New Mindsets For Me and the Church
One of the purpose of these now over 300 blogs over the last two years has been to challenge mind sets that we have established in the current church setting. Before this website, my vision for the Church was focused around my local congregation or the Church of this area. Posting on the website has made me think beyond York, Pennsylvania to the entire United States, but now I have had to “upgrade” my mindset to think internationally. I have noticed that many of the hits to this site have come between 1 and 5 in the morning E.S.T. which means Europe has shown an interest. So to those members of the body of Christ outside the U.S., I apologize for limiting my view, but hope to develop a larger, world wide view of the Church as I address the use of the five fold to the entire Church, the Body of Christ.
This does not mean we need a “Global Council of Churches” to dialogue and recognize each other. Facebook allows normal everyday believers to dialogue and recognize each other with only one bond of unity: Jesus. We, believers in Jesus Christ, can talk about Jesus to each other. It is all about establishing relationships, not religious structures, so we do not need to create a Facebook, Text, Tweet, or Blog for Jesus as an established, official structure, webpage, or web site, but allow the Holy Spirit to flow freely among its believers to communicate, network, and bond together. It is amazing that technology has been created to do this!
Just two decades ago, radio and television were still the only method to get the gospel out to the entire world. Today any individual who has an Iphone with GPS capability can communicate with anyone throughout the world. The way the Church thinks of evangelism to the world is “upgrading” from Church Evangelism.1 to the new and improved Church Evangelism.5.5! We must be open to new methods of evangelism as the world opens up to every believer. The most effective evangelism has always been one-to-one communication, and today’s technology allows that, so we need to rethink our mindset.
As far as pastoral/shepherding, I know I need to rethink how I communicate with brothers and sisters in the Lord globally. How to encourage, communicate, and bond in fellowship with believers in Europe, Asia, the Far East, down under in Australia, and even with my brothers in the Lord in China! The world is only a click away on my computer or Iphone! Facebook has allowed a networking that needs to be developed effectively by the Church to communicate with its many members the world over. So I invite any believer in Jesus Christ to be “my friend”, my “brother/sister in the Lord” on my Fiverevealed Facebook Page.
Prophetically, living out the gospel is of extreme importance. Getting or receiving a “word from the Lord” to or from another brother or sister in the Lord from anywhere in the world is powerful. Knowing what the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, is doing throughout the world must be shared, and we are in an era of being in the realm of that possibility. If I get a prophetic word about something outside the U.S., I will take the step of faith and post it! That new mindset will even stretch me and my faith.
The Apostles teaching brought unity in a very small area of the world at its birth in the first century. The only way to bring unity is again establish the simplistic gospel of truth that unites the Church, not propagate the doctrines and dogmas that have divided it. World Wide teachers of the Word need to concentrate on the truths of simplicity of the gospel to bring unity! The apostolic needs to arise. The seeing over the entire body of Christ, the Church is drastically needed to prevent more schisms and divisions. Revivals in the 21st century must bring unity, not division if the Bride of Christ is to come together to usher in the age of the Lord’s returned as prophesied in the Bible. A 21st Century apostle needs to discern the prophetic and they need to encourage, help coordinate, facilitate, and network this huge global body of believers to be as effective as it can be in changing the world globally for Jesus Christ, flow within the global church, sense the urge of evangelism to key areas of the world that have not heard the gospel, feel the need for nurture and care to the global body of Christ in their development. They need to bring unity through apostolic teaching,
Forgive me for my narrow sightedness; Lord open my eyes, my mind, and my spirit to what you are doing globally and to the Church as a whole.