospel.  When Saul gets knocked off his horse, he spends time in Antioch, not in Jerusalem to be “equipped for the work of the service” as he professes in his letter to the Ephesians (4) later in his ministry.  Trained by Jerusalem he became Pharisee of Pharisee zealously persecuting the Church for the cause of Judaism, his boxed in faith; trained by Antioch he had to be theologically “de-toxed”, receive a new mindset, and becomes an apostle to the Gentiles, open to all in his faith.

In every town he visits, he births a church, the evangelistic spirit, nurtures the new believers, the pastoral, shepherding spirit, teaches them the Word uncompromisingly, the teaching spirit, speaks in tongues, gives prophetic words, heals the sick, etc., the prophetic spirit, and “sees over” what the Holy Spirit is doing in that locality while there, and by letter after he leaves, the apostolic spirit.  His training in Antioch proved fruitful! He equipped the small local home churches he found to stand on their own in Jesus by releasing these unnamed individuals to continue the work of service.

As churches, we still think of revival as the Spirit of Jesus Christ breaking loose inside the box, or confine, of our institutional framework.  We try to “figure Him out”, just as Peter and the disciples did after his ascension, not really getting it until totally yielded to the Holy Spirit.  When they, and we, get to the point of allowing the Holy Spirit to teach us all things, do we finally get insight, “revelation”; we get it!  Revival revolves around revealed revelation.   All though the “big wigs” of our churches today structure, plan, birth, direct, and implement “revival services” in our local churches, they really don’t get it: God’s Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit moves among his “people” everywhere, doing His Will, His Way!  Some times we just have to “Let Go” and “Let God through His Holy Spirit” just do His Word as we “see over” what He is doing and be obedient to it!

Does the Church want revival?  Then we just need to yield to, trust, and be obedient to the Holy Spirit’s leading.  We need to quit trying to “figure out” God and His Ways, just obediently follow them under the Holy Spirit’s direction.  We need to just let it happen, not orchestrate it!  If we want revival, we need to be broken, desperate for God, hungry for the Living Word to be released in our lives, and thirsty for this Living Water that he promised the Women At The Well and us, which produced revival to her town in her day and will produce revival in our towns in this day!  We need the Holy Spirit to bring “revelation” so we can have “revival”! Easy to say; a challenge to actually follow and do!

Believers In Jesus Christ: Accept My Apology For Being Narrow Minded Not Global?

New Mindsets For Me and the Church

One of the purpose of these now over 300 blogs over the last two years has been to challenge mind sets that we have established in the current church setting.  Before this website, my vision for the Church was focused around my local congregation or the Church of this area.  Posting on the website has made me think beyond York, Pennsylvania to the entire United States, but now I have had to “upgrade” my mindset to think internationally.  I have noticed that many of the hits to this site have come between 1 and 5 in the morning E.S.T.  which means Europe has shown an interest.  So to those members of the body of Christ outside the U.S., I apologize for limiting my view, but hope to develop a larger, world wide view of the Church as I address the use of the five fold to the entire Church, the Body of Christ.

This does not mean we need a “Global Council of Churches” to dialogue and recognize each other. Facebook allows normal everyday believers to dialogue and recognize each other with only one bond of unity: Jesus.  We, believers in Jesus Christ, can talk about Jesus to each other.  It is all about establishing relationships, not religious structures, so we do not need to create a Facebook, Text, Tweet, or Blog for Jesus as an established, official structure, webpage, or web site, but allow the Holy Spirit to flow freely among its believers to communicate, network, and bond together.  It is amazing that technology has been created to do this!

Just two decades ago, radio and television were still the only method to get the gospel out to the entire world.  Today any individual who has an Iphone with GPS capability can communicate with anyone throughout the world.  The way the Church thinks of evangelism to the world is “upgrading” from Church Evangelism.1 to the new and improved Church Evangelism.5.5! We must be open to new methods of evangelism as the world opens up to every believer. The most effective evangelism has always been one-to-one communication, and today’s technology allows that, so we need to rethink our mindset.

As far as pastoral/shepherding, I know I need to rethink how I communicate with brothers and sisters in the Lord globally.  How to encourage, communicate, and bond in fellowship with believers in Europe, Asia, the Far East, down under in Australia, and even with my brothers in the Lord in China!  The world is only a click away on my computer or Iphone!  Facebook has allowed a networking that needs to be developed effectively by the Church to communicate with its many members the world over. So I invite any believer in Jesus Christ to be “my friend”, my “brother/sister in the Lord” on my Fiverevealed Facebook Page.

Prophetically, living out the gospel is of extreme importance.  Getting or receiving a “word from the Lord” to or from another brother or sister in the Lord from anywhere in the world is powerful.  Knowing what the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, is doing throughout the world must be shared, and we are in an era of being in the realm of that possibility. If I get a prophetic word about something outside the U.S., I will take the step of faith and post it!  That new mindset will even stretch me and my faith.

The Apostles teaching brought unity in a very small area of the world at its birth in the first century.  The only way to bring unity is again establish the simplistic gospel of truth that unites the Church, not propagate the doctrines and dogmas that have divided it.  World Wide teachers of the Word need to concentrate on the truths of simplicity of the gospel to bring unity! The apostolic needs to arise.  The seeing over the entire body of Christ, the Church is drastically needed to prevent more schisms and divisions.  Revivals in the 21st century must bring unity, not division if the Bride of Christ is to come together to usher in the age of the Lord’s returned as prophesied in the Bible.  A 21^st Century apostle needs to discern the prophetic and they need to encourage, help coordinate, facilitate, and network this huge global body of believers to be as effective as it can be in changing the world globally for Jesus Christ, flow within the global church, sense the urge of evangelism to key areas of the world that have not heard the gospel, feel the need for nurture and care to the global body of Christ in their development. They need to bring unity through apostolic teaching, 

Forgive me for my narrow sightedness; Lord open my eyes, my mind, and my spirit to what you are doing globally and to the Church as a whole.

Can the Muslim God Be The Christian & Jewish God Too?

Allah, Yaweh, and the Father

In religion we emphasize our differences thus dividing us.  The Muslim faith has its Sunni and Shite factions, Christianity Protestant and Catholic, and Jewish its Orthodox and Reform.  Even under each of these banners there are multiple sects with distinctions of division themselves.  After a while it is hard to distinguish who are why all the divisions, often built on theology. But is there any common ground?

The three all have the same patriarch, Abraham, who wondered with his people to a land that was foreign to him.  Abraham and his wife Sarah had a problem: they had no children, no heir to Abraham’s fortunes.  Dismayed over the dilemma, Sarah suggests that Abraham have a child to Hagar, her hand maiden, which he did producing his first off spring, Ishmael. Later an angel visits Abraham and Sarah and prophesies that in spite of her elderly age Sarah will bear a child, which she does, and names him Isaac. In her jealousy she demands that Hagar and Ishmael be kicked out of the family, thus the beginnings of the Arab/Israeli conflict and later Muslim/Jewish faiths that exist today.

Abraham believed in one God, and even attempted to sacrifice his only son to him until God supplied a lamb in the thicket to become the sacrificial lamb.  The Muslim and Jewish faith claim that this happened on what is now known as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, thus today there is a Muslim Mosque on top of the edifice and the Wailing Wall, a section of Herod’s Temple, beneath. It is also the place where Mount Calvary, the site where Jesus was crucified and the Garden Tomb is located.  All three religions claim that real estate as sacred grounds to their faith.  That is one thing the three have in common.

The other commonality is that father Abraham was a monotheist, one who believed in one God, and all three also recognize that as a tenant of their faith.  Muslims call him Allah, Jews Yaweh, and Christians the Father.  All three recognize the same Godhead, but with a different name. God having different names in not new, for in the Jewish faith the name for God El is used 250 times in the old testament, Elohim over 2570 times, El Shaddai 48 times, and Adonai over 300 times. So in essence, can we surmise that all three faiths worship the same God, the God of Abraham?

The difference comes in the way they perceive the role of Jesus.  To the Muslims, Mohammad is their sacred prophet. They recognize Jesus as a prophet, but not to the degree of Mohammad.  To the Jew, Jesus was a good rabbi or maybe even a prophet.  But to the Christian Jesus is the Son of God, the Sacrificial Lamb for the sins of mankind; he is more than a prophet. 

So if the Christian Church is to evangelize the world dominated by these three religions, could it not start by drawing together our similarities, father Abraham and his faith, then build on his legacy of redemption, salvation, forgiveness, reconciliation, etc. through Jesus as a fulfillment of Abraham’s faith? Instead of throwing rabbis, imams, and pastors into the theological rings of debate to battle it out through theology quoting from their Korans, Torahs, and Bibles, should we not focus on Jesus and his fulfillment of their faith?   Should we not look at relationship rather than religion?  Like the three major religions, there is a separation of faith, a schism, a divide, that can only come through one source, Jesus.  Jesus is recognized in all three religions, so we can build on that recognition to share his real role in relationship to Allah, Yaweh, the Father.

While on earth, Jesus tried desperately to teach about his Father, Yaweh, Allah, whatever man called him.  Over and over again the Jew rejected his teachings, but some got it, some understood.  It amazes me that in Jewish cultures, they will embrace many religions, but will reject even their own who recognize Jesus as their Messiah.  A tool for a global, world wide evangelism could be just examining the relationship of Jesus to the God of Abraham as the item that could unite us in faith.

It amazes me that on Mount Zion the Jewish faith built their temples, the Muslim faith built their mosque, and if allowed, the Christian faith would have built its cathedral, but on that very same site Abraham received a sacrificial lamb for his son Isaac and all three faiths received their sacrificial lamb in Jesus on the Cross on that very site.  Maybe the beginning of world wide evangelism should begin with our similarities, the recognition of Abraham as their patriarch of our faith, his belief in one God, the same God of our faith, and the role of Jesus as the fulfillment of our faith.  I know of an effective Christian ministry to the Arabs in the Middle East whose foundation is the recognition of our similarities of faith, but the fulfillment of our faith in Jesus.

In a time of anti-semitism and muslim-bashing in America, the American Christian Church needs to find a way to reach out to their Jewish and Muslim Americans to find common ground in faith with them.  As relationships are built, barriers fall, trust begins to be established, and then the door opens to share the fulfillment of our faiths in Jesus. This may be a key in the 21^st Century world view of evangelism.

Social Networking: Needs A Pastor; Needs A Savior?

Intrapersonal or Interpersonal Skills?

I’ve marveled when standing on the bus ramp at our Middle School, student’s texting and tweeting each other while standing only 10 feet apart!  One girl bawled out a guy for not answering her texts even though she sat only two tables away from him in the cafeteria.  There is prestige to having a huge following on Tweet or have hundreds of “friends” on Facebook.  What has happened to the eye to eye oral communication skills?  How many friends of bf’s, best friends, can one have on Facebook?  We can know a lot about somebody through social networking, but how much of them do we really know?  How long will it be before someone “proposes” marriage through a Tweet or Text or Facebook entry? How many tweets would that generate?  How many replies on a Facebook strain would it create?

The pastoral/shepherding aspect of the five fold is getting to be more and more needed to teach “caring” and “nurturing” skills to people who chose communication on an intrapersonal level.  “Being there for someone” is important to the 20-somethings, not only on a communications level, but on an emotional level.  Social networking allows 24/7 access to communicate, but lacks eye to eye, physical touch, oral communications and body language that makes communications personal and intimate.

How does a person know that you really care for them unless you are physically present at the moment?  Everyone needs a shoulder to cry on at times.  Physical shoulders are not available on social networking.   Women love a “good cry” where they don’t want verbal communication or even someone to solve their problems.  They just want another human to “feel their pain”, empathize with them, just “be there” for them.

With a culture that is getting more physically detached from one another, how will that effect the mental health of individuals when in need?  How will it effect the hurting when the physical or mental pain is beyond strain? 

Because of the mentality of 24/7 communication needs, how will the spiritual shepherd have to change his mentality of availability to a generation that demands 24/7 availability?  What does “being available” even mean to this generation?  How is “fellowship” being redefined? 

“In the beginning was the Word….” Christian spirituality has always been around the “Word”, alias communications.  How is the “Word” to be communicated to this generation? The rolling 3 point sermon resonating in a Southern Billy Graham style is being replaced by what? His message of a broken relationship with God can still resonate as this generation looks at salvation as restoring that communication that was lost because of sin.  How is the evangelistic message to be communicated to this social networking generation?

To my generation, Peter, Paul, & Mary sang, “The Times They Are A Changing” accusing parents for not understanding the new language, the new communications of the youth and their movement.  With a new generation comes new forms of music, new forms of speech, new forms of messages or communications around old themes and new ones.  We, the Church, need to acquire new mindsets, new avenues of communicating age-old messages:  Jesus, salvation, the gospel, sanctification, etc., particularly if we are to reach, nurture, care, equip, train, and release this generation for Jesus.

Purpose Of The Five Fold: To Grow Up!

Infant or Adult?  Isn’t It time To GROW UP?

Purpose of the five fold according to Ephesians 4:12-16  ….. “to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.  Instead speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is Christ.  From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work."

Infants or adults in Christ: I Corinthians 1:10-13 ….. “I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers, some of Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, ‘I follow Paul’; another, ‘I follow Apollos’; still another, ‘I follow Christ.’ Is Christ divided?”

Infants or adults in Christ: I Corinthians 1:1-9 ….. “Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly – mere infants in Christ.  I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it.  Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there are jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly?  Are you not acting like mere men?  For when one says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ are you not mere men? What after all, is Apollos? What is Paul?  Only servants, through whom you came to believe – as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field. God’s building.”

Church, we need “to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”   We need “in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is Christ.”  How long are we going to be “infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming?  Instead speaking the truth in love”? “Is Christ divided?” How long will we be a divided church, “For since there are jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly?  Are you not acting like mere men?”

Why does the Church need the five fold? To GROW UP!  To train, equip, prepare the saints so that “we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”  To bring unity instead of being tossed by “every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming?”

Paul address the Christians at Corinth as “Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly – mere infants in Christ.  I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it.  Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there are jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly?  Are you not acting like mere men?”  Would he say the same to our churches today?  Unfortunately, I would think he would.  The mentality of Christian churches today only brings divisions not unity, church splits instead of growth, doctrinal and theological debate rather than unity of the message of good news, the gospel.  What applied in Paul’s day, still applies to the Church today.  Isn’t it time to “GROW UP”?

Let’s allow believers to grow up through acknowledging the five fold among us, encouraging one another, nurturing one enough, being accountable to one another, serving one another, laying down our lives for each other, equipping and preparing one another, and releasing one another for works of service.   That is a totally different mentality and attitude than the church currently embraces.

The scriptures above speak for themselves.  How do we as individual Christians and corporately as the body of Christ respond to them?  How long must the Holy Spirit treat us as infants before we are willing to eat meat.  Must we be enabled like the Children of Disobedience in the wilderness after leaving Egypt where they only had manna to eat.  We can feast at the Lord’s table because of Jesus.  So much more is available to us if we only grow up!

Isn’t it time to “GROW UP”?

Again, I Repeat: “Passion” Released Brings “Productivity”

The Releasing of Passion in the Five Fold

Recently I met with my local pastor, contemplating my future upon retiring from being a public educator for forty years, asking him how I would now fit into the local body of Christ that he was leading.  His response was to ask me a question, “What are you passionate about?”  My response, “teaching!”

I ask you today, “What are you passionate about in your walk with Jesus?”  What drives you?  What gives you a sense of fulfillment?  For some its missions, others evangelism, hospitality, visitations, caring and nurturing, teaching, seeking God through worship, listening to the voice of God through obedience, marveling at the workings of the Church as a whole, etc.  There are many things one can be passionate about in Jesus. What is your passion?

I believe one of the keys to the five fold is the “releasing” of these “passions” among the saints.  Ephesians 4 challenges us to “equip”, prepare, the saints, the everyday believers in Jesus Christ, for the work of “service.”  If we prepare the saints and allow them to be passionate about the work of the gospel through service, we will witness a productive Church. 

Often the church has based itself around a certain day to worship, a certain building or place in which to worship, a certain group of people, the staff, to perform needed duties, rather than releasing those who worship, whose bodies are the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and who have been called to perform the work of service: the saints, the people who ARE the CHURCH! 

This time of year there are graduations everywhere, celebrations of years of preparation, only to now be released.  Students who are clueless about survival in the world as adults, but academically prepared, released to become adults, released to use those things they were taught in real world situations.  If they have been “prepared” effectively they will become productive.  If what they learned has become their “passion,” that passion released will produce “productivity” and they will earn the title of becoming successful.  Without passion, they become just another cog in the system.

When you think of Church, what drives you?  What are you passionate about?  If released, what would you want to do?  What preparation do you need to dove tail with your passion so that you can be productive for Jesus? Those are the questions each of us and the Church as a whole needs to be asking! 

The church must also ask the question, “What structures my be in place for this to happen, and what current structures have to be removed for this to happen?”  In urban renewal, often old structures must be condemned, torn down, and removed, before new structures can be built to bring life back into that urban area.  The church does not do a very effective job at condemning existing structures that were once productive but have become “traditions” now blocking “renewal”.  Urban renewal always brings opposition from the established entrenched ones, and so does spiritual renewal. 

I believe the five fold is a possible structure that would bring renewal to the Church if allowed to be led by the Holy Spirit at the cost of its members be willing to lay down their lives for one another, a high price for the prize.  All through these 300 blogs I have written, I have challenged you and I as believers, and you and I as the Church to tear down some old structures, once valued with reverence, but now becoming a blockage for spiritual renewal.  I have learned it is easy to lay on the altar the waste, the sin, and the failures of our lives for Jesus to renew, but find it difficult to lay on the altar things that I love, things that have been productive in the past, things that I value, yet they are the very things that must be laid on the altar for the Church to continue to move forward.  Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal those structures and how to remove them; then ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the new structures you are to be “passionate” about and release that passion.

“Passion” Released Brings “Productivity”

The Power Of the Teacher in the Five Fold

When Jesus was on earth, if you were Jewish, you would follow a rabbi, a teacher, who would instruct you on the teachings of the Torah and Talmud.  You became a “follower” of him, thus the 12 “followed” this young rabbi named Jesus and became known as his “followers.”  Jesus taught those who followed him about the kingdom of God.  Parables were his most effective tool, for some understood them, others were baffled. What gave some understanding and others frustration? 

Once Jesus asked them, “Who do you say that I am?” Only Peter got the correct answer, the Messiah.  Then Jesus tells him that “flesh and blood” did not reveal this, but the “Spirit” did.  Most of Jesus’ teachings were misunderstood while he was alive. His disciples argued over who would be the greatest in this kingdom, looking for a political Messiah.  Only after seeing their Messiah die for them on the Cross and miraculously raise from the dead, ascending into heaven, and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost did they finally “understand” Jesus’ teaching, because Jesus had told them that unless he goes back to the Father, the Holy Spirit can not be released, but when released, he will teach them all things.  The key to teaching in the Five Fold is allowing the Holy Spirit to do it, and the physical teacher is just a vessel in the process.

I Corinthians 2:10-16 fills us in about the role of the Holy Spirit as a teacher:  “…..but God has revealed it to us by the Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him?  In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.  We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.  This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.  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.”

On my way to earning a Masters Degree in Biblical Studies, I had to take “theology” courses, which comprised of studying what Biblical scholars had studied and debated over the centuries.  Often the content was hard to understand, complex in speech and word, based on quoting one “scholar” against another over supposedly Christian principles and doctrines.  Often I would have to read a paragraph several times before understanding its meaning.  You have to be an “academic scholar” to understand it, that is why it is a “graduate” course.  On the other hand when I received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, my first reaction was to read through the Bible allowing the Holy Spirit to teach me.  I saw the threads of truth about Jesus, salvation, the Holy Spirit, the revelation of the Father, and more throughout all sixty-six books.  I highlighted them in different colors as truth continued to be unveiled to me through the Holy Spirit.  This learning had simplicity to it, not the complexity of what later became theology.  This learning brought life to my daily living, not isolation in Academiaville.  This type of learning challenged me to “walk out” my faith journey in my daily living with my actual neighbors and friends, not seclude myself in bookwork.   Passages that once were only theological in nature, often misunderstood by me, now became revelations that brought understanding and life.

After forty years of teaching, a Bachelor’s Degree, two Master’s Degrees, and thirty additional graduate course credits, I have come to realize that it wasn’t necessarily all those degrees that made me the teacher I am, though they had some merit, but the “passion” that was in me.  Did it take me almost four academic degrees to “understand” grammar, literature, poetry, and the writing process that made a difference in how I reached my students, or was it the “passion” with in me, that love for language that developed in me, the yearning to write and grammatically write well that touched my students?

I contend the “power” of “effectiveness” of “teaching” came “from within”!  Student’s responded to me when they saw how I “valued” what I taught.  Just teaching the subject for the subject’s sake became lifeless, meaningless, of little value, but teaching my passion spilled over to become the passion of my students.  Because I love to write, my passion for writing soon became “effective” as my students became willing to not only let ideas flow from their pens, but were now willing to spend endless hours laboriously editing their work to produce a composition, an essay that would be well written, a piece to be proud of, a treasure to be honored and shared.  “Passion” released brings “Productivity”.

The Church needs to “release” the “spirit of teaching” among its “saints” again, so that the passion from within them will spill out, overflow, to others.  Although the content is important, the passion that drives teaching that content is what is “effective”.  Students remember teachers who “inspired” them as well as the content they taught.  The Church needs to “release” the Holy Spirit to again be its teacher creating many “Road to Emmaus” for its believers, again revealing the truths it has dug deep to find, understand, and teach, again “releasing” those truths with understanding spiritually and in their practical lives, and again establishing apostolic teaching to bring unity in the body of Christ.  Holy Spirit be my teacher, be my passion! I release you to teach me and the Church as a whole.

How Does The Church Guard Itself Against False Evangelists, Teachers, Pastors, Prophets, and Apostles?

The Power Of Accountability of the Five Fold

In my last bog I asked, “How can the Church prepare, equip, prepare its saints for the ‘next’ group of false prophets, false teachers, self-proclaimed evangelists and apostles all under the title of ‘pastor’ or elite Church leader?

I have been a Christian for 50 years now, and I have witnessed the rise and fall of several well known, once famous Christian leaders who have risen in power, influence, and affluence, only to tragically fall in shame and disgrace hurting thousands of Christian believers.  Most of these men were very sincere in their Christian faith and beliefs, often starting as humble men, servants, doctrinally sound, but as they grew in stature gaining positions of influence and proclaiming titles and offices, rising up the corporate ladder of the Christian Church, subtle changes began to occur.  Once they gained the “titles” and “offices”, they began to immune themselves from other Christians, particularly those of “lower position”.  They felt “empowered” to “lead” those of less or lower caliber in the family of faith.  Soon they became hard to “get to”, particularly for the common believer.  They had build a cocoon of protection through isolation, self Bible study, individual meditation, and private worship, building even a greater distance between themselves and the “people” of God, their supposedly family.  Soon those “people” would only be needed to “finance” the teachings, the ministry, and their affluence of their leader.   Red flags begin to appear, but who is to stop this leadership, reprimand, correct, or guide this independent leader to bring accountability to his ministry, cause, or platform?

The emphasis of the “Body of Christ” is its “many members”, different parts, different gifting, different talents, different points of view all working “together” for the “unity” of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.  Its emphasis is not on one man, nor on just leadership.  Ephesians 4 calls us to “equip the saints”, not the staff, not just the leadership.  We are to “equip” the “body of Christ” for the “work of service”, not control, not position, not influence or affluence. We need to “equip” or prepare the “saints”, individual members, for “group”, “body”, ministry, not isolated individual ministry for the purpose of “maturing” the saints into the “likeness of Jesus Christ” while bringing “unity” to the “body of Christ”. 

We need to teach the saints the importance of their “new birth” in Jesus Christ, what it means, how it impacted their lives, how to share and tell their story, and how to build “relationships” with non-believers in Jesus Christ, so we can share the “good news”, the gospel.  Then we need to “release” their evangelistic passion under proper accountability of service not control.

We need to teach the saints the importance of “nurture” and “care” in Jesus, how to have a shepherding heart, how to release hospitality to the sick, the afflicted, the poor, the hungry, the wondering, the unemployed, those released from prison or still in prison.  When major disasters hit, like hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, etc., American’s respond generously.  We need to respond daily to the needs of those around us, not just during disasters.  Finally we need to “release” the saints to “serve”, not as a project, nor a program, nor an evangelistic effort, but as a common everyday life.

We need to teach the saints the importance of daily devotions and Bible reading, teaching the saints discipline themselves to the “manna” of our day, teaching them to allow the Holy Spirit to be their teacher while speaking to them the truth about the passages they read.  We need to teach the saints on how to “dig” for answers in the Bible, how to do effective Bible study.  Then we need to “release” them to share the Word with others.

We need to teach the saints the importance of making that Logos, written Word, the Bible, into the Rhema Word, the living Word, living out the principles taught in the Bible in their daily lives.  We need to take the saints from a theological, academic dissertation of the Bible into a practical, daily, experiential, living out of the Bible through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  We are to not only “talk” the “talk”, but “walk” the “walk.”  Actually we need to “walk” the “talk”, experience the life, the journey, in Jesus.  Then we need to “release” the saints to actually live out their faith journey in Jesus through the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ.

We need to teach the saints the importance of “Body Ministry” and the “seeing over”, or oversight of the Body.  What we do is for the common good of the body, the Church, not ourselves.  Jesus “died” for the Church, we need to “lay down our lives for our brethren.” (I John 3:16)  The five fold is not only for the “maturing” of the saints into the likeness of Jesus, but also to bring “unity” to the Body of Christ.  The gospel is about “dying to self” in order to “lay down our life” through service to our brethren, our family members of faith through Jesus.  It is not about “me”, #1 as we say in America, but about “us”, the Church, the body of Christ.  After we equip the saints towards this endeavor, we then need to “release” them to bring that unity.

Finally, if each of the five fold passions and points of view would subject themselves to serve the other four and be served by them in their daily lives and faith journeys, there would be established a powerful bond of accountability to serve and be served, preventing the isolation, inwardness, self-seeking, proclaimed self-enlightenment, independent spirit that has brought down so many Christian leaders in the past.

If there was ever a time the Church needs the five fold, it is now!

Why Didn’t The World Come To An End?

How Did Harold Camping Go Wrong?

May 21^st  came and has gone, and all the saints are still on earth!  The rapture did not take place.  The Bible warns that the dates and times of his return are not revealed, yet there are those who have attempted to “predict” the return of the Lord.  It amazes me how many people believed his message, sold all they had, only to be left now with nothing materially, hope lost, and faith damaged.  In spite of that, Harold Camping has told his followers on Family Radio that there was a “spiritual” beginning of the end and now moved the actual date of destruction to October.  What credibility does he have as a soothsayer of future predictions? Why would anyone listen to him or follow him?  Is it just because he heads a Christian radio station?

I have always been skeptical of self-proclaimed “prophets” who outline “end times” theories.  I remember in the ‘70’s when someone predicted Henry Kissinger to be the “antichrist” claiming that if you place the letters in his name with their numerical values, the end result added up to 666.  Well, it has been decades since Henry has had major political influence, and again Christianity has looked foolish in its predictions.  We have Christians who have made a mint writing dozen upon dozens of books claiming the mysteries of the book of Daniel and Revelation, outlining the course of the end times, both fictional and supposedly nonfictional.  Who are you to believe?

Why the interest, the fascination?  I have been taught that when I die, I will immediately be with Jesus.  If that is the case, then why do I need the rapture when I know I have the assurance of being in his presence after death. “Death, where is thy sting?”  I am looking forward to passing from life to death because of the assurances I have been taught about being in His Presence.  I have also grown up in churches that preach that a believer can be in “His Presence” now, just through worship.  Really, I guess, the focus should be on Jesus, not just on his return.  The book of Revelations in some Bibles is entitled the “Revelation of Jesus Christ.”  Could the book possibly be a symbolic metaphoric revelation of the person and presence of Jesus Christ, revealing who he is, his nature, not focusing on his return and end times theories.  I know the last two chapters of Revelation are metaphoric reflections of all sixty-six books into one passage, reflecting who Jesus is in the entirety of the Bible, which is remarkable.

I admired Dr. Carl Zeigler, a religious professor, when I went to Elizabethtown College for being a real Biblical scholar.  He was a brilliant man, yet he would not touch the book of Revelation because of its controversies.  He would rather reveal Jesus Christ through the Gospels than speculate about the coming apocalypse.

Mr. Camping broke away from the body of Christ, using the airwaves to propagate his theories to the general body of Christian believers, and would not subject himself to other Christian teachers for accountability.  These are all the ingredients that can lead to heresy or a cult.

Cults are not new.  I remember the Children of God (http://www.thefamily.org/en/),  the Forever Family (http://avehurley.wordpress.com/2007/03/10/forever-family-became-cobuthen-turned-to-a-cult/),  the Moonies (http://freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/m/moonies/),  etc. to my generation during my youth. I recall the Jim Jones and the People’s Temple massacres in Guiana (http://www.religioustolerance.org/dc_jones.htm).   I have seen Christian leaders elevate themselves to begin to think they have an inside tract on God only to fall.  The tactic that worked on Lucifer that brought his fall still is influential today.  I was wondering what cults are out there today, and Camping’s teachings have been exposed, bringing tragically down many sincere Christian followers, damaging their loyalty and faith, ruining them financially.

Could this have been avoided if the Church practiced the five fold?  Mr. Camping’s evangelistic and teaching zeal would have been tempered by the nurturing heart of a pastor/shepherd who would have warned him of how his actions this would damage the sheep.  Even today he does not show regret to those who have been stung financially by his actions. The prophet who would have exposed his teachings for what they were, not life giving words but destructive words.  A true prophet would have discerned the dark side of his teachings, exposing them while warning the saints.  An apostle, or over seer, would have seen over what was happening and would have warned Camping of the results of his impending actions, but I am sure Camping would not have listened for he became his own self-proclaimed evangelist, teacher, shepherd, prophet, and apostle, and that is dangerous.  No man is to take on all those passions as a self-proclaimed leader.  Each of the five fold is a “body” ministry to the “body of Christ”, for the “body of Christ”, to empower the “body of Christ”, the saints, not just single, powerful leaders.

I do not see Mr. Camping willing to “lay down his life” for his brethren, for during his current press conference he showed no regret, no remorse for those stung by his false teachings and predictions.  He did not expose a pastoral heart of a shepherd.  I saw no remorse, not a willing spirit to admit error, only a “new” justification.  I did not see a willingness to “step down” from Family Radio, but a controlling spirit to continue to use it to spread his newly justified propaganda.  I am sorry, but I did not see “Jesus” through Mr. Camping at his press conference. 

There will be more Camping’s in the future. How can the Church prepare, equip, prepare its saints for the “next” group of false prophets, false teachers, self-proclaimed evangelists and apostles all under the title of “pastor” or elite Church leader?  That will be the topic of my next blog.

What Grade Do You Give The Church On “Equipping/Preparing”?

Church, A Time For Self Examination.

Early “last” century, most people who attended a local village or town church grew up in the church, attended church all through their adolescence, married in the same church, and raised their families in that church, and got buried on that church’s grounds.  Culturally, that is not the trend in the 21^st century as Americans are more mobile, seek jobs away from their upbringing roots, do not live where they were raised, and feel Facebook, MySpace, Skype, and other social media networks keep them informed of their roots thought they are not there physically.  With this change in cultural trends, the Church also needs to examine what they are “equipping” or “preparing” those who are under their wings for.  Some food to stimulate discussion:

Christian youth groups “hang out” together, establishing relationships.  Peer pressure and peer acceptance are at the forefront.  When going to Christian Youth Conferences, they are told to save every person in their school, change the world, and win the world for Christ.  Sounds good, but how?  Do our churches look beyond their teen years to equip, prepare, or train our teens for their independence and self-searching 20’s.  Do we equip them by teaching each one of them how to read the Word, the Bible, on their own and allow the Holy Spirit to teach them, so when they go off to college, or in the army, or move away for a starter position job they can be grounded in the Word and in their faith?  Do our churches equip, prepare, or train our teens how to establish a daily, vibrant prayer life, a life of worship, a life of intimate relationship with Jesus?  When they go off to seek who they are, trying to find themselves, their identities, will they have to tools, the equipment needed spiritually to establish their own sound beliefs through the Bible while trusting the Holy Spirit, or will they stray from the church in their search?

What if on the church door hung a sign “Building Condemned, Do Not Enter” or “The Practice of Religion Is Prohibited At This Place”?  What would those in your congregation do?  Has the local church equipped, prepared, and trained each of its members to stand on their own faith?  What is that faith?  Now is the time to test the depths of that faith?  If they couldn’t call the pastor or his staff, what would they do to survive on their own?  If no one has been trained to lead, who will lead?  If no one has been equipped or developed to serve, who will serve? If one felt lost in the large mega-church crowd on Sundays, who will they seek out to fellowship with?

If you had to leave your church today, what would be in your spiritual toolbox that you would pull out to use in your new life’s adventure?  What has your local church “invested” that is now part of you?  Who would preach or teach the Word? Could you?  Do you need to be “lead” into worship, or can you do it on your own?  If you can’t call on others, what would your prayer life look like?  If those you have been fellowshipping with were no longer around, who would you begin fellowshipping with?  Would your social life change?  

As a 21^st Century Church we must ask, “What are we equipping, preparing, or training those in our church to do?” How are we to equip, prepare, and train them if we do not know what we are training them for?  What do we “really” need to move ahead in our faith journey if our circumstances or location changes?  If church activities were stripped from your life because of circumstances, sickness, moving, etc., what would you be able to do spiritually? 

These are some tough questions, but I ask, “What have we, as Christians, been called to do horizontally in relationship with one another that would prepare our faith for life’s surprises and the next step in our faith journeys?”  Church is about our vertical relationship with God, our understanding of Him, and how we relate to Him and worship Him.  Church is also about horizontal relationships, and the challenge of these blogs has been to question how we are to “equip”, prepare, or train one another “for the work of the service”, establishing, maintaining, and moving the kingdom of God forward.  That is the challenge of the 21^st Century Church!

Relevancy, the 21st Century Church, & the Five Fold (Part 5)

Can “Releasing” Be That Difficult?

 In my May 13^th blog I wrote, “After writing almost 300 blogs over the last few years about the Church from the perspective of the five fold not being “offices” by “church officials” but “passions” and “points of view” that drive believers in Jesus Christ, why wouldn’t the Church want to examine the relevancy of .....  actually “releasing those already in the Church to do the work of an evangelist, or shepherding, being pastoral, or teaching the Word, or bringing spiritual relevancy and life to the Word, or “seeing over” what the Holy Spirit is doing with the corporate body of Christ?” Let’s look at that question.

The last blog we looked at “equipping” or preparing the saints for the work of the service, but what happens if we have done the preparation work?  If we “prepare” but do not “release”, our efforts are in vain!  We, the 21^st Century Church, needs to learn how to “release.”

As a public educator, watching a High School Graduation Ceremony is a challenge.  You have spent 12 years in their life to “prepare” or “equip” them for the real world, but if you don’t release them (graduate them) they will never mature into adults!  Although a senior thinks he knows it all, he is in for a real shock when being released.  A new challenge begins, and he can’t return back to high school anymore? That is right! Now is the real test to see if we really “prepared” the student or not.

In the church world we, too, have often prepared people for ministry, but fear releasing them as if they are not ready!  In a past blog I told of the Lay Speaker’s courses I took through the United Methodist Church when I was young, but very few of those of us who took the course ever got to fill a pulpit to give a sermon.  The pastors were afraid to “release” their pulpits to non-clergy, fearing heresy, false teaching, or something….?  I have often asked, “Why were we even trained if they were not willing to release us upon graduation?”

I have seen churches who have released their members to move on in a ministry with the laying on of hands, financially supporting them, and blessing them by continual correspondence.  That was powerful.  It is far different being sent out as a “Lone Ranger” into a ministry rather than with the blessing of a caring, loving church as a covering.  Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto!  Instead of church splits, we would see church growths without disunity, hurt, and dissention. 

In the natural, the “empty nest syndrome” is tough on a parent who has nurtured and cared for a child, pouring everything physically, spiritually, and financially into their child, only to face an empty bedroom never to be lived in again by that child, for that child is no more; he has become an adult! That child will move on to their own apartment, eventually owning their own home, and maybe even building a grandparent’s suite on to their home to take care of their aging parent!  Children cannot become adults unless they are “released.”  Often, as a church, we have not only enabled other believers from spiritually growing, but we have held on to them too long, unable to release them. This has produced negative results.

As a church we spend countless hours, finances, and resources on our “Youth Groups”, the “future generation” of church leaders as we call them, but lose them when they hit their 20’s.  This is the decade of their growth, maturing into becoming an independent adult, and we, the church, don’t know what to do with them trying to fit them into our molds of the way we think and “do” church when they are looking for their own expressions of faith and truth, though in different ways than we deem “acceptable” or even “reasonable”.  What did we “equip” our youth to do in their teens that we could release them toward maturity in their 20’s?  Most Church Teen Conferences are hyped up to save one’s High School, change the world, and be a history maker.  They are not geared to “equip” or “prepare” those teens for their 20’s, thus they leave the church and search for the meaning of life when I thought the church already gave them that meaning!

If we are truly “equipping” or “preparing” our youth for the “work of the service”, then why are they leaving the church that supposedly equipped them when they work out their maturity, their adulthood?  The 21^st Century Church needs to rethink how it “equips” and “releases” its future generation or it will lose them and the church becomes a spiritual “assisted living” building for the aged.

Again I would like to blog about Doris Dolheimer, who taught me a lot about equipping and releasing. Although an excellent Pentecostal pianist in her own right, she was willing to take those in their early teens under her wing to teach them worship, not as a style of music, but as a principle, equipping them to “hear the voice of the conductor”, the Holy Spirit and to be obedient to the conductor’s leading.  When those youth grew to become good musicians and began to practice some of the spiritual principles that she taught, she released them.  She walked off the stage, allowing the sound of the music to change to their expression, more “rockier,” and even watching her beloved baby grand piano be replaced with drums, electronic instruments, amps and monitors.  The sound and style of worship may have changed, but the principles she “equipped” them with haven’t.  Today she still remains in the pew and worships, while many of those that she has “equipped” have rocked on with Jesus with the desire to create a worshipful atmosphere.

21^st Century Church needs to better equip and then release, let go with a blessing.

(This is the 5^th part of a 7 part series.  I invite you to look back at the previous blogs and join me in future blogs about the relevancy of the five fold to the 21^st Century Church.)

Spiritual Parenting

An Analogy: The Five Fold To Parenting

I believe the five fold is in each of us!  We possess the ability to birth, to nurture care and develop, to teach, to bring life, and to oversee.  This is most evident in parenting.  No one ever realizing what parenting is until they are in it and faced with its challenges.  One also doesn’t realize that parenting becomes a life long ambition though its roles may change with the aging of their children, but once a parent, always a parent. So it is also with the five fold.

Parenting doesn’t begin until there is a birth.  Without a birth, there are no parents.  You don’t even think like a parent until a birth occurs.  The birthing process is a joy, but the work of parenting begins when you bring the newborn home and witness long hours without sleep, endless diaper changes, changes to your life style, your feeling of privacy, and trying to figure out who really controls your life, your children or yourself. Parental supervision implies the proper protection of those under your care.

Parenting becomes pastoral as the rest of their childhood lives are under your care to nurture, develop, and keep up with their developmental stages as they work toward maturing as an adult. This is when one realizes that parenting is a life long calling, a life long commitment.

Parents are natural teachers, because little children “imitate” their parent’s behavior.  We learn best by experience. We say we will never “be like my mother/father”, but when we become parents we are shocked to see our parents in our life’s mirror of ourselves, because one of the most effective ways of being a parent is being taught to be one by example.  That is usually why one puts away their wild single searching lives, hopefully not to be dug up by their children when they reach that stage in an effort to “settle down” and be responsible.  Hopefully a “teachable” spirit can be instilled in a child through proper nurture, care, and above all earned respect by what we did as a parent.

Parenting requires a prophetic spirit, a spirit of bringing life into situations.  Parents lay down the law, establish rules with their children, but unless they bring love and life into what can be teachable life situations children only remember the law, not the reason for laws to protect and bring life.  You invest your “life” into your children to bring “life” in them.  Cat Stevens song Cat In The Cradle exemplifies what happens when life is not invest in your children. They give back your investment in them when you are old and they take or don’t take care of you!

Parenting requires over sight.  “Seeing over” what your children are doing is the key to their success.  Parents need to know that their children are doing, thinking, and acting.  If you ignore your children, then proper and effective parenting ceases. If you ignore a garden, weeds take over and the garden becomes nonproductive!  When I first needed a username for my first email account as instructed by my tech-savvy children, I chose “popnozall”, for “pop knows all” so my children were aware that where ever they went on the internet or used the computer, pop would find out, because he knows all.  They believed it when I had to practice it!  Over sight, properly seeing over your children, is monumental in the proper growth and development of your children.  Neglect proves disaster.

So it is with the Church!  Spiritual parenting cannot begin without a birth, a new birth, a spiritual birth of one accepting Jesus as their savior, king, personal, hopefully, best friend, confidant, etc. Without a new birth, there is no need to parent.  The pastoral role is the nurturing, caring, developing role of parenting, the day to day living out of one’s spiritual walk.  Parents need help from their families in this walk, and what better family than the family of God, the Church, to aide in proper parenting spiritually and physically in everyday living!  Although the Church can supply spiritual teaching, it is still the individual parent’s responsibility to teach their child how to read the Bible on their own, how to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit, how to trust the Holy Spirit, how to walk out one’s faith journey, etc. by example, but the corporate body of Christ, the Church can aide in that walk.  The Church should be prophetic, applying the living out of the principles that are taught.  With out this prophetic spirit, this walking out physically what truth lies spiritually, there will be only limited spiritual life if a believer.  The Church should also provide oversight, the “seeing over” what the Holy Spirit is doing in the lives of its children, its believers in Jesus.

So the five fold is natural in the parenting in life, and natural in the parenting spiritually.  I will continue to challenge you and encourage you to embrace the five fold in your spiritual life and in the life of your church.

Evangelism: The Challenge of Releasing the Pastoral Spirit

Discipleship Vs. Developing Maturity, “Attaining To The Whole Measure Of The Fullness Of Christ”

Let’s challenge the traditional mindsets we have towards “discipleship”, and ask the Holy Sprit to reveal some truths about the pastoral passion of the five fold as a new mindset to the way the Church is to think.

Rebirthing:  If there are spiritual births, then we need spiritual nurseries!  The pastoral spirit of the five fold is needed for this mindset to be addressed.  Is the goal “discipleship”, making “followers” of Jesus, or it to help believers in Jesus Christ to “become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ”? (Eph. 4:13)  There is a vast difference between just “following” someone and “maturing into their likeness”. When people see a Christian, he/she should see Jesus Christ. That is the goal of pastoral development. If this is truly the goal of the Church, then it needs a “rebirth”, a “renewal”, a “new mindset” toward the way it thinks of caring, nurturing, and developing the “Gods people, for works of service.” (Eph. 4: 12) This may cause the Church to shy away from current mindsets of discipleship programs, mentoring programs, big spiritual brother or sister programs, etc. and begin thinking of ways to personally one-on-one development one’s spiritual life by sacrificing one’s own time to “invest” in the kingdom of God by “investing” in helping another fellow believer mature more in the likeness of Jesus Christ. Development takes time, the one thing Americans do not want to sacrifice.  In a fast pace internet world, Americans want instant “now”.  Speed is the key to accessing information, but now in the kingdom of God.  God has taken centuries to prepare for his Son, Jesus, to come as a sacrificial lamb for the sins of mankind, and is still taking centuries for His return to a Church without spot or wrinkle.  God is allowing “developmental” time for His Church in preparation for His Son’s return.  If God is taking His time to develop his Church into the image of His Son, maybe we, the Church, must recognize too that development takes time.  For most of us Christian it will be an earthly lifetime. We live on promise that after death when we go with Him, Jesus, we will be like Him, in his fullness!  The Lord’s prayer states, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” so it is the will of the Father to “develop” His people into the likeness of His Son both here on earth and in heaven.

Of course here is where we begin to ask questions:  How do we develop Christians into Jesus’ likeness?  The answer is: WE CAN’T!  Only the Holy Spirit can, for he has been called to draw all man unto Him, Jesus.  He knows what the “likeness of Christ” is in its maturity being part of the Trinity.  We need to ask the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the evangelistic spirit of “rebirth”, “renewal”, and “revival” for ways to bring life, Rhema life, the Living Word, into the spirit of every Christian believer, so that the written Word, the Logos, becomes alive in us.  The gospel of John begins explaining that Jesus is the Word from the beginning and that “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”  Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, the Christian faith believes that today God’s Spirit through Jesus is not only among us, but in us when we chose to accept Jesus into our lives. Our bodies become the “temple of the Holy Spirit”, the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

To develop into the maturity of being Christ like, we must put the written Word, the Logos Word, within ourselves by personally reading our Bibles. Then we have to allow the Holy Spirit to activate that Word to become the Rhema Word, the Living Word, so we become little “Words”, little “Jesus’”, little “Words in the flesh” because the Spirit of Jesus, His Holy Spirit is in us, now his temples. 

Becoming “Words” in the flesh, living “Words” in the Spirit gives a new dimension to how we need to develop Christians in becoming “mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”  This is why my prayer is for me and you to look at the pastoral passion of the five fold in different ways than we have in the past as the Holy Spirit instructs us in the process of growth, caring, nurturing, and developing into the “fullness of Christ”.