WHERE DOES YOUR LOYALTY LIE - WHAT HAPPENS IN A COCOON?

Caterpillar to Butterfly: Loyalty Lies In Submission To The System– TO – Loyalty Lies In “Laying Down Your Life For Your Brethren”.

From Caterpillar to Cocoon to Butterfly – Part XV

In this series we have been asking the question, “What happens with metamorphosis during the cocoon stage?”  How, structurally, do you get a butterfly from what once was a caterpillar? In my Aug. 20, 2011’s blog, I listed several forms of transformation that I see occurring inside the cocoon of change for the church.   Today we will look at the principle: Loyalty lies in submission to the system (caterpillar) TO Loyalty lies in “laying down your life for your brethren” (butterfly).

Caterpillar: My parent’s generation was very loyal to their denomination.  You could find a Methodist church on one corner, a Lutheran church on another, and a Presbyterian church on yet another.  Never did the three meet together, and every church “member” remained loyal to their denomination.  Though not as strong as in the past, there is still a loyalty toward one’s local congregation.   Loyalty coincided with “membership”, with belonging.  To be a part of the system, denomination, religious group you had to accept their belief system of theology, adhere to their code of conduct, and attend the systems functions regularly in order to “belong”, to “feel accepted”, to “be a part of that group or family.” If you did that, you were a “loyal” follower or member.

Butterfly:  To the butterfly generation, loyalty means more than just attending service, participating in programs and activities, reciting the tenants of faith, or following dress codes or proper church social etiquette; it means building relationships with those in one’s fellowship circles and beyond.  Although surface relationships may be at first acceptable and beneficial, it demands a deeper commitment of relationship to the point of not only tolerating one another, accepting one another, to laying down one’s life for one another.  In a five fold model, one will “lay down his/her passion, point of view, or spiritual gift” to “serve” those with different passions, points of view, or gifting than theirs as well as receive gratefully from the others. This reciprocal giving and taking in love and service will build up tremendously deep relationships.

Differences: Loyalty through systems will produce works, and works produce Pharisees (see previous blog); loyalty through relationships forces one to die to themselves and live for others as well as receive from others.  There are no Lone Rangers or Pharisees in these relationships because they are linear, horizonal relationships with peers, brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.  You can be loyal to a system, but you will soon discover that the system may not be loyal to you; while if based on relationships, built on laying down one’s life for their brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, the reciprocated love returns to develop even deeper, longer, and more meaningful relationships.

Implications Today:  Corporate America demands loyalty to the system and those above you in this pyramidal structure of business when “taking care of business”, but when “downsizing” occurs, often the system is not loyal to its employees, releasing them, not “taking care of them”.  The bottom of the structure that is doing the work is to be loyal to the top, yet the very existence of those at the very bottom can be in jeopardy when faced with the bottom line: efficiency to produce profit for the system. There is no linear loyalty in a pyramidal system where you have to compete and back stab your peers to get to higher paying, elevated positions of power in the corporation.  This system breeds mistrust among peers.  The butterfly generation is building relationships linear, as peers, as equals, not in competition but in communication.  As this linear communication grows, so does the commitment level toward one another, as relationships grow stronger, deeper, more trustworthy, until one is ready to “lay down their life” in that commitment.  Marriage is a good example: today in corporate America we are losing what “laying down your life” for your wife or husband means, thus an enormously high divorce rated with children being groomed in single parent and step parent homes.  Hope for marriage as an institution can grow with this linear, horizontal relationship of total sacrifice of “laying down one’s life” producing solid, long lasting relationships in marriage.

Conclusion:  Bottom line: Where does your loyalty lie” in your work, in your church life, or in your marriage?  Does it lie in the institution where you work, the religious institution you attend, or in the institution of marriage, or does it lie in the relationship with those you work with, those you worship with, and the one whom you are committed in marriage with?  As a Church we have to realize how important relationships are compared to institutions and systems.  The church is all about relationships, yet we have institutionalized them.  Church is going through a structural metamorphosis from systematic institutions to relational and will see that loyalty will be shifting from institutional to relational.

DEVELOPMENT: PAHRISEES OR DISCIPLES - WHAT HAPPENS IN A COCOON?

Caterpillar to Butterfly: Developing “Pharisees” – TO – Developing Disciples

From Caterpillar to Cocoon to Butterfly – Part XIV

In this series we have been asking the question, “What happens with metamorphosis during the cocoon stage?”  How, structurally, do you get a butterfly from what once was a caterpillar? In my Aug. 20, 2011’s blog, I listed several forms of transformation that I see occurring inside the cocoon of change for the church.   Today we will look at the principle: Develops “Pharisees” (caterpillar) TO Develops Disciples (butterfly).

Caterpillar: I must confess: “I am a recovering Pharisee!”  I truly believe that the longer you are in a religious system, you can’t help but become a Pharisee of that system.  A Pharisee is one who becomes a zealot of their religious faith, who does “everything right” according to their religious code, and takes their religion seriously, effecting every area of their life.  I grew up as a church kid, active in the church youth group, went to a church sponsored college, and have been active in many different ministries in my life. Jesus’ most severe criticisms were directed to the “church” people of is day, the Pharisees, comparing them to infected yeast. (See earlier blogs)  Pharisees fervently supports a religious system. They appear squeaky clean; Jesus called them “white washed tombs”. 

Butterfly:  Jesus chose twelve uneducated men from different secular trades to train and develop into what would be the foundation of his kingdom.  For three years he built a relationship with them, training them, nurturing them, instructing them, and revealing His Father to them.  They become known as his disciples, his followers.  Every good rabbi had a following of disciples.  Amazingly, when push came to shove, with Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion, they fled with Peter actually denying that he knew him.  After Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, He sent His Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, and the Holy Spirit transformed 12 disciples into apostles who would “see over” what the Holy Spirit was about to do.  After the four gospels, the next book is the “Acts of the Apostles”, recording the actions of the apostles as they followed the leading of the Holy Spirit.  This would be the pattern of this newly birthed church built on relationships vertically with the Father, through Jesus Christ, by the leading of the Holy Spirit, and horizontally among the believers of Jesus Christ, the Church.

The Differences: Again, the difference between the two is established in where one’s loyalty lies: in an institution or in relationships with others.  Pharisees are zealots about what they believe, think, and do.  They are driven to follow the law or code of their group to achieve acceptance of advancement.  Saul, the Pharisee of Pharisees, had followed every Jewish code possible and even lead the zealous crusade to rid Judaism of this new “sect”. That would all change when he literally gets knocked of his horse, and meets Jesus. With that relationship, his life is changed, and the rest of his life is now dedicated to his vertical relationship with God and his horizontal relationship with the other believers in Jesus.

Implications Today:  How did I know when I became a Pharisee?  When I became defensive, justifying my every action and belief. I always believed my way of thinking was the correct way.  When the Holy Spirit brought it to my attention, my first defensive response was, “prove it to me.”   We care not to admit it, but today’s church is filled with Pharisees who follow their church codes to a tee and are zealous for what they believe.  Listen to Christian radio some time, and you will hear dozens of different preachers all preaching their own doctrine, some times the opposite of one another.  Pharisees nurture division just by their words, attitudes, and actions.  The Church will never be united, one body, as long as the Pharisees get their way. 

Conclusion:  Where is your loyalty: to the religious institution to which you belong or to relationships with the priesthood of believers?  Pharisees always line up with their institution’s guidelines and code of conduct, yet they were the targets of Jesus’ most severe criticisms.  He attacked their mindsets and established traditions calling them “traditions of man.”  On the other hand, the priesthood of believers is all about equality of position and influence, linear, horizontal relationships where one believer has to “lay down his life for his brethren”, another believer.  Pharisees never lay down anything, only defend what they are holding on to!  Are we willing to lay down our traditions, our past, and our very lives, those things we hold on to, at the altar, at the feet of Jesus, before our very brethren for the sake of relationships that the Lord wants to establish in our individual lives and corporately as a priesthood?

CHURCH PROPERTY - WHAT HAPPENS IN A COCOON?

Caterpillar to Butterfly: Having Church Property– TO – No Need For Church Property

From Caterpillar to Cocoon to Butterfly – Part XIII

In this series we have been asking the question, “What happens with metamorphosis during the cocoon stage?”  How, structurally, do you get a butterfly from what once was a caterpillar? In my Aug. 20, 2011’s blog, I listed several forms of transformation that I see occurring inside the cocoon of change for the church.   Today we will look at the principle: From Owning all church property (caterpillar) TO Has no need for church property (butterfly).

Caterpillar: In its hay days, the church built cathedrals, supposedly monuments to their faith but at a drastic cost to its constituents. Today, the church still builds mega-structures at a huge cost to their constituents.  Buildings and Grounds and their maintenance occupies a large part of most church budgets.  As buildings age and congregations dwindled, especially in urban America where entire communities built around church buildings are crumbling under economic conditions, slums are birthed.  Buildings often become albatrosses tied around a congregation’s neck when they become aged, huge, old, in need of repair, and empty and the congregation does not have the needed financial resources any more.  Those hallowed halls may be filled with history, but are empty of people, but strapped financially.  The building often becomes the center of focus, which we even call the “church”, for we attend “church” in a building.  It even becomes central to church activities and church life.

Butterfly:  Relationships are important, not physical facilities.  Relationships are not built around physical building, but in individuals meeting, communicating, and networking with one another.   In the past social life developed around the church building and its activities.  In the future it could revolve around the culture where the church, the people who believe in Jesus Christ, live and are active.  Church will be fused more with community and local culture.  Church could meet in Starbucks because that is where their people drink coffee (with out “doing” church by producing a church service there).  It could meet in the park by the swing sets, at the grocery store, at school, work, etc.  Any place god’s people are, where Christians hang out, technically that is where the “church” is meeting.  It is built on relationships, not location nor buildings.

The Differences: In the past, much of the church’s financial resources turned toward building projects, magnificent cathedrals throughout Europe, beautiful architectural mega-churches in the United States, etc. As buildings age, their financial demands for maintenance can strap the financial resources of the church, those Christian individuals who meet there, and become an albatross around their necks, eventually forcing them to close their doors or sell their facility. On the other hand, if the church is built on relationships among its believers in Jesus Christ, technically, a stationary building is not needed.  All one needs are “two or more” believers in Jesus Christ to gather, hang out, communicate, and you got Church.

Implications Today:  Personally, I have seen where a denominational church office threatened to take away the land and building of a local congregation over heated controversies, because in their charter, the denominations technically owns the building, not the local constituents.  Eventually the denomination backed down, but the ugly head of pyramidal, hierarchal “control” raised its political head.  Many churches today face huge mortgages and paying staff and benefits as the majority of their budget.  I have seen mega-churches build facilities, only to see them emptied in a flick of the eye when a scandal hit their staff or their pastor falls, now leaving those who faithfully remain to face a difficult financial dilemma.

The best example of the church currently built on relationships rather than real estate is the underground church in China, where they can get arrested when relationally meeting together in a house, in a barn, in a park, wherever. The communist party dos not want unauthorized groups to meet; they know the power of assembly.  In China there is an pyramidal, hierarchal, institutional church sanction by the pyramidal, hierarchal, political institution that is allowed to build buildings if approved, but it is a known fact that there is very little spiritual life in that setting.  On the other hand, the church built on relationships, anywhere they can meet, usually hiding in safety, is a vibrant, Spirit led church filled with spiritual life.  In order to understand this phenomenon, we need to look to the underground Church in China to give us Westerners advice in how to live in community of faith and relationships.

Conclusion: God has never requested any permanent structure to be built in his honor; His structures were always moveable as His Spirit moved.  He wanted a mobile tabernacle that could move whenever He chose His Spirit to move or to stay, but the Jews built a permanent structure, the Temple. In fact they have build several of them, but all have been destroyed  Today there is no physical temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, only an empty grave at its base. Paul preached, “Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit?” God has chosen mobility, humans who believe in Jesus Christ, for His place of occupancy, not permanent built structures that decay and someday lay in ruin if not maintained.  If the Church is to be fluid, to be mobile, to be penetrating cultures throughout the world, them MUST be built on relationships, not physical structures.  Bottom line: ownership identifies control.  When the church “owns” structure, they seek to control them.  When the church again realized they were bought with a price, Jesus’ blood, that they are now under his ownership, then they will head more to the leading of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and be free to minister through relationships. What is your religious life wrapped around, the building you call “church” or the relationship with those who meet at not only that location, but also at the mall, the grocery store, the park, etc.? That is the mindset of the butterfly, ready to soar in flight, not tied down by any cumbersome structure.

CONTROL VS. RELEASE - WHAT HAPPENS IN A COCOON?

Caterpillar to Butterfly: Control– TO – Equipping and Releasing

From Caterpillar to Cocoon to Butterfly – Part XII

In this series we have been asking the question, “What happens with metamorphosis during the cocoon stage?”  How, structurally, do you get a butterfly from what once was a caterpillar? In my Aug. 20, 2011’s blog, I listed several forms of transformation that I see occurring inside the cocoon of change for the church.   Today we will look at the principle: Controls people (caterpillar) TO Equipping and releasing people (butterfly).

Caterpillar: Up to now, historically the Church has not done a very good job “equipping the saints for the work of service” (Eph. 4).  With the clergy/laity differential, most of the work is done by the professional clergy and staff asking only their parishioners to “follow their lead.” With a professional staff, much training is done, but that is not necessarily true for the saints.  A church is always excited when a young man decides to go into the “professional” ministry, as his equipping or training begins towards the goal of becoming a professional.  Often churches have attempted to “train” their people, only to not release them once trained.  Mindsets are that the clergy does the work because that is what they are paid to do as professionals has hampered the church.  With a pyramidal church structure, the issue of “control” over a congregation can become more of an influence that training, developing, and releasing them.

Butterfly:  With the five fold, when discovering one’s passion and point of view, the church can equip them to do what drives them, their passion, no matter if it is evangelistic, pastoral, teaching, prophetic, or apostolic.   Equipping comes through serving and being served by each member of the five fold who are also laity and learning to “lay down one’s life for their brethren.”  The apostle has probably experienced the other four passions in his life, but the purpose for his gift is to see the big picture, to network, develop, nurture, support, and edify the other four giftings, then, most importantly, release them to do what they are gifted to do.  Releasing means “hands off”, no control, but remain in a supportive role. Apostle Paul is an excellent example of a man who did all four passions when birthing churches on his missionary journeys, only to physically leave them, release them, and only correspond with them through letters.  Because his techniques were all “relational”” when birthing and developing a new church, he could relationally “release” them with confidence of their giftings in Jesus Christ to carry on and expand the work.

The Differences: Old School church prepares and develops one to be a “professional” in what they call “full time ministry”.  Higher education through westernized teaching philosophies is the route provided to produce a well educated professional rather than a hands on, trained and developed laity. New School church’s mission is to “equip the saints”, not the staff, for the “works of service.”  The goal is to birth, nurture, and develop the skills which goes along with one’s passions.  All this development is of no use unless it is “released”, freed to move ahead in one’s passion.  Even with that freedom will come accountability through relationships to the other four passions and points of view in the five fold ministry.

Implications Today:  Personally, I have been trained with a group of men to become “lay speakers” in a denomination, but few of us in the class ever got the opportunity to fill any pulpits when pastors were away on vacations.  They controlled their pulpits rather than releasing them. I also have been trained to operate prophetically with fifty other people, to be able to be part of a prophetic presbytery, seeking the Holy Spirit, discerning His will for someone’s life, and in faith giving them a prophetic word.  Today, none of us are in prophetic presbyteries anymore.  Training a laity and actually releasing him/her to give one freedom to minister in their gifting and passions has been a rarity in my fifty years as a church attendee.  That needs to change drastically if the church is to take Ephesians 4 and the Great Commission seriously. 

Conclusion:  Instead of “enabling” Christians, the laity, to just “follow” everything the clergy proposes, then criticizing them for being lethargic in living out their faith, the church needs to be better at “equipping the saints” and take that more seriously.  The investment should not be in creating a professional staff, but in equipping and developing the already existing saints, those who make up the local body of Christ.  If we would equip (birth, nurture, teach, spiritually edify, and see over) the saints currently in our churches for service, then release them, we would see a revolutionary change, called revival or reformation, in the church today. You know, a butterfly can never be "free" to "fly" until it is "released" from its cocoon.  Oh, I dream to see the day of that release!

“OVER-SEEING” VERSUS “SEEING-OVER” - WHAT HAPPENS IN A COCOON?

Caterpillar to Butterfly: Pyramidal Leadership “over sees” Church Activities– TO – Relational Leadership “Sees Over” What The Holy Spirit Is Already Doing

From Caterpillar to Cocoon to Butterfly – Part XI

In this series we have been asking the question, “What happens with metamorphosis during the cocoon stage?”  How, structurally, do you get a butterfly from what once was a caterpillar? In my Aug. 20, 2011’s blog, I listed several forms of transformation that I see occurring inside the cocoon of change for the church.   Today we will look at the principle: Pyramidal leadership “over sees” church activities (caterpillar) TO Relational leadership “sees over” what the Holy Spirit is already doing. (butterfly).

Caterpillar: We discussed the influence of “power” in a structural governmental system in a previous blog.  With “power” comes the issue of “control”.  In a pyramidal structure, power always comes from above.  It is important for those in power to “oversee” what is happening below them.  Their position is kind of “all knowing” or “all informed”.  The Papal and Cardinal influence in the Roman Catholic Church is an example of this kind of power structure.  Papal Bull is the official communication from above in that structure.  Protestants often have “official papers” passed at their “annual conferences” to issue their decrees to be implemented by their clergy to their parishioners.  In large churches, senior pastors “oversee” how their institutional structure operates.

Butterfly:   I believe the relational linear five fold model will allow everyone to function on an equal plain of influence. The apostle is only one of the five and does not “head” nor “lead” them.  His passion is to “see over” what the Holy Spirit is doing and “release” those passions that would be most effective toward ministry at hand at that moment.  He doesn’t do it, nor control it, only “seeing over” it.  The apostle’s passion is his vision or point of view of seeing “the big picture”, the body of Christ as a whole, thus giving him the “sight”, the “vision” of what the Holy Spirit is doing relationally in the midst of His people with His people to His people.

The Differences: Currently, under the hierarchal, pyramidal, institutional structure, power and control are dictated from top down.  This has also developed the clergy laity split over the years.  On the other hand, the linear relational structure evens the plain, encourages giving and taking from peers, and has apostles who “sees over” what the Holy Sprit is doing among them, encouraging them by “releasing” them in the passions to do what they do best.

Implications Today:  Personally, I have been under the leadership of a pastor who wanted to know everything that happened in the small groups “under” his leadership which became a control issue.  Later he wondered why no one would stay at his church.  I have another Christian friend who fell under a strong control pastor.  He said that when you see him, he was like a majestic steam roller, gleaming in the sun light, and as long as you ran beside him you were fine, but don’t fall in front of him. He fell! The CEO business model most American churches follow functions on a trickle down power/influence pool from the top down which fosters “control” with oversight where you report to those above you. Unfortunately, I have seen church denominational higher up officials threaten their congregations with taking away their church property and entitlement if they did not follow dictations handed down from the denominational leadership, another sad example that control can create.

Conclusion:  It all depends on the “point of view” and what one does with it.  If one “oversees” those under them from a superior position with power, control, and influence, the creativity and freedom for the Holy Spirit to operate becomes stifled because the “system” will not give up its control.  With a linear relational point of view using a five fold model, the plain is equal, each giving and taking, and the apostle “sees over” what the Holy Spirit is activation while releasing the others in their passions. It all depends how you see it!   Can you trust the Holy Spirit and relinquish control and be content to just “see” what He is doing, or will you want to hold onto the control you have which will quench the Spirit. The choice is yours.

CHURCH GOVERNMENT BY POLITICS OR RELATIONSHIPS - WHAT HAPPENS IN A COCOON?

 Caterpillar to Butterfly: Government Run By Boards, Committees, and Hierarchal Leadership– TO – Government Run On Relationships Of Give And Take In A Five Fold Format

From Caterpillar to Cocoon to Butterfly – Part X

In this series we have been asking the question, “What happens with metamorphosis during the cocoon stage?”  How, structurally, do you get a butterfly from what once was a caterpillar? In my Aug. 20, 2011’s blog, I listed several forms of transformation that I see occurring inside the cocoon of change for the church.   Today we will look at the principle: Government is run by boards, committees, and hierarchal leadership (caterpillar) TO  Government is run on relationships of give and take in a five fold format (butterfly).

Caterpillar: In the past church “government” has bred “church politics”, often power struggles.  Schisms and splits have occurred over the choice of the color of carpet, organ or no organ, youth involvement, salaries, housing, order of worship, etc., etc. Some local churches are governed through congregational meetings and voting, some by boards of deacons, elders, some by church councils, some by pastor/parish committees, and some dictated by strong pastors.  Often pastors have had to yield what they have felt as strong callings, convictions, directions, and discernment to governing boards who oppose what they are doing.  Many a discouraged pastor and/or parishioner have left the church when being caught in this political vice.

Butterfly:  Government will be built on relationships that will breed respect, honor, and accountability.  IJohn 3:16 of “Laying down your life for your brethren” will be the foundation of “serving” one another, giving and taking from each other because of linear relationships as peers, as being just Christians.  An example would be the five fold where the five very different passions and points of view would be united through the leading of the Holy Spirit as each of the five gives to the other four of their talent, ability, and passion, and willing receive from the others who are so different from them.  One’s strength will support the others weakness, and each will “release” the other to follow their passion. 

The Differences: Old and current governmental church structures nurtured and wheel power and support a pyramidal hierarchy structure, while the new governmental church structure would foster respect, honor, and accountability through linear relationships of service, through laying down ones life in sacrifice, not in position of authority.  

Implications Today: This process will be one of the most difficult things for the church to transition because it will be attached by the very “power” it opposes.  Unless led by the Holy Spirit and taken to the Cross of vertical and horizontal relationships the Church will not wither the storm.  The disciples were rebuked when arguing over who would be on Jesus’ left and right in the kingdom when they felt standing by his side would be a noble political cause, but they fled and would be replaced by two thieves to be on Jesus’ left and right when hanging on the cross on that infamous day. Those three on their crosses faced the same fate on a horizontal plain of suffering and death.  None of the disciples hung there nor were there. They would have to rethink their whole kingdom of God theology before changing the world.   

Conclusion: We, the church today, have to rethink our theology on church government, for church isn’t about politics, nor church government about power.  The Bible states that “the government shall be upon his shoulders,” referring to Jesus’ shoulders.  That government is built on service and sacrifice, for Jesus “came not to be serve, but to serve” and “to lay down his life for his brethren,” showing us how the kingdom of God is to be governed.   Church government the way we think of it today is about to undergo a transition that will take it from a power struggle to one of service and accountability.  Oh, if we could only see how this is to all work out inside the cocoon of change.

POSITIONING IN THE CHURCH - WHAT HAPPENS IN A COCOON?

Positions Determined By Office– TO – Positions Determined By What We Do

From Caterpillar to Cocoon to Butterfly – Part VIII

In this series we have been asking the question, “What happens with metamorphosis during the cocoon stage?”  How, structurally, do you get a butterfly from what once was a caterpillar? In my Aug. 20, 2011’s blog, I listed several forms of transformation that I see occurring inside the cocoon of change.   Today we will look at the principle: Positions are determined by offices (caterpillar) TO Positions are determined through service, what you do, not who you are (butterfly).

Caterpillar: Pyramidal, hierarchal institutional structures major in positions and titles. You position’s title is suppose to identify what you are to be doing or in charge of.  It supposedly defines your sphere of influence.  The higher up the chain, the greater potential for some one having someone below you “do” what needs to be done because of your directives due to your power by title or position.  Those at the top don’t really do much physically to get things done, but has those under their “leadership” do it making them look good and effective.  In corporate America you work hard to ascend the pyramid at the expense of those below you.  The American church is no different, professionally. In some camps you become an evangelist working so that some day you will get “your own church”. Other camps have the progression from Youth Pastor, to Associate Pastor, To Senior Pastor.  Often one starts in smaller churches working their way to churches with larger church attendance.  Then some work their way from pastors, to superintendants to bishops, etc.  With each step are financial benefits. You know who is “in charge” by their title.  Often laity is exempt from their hierarchal structure because they aren’t professionals.  The height of their titles would be elders or church board members. Those with titles are identified as “leaders”; no title, you are considered a “follower”. Ie. worship leader (title), worshiper in the pew (no title, only a follower).

Butterfly:  On a linear horizontal plain there is no one “over you” as everyone is perceived as equals or peers.  Here the “Priesthood of Believers” is practiced, where all are priests, peers.  The only hierarchy position is that of High Priest, who is Jesus Christ.  Being a “priesthood”, corporate ministry is central, so the church will experience a new definition of what ministry by the believers in Jesus Christ is individually and corporately.  “What you do” defines who you are.  If you do lead people to Jesus Christ, you do evangelism, so you are an evangelist.  If you take care of people, nurture them, help develop them, you are shepherding them: action not title.  You share from what you have learned by studying the Logos Word, the Bible, and practiced those truths in your life, the Rhema Word, the living word, then you are “teaching” people. What you do, determines the adjectives describing your actions.

The Differences: Institutional structured produce titles and positions to identify what one is suppose to be doing and giving them authority to have it accomplished, even if at someone else’s expense.  It establishes a “power” structure or grid of “authority”.  Relationally actions produce adjectives to describe that action, not nouns to identify the office.  An “evangelist” by title is hired, through offerings, to come in and “evangelize” anyone who comes to their meetings. They are “in charge”.  An “evangelist” relationally tells others about Jesus Christ, the Gospel, the good news verbally and through the “actions” of their personal lives.  They can’t help themselves; they just “do it”.  It is their passion, the way they see things, their point of view. Anyone, and everyone, who does evangelism, ie. telling “their stories”, their “faith journeys in Jesus” can be identified as evangelists because of what they are doing.

Implications Today:  Whenever the Holy Spirit moves, what he “does”, the institutional church will institutionalize by making that action, that movement, a position.  Let’s look to the 20^th Century Church as an example.  In the 50’s through 80’s, the Church institutionalized evangelism to the extent that they could fill stadiums and draw large TV audiences as shown through Billy Graham Crusades, the C.B.N. and T.B.N. Christian TV networks, and televangelists like Jim Bakker & Jimmy Swiegart.  In the ‘70’s, with the release of the Charismatic Movement, the need for the pastoral was needed, thus the institutionalizing of it that produced the Shepherding Movement. The 70’s featured tremendous “teaching”, as the gift of teaching was released, & the Church institutionalized it through the Word Movement, producing more teaching tapes than my cassette recorder could run.  The prophetic spirit was released in new powerful ways in the ‘80’s, and the institutional church promoted their pastors to prophets. The culmination came with the apostolic being released in the ‘90’s, where people were now getting to see the big picture of the Church, but the church institutionalized it by entitling their “super pastors” of large mega-churches as apostles wanting smaller churches to follow their lead.  By the end of the century, the institutional pyramidal, hierarchal church had “structured” professionally within their ranks every movement of God during that century as an office, so today they think of the five fold as offices.

Conclusion: To become a butterfly, the church needs to change the way they think of structure. Relationally, evangelism, teaching, pastoral nurturing and caring, prophetically insight, and apostolic vision are all ACTIONS when released among the “priesthood of believers” by the priests, the believers in Jesus Christ to other believers by laying down their lives for each other in service.  When God moves, the cloud by day or the pillar of fire by night, the Church needs to know how to “move”, ACTION, and respond to the moving of the Holy Spirit, not try to “fit it” into their current structure by institutionalizing it through entitlement, titles, and positions in order to be “in control”.  Positions and titles are for control. The Church needs to let the Holy Spirit be in control.  They need to settle the question, “Can you trust the Holy Spirit?” 

ACCOUNTABILITY BY RELATION NOT POSITION - WHAT HAPPENS IN A COCOON?

Caterpillar to Butterfly: Accountability To Leadership – TO – Accountability Through Relationship

From Caterpillar to Cocoon to Butterfly – Part VII

In this series we have been asking the question, “What happens with metamorphosis during the cocoon stage?”  How, structurally, do you get a butterfly from what once was a caterpillar? In my Aug. 20, 2011’s blog, I listed several forms of transformation that I see occurring inside the cocoon of change.   Today we will look at the principle: Accountability comes through pyramid leadership (caterpillar) TO Accountability comes through strongly built horizontal relationships (butterfly).

Caterpillar: To whom are you accountable? In the current church world it is probably to your “overseer”, alias pastor, elder, or priest. Although, relationally, you may not even have a level of personal friendship with him, he still will come and bring correction into your life, especially if it affects his local body.  It could be the pastor, or a staff member, or an elder or deacon, but you only see them “when in trouble”.   So you say, “someone needs to take care of the sin in the camp.” When the charismatic movement brought revival in the early 1970’s, five men saw the excesses in the movement, and wanted to set up a discipling, pastoral, shepherding component, thus creating what has become known as the Shepherding Movement. Although their initial motives were pure, because of abuses by those in leadership, the movement has taken on a negative connotation.  “Control” became the issue.  That can be the danger of a pyramidal hierarchal type structure where those on top dominates and controls those beneath because of their position of authority.

Butterfly:  To whom are you accountable?  In a linear world accountability is determined by the degree of relationship.  The deeper the relationship, the deeper the accountability based on “respect”.  Respect is something you earn with time and relational investments.  The longer you know someone, the better you get to know their character.  With proven character, respect becomes automatic, and accountability is established.  Accountability is then built on a linear, horizontal level.  Those you respect are your peers, not the powers that be above you. 

The Differences: Position giving Power are the agents of pyramidal dominance in a hierarchal accountability model, while Position and Character are the elements of a linear horizontal model.

Implications Today:  Recently, I was talking to someone about a Pharisaical concern they had and (see blogs about Pharisees’s yeast) wondered why their leadership wasn’t “policing” the situation! I thought, “Is the church a Police state?” I have been in church leadership and know that you can spend all your time “putting out the fires” that constantly swirl around you.  It is all time and energy consuming, sapping you, taking you from the very things you should be doing to advance the kingdom. When institution gets large, personal relationships with leadership is diminished just because of the numbers.  Position by office then becomes predominant when “enforcing” discipline.

Conclusion:  Just look at the model of parenting.  Some parents spend time with their children, invest their energy in their children, built a relationship of respect, honor, and trust in their children.  When discipline is needed, although children never like to be disciplined, they actually respect their parents for doing it.  If the relationship was nurtured in their childhood, they will continue to have that relationship throughout their lives.  Cat Steven’s “Cats In The Cradle” song vividly paints how an over achieving, career driven, self centered parent who only looks at their children as a “responsibility” not as a person to develop a “relationship” finds themselves as lonely in their elderly stage of life as their children found themselves in their youth.  Discipline was enforced by these parents by parental “position” of “authority over” the child. “Remember, I am the parent; you are the child,” was continually proclaimed over their children.  The church needs to have a metamorphous in the way they looks and does discipline in this metamorphosis stage.

HOW DO YOU DETERMINE SUCCESS – WHAT HAPPENS IN A COCOON?

Caterpillar to Butterfly: Growth In Numbers TO – Growth in networking determines success

From Caterpillar to Cocoon to Butterfly – Part VI

In this series we have been asking the question, “What happens with metamorphosis during the cocoon stage?”  How, structurally, do you get a butterfly from what once was a caterpillar? In my Aug. 20, 2011’s blog, I listed several forms of transformation that I see occurring inside the cocoon of change.   Today we will look at the principle: Physical growth in numbers determines success (caterpillar) TO Networking relationships with the masses determines success (butterfly).

Caterpillar: Church Growth Conferences have become popular where you send your “staff” to learn of new strategies to maximize your resources in an effort to get more people through your door.  We live in a mega-church age where the bigger the church in numbers and facility the more impressive is the attitude.  Although most churches have an average attendance of less than 100, it is always the dream that the church will grow.  Grow in what? Numbers!  Larger churches can offer more services to their members: a bigger children’s ministry, larger youth group with their own facility, a 20-30’s ministry, greater theatrical and musical capabilities, and all kind of unique small groups, support groups, educational groups, etc.  Their church bulletin looks like a phone book of weekly activities. The larger the number of people; the larger the size of the facility and staff.  Success is measured in numbers: either of those attending or the size of the staff. A “church plant” is expected to be a certain size with in a two year period to be considered a success.  Traditional, institutional churches whose numbers are dropping because of cultural changes and an aging population are considered now as failing churches.

Butterfly:  Success in the Social Networking world is determined by how many “friends” you have on Facebook or MySpace, how many “huddles” you have on Google+, how many “hits” you get on your web site, how many “followers” you have on your blog or follow your tweets on Twitter.  To build up a network, you want numbers.  The Internet is all about having the ability to have a large amount of data at your availability. What one has to do is determine what to do with all this data, all this information, and all these contacts in a globalized world of communications.  The future church’s challenge is with how to effectively use all this electronic data, information, contacts, and communications at their disposal without losing an individual’s identity, self worth, or dignity, how to keep and develop the personal face to face intimate friendships and contacts without losing it to the vastness of the internet, or the world, both huge in number.  We have the world at our finger tips now with only the effort of a “click”, but we can not afford to lose the personal one-to-one individual contacts that prove to be so powerful in bringing about changed lives to individuals.

The Differences: Similarities: large numbers of people are important in determining success.  Differences: A mega-church can be a sea of faces, but at least you are seeing faces.  More intimate friendships beyond a hand shake can be made at a personal or small group level.  The danger is that it is easy to hide in large number in order to obtain their services for ones advantage without personally exposing oneself.  Social Networking also faces a sea of “friends”, “huddles”, “hits”, and “followers” that can be on a very shallow social level.  More intimate friendships beyond a “click” can be made only if one leaves the safe confines of their computer which is happening today thanks to the invention of Smart phones.

Implications Today:  People still desire contacts and services no matter if it is in a large facility with a huge choir, professional worship team, theatrical lighting, large screen, perfectly manicured sound system, with powerpoints projected on huge screens, in a highly professional scripted service where one will request a DVD of the service to play on their High Definition or 3D Screen TV at home, or if it is through the internet on their PC, lap top, IPad,  Smart Phone, or reading their Bible through a website or on their Kindle.  We can’t help but admit that the use of technology has impacted both the Old School and New School way of ‘doing church’ all for the purpose of increasing numbers.  One mega-church in my area that utilizes all these technologies claims numbers aren’t important, then automatically talks of their multiple campuses now connecting 20,000 people through technology. They are going to open a “new campus” with a guaranteed audience of 500 the first morning!  Ironically, even though each campus has their own worship team and participants, the pyramidal, hierarchal, C.E.O., Sr. Pastor will be “projected” on a large screen making him “life size” as if he were there to preach to all the campuses at the same time.  One person at the top, with a huge staff under him, addressing the masses at the bottom of the pyramid who are impressed at the size and scope of the pyramid. The corporate American mentality is alive and well in the church of America, so is George Orwell’s “Big Brother” of his “1984” novel more than the church wants to admit.  All the neighboring little family sized churches are fretting, “How can you beat that?”

Conclusion:  We still seem to use numbers to determine success, especially in a data driven world today. Unfortunately with both, one can easily get loss in the masses, in the large numbers.  Individuality is sacrificed for the cause of belonging; personal discipleship is sacrificed for activities and programs; ministry is expected to be done by a professional staff not the pew sitting entertained saints.  It is easy for both camps to get lost in numbers instead of individuals.  Jesus fed at least over 4,000 men not counting women and children twice: impressive, right?  But he discipled only 12 intimately although it is recorded he had many more “followers”.  One to one evangelism is still more effective than massive Crusades.  One to one mentoring is still a more effective pastoral/shepherding tool than a “discipleship course” online.  One to one prayer is powerful. “Where two or more are together, there I am,” Jesus said. Today success would be determined as 2,000 or more together!  Both camps will need to do some serious evaluations of “what” their numbers are really doing for the kingdom of God rather than just boast in numbers.    

WHAT HAPPENS IN A COCOON – THE ART OF BELONGING

 Caterpillar to Butterfly: Believing & Behaving Is Important – TO – Belong Begins A Relationship Producing Believing and Behaving

From Caterpillar to Cocoon to Butterfly – Part IV

In this series we have been asking the question, “What happens with metamorphosis during the cocoon stage?”  How, structurally, do you get a butterfly from what once was a caterpillar? In my Aug. 20, 2011’s blog, I listed 18 forms of transformation that I see occurring inside the cocoon of change.   Today we will look at the principle: Believing & Behaving Is Important (caterpillar) – TO – Belong Begins A Relationship Producing Believing And Behaving (butterfly).

Caterpillar:  In spite of believing in the Great Commission and an emphasis on evangelism, today’s institutional Church appears to be inward and self-inclusive.  It expects “outsiders” to come “in” to their facilities to hear the gospel. When, and if, one comes into their premise, they will hear that group’s beliefs, tenants, and doctrines.  There is also a social code: dress, speech, temperance, etc.  If you decide to follow their beliefs and practice their code of behavior, their legalistic laws, then the church will invite you to “belong”.  “Belonging” is at the end of this practice.

Butterfly:  The Great commission’s “go ye into the world” is taken literally as the Church goes out into the culture and influences the culture.  You go on the premise that everyone belongs to the club of mankind, so you start from that premise to build a relationship with that person.  As the relationship broadens and depends belief systems are exposed and accepted if perceived as genuine or rejected if perceived as being phony.  The acceptance of the belief system directly influence the behavior patters. “Belonging” introduced this process, not practice.

The Differences: Under the current Church mentality you have to “earn” your acceptance in order to “belong”.  What you believe and how you act is more important than establishing relationships for acceptance. Personally, I know what I believe and how to act, alias “do church”, while developing many “social” relationships, with a lot of hand shaking, verbal greetings, surface smiles, with little deep personally relationships.  The metamorphous church “accepts” you “where you are at” in order to begin to build a relationship with you that at first may appear superficial, but as the relationship depends, trust develops, and an openness to one another occurs.  Soon, what is important to each other is shared, belief systems, directly influences one’s behaviors.  You don’t smoke because of the law, but out of respect of the relationship that has been established.  Legalism is opposed by grace.

Implications Today:  With the technological advances of the computer age, communications is no longer inclusive.  Community is no longer just local, but regional, national, and now world-wide international. Through social networking all you need to do is be “on line” or have “internet accessibility” in order to be part of the world-wide family.  Relationships are shallowly established by just communicating, but develop with time.  I personally know three married couples who originally met via the internet.  Twittering through tweets, texting through smart phones, and Facebooking or MySpacing often introduces relationships on a surface level.  Blogging allows “belief systems” to be shared. Texting and emailing allow for more intimate development of relationships.  All this eventually leads to actual face to face meetings and friendships.

Conclusion:  Insistence of believing doctrinally the same and “doing church” the same way in order to be “acceptance” is not how Paul did his evangelistic endeavors to the Gentiles. Christianity challenged Judahism’s self inclusiveness of being the only people to qualify as “God’s chosen people.”  Christianity is all about “relationships” for “while we yet sinners, Jesus died for us.”  Martin Luther’s discovery of Justification by Faith revealed that you can not earn your salvation.  Jesus “accepted” us as sinners, died for us to mend the broken relationship caused by sin, and left it up to the “sinners” to “accept” him as their savior.  Jesus led by relationships, so this metamorphosis is leading the Church back to relationship. 

WHAT HAPPENS IN A COCOON – CHURCH STRUCTURE

The Making Of A New Form, New Image, New Body, The Church

From Caterpillar to Cocoon to Butterfly – Part III

In the last two blogs we were introduced to the possibility that Church structure may be entering a metamorphous stage: coming from being a slow cumbersome caterpillar structural format to eventually becoming a soaring butterfly structure of networking relationships.  How do we get from a caterpillar who consumes everything around it to maintain its life and form to a sleek bodied transformed caterpillar prepared for flight?  What happens in that cocoon which on the outside looks so dormant?  What is happening inside that cocoon that can change a fat, big eyed, multi legged, creature eating everything in its path to a sleek, highly defined hard shelled segmented insect like body with beautiful wings for flight?  The physical structure of the two looks so drastically different, performs so drastically different, and whose purpose is so drastically different.

 If, in our analogy, the caterpillar represents a structural church, very slow in change and movement, segmented with each segment having legs, with a tremendous appetite to maintains its growth while the butterfly represents a relational church in a different form or structure with the purpose for flight, light weight, highly mobile, and eats only the nectar of plants.  I’ve had to burn down caterpillars nests to save trees for their destructive eating habits, but I also nurtured a butterfly bush that was never eaten but whose nectar drew multitudes of butterflies. 

So if the caterpillar represents the past and present pyramid, hierarchal, institutional structure of the church, and the butterfly the horizontal relational structure of the church, what might be going on inside that cocoon?  Lets look at the church as a caterpillar and then the transformed butterfly to get a picture of this drastic change:

__________   .   __________   

 Caterpillar to Butterfly

Believing & Behaving is important to Belonging to Belong begins a relationship producing Believing & Behaving

Church “membership” is stressed to church “networking” of relationships at various levels is stressed

Physical growth in numbers determines success to Networking relationships with the masses determines success 

Accountability comes through pyramid leadership to Accountability comes through strongly built horizontal relationships

Accountability comes through submission to leadership to Accountability comes through service to and from one another

Advancement comes through educational degrees to Advancement comes through respect through service

Positions are determined by offices to Positions are determined through service, what you do, not who you are

Develops & maintains clergy/laity identity to Develops & maintains priesthood of believers

Government is run by boards, committees, and hierarchal leadership to Government is run on relationships of give and take in a five fold format

Pyramidal leadership “over sees” church activities to Relational leadership “sees over” what the Holy Spirit is already doing.

Controls people to Releases people

Owns all church property to Has no need for church property

Power struggles through church politics to Solves struggles through restored relationships

Separation (from the world) to Integration (into the world)

Creates a culture to Influences a culture

Develops Pharisees to Develops Disciples

Loyalty lies in submission to the system to Loyalty lies in “laying down your life for your brethren”

Identity lies in who you are in the system to Identity lies in who you are in Jesus individually & corporately

__________   .   __________   .   ___________   .   __________   .   __________

These are just a few of the transformations that must take place to change from an lumbering, multifaceted system of hierarchies appearing to try to work together in purpose and identity only to oppose one another reducing speed and efficiency to a sleek, multitalented horizontally relational system serving one another increasing efficiency and speed for flight.  These show the challenges the Church must face while metamorphosising into a totally renewed transformation of becoming a free flying, beautiful butterfly.

FROM CATERPILLAR TO COCOON TO BUTTERFLY – PART II

 New Form, New Image, New Body – Meet The Butterfly, The Church

In my last blog we looked at the miraculous transformation from a lumbering caterpillar to a dormant cocoon to an independent free spirited butterfly.  I used that analogy with the Church as I feel it about to break loose from its cocoon stage to freedom to fly.

Visually, the most transforming feature of a caterpillar to a butterfly is its body.  There is a complete structural difference.  The caterpillar is a fat, multi-legged, crawling bug that turns into this slim, winged insect suitable to fly.  What happened when it was in its cocoon?   This change is radical, yet it appears to occur during a dormant period of its life, when in the cocoon.

I believe the caterpillar/butterfly analogy can also be applied to the Church.  The structure of the Church has been rather cumbersome throughout its history.  When I have heard sermons about the structure of the church, it has been on apostles, elders, deacons, etc., one built on hierarchal positions.  The Roman Catholic Church has even taken it to bishops, cardinals, and the Pope.  As the institutional church has grown, so has the financial obligation to maintain it as cathedrals were built and a huge professional clergy system to finance.  The institutional church has never been known for change, and what change has come has only come through church politics, thus the lumbering caterpillar.

There have been times of transformation in the church called revivals.  During these times the church appears to be dormant, during times of spiritual lulls, where there appears to be some shaking going on inside the safe confines of church structure, unnoticed by those outside the church at first.  During these times “new ways” and “new mindsets” of old biblical principals are “revived” as the church wrestles to become like the eggs that hatched its birth in the first century.  Because of the structure of what appears to be safety and stability, these “revival” movements are eventually swallowed up by the structure in keeping its old form. The fruit of that revival movement has been division as new sects in Christianity are birthed and thrive.  There is no butterfly in structure, just the continuation of the caterpillar.

I contend that there is a new revival happening in the cocoon of Christianity that is about to take on a new form and become a butterfly.   No one outside the cocoon can see it, but the cocoon knows that something inside is happening: a reforming of structure for that of a butterfly at its designated time.  This body inside the cocoon is going to go through structural change, drastic structural change, and cannot be freed or released from the cocoon until the transformation is complete.

I believe that this change is going to be from the transformation of the current structural, pyramidal, institutional form of hierarchy of positions and offices to a horizontal position of relationships held together and directed by the Holy Spirit with the emphasis on service.  How is the structure of the butterfly to look like?  We, as a church, don’t know right now because we are entering the cocoon stage of transformation.  I believe as we release the five passions and points of view as outlined in Ephesians 4, we will see its fruits manifested in individuals being more mature in the likeness of Jesus Christ as well as the church corporately bringing unity, not division.  How that is to all work out, the Holy Spirit is beginning to lay the ground work for, the teaching, the preparation, the equipping before the releasing.

We, the Church, are about to go through a “body” form change built on relationships. The Church knows the power of the vertical of the Cross, the mending of relationship between a holy God and sinful man through redemption of Jesus, the sacrificial lamb, on the Cross.  What the Holy Spirit is about to teach us, the Church, is the horizontal relationship of the Cross, the mending of relationships between brothers and sisters in Christ, bringing this embarrassingly fragmented “body” lumbering along in many “parts” into a sleek “transformed” body prepared for flight in the Spirit through relationships.  What comes out of this transformational cocoon period will be a completely different image and identity of what the Church is. 

How will the butterfly look? Don’t know!  Transformation can be messy, retooling usually causes job loses, but it will improve efficiency. Expect even the way we “do” Church to look different as well as the way we think about ourselves individually as Christians as well as the Church, corporately as a whole, a body that is a "living organism", not a "structural organization". 

I always wondered what went on inside a cocoon. I think, Church, we are about to find out! If we plan to fly, we must go through the cocoon stage. Good bye caterpillar; hello butterfly!

FROM CATERPILLAR TO COCOON TO BUTTERFLY -Part 1

From Lumbering Along to Transformation to Freedom; A New Way At Looking At Church

A friend of mine once told me that he had had a dream/vision of me inside a cage. What was odd about it was that the cage door was wide open, and I opted not to leave it.

A caterpillar, although fun to watch with its multiple legs navigating a twig, never gets far fast nor far off the ground.  It can also be destructive; a caterpillar infestation can kill an entire tree if the caterpillars eat off all the leaves. After all that eating, they spin a protective cocoon that appears to be dormant in spite of the radical transformation of life going on inside it.  Only after that transformation is complete will it break out of its cocoon in a new, transformed identity, a butterfly.  After drying its wings, it springs forth to fly, forever abandoning its old house of safety and its old identity.

My cocoon has been the Church.  It provides transformation from an old life to a new, from an old identity to a new one, from an old form to a completely new one, all in the safety of a secure place.  My B.C. life, “before Christ”, “before cocoon”, followed that of a lumbering caterpillar close to the ground, eating all for my self-satisfaction. When accepting Jesus, I joined church that supplied a safe atmosphere for spiritual growth and nurturing. I admit that I have had doubts if I really want to spout wings and fly.

A pre-natal baby has it made: its own built in spa complete with hot bath, manicure service with nail growth, comforting music of the steady heartbeat of a mother, all the nourishment needed, and constant naps with no work schedule hanging over one’s head. 

Labor pain announces the upcoming birth followed by pressure, pushing.  What a shock when one’s head pops out of one’s cocoon, or one’s mother’s womb.  Humans are greeted with a smack of pain on their buttocks to make them cry in an effort to clean out their lungs.  We call this “birth”.

I wonder what it is like to go from a caterpillar through reconstruction into an image of a butterfly or moth?  It must be a shock too to discover a completely different formation and identity, which isn’t complete until you “fly”.

There is a direct correlation between “birthing” and “flying”; its called “freedom”. A newborn is “cut” from his mother, literally, and spends the rest of their transformational life as a child distancing herself/himself from mother to become an independent adult. A butterfly is “cut” from its cocoon, from its old identity as a caterpillar, spreads and dries its wings in an effort to fly, distancing itself from its past.  It is called “freedom”.

Unfortunately my flesh cries out that I do not want “freedom” from my church, my cocoon.  I want to stay wrapped up in it, seeing no need to fly. I tell myself that I just want to “do” church and “be” the church which I see having no need to fly, particularly from its safe confines.  Holding on, I am not free!  Freedom is “releasing”, being released from your mother, released from your cocoon, released from your church.

One of the problems of being a “church kid” is never being released, nor wanting to be released, opting for safety over flight, which is prohibiting me from what God actually created me to be: “free”!  When choosing to fly, I can glide on the winds of the Holy Spirit, feeling free of the confinements of structure and past life. Being “free” in the spirit is a different way of doing “church” than when all I did was “attend” church.

I sense the Church is in a cocoon period of its history, being transformed into a different image, from a lumbering caterpillar of an institution to the free flowing and soaring of the Holy Spirit as a butterfly.  In order to fulfill its transformation, it must now fly. 

I see before the cocoon a church built on structure; after the cocoon a church built on relationships with little if any structure, more free flowing.  We, the Church, now find itself in a cocoon stage of transformation, new mindsets, new wineskins, a total transformation and redevelopment of “body” ministry, from an old caterpillar model that has labored the church as a structure to a new butterfly form of freedom of flow through relationships.  Just as the caterpillar and butterfly were the same living organism that went through dramatic change of identity and form, so the Church past and present are the same living spiritual organism that is going through dramatic change of identity, form, and body ministry.

When this transforming is complete the Church will not look the same, but it is the same Church.  It will have a new image, a new identity, a new freedom in the Spirit that it has not experienced in the past.  The tough part is the choice left before us:  stay dormant in the security of our cocoon, those safe church structures, staying in our cage with an open door, or crawling or jumping out and spreading our wings and fly.

SHOULD WOMEN BE PASTORS

 The Clash Of “Mindsets”: Structural Versus Relational

If you want your ratings to soar for a television talk show, talk about sex.  If you want your ratings to soar on a Christian blog site, talk about the women’s role in the church and should they be pastors, reverends, rectors, bishops, etc.  What is my opinion? Who cares about my opinion?  It is a question of what “mindset”, what “point of view”, how you see this issue: as one from a church pyramid structure or from a church relational structure.  This class of mindsets is what is occurring in the Church right now.  The question should be reworded to: Is leadership structural or relational? Dominating or serving?

Pyramidal, hierarchal church structures “dictate” what those beneath them should believe and try to enforce their belief system upon them.  If the structure is a male dominated structure, the women underneath them have no chance for leadership as exemplified by the Roman Catholic church, most Protestant churches, well, most of Christendom.  So what message is this structure sending to their women of faith?  I could never figure out the mentality that women could go to some Christian Bible College (I think to find good Christian men to submit to as a future wife [sarcasm]) but not to become pastors or church (hierarchal) leaders. They could become children’s ministers or youth pastors, meaning they could minister to children and youth directly impacting their lives, but not “rule” over them.  It is a question of dominance and power., church politics I call it. Sorry, that is the “skinny” of it!

To the younger generation who is beginning to despise pyramidal thinking especially in the Church, they see the issue as “relational”.  In their “flat” “relational” world there is no distinction on Facebook, MySpace, Google+, tweets, emails, and blogs.  In their communicational relational world all humans are equal.  No one in a “flat world” relationship dictates who can and cannot speak to them unless it is personal, like friending or befriending someone on Facebook.  Males and females speak freely amongst each other. “Ruling”, “reigning”, "dictating" and “dominating” over someone is called “cyber bullying”, a no-no to this younger generation.

Today’s younger generation looks at Jesus relationally.  His walk on earth was all relational, either to his Father in heaven, or to those his peers, mankind.  While his disciples, the “men” around him argued who would “positionally” be on his right or left when he “rules” his kingdom, the “women” around him just kept serving. Jesus broke pyramidal, hierarchal, society norms by talking to a Samaritan women at a well, teaching a parable that made a Samaritan man the “good guy” while the rabbi and his other brethren who passed by as the “bad guys”, and allowing a “woman” to serve him to the point of washing his feet with precious perfume using her hair. On the other hand, Jesus had to “serve” men, his disciple, by washing their feet, not them serving him.  There are so many more examples, but relationally, Jesus just allowed women relationally to serve him and be served, bottom line!

Will heaven be a structured, pyramidal,  or hierarchal place?  What will the seating arrangement be at the “banquet table” when the Groom comes for the Bride, His Church?  A men’s section and women’s section separately?  Will Mother Teresa be allowed sit beside her beloved Pope, or will she be banished from the “male only” table.  Oh, the “women” will be serving the meal, their rightful place [sarcasm]? No, the meal is the sacrificial lamb, the body and blood of Jesus Christ.  It has already been “served” at the cross. Women WITH men will be partaking of it TOGETHER! Positionally, there is no hierarchy in the kingdom of God at a “flat” table of peer equality!  It is not a two-tiered table!

In one of Jesus’ parable he tells of those who wanted prime seating at banquets geting their reward because they are seen; it is the “unseen” ones who have been serving you must watch out for when it comes to the kingdom of God!  There the women have it over the men, at least Biblically.  Women always served, usually quietly, passionately while the men had trouble understanding what service meant. Ask the 12 disciples who only knew how to serve after Jesus died and rose, and the Holy Spirit came to “teach them all things” which included “service”!

I’ve been taught that Christian leadership is based on service.  I am a firm believer that the five fold is created to “equip the saints for the work of service.”  SERVICE is essential to Church leadership because IT IS RELATIONAL!  In a pyramid structure you only serve those above you, the feudal Middle Age, Dark Ages’ mentality.  The kingdom of God is all about serving your peers: mankind (saved or unsaved) and your brothers AND sisters in the Lord.  You don’t “carry” anyone on your shoulders or bow beneath them; you stand beside them.

Relationally, this younger generation reads that Eve, women, came relationally from Adam’s, man’s, side, not his heal or under his foot.  We teach our Christian men and women that they are side by side in marriage, “two shall become one” yet do not practice it in a male dominated marriage teaching that men are the head and women the neck! Sorry, Jesus is still the head, and when a man or a women loses that truth, an immediate pyramidal structured conflict for power begins, leading to divorce where secular courts need to define who and what is over whom structurally.  Relationship has been broken. 

Jesus, the second Adam, too had women “beside” him in ministry all throughout his three years of ministry. They did everything when it came to service while the men had to be “taught”.  Relationally, service comes naturally to women.  Men would rather dominate each other than to serve: ask any king. The king serves nobody. Men, are you the “king” of your castle or a servant to your spouse and children.  If you dominate over them, they rebel.  If you serve them, they respect. According to the Bible, women are commissioned to “respect” their husbands, which comes natural if their husbands are Christ like, like Jesus, a “suffering” servant!

So we have come full circle, and I again ask “Should women be pastors, priests, rectors, bishops, or even a pope?”  That is determined by who is above you in a pyramid structure or who is beside you flat world relational structure.  That is also by who are you serving, the one above you or the one beside you. There lies the answer to your question.

SOCIAL NETWORKING WORLD, WHO ARE YOUR FOLLOWING AND WHO IS FOLLOWING YOU?

Mr. Rodger Is Dead, But His Neighborhood Has Expanded!

You cannot control who “follows” you when you tweet; in fact the more that follow, the greater prestige it holds, the higher level of privileges you earn.  One simple “tweet” can touch as many as has “chosen” to follow you, and the power or retweets can impact thousands instantly.  On the other hand, Facebook and Google+ turn the tables where you choose, you “invite” people as “friends” or in a “huddle”.  You control your relationships to the level you with to communicate: to a one, or a chosen few, or a larger group, or public to the world! 

In my world, I was taught that you are not a “leader” unless you have a following.  Today everyone is a leader because everyone has attracted a “following” no matter how shallow the relationship.  Relationships are what defines this generation.  I have taught 8^th grade for 40 years, so I understand this concept, since relationships with peers and peer acceptance is the cornerstone of 8^th grade social life.  Academics are secondary in the mind of an 8^th grader seeking peer contact and peer acceptance.  Social network is an 8^th grader’s dream come true.  They now “know” how “accessible” they are with the number of “followers” they can attain on Twitter, or how many “friends” they have accepted on Facebook.  They can feel “peer acceptance” through social networking.  I know one student who has “befriended” almost every student in her high school electronically.  Of course, the opposite can be true with “cyber-bullying” where one’s reputation can be ruined or damaged in an instant through the power of instantly communicating a slanderous lie or damaging gossip. 

Technology is moving so fast that public education cannot keep up with it.  I have no idea why parents think schools are responsible for “cyber-bullying” when they have no control over the social networking of their students.  I think that it is because parents do not understand the whole social networking world in which their children are immersed.  Schools are wrestling with the question of IPhones, Smart Phones, that have WiFi capabilities because schools cannot control or block their reception to the internet.  If parents did not put filters on their phones, they have an open world to the good, the bad, and the ugly of the social networking, internet, world wide web world.

So institutions have to face the “flat world” of this younger generation, for the nature of such institutions is control from the top on down, to set policies, to dictate what one can and can not do under their institutional guidelines.  They are not sure how to relate or control this this “horizontal” movement of peer acceptance and accessibility.  The church as an institution is no exception, for the institutions of denominationalism, sectarianism, mega-churchism are being challenged by the horizontal relationships of the “priesthood of believers”.  The institutional church has yet to ask the questions of how it can relate to this new phenomenon which is quickly becoming a world wide movement that are breaking beyond institutional barriers in the name of accessibility and acceptability.

8^th graders want to be “accessible” to their friends.  8^th graders want to be “acceptable” to their friends.  Government, school, churches, etc. will need to address how they can become accessible and acceptable to a growing “world wide” population that thinks relationally, horizontally, opposing vertical or institutional structures.  The younger generation has defined new lines as the way to think globally, socially, economically, and religiously. The next few years, months, weeks, days, should be interesting as we watch this evolution and the clashes it can produce.

THE UPCOMING BATTLE THE CHURCH WILL FACE:

Yeast Forces Relationships To Yield To Religion; While Revival Forces Religion To Yield To Relationships

I remember the emotions, conflicts, and circumstances of the 1970’s when our world was being turned upside down and torn apart. (Look at Sunday, July 17^th’s blog “Church, the Winds of Change Are Blowing)  There was quite an “anti-establishment” movement that swelled on campus during my college days.  Speakers challenging “systems” and “structures”, both politically and religiously, were invited on campus to speak. The “social gospel” of its time was the politically correct gospel of what was happening across American, yet there was an underground group of Christians on campus who clung to their faith in Jesus Christ and forged their relationship with Him and God and other “believing” Christians.  If history repeats itself, I predict we will see this underground revival movement again.

The attitude of questioning everything was the emphasis of my college freshman orientation, but when I questioned the “institution” of the church and church run college, I met opposition.  I was a pacifist because of my beliefs in Jesus, who never showed nor taught violence. Peter, defending what he thought was Jesus’ kingdom, cut off the ear of a guard. To his surprise Jesus immediately replaced and healed the ear. Jesus even taught to “love your enemy; do go to those who despise you.” This view went counter to many students who declared themselves pacifists because of political reasons or moral reasons opposing the War in Viet Nam.  It was not popular to be a “Jesus Freak” at that time.

When I challenged the college’s views on “religion”, I had the opportunity to sit down with the President of the college who told me to “sit back for the next four years, change my ideas, and I will be glad I did.”  In essence he said my view of faith and relationships was all wrong, and his “institution” would instruct me correctly.  At the end of four years I found the religious institution on campus in shambles, spineless, and had its “life” in Jesus Christ diminished. Our campus went from a required chapel format to a volunteer chapel few attended, from a strict dorm code protecting women to 24 hour open house in our dorms promoting “overnight” promiscuity, and from an alcohol prohibition image to full blown drug parties.

My generation became verbal, sometimes even violent for causes that would cause change to our world. Not all changes were good, but we were vocal about what we wanted and demanded.  Today’s younger generation is quiet, receptive, and fears being vocal as “institutions” continue to influence and control their lives.  They accept this as status quo, just the way it is, rather than challenging it.  Thus they accept without questioning health care at an enormous expense to themselves, political bipartisanism that was the “fear” of our founding fathers that stalemates everything politically in their generation, debt from a previous generation, or debt for “college” that no longer promises jobs, an economic CEO pyramidal structures of large, politically and economically powerful corporations that shape their work world, and a world that no longer promises security for when they age.  I predict that will all soon change.

There is a “flat world” mentality among this younger generation, seeing the “world” rather than just local, state, or national through relationships.  They talk, communicate, blog, tweet, text the world.  Those throughout the world have become their “peers” who they “friend” on Facebook, who become an identifiable “huddle” on Google+ according to relationship.  Relationships electronically are beginning to be defined by commitment: family, friends, work, acquaintances, or public. When upset, they speak vertically, relationally. Ask the Egyptians about that!  They do not have to be “verbal” “in your face” as my generation felt they had to be, they can be “verbal” “electronically” from their bedroom, dorm room, den, coffee shop, any business location offering WiFi.  They are a mobile group, and a moving “tweet” on an emotional topic can cause thousands to “repeat” the message to the masses in minutes.   Things can happen at a moment’s notice. Change can come rapidly, sometimes almost instantaneously.

The time is ripe, for that is how the Holy Spirit works during revival: instantaneous at a moment’s notice by the Holy Spirit to the masses.  I do not know how revival will manifest itself to this younger generation, but I guarantee you that when it does, it will happen swiftly and powerfully because they are a “relational” generation! There is an institutional church in China and an underground church.  The institutional church is controlled by structure religiously and secularly; the underground church is fed and led relationally.  The government cannot control relationships in their masses. The Chinese government opposes the freedom of expression and passing information that the Internet allows, yet the Chinese Christians are communicating.  American Christian churches have become institutions, icons of our supposedly religious freedom, who do not practice tolerance and acceptance even among themselves, but there is a “networking” that is not “institutional” among flat-liners, flat-worlders, flat-breaders, of relationships as peers who are about to arise and challenge the institutions of their day.  We are on the edge of revival, the precipice of change, where this generation’s voice will arise verbally through the electronic networking available to them.  They are about to do what my generation dreamed of doing: change their world. 

HOW SPIRITUAL “YEAST” INFECTION WORKS!

If It Is Institutionalized, It Has Plenty Of Time To Rise

“’Be on guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.’ Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”  Matthew 16:11-12

Harvard UniversityYale UniversityCheck out history:  How many times have hospitals, colleges, universities been founded by the Church to propagate the gospel to fulfill the great commission? The YMCA, Young Men’s Christian Association, was founded as a Christian evangelistic tool in England. (See earlier blogs) only to lose the “C” in its name and be memorialized by the Village People as a place where gays can hang out.  Institutions like Harvard, Yale, and the college I attended, Elizabethtown College, all started out as “Bible Colleges”, built on Biblical principles, to promote strong Christian values and prepare men for the Great Commission for Jesus Christ.  Today their Religion Departments embrace every conceivable religion in the name of “religion tolerance” rather than the principle of “the only way to the Father is through the Son”, Jesus.  How did we get from birthing “ministries” to developing institutions that keep their religious heritage only historically?

With time and heat, yeast makes bread rise!  When putting “yeast” into bread dough, one has to “knead” it, work the yeast throughout the dough with their hands, then allow it to “rise”.  Only after the yeast laden dough has risen, do you put it in the oven to bake.  Out comes a fresh loaf of bed with a hard crust with soft warm bread encased in it.  Bread without yeast becomes flat bread.  Communion bread is often flat bread.  Manna was yeast-less flat bread, supernaturally supplied by God as the Israelites were “on the move” through the dessert.

So why does Harvard, Yale, Dickenson, and Etown, institutions of higher education, look so different today to when they were founded when it comes to their faith?  Yeast! Jesus, in Matthews 16:12 defines the yeast as “the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees”, the teaching of which he is so vastly critical. “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees….” he says often.  They are the only group, the religious scholars of his day, which he is strongly judgmental against!  These institutions were founded on a Rhema, living word, application of the Logos Word, the written Word, the Bible.  Over the years the Rhema, or living application of the Logos Word has been diminished to the academic westernized head knowledge view of faith rather than the Jewish Lamad heart knowledge view.  Today, Etown’s “Department of Religious Studies” features multiple courses of various nonChristian courses with its campus minster promoting the “story telling of various faiths” through tolerance to gain understanding.  In fact, the news sources today revealed that Etown’s “Dept. of Religious Studies” has been chosen by President Obama to be part of a White House movement of exposing, tolerating, and accepting of many religious views in America, and being a role model for that cause.

Leffler Hall of Performing Arts at Elizabethtown CollegeRhema Word, living Word, is founded on “relationship” with the Father God vertically and with their body of Christ horizontally.  It is founded on the Logos Word, the Bible.  When the yeast is applied into the mixture, the “teaching of scholars emphasizing academic head knowledge”, the intellect becomes more important than the actual relationship, thus the sucking the life out of and eventually killing the Rhema Word.  I saw the eroding of the Logos Word at Etown in the early ‘70’s when I attended.  I had an Old Testament Survey professor completely tear down the validity of the old testament scriptures to the point it was easier to believe Grimm’s Fairy Tales than to believe the Bible.  Only one professor taught about “faith” and actually used that term in his course, and his course was the hardest to get into while the professor won the award for top professor on campus by the student body in spite of the jealously of his peers.  The rest of the religious professors of the time were into social justice, nonviolence, and peace movements.  The yeast has eroded the curriculum to the point that “Christianity” is looked upon as only “one of the many world religions” taught by the Department.  Now, Jesus and the Church of the Brethren are only looked at historically, not relationally.  By offering many options, Jesus is no longer taught as the “only way”.  The yeast has risen.  With the “baking” of time, a protective “crust” now covers the Department, protecting it from any challenge by the Church.

Revival is the only instrument that can penetrate the crust of “institutional religion”, the bread baked with yeast.  Revival emphasizes the “living Bread”, the Rhema Bread, Jesus, and the evangelistic spirit of the five fold can penetrate the hardened crust of “yeast” raised bread.  Revival demands “flat bread”, “yeast-less” bread because God is on the move.  There is no time for religious dogma, doctrines, exegesis of every passage, or the studying of Greek and Hebrew; it is a time when God speaks to His people, the priesthood of believers in simple but powerful terms that bring life, power, and faith. 

The institutional intellectual religious system will oppose any “revival spirit” through its pyramidal hierarchal structure. In Jesus’ time the Sanhedrin, composed of Jewish intellectual rabbis who opposed this new Jesus movement, could not understand how Jesus’ “uneducated” disciples could speak, teach, and live with such authority.  But the flat lined, flat world, flat bread “relational” newly born Church would rise “without” yeast because it would be a “moving”, “living” organism of relationships.  As long as it moves, does not get stagnant, the yeast can’t rise.  With stagnation, the yeast rises, and the Church experiences “Dark Ages” in its history.  “Yeast” forces relationships to yield to Religion; while “Revival” forces Religion to yield to Relationships.

“YEAST” INFECTIONS ARE NO FUN, SO MY WIFE TELLS ME!

How To Rid The Church Of “Yeast Infections”!

In my previous blog I talked about how the church has no time for “yeast” during revivals, when God is on the move.  “Yeast”, properly “kneaded” takes time to rise before being baked by the heat which produces a loaf of bread with a “protective crust”.  The fleeting movement of Passover did not allow time for the “kneaded” process. The Israelites “needed” to get moving because it was time for freedom, time to display God’s power, time to move through the Red Sea on a quest to the Promise Land.  Even in the dessert there was no time to “knead” bread, thus no “need” for “yeast”, for God was still on the move leading His people by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.  In the dessert he produced “yeast”-less bread called manna, collected daily or it would rot.  Manna has not use to “stay around”, for God was on the move.

Today, I am embarking on a topic my Christian sisters can blog about better than I can, for I, personally, thank heavens, have never experienced: “yeast infections.”  Being married, I have seen the pain, discomfort, and irritability caused by them through my wife, but just seeing the “fruit of discomfort” caused by them, I, in the imbecilic lack of knowledge on the subject, can only write about the second hand results.  I can safely draw the inclusion that “yeast infections” are not nice, not wanted, and should be banned!

Spiritually, the Bride of Christ, body of Christ, the Church, is experiencing “yeast infections,” and it ain’t pretty!  “Yeast infections” never are!  Jesus warned about the “yeast”, the teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees of his and our day.  It still scares me that Jesus forgave sinners, the unclean, the down and out of his society, for forbidden ones, yet he severely criticizes the religious leaders of his day: “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees.” Although we Christians will never admit it, there are Pharisees and Sadducees in our midst.  We definitely will not admit it, but defend it, if we are actually ones ourselves! It is painful when one makes that discovery, I know from personal experience, for I am a “recovering Pharisee” in my own right.  “Yeast” naturally rises over time, and being a Christian for 50 years has given it plenty of time to rise in my Christian walk, but when there is revival, there is no time for it to rise.  If I want to see revival, I must clean the “yeast” out of my own life?  How about you? Where do you stand on the “Pharisee” meter if you have been a Christian for any length of time?

“Yeast” is the “teaching” of traditional, structural “truth” over time.  That definition, I am sure, could be highly debated by the Pharisees of our time, but this “yeast’s” fruit has been division in the body of Christ, not unity. I personally believe it is time to 1) recognize the five fold as being the “norm” in a God moving revival and 2) the Church needs to reinstate the apostolic and revive the “apostolic teaching” recorded in the book of Acts.

Why do we need the five fold? To prevent and cure “yeast infections” in the Bride of Christ, the Church.  The fruit of the five fold, as outlined in Ephesians 4:14-16 is “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 in love, as each part does its work.”  Through “serving” one another, laying down one life for one another through submission and accountability and following the Holy Spirit, “sectarian teaching” through the teaching gifting in the five fold should be checked by the other four passions and points of view. As the teacher continues to study the Logos Word, the Bible, unity, balance, and truth will prevail through the Rhema revelations through the prophet, the birthing of those revelations through the evangelist, the daily working out of those revelations in practical life experiences through the pastor/shepherd, with correct oversight, the seeing over what the Holy Spirit is doing and teaching while releasing the other giftings to fulfill the big picture by the apostle, all prepares the ground work for the “apostolic teaching” as found in the book of Acts.

The restoration of the “apostolic” passion and point of view into the body of Christ, the priesthood of believers, will usher in the restoration of “apostolic teaching”, a teaching that will bring unity not division, simplicity not complexity, power and life not stagnation, and clarity instead of cloudiness. The tossing “back and forth by the waves”, and the blowing “here and there by every wind of teaching” will be diminished if not eliminated by the apostolic speaking “the truth in love” causing individual Christians and the Church as a whole “in all things” to “grow up into him who is the Head, that is Christ.”  Results: “Every supporting ligament” of the body of Christ “grows and builds itself in love, as each part does its work.”  Unity not sectarianism; One Body of Christ not multiple sects, denominations, groups, mega-churches, etc. all under different banners; and one Head speaking for there will be only one “mouth” to this Head, speaking the same message of truth throughout the “whole” body of Christ.

The gospel is simple, yet we, the Church, have made it complicated over the centuries. The gospel is unifying, yet we, the Church, have brought only division among ourselves. The gospel is truth, yet we, the Church, prorogate the lie that only our sect has the “true” insight into “all things”, not the rest of the body of Christ.  The way to fight the “yeast infection” in the Church today is to embrace the five different passions and points of view as found in Ephesians 4:11, allow the Holy Spirit to design them according to God’s plan for the purpose of unity in the body of Christ and the “growing up”, the maturity, of individual believers as well as the corporate Church into the fullness and image of Jesus Christ through the true restoration of the apostolic and the apostolic teaching to the Church.  The cure to “yeast” infection is Jesus Christ and responding to the constant “moving” of the Holy Spirit. 

THE HOLY SPIRIT CAN BE IRRATIONALLY RATIONAL

The Holy Spirit Never Seems To Do It “My Way”

The old crooner Frank Sanatra use to bellow his famous line, “And I Did It My Way.”  Isn’t that the tune almost all of us like to sing, for we love being in control; we love to do the rational, the well thought out, what we consider as “normal” or even “safe”.  We often shy away from allowing the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ to lead our lives because he never seems to do things the way I would like him to do them, rationally.  Most of the time he seems to choose to do it irrationally, not the way I think is “normal” or “safe”.  This is how we often get in the way of revival by stifling the Holy Spirit’s lead.

For example, let’s look at 3 examples of how he has chosen men for leadership:

Old Testament – Moses would have been my choice too to lead the Israelites out of hundreds of years of bondage because he knew the Egyptian hierarchal system.  He knew how to work their politics as an insider. Shoots, he was a C.E.O. at one time!  He knew how to work their economics for he was in charge of overseeing their economical work force, the slaves building Egypt’s phenomenal building program. In my rational thinking as an American, he’s the man to “lobby Pharaoh”.  God chooses to work differently.  He allows Moses to be ostracized from “the Egyptian system” of hierarchal leadership and begins to teach him relational leadership among, of all things, sheep and nomadic sheepherders all leading to a relational confrontation with God himself manifesting himself as a flaming talking bush.  What becomes important for the rest of his life is his relationship to the bush.  He cannot build a relationship with pharaoh nor the Israelite people for they always pose opposition.  Only his continual fellowship with God, going into the Holy of Holies, is the key to his success.  What at first looked like an irrational move now looks very rational to us.  God is irrationally rational.

The Gospels – Rationally, if I am about to start a “kingdom of God” campaign I need a Public Relations Department who will get the word out: audibly through a radio campaign, visually through a television campaign, in print through all the local papers, through the internet with a social networking campaign, etc. As an American I know, advertising is the key to the success of this campaign.  So God is about to launch his “kingdom” on earth, so he sends someone to “prepare the way”.  He does not do an advertising campaign to get the right person; he does not take resumes. He chooses instead the town “hippie”, a man in sheep’s skin that eats a diet of locust and honey.  All he says is, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”  That alone creates a stir like none other that will eventually, literally, make him his “lose his head.”  People respond and he baptizes them, thus John the Baptist.  He is only the message bearer, for he even sends his disciples to Jesus to ask if Jesus is the messiah, the fulfillment of the message John is proclaiming.  Because of this doubt, Jesus refers to him as “least in the kingdom.”  So God chooses the “least in his kingdom” to proclaim one of the most profound kingdom proclamations in history; how irrational is that?  But in order for Jesus’ influence to move forward, John had to decrease in order for Jesus to increase.  Now the choice seems more rational.  Again God proved that he is irrationally rational.

New Testament – The early Church has a new leadership crisis: one of the 12 is a traitor, has committed suicide, and has tainted the leadership image of this new Church from its very beginning. In one of the early chapters in the book of Acts, the eleven decide they need a twelfth.  Rationally they should announce the vacancy to the existing Church, take resumes, form a committee to conduct interviews, and have the 11 vote on the replacement or maybe meet in the upper room for a “church council”.  Wrong!  The Holy Spirit leads them to “cast a lot”! What! Take two straws, one short, one long, and have one of the candidates pull it. How irrational is that? By the way, Matthias won!  I wish the book of Acts would tell us more about Matthias and what he did after his “lot” was cast! He becomes an “apostle”, now one of the twelve, an equal, to anchor this new Church.  We didn’t know it, but God knew that he was the man of the hour.  It was another irrationally rational decision.

The Old Testament priest use to make godly decisions through the Urrim and Tummin, which today we are not really sure what they were, but basically it was like the method like casting lots to choose Mathias.   We do not understand the Urrim and Tummin, nor the casting of lots to make key decisions, but that is how God works at times, irrationally rational.  We think God thinks like man, rational, but God thinks like God and to us that looks irrational.  Man needs the thinking of God, Godly thinking. The Church calls that righteousness.

But the bottom line is this: Can we trust the irrationally rational thinking of God, for that is how the Holy Spirit works?  Can we trust the Holy Spirit?  The answer to that questions is the key to unlocking true revival for the Church, for the Church, you and I who believe in Jesus Christ, will never see revival if we can not trust the Holy Spirit, nor expect the irrational to ever be rational to our way of thinking.  We need to lay down our misconception and myth that the Holy Spirit will do irrational things to embarrass us if we chose to follow him. Moses, John the Baptist, and the 11 disciples did and look what it did: freed a nation, establish a kingdom, and provided leadership to a new born Church, that’s all.  Is that weird, or is that awesome?  Let’s look toward the awesomeness of the Holy Spirit, that which is irrationally rational and not only believe in him, but trust him!

New Winds; New Revival: Go With The Flow, Not With The Program

Revivals Instantly Touch Entire Communities; Emergent Movements To The "nth" Power?

Duncan Campbell who witnessed a true revival wrote in his dissertation When God Stepped Down:  Now, you might ask me, "What do you mean by revival"? There are a great many views, held by people today, as to what revival is. So, you hear men say, "Are you going out to the revival meetings?", "We're having a revival crusade", and so on. There's a world of difference, between a crusade, or a special effort in the field of evangelism. My dear people, that is not revival. As I already said from this platform, I thank God for every soul brought to Christ, through our special efforts, and for every season of blessing at our conferences, and at our conventions. We praise God for such movements, but is it not true that such movements do not, (as a general rule) touch the community? The community remains more or less, the same, and the masses go past us to hell, but in revival the community, suddenly becomes conscious of the movings of God; beginning with His own people. So that, in a matter of hours, (not days) in a matter of hours, churches become crowded. No information of any special meeting, but something happening that moves men and women to a house of God, and you'll find within hours, scores of men, and women crying to God for mercy before them that kneel at church. You've read history of revivals, the Jonathan Edward revival in America, that was what happened, and the Welsh revival, that is what happened, and the more recent Lewis revival, that is what happened.

As we, the 21^st Century Church begin to hunger for revival, we need to remember that revival transcends any “program”, any “church structure”, any “preplanning” on our part.  It is a sovereign move of the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ by His will while doing it His way at His time.  In the book of Acts it not only happened at the Temple in what the Church now calls Pentecost, but also at the house of Cornelius, by the chariot of the Ethiopian eunuch, and even before Christ’s ascension to the women at the well.  At the house of Cornelius it would affect the Jewish culture, at the house of Cornelius the gentile culture, by the chariot of the Ethiopian eunuch an entire nation, and at the Temple the entire known civilized world at that time.

Revival changes entire communities, nations, and cultures.  In America The Great Awakening of Jonathan Edward’s time would change the existing American Puritanical church and evangelize an entire scattered frontier.  The Camp Meeting movements under Wesley would grow to over 1,000 of them in one summer.  The drive for righteousness would spur the “prohibition” movement causing alcohol to go underground until the revival fires would die and the church’s complacency would return before it would be repealed.  When revival is in its fruition, it changes the “culture” of cities, states, and entire nations.

The American church is great for programs and networking, trying to create a revival spirit, but usually falling short.  The later part of the 20^th Century saw the ecumenical movement trying to get everyone to “dialogue” in an effort to begin to break down religious walls and barriers.  In the beginning of the 21^st Century the emergent church movement tried to “network” churches and ministries in loose relationships rather than denominational bonds.  Now the social networking culture is forcing the church to think world wide rather than local, regional, or even national, so revival will take on a totally different form than it has in the past, probably in a world wide perspective.  Today’s social networking is in its infancy, also stressing even looser relationships while transcending today’s acceptable church norms.

So what form will revival take to this generation?  Will it be in the wilderness as in Jonathan Edward’s day or in the forests during Camp Meetings in Wesley’s day, on a lonely island as in Duncan’s day, or in farmer’s fields as in Jesus Rallies during the Jesus movement of the 1970’s?  Probably in none of these ways, because when social networking, I discover, at least on this blog, that I get “hits” from 1-4 a.m. in the morning, from the U.K. and Europe as well as from Australia & New Zealand and even Africa.  Our commonality is in the English language, or barriers are only time zones.  Our platform is not the isolated frontier, or the shade of the forests, or on blankets sitting in a farmer’s field, but on the platform of the whole wide world.  With that platform, true revival will not only touch localities and nations, but it could and should touch and affect the entire world. 

The revival Spirit of the 1^st Century touched the “entire known world” of Paul’s day.  The revival Spirit of the 21^st Century will also touch the “entire known world” of our day.  I have studied the great revivals of England and Europe and of America, but know little personally of the revivals in Africa and Asia, but they have also experienced revivals.  In a day when the Muslim religion looks as a threat to the Jewish and Christian religions, there needs to be a movement of God that transcends all of these religions whose heritage is traced to the same man, Abraham, and to the same God, the God of Abraham who went to sacrifice his son on what is today the Temple Mount. At the same geographical locations where the original Pentecost took place stand a Muslim Mosque, the Jewish Wailing Wall, a remnant of Herod’s Temple, and Golgotha, the site of Jesus’ crucifixion as well at the empty tomb at the base of the Mount.  Three religions all fighting for the same geographical square mile, yet holding world wide influence. Why couldn’t or wouldn’t God’s all powerful, all present Spirit transcend all three religions in the greatest revival in history to usher back Jesus’ Second Coming? 

America, quit being self centered, wishing for revival to hit only America.  Who knows what “world wide revival” will look like, nor the scope of its power, but church beware, prepare, and be open to what is about to occur: the greatest revival under the banner of the God of Abraham, through His Son, Jesus Christ, lead by the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ.  It will be in a new form.  You will be forced to accept it or reject it. Two at the millstone; one accepts one rejects. Who will you be?