An Air Of Expectancy

The Fruits When the Prophetic Is Present

It has been a while since I have attended a worship service with an actual air of expectance, an excitement that something different is about to happen because the Holy Spirit is present.  I am getting so use to a regimented service, that one can quickly lose the anticipation of the Holy Spirit’s moving and really expect nothing but the usual usual, or same old same old.  There is safety in knowing what is going to happen because we are in control, but there is anticipation and expectancy when the Holy Spirit is in control.

When the Holy Spirit is freed to move the way he wants, a lot of ministry takes place and a spirit of unity and awe prevails.  Things just mesh, fall in place, dove tail.  There is usually a definite message or theme that flows throughout the gathering.  Many are involved, often most if not all are involved in his moving.

If you have been following my blogs, I often refer to the prophetic as the passion to release the Rhema Word, the active, living Word that is based on the Logos or written Word.  “In the beginning was the Word….” (John 1) “And the Word became flesh and dwelled among us.”  Jesus’ disciples did not know how blessed they were when they witnessed the Word that was the basis of their Torah in living, human form right before their eyes until he was gone, resurrected, returning to His Father in heaven.  God’s Spirit in the flesh, active, alive, living!  Today, God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is still active, alive, and living in the flesh in the believers of Jesus Christ.  We, believers in Jesus Christ, must learn to activate that Spirit, release that Spirit, and trust that Spirit if we want a life of expectancy and anticipation in our faith journey. On Pentecost, the early Church  believers gathered, anticipating, expecting a “promise” Jesus had made them, not knowing how that expectancy would manifest itself.  When it came, it did not come as another sacrificial service in the Temple, or a grain offering, or a peace offering of a dove, or what they had become familiar with when going to the Temple, but it came in the form of tongues of fire, a life rejuvenated, a life of faith on fire.  After that day, their gatherings were not for the purpose of traditional exercises of faith like prior to Pentecost, but an anticipation that the Holy Spirit would move among them and an expectancy that he would manifest himself in any way he wished.  Just as they arrived corporately, the Holy Spirit would also arrive, usually arising out of their spirits.

If you have the Logos Word without the Rhema Word, there is a good chance your faith will dry up in traditionalism, but if you have the Rhema Word without the Logos Word you will burn up by falling into heresy. We need the refreshment of the written Logos Word with the fire of the Rhema Word to be effective witnesses for Jesus Christ!

We have to realize we need the written Word and the spiritual living Word.  Jesus told the woman at the well that there would be a day we would worship the Lord in “spirit and in truth” and today is that day.  We do not have to be like the traditionalist Jew who not only worshiped at his temple but ended up worshiping his temple and his Torah, nor do we have to be like the spiritualist Samaritans and worship on their mountains.  We are to be grounded in the written Word, the Logos Word, and release the living Word, the Rhema Word so we can anticipate and expect the Word to be our foundation as well as our life.

A true prophet sees spiritual insights when reading the Logos Word.  Passages come alive!  Soon the life of those passages become the foundation of our faith journey, and the anticipation and expectancy of the moving of the Holy Spirit becomes a normal thing we Christians should be doing.  I urge you to release the Holy Spirit in your life and begin to expect him to move in your life making the foundation of your faith, the written Word, the Bible, alive in your spirit.

If we first practice this as individual believers, then we can begin to practice it as corporate believers, and a new dynamic will become a reality in our corporate Church gatherings giving new meaning to a “worship” service.  Can we just gather not knowing what will happen, but trust the Holy Spirit to arrive as those in the upper room did at Pentecost?

Evangelism Doesn’t Have To Be Painful; Does It?

A Different Look At Labor Pain

We have come to believe, especially if you are a woman, that birth is equated with labor “pains”.  I remember watching the monitor attached to my very pregnant wife to warn me of the next contraction.  It gave me time to embrace for a super hard hand squeeze, and comment about never getting into this condition again, questioning why she married me in the first place if what “I” did has now caused her so much pain!  Why pain with childbirth?

From the Biblical perspective, labor pains came as the price for sin.  When Adam and Eve sinned and were banished from the Garden of Eden, pain with childbirth became one of the prices of sinning upon the woman.  Amazingly, even though a mother experiences severe contractions signaling the coming birth, all that pain seems to vanish when life is evident, a child is born.  The fruit of “motherhood” is sheer joy, wonderment, awe, and immediate nurturing. Labor pain signals the struggle of what has been intimately nurtured and cared for in the safety of a mother’s womb that is now being threatened prior to actually experiencing birth.

Spiritually, there is usually pain before a birth.  Often we do not feel we “need” a savior until there is something to be saved from.  Pain can be one of those things: the pain of life, stress, loss, hurt, abandonment, loneliness, failure, guilt, etc., etc.  An evangelist is haunted by the “lost” living in pain because they do not know Jesus.  The “lost” have always been painted and portrayed as suffering.  We speak of sharing the spirit of evangelism to a lost and dying world that suffers an incredible amount of pain. Pain exists prior to spiritual birth because the price of sin is about to give way to life. “The wages of sin is death” but through Jesus we can have eternal life. Death is about to be defeated to life.  Those who have to “labor” in the painful world of the lost sense and feel those labor pains.

I have heard prophets claim to feel the “labor pain” of a revelation that they feel is about to be “birthed in the spirit.”  They feel the conflicts that oppose that which needs to be birthed.  Prophets claim they cannot “birth” the revelation, dream, or calling to life, only sense and feel the labor pains of its coming birth.  It takes an evangelist to birth!  Evangelists major in birthing!  The prophet needs the evangelist like a pregnant women needs a midwife or a doctor to help birth the child.  She could birth the child herself, but it it much easier and safer if someone takes her through the process. That is what an evangelist can do, go with you through the process of your spiritual birth even though you could do it yourself.

Some of the darkness moments spiritually usually come before the light, what looks like defeat discourages us just before the dawn of victory, what hurts even hurts worse before we receive our healing, what we fear faces us before our faith overcomes it.  It is this struggle that only an evangelist seems to understand.

Evangelists need the pastoral, the teaching, the prophetic, and the apostolic influences around their lives so they too will not be swept into the pain that those they work with face.  The evangelist needs the passions and gifting of the other four to feed, nurture, and protect his spirit when constantly on the front lines against the kingdom of darkness.

What amazes me about evangelists, like a mother who just gave birth, they too can lay aside all the pain it took to birth a spiritual newborn when that “new birth” receives Jesus into their life. What is different in the spirit compared to the natural is that a true evangelist does not possess the strong nurturing capabilities that earthly mothers possess, because their passion to win the lost drives them to move on to win the next one who is lost over the passion of nurturing newborns.  This is why an evangelist needs the pastoral gift by his/her side.

Jesus said that those who are sick need a doctor, and that spiritual doctor is the evangelist.  I feel, though, that the evangelists needs a whole hospital staff of shepherds, teachers, prophets, and apostles to secure that safe, caring, and nurturing atmosphere when there is a new birth, for that will free the evangelist to go back to the birthing room of life and begin to work through the labor pains of the next birth.  God bless evangelists!

Spiritual Parenting

An Analogy: The Five Fold To Parenting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Evangelism: The Challenge of Releasing the Pastoral Spirit

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

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

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

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

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

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

Evangelism: “Rebirth,” “Renewal,” “Revival,” and “Revelation”!

A Possible New Way Of Looking At Rebirthing, the Evangelistic Spirit

In a previous blog, we examined the difference between “reproduction”, making all the things the same, and “rebirth”, a choice to make “all things new” (II Cor. 5:17).  It is a known fact that the Church preaches about “rebirth,” for “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come,” yet as an institution it is extremely slow at embracing change or newness.  Tradition trumps newness.  Jesus challenged the Jewish traditions of his day who rejected is “newness,” the fulfillment of all their messianic prophecies.  Paul too challenged his Jewish heritage and traditions visiting Jewish houses of worship before being rejected causing him to reach out to the gentiles.  If Jesus faced tradition in his time as well as Paul’s, why would we think that we would not have to do the same?  In the kingdom of God, renewal, rebirth, and revival always challenge the “traditions of men”, as the Bible calls it.

So in this blog I would like to challenge some of our current Church “traditions” by brainstorming possible “rebirths”, renewals, rethinking of how we do things as a Church, renew mindset that have been established as to the way we think of evangelism.

Rebirthing:  A Call To The Lost:  How are we to reach the lost today? We, the Church, have done it in the past through Evangelistic Crusade, by handing out gospel tracts, by knocking on doors, by using a bullhorn on a street corner, by sharing “The Four Spiritual Laws.” Many methods have been tried, and all the above methods have tasted success, but is that the way to go because they have become “traditional” methods of evangelism?  I have shared in previous blogs about some rather creative evangelistic methods that have been done, but is that what the Lord wants at this time at this place in history?

I contend that we, the Church, need to begin to listen to, and more importantly, be obedient to what the Holy Spirit tells us to do about evangelism. Can the Holy Spirit stir up the teacher of the Logos Word, the Bible, to find scripture that would address the sin, the darkness, the loneliness, the hurting and the pain that those who do not know Jesus face, so there will be a hunger for renewal, for a rebirth based on the scriptures? Ofcourse!

Can the Holy Spirit move the prophetic spirit to bring life to those scriptures so that the written Logos Word can become the Rhema living Word in those who chose to accept, follow, and be obedient to Jesus? Ofcourse!

Can the Holy Spirit reveal the proper climate, atmosphere, and conditions needed to care, nurture, and develop those who make Jesus their choice in their spiritual journey toward maturity in the fullness of Jesus Christ in their lives? Ofcourse! 

Can the Holy Spirit reveal the “big picture” of how to pull this all together to move the kingdom of God forward, for not only is the kingdom of God at hand, but is now available to God’s Church to move forward.  Are the spiritual hands of God ready to be at work in this evangelistic endeavor? Ofcourse! 

Now, with all this in place, can the evangelist offer “new birth” to anyone who chooses Jesus because the Church is behind them, beside them, a part of them in unity, for the five fold’s purpose is to also bring unity in the body of Christ, (Eph. 4:12)? Can the evangelist be free in the blessing of the entire Church to offer “rebirth”, “renewal”, “revival”, and “revelation” by offering anyone willing to accept “newness”, for accepting Jesus brings an end to the old, and makes all things “new”, a “renewal”, a “rebirth”, what a revelation?  Ofcourse!

So maybe we should rethink how we, the Church, does evangelism in reaching the lost!

Rebirthing:  A Call To Those Found:  I love sunrises, the rebirth of a new day, every day.  The sunrise brings new birth to God’s creation everyday.  With the reduction of the time of the sunlight, creation slowly dies, thus producing seasons.  The shortness of days, winter brings death, but as the scriptures reveals the mysteries of God, without death we cannot have life, thus the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The days increase with spring bringing life, eventually the longer days of summer produces fruit for harvest when the daylight again begins to diminish.  So is the yearly cycle, the life cycle of all created, all living, especially spiritually!

Can the Church also go through these seasons as its “revelation” of “the Son” increases or decreases?  Is there seasons of “Son”-light that effects the Church?  The Dark Ages supports this through history as what decreased “Son”-light in the revelation of Jesus can do. Is the Church in a season of “revelation” of Jesus Christ today, so it can “mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ,” (Eph. 4:13) in its preparation for the Lord’s return?  Do we, the Church, need a “rebirth”, a “renewal”, a “revival”, a new “revelation” of Jesus Christ? Ofcourse!  So the evangelistic spirit of “rebirth”, “renewal”, “revival” and “revelation” is needed more today than any other time in Church history. Believers must radiate the “whole measure of the fullness of Christ” to appear Christ-like as the Holy Spirit reveals Jesus to each believer in their own personal life.  The church to must radiate this same appearance in preparation for the Groom returning for His Bride in His likeness.

So we need the Holy Spirit to guide us individually and to guide us corporately as the Church into renewing how we approach the evangelistic spirit in reaching the lost with the message of “rebirth” as well as guiding the Church into renewing our revelation of Jesus Christ individually through maturing in the likeness of Jesus and corporately brining unity in all the Church does, even in its evangelistic thrusts and endeavors.

Evangelism: A “Choice”!

Not Reproduction, But Rebirth

Whenever there is revival, evangelism spearheads it because the evidence of “new birth” prevails.  Jesus shares with the woman at the well, a Samaritan, not a Jew, a woman not a man. He broke the social code of his day.  He also chose to reveal being the “Messiah” to her, not one in his inner circle of disciples, but a common woman, a non-Jew, not a theologian or priest, so his mode of evangelism could be looked upon as controversial for his time, but we can not refute its effectiveness.  The woman went back to her village, her people, and began to testify what Jesus, a Jew, just did for her.  So did Jesus use this same evangelistic approach in every village he visited?  Did it become the “model” for his disciples to emulate in the future? No!

Paul had to learn the power of diversity in effective evangelism.  What proved profitable in one village got him stoned in another.  What was effective with one culture proved to be ineffectual in another, yet we, the Church, today still try to find the perfect “model”, the perfect “program”, the perfect “form or structure” to do evangelism.  When Billy Graham did mass crusades in arenas, evangelists sprung up in tents and arenas everywhere emulating what had worked for Dr. Graham.  Since his three-point sermons were effective, every evangelical seminary in America taught their budding ministers how to preach three-point sermons.  Americans will travel from coast to coast to catch seminars on formulas, programs, and structures that have proven successful to other churches, hoping to emulate them, but that is not necessarily how the Holy Spirit works nor is it the true “evangelistic spirit” of rebirth.

Evangelism is not “reproduction” but “rebirth”.  In the natural world “reproduction” is synonymous with “rebirth”, for when human beings “reproduce” they get more of the same, more human beings.  This is not true in the spirit world, for you have no family tree, no grandparents, no parents who give you spiritual birth.  It is a choice YOU have to make. Jesus said, “YOU must be born again!”  YOU have to make the decision to “accept” Jesus, to “follow” Jesus, to “worship” Jesus, to be “obedient” to the Spirit of Jesus Christ. You will not get to enter the kingdom of God because of your parents, grandparents, nor through any other earthly relative.  Jesus even professed how you must leave your parents in order to learn his truth because it all comes back to YOU personally, not your heritage. Your decisions, your reactions, your responses to Jesus Christ is central to your salvation. The Old Testament system of genealogies is gone; it has yielded to the new testament system of your “choice” of accepting Jesus that makes “all things new!”

Evangelism is all about getting people to make Jesus “their choice.”  Accepting that choice is what brings revival when “all things become new.”  We were born naturally, reproduced, but spiritual we have to chose a “rebirth”, a total newness.   This is what Nicodemus wrestled with when confronted with his choice of being a disciple of Jesus.

So what does “rebirth” mean to us individually and to us as a Church if it does not mean just “reproducing”, restructuring someone else’s ideas, plans, programs, or methods?  As an earlier blog suggests, do we just produce “little boxes… that all come out the same”?  Must all Christians look alike? Act alike? Think alike? Believe alike? Or is there diversity because each individual is an unique creature, who makes his/her own choice, so his/her “uniqueness” can be touched and transformed into something totally and uniquely “new”?  If the answer is “yes”, then I believe there is a “rebirth” spiritually.

So rather than looking at a program that works for a church somewhere else, let’s allow the spirit of uniqueness, the spirit whose purpose is to draw all men to Jesus, the Holy Spirit, to lead and orchestrate our endeavors.  Truly the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ is the evangelistic spirit that draws all men to the Father, God, through the cross, resurrection, and obedience of Jesus Christ.  It is also the spirit of “truth”, and can lead the “true” way to be effective producing “choices” for rebirth.  We think of the lost as needing “rebirth”, but we must also realize that we, the Church, also need “rebirth”, a “retooling”, a “rethinking”, a “new mindset” if we wish to experience another spiritual Renaissance or “revival” that will not only make “all things new” to individuals who “chose” it, but also the Church as a whole!

Can Worshipers Worship, Or Must They Always Be Led?

A Contrast In Styles

Recently I attended a funeral at an old established church.  When entering the foyer to the right was what use to be a gymnasium, now packed with hundreds of chairs, with a drum set and microphones on the front stage.  This was for the “contemporary” service.  The funeral was in the “sanctuary” with its pews, altar, split pulpits, huge hanging cross suspended from the ceiling, side wedding chapel and full pipe organ.  This was the home of the “traditional” service.

It made me think of the diversity in the body of Christ.  Even within a local church context there was division over personal preference, basically over styles of music and order or worship.   The older crowd, who strongly supports the edifice financially, prefers the “Old Rugged Cross”, “How Great Thou Art”, and “It Is Well With My Soul” over contemporary chorus, who would rather read a liturgy from the back of a hymnal than a projected overhead slide. Meanwhile the younger “contemporary” crowd enjoys the flexibility of folding chairs over pews, and repetitive choruses over lengthy five verse hymns in King James English, and the high tech video clips.

What they had in common is volume: “traditional” pipe organ preludes echoing off the walls with resounding vibrations, or “contemporary” choruses with more electric bass and pounding drums through a high quality sound system. The only thing that was the same in both services is the sermon; amazingly, the same sermon to different audiences!  Styles of music and worship have changed with its audience, but not the presentation of the Word by the senior pastor or staff member, and in both services the clergy let the congregation know that the delivery of the Word transcended over they styles of worship present.

In spite of differences in musical taste and presentation, neither service still allowed its worshipers, those in the congregation, to be the initiators of corporate worship. Worship leaders and choir directors with liturgists still lead the worship. The congregation was always asked to “follow” never to “lead” worship.  Worship never originated from those in the pews or folding chairs.  Both allowed you to give financially through your tithe and offering, and sing along with the pipe organ or worship band, and to greet one another informally with a hand shake and a “God bless you,” but never gave the worshiper an opportunity to give a testimony of their living faith, to read scripture that inspired them through their private devotions that came alive in their daily walk, nor a time to pray with one another or minister to one another.

We have produced another “great divide” on our churches, even at the local level, in this case because of age preferences, traditions, and styles of worship and music.  We have allowed two different congregations to be established under the same physical roof: an aged one dwindling due to a dying population but still rich with tradition meaningful to their spiritual walk, and a younger one establishing their traditions they eventually will want to hold on to as they age.  It amazes me that we preach about the “unity of the Body of Christ”, yet the church is one of the most segregated institutions in our society because of race, age, and culture. We seem not to welcome diversity in our worship experiences, but segregate it instead.

What would happen if we allowed the worship to flow out of those attending?  If “new songs” actually originated from within them but shared with all?  If scripture from the Bible, the Logos Word, would be shared and actually activated by them into the Rhema, or Living Word, in the midst of all who are worshiping?    If those worshiping actually “anticipated” the Holy Spirit to arise in and among them individually and corporately rather than follow the safety of a planned out experience?  If those attending would actually feel accountable for anything and everything happening in a service or all would just sit in silence until the Holy Spirit moved?  Where life would flow out of those attending the service toward one another?

Instead we opt for our own selfish preferences, what pleases me, what I like, what I seek, what would best benefit me, and those in my family!  That is the independent spirit that crushes “body ministry”.  Christianity is about giving out, sending out, the flowing outwardly of our inner faith.  It is not about “us” but about Jesus to a dieing, hurting, suffering, hungry, lonely, sick world.  When we encourage our Christian believers to “reach” deep within themselves to find Jesus, we then have to give an opportunity for our Christian believers to be “sent out” and “flow out” of that faith that is deep within them and reveal Jesus to the world and to each other.  What better place to practice that than in the safety of our own Church fellowship and gathering. That place should be a place of worship, a place of releasing, a place of giving, a place of flowing.

We need to rethink how we do “church” at “church” when the “church” gathers if we are really God’s “church”!

The Rewards of Retooling, Renewing, Revival, Rebirth!

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part LXII

I started this series out because of a news article about the retooling of Harley Davidson in York, PA, and the impact it has had on renewing the company and the vision for Harley.  This week, Harley came out with its quarterly earnings, now $133 million profit!  They are not making any more bikes than they did in the past, but their financial financing sector has increased.  The fact of fiscal responsibility of Harley has changed, and the company has gone from deep concern to productivity and profitability.

I am going to conclude this series on the “retooling” of the church with the challenge Harley Davidson has thrown out to the church.  Last Sunday, at my home church, Cityview Community Church in York, PA, the vision for this years “Biker Bar-BQ” Rallies were unfolded. The second Sundays of May, June, July, August & September, from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m., Cityview is hosting a Biker Bar-BQ where they feature a half of Bar-BQ’ed chicken, a pulled pork sandwich, baked potato, cole slaw, applesauce, and drink for $12 with the proceeds going to support an orphanage in Guatemala that our local church has literally help build from the ground up over the years and supported financially.  This endeavor will reach out to bikers, churched and non-churched people, while aiding orphans in a third world country.  Last year they held Biker Rallies on Saturdays, but “retooled” their efforts to do it on Sundays this year because that is when Bikers ride! I invite you to join us on the Second Sunday of the month for fellowship, fun, and food this summer!

Innovative evangelism, innovative change, lead by the Holy Spirit has been my theme throughout this thread of blogs.  The challenge comes when and if the bikers decide to return to Cityview.  Will pastoral components be in place for new converts to aide their new spiritual growth?  How do we change our teaching away from “church-ism” linguistics, so the unchurched can understand?  How can we prophetically speak into their lives, helping to make their new experience in Christ real, a live, a day to day walk, a true turning from the old to the new?  Who will be “seeing over” their new walk in Christ so that there will not be “over-sights,” or mistakes? These are the challenges that the five fold can help address if lead by the Holy Spirit.  This is the retooling, the revival, the renewal, the rebirth that I am addressing.

This is the experience of the local church I attend, but I want to challenge whomever is reading this blog to also take the plunge and allow the evangelistic spirit, the pastoral spirit, the teaching spirit, the prophetic spirit, and the apostolic spirit to arise in their local church.  Allow them to arise, but bond them together through the “laying down of one’s lives”, the service to each other, and the accountability to each other.  The weaving of this tapestry will bring a work of art never seen before in your church.  One that will help you and those in your church grow toward “maturing in the image of Jesus Christ” while bringing “unity in the body of Christ.” 

If the Church is willing to be retooled this way, I guarantee you that the results will even be more profound than those Harley Davidson announced this week, because they will have “eternal” rewards far exceeding the material rewards we face on earth while the kingdom of God is being advanced, and the retooling of the Church continues through the Holy Spirit.  This is true renewal!  This is true rebirth, the rebirth of the Church!

Easter Sun Rise & Resurrection Hope 2011!

Observations From A Wicker Love Seat

There is nothing like a sunrise or sunset to bring me peace and hope.  Often I watch sunsets that settle my spirit and soul after a hectic day. This morning, Easter Sunday morning, April 24^th, 2011, I am sitting on the wicker love seat on our front porch having my own private Easter Sunrise service with the chirping birds, the brown bunny slithering through the now tall grass that needs mowed so badly, the robins dancing, hoping to find a huge Easter worm for breakfast, and watching the glory of the painted skies explode.

I love watching the dispelling of the darkness to greys of clouds that have been deluging our area for days, the soggy ground sighing with relief, the payments still darkened from moisture. Those grey clouds soon get touched by an orange flavor around their edges as the artist begins painting a picture that changes with every moment, every second. A dash of red now is sprinkled around select clouds accenting their position. As the reds intensify, even the large clouds that usually blot out the sun on a cloudy day yield to the power of a sunrise and allow their undercoats to be dashed with reds and pink tints. With the sun on the horizon, even these clouds must yeild to a sunrise’s power.  Soon the wispiness of lower lying clouds appear, white, light, almost dancing below the now lightening grays, oranges, and ambers.  With the sun, not yet appearing, broad brush strokes of reds now streak the belly of the once ominous clouds, bringing color over their despairingly dark countenances, erasing the darkness, converting the clouds to color, then whiteness as the power of the resurrected sun announcing a new day slowing peeks as a sliver of a gold ball above one cloud igniting the heavens, one side flaming oranges, the other side hues of pink, royal purples, touches of rose reds.

Now for my favorite part: The darkness of the empty spaces between clouds burst from darkness to the softest blues. I dream that when I die, I will fly through those soft hues of color and light into a special hue of blue that only the light of a sunrise or sunset can produce. As the sunrise climaxes, darkness has no chance as it dissipates, folds, yields, gives way to the majesty of the lighted day, a new day, a day of promise and hope, a resurrected day.  I now have to shield my eyes from the sun’s brightness. What looked as ominous clouds, now turn into fleecy white spectacles, cotton balls of beauty, floating gently across the sky.  Somehow, the birds seem to change their tune announcing a new day.  Momma robin now brings fat worms to screaming babies; the Easter feast has begun!

We, too, can experience that sunrise in our lives if we allow them to be a resurrected life in Jesus.  This past year, my family and I have faced some really dark clouds that attempted to hide the light of life.  Sporadically a ray of light, a ray of hope, a stream of light, a stream of life would permeate through.  The darkness of life’s challenges brought despair, trying to choke out our hope for the promised resurrected life.  It looked so dark, and we yearned for a resurrected sunrise of faith in our lives, for it was as if our faith was being tested to its very core as we faced the cross, another crossroads in our lives, that place where we call on the supernatural to vertically dissect the mundane, natural, horizontal relationships of our daily lives that seem to bring constant conflict.  I almost have forgotten the power of a sunrise, that resurrection of light dispelling all darkness, conquering all ominous clouds, the painting of breath taking beauty of colors over what looked as a dark, hopeless canvas.  With the sharpness of the sun now shining, darkness is gone, forcefully yielding to the power of the light, transforming ominous clouds into white beauty floating on a haze of majestic blue, deepening in color with every passing second.

On the canvas of the sky, the power of light, the power of life prevails, illuminating my faith to another revelation:  In spite of the darkness in one’s life, Jesus is the light.  In the darkness of despair, conflict, and hopelessness, God can paint over top of those situation a barrage of beautiful hues, colors, and images that can change, can transform, can renew the whole picture of the meaning of life. One simple sunrise can bring rebirth.

As I close, the group of clouds that once tried to hide the sun now glows, with a glow of stunning whiteness, a reflection of the brilliance of the rising sun, so it is in our lives.  As my time of meditation concludes, I realize the power of the resurrection, the power of light conquering death and darkness, the power of hope over despair, the power of life over death, the power of renewal, and the power of rebirth.  May I constantly be reminded of these truths for the rest of this year!  Wow! This may be the best Easter Sunrise service of my life!

5 Fold’s Reaction to Keith Green’s “Asleep In The Light” Again Comes To Light!

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part LXI – Pt. 2

Revisiting Keith Green’s classic song “Asleep In The Light”, I have been doing a lot of thinking.  How can we be awakened to Green’s prophetic cry?  How can we respond?  What might the church do to retool itself to be more effective.  Looking at keith’s lyrics, I noticed that all five points of views and passions were addressed:

Evangelist:  Keith cried out, “Do you see, do you see all the people sinking down? Don’t you care, don’t you care are you gonna let them drown?” General Booth, founder of the Salvation Army responded to this cry with a great evangelistic endeavor in 19^th & 20^th centuries, but how should the Church address it in the twenty-first century.  What should be the “evangelistic drive” to win the lost?  How can the church change the “come into our building” mentality to the “being sent out” one?

Pastoral: To the pastoral, Green pleaded, “Oh bless me lord, bless me lord,” you know it’s all I ever hear. No one aches, no one hurts, no one even sheds one tear, but he cries, he weeps, he bleeds, and he cares for your needs. You just lay back and keep soaking it in. Oh, can’t you see it’s such a sin. Cause he brings people to your door, and you turn them away, as you smile and say, ‘God bless you, be at peace,’ and all heaven just weeps ‘cause Jesus came to your door and You’ve left him out on the streets.”  He warns, “You just lay back and keep soaking it in. Oh, can’t you see it’s such a sin.”  Wow, harsh words, but he is questioning who is to “care” for the “careless”, “homeless”, hurting, widows, elderly, etc.? In my last few blogs I have even thrown out the questions “Who is my brother’s keeper?” As the American government is cutting services due to budget cuts, it is the Church’s responsibility to step up and display the Shepherd Jesus is.

Teacher:  To the American church known who is known for its abundance of spiritual Christian teachers Green sang, “How can you be so dead when you’ve been so well fed?”  Is the American church just being “hearers of the Word,” but are lacking being “doers of the Word” in spite of all the good teaching.  American Christian teachers need to reexamine their techniques of teaching, assessing its effectiveness, and be open to teach through “experiences.” Actual “on hands application,” doing it, could be more effective than just the sermon, preaching, lecturing approach the church has used for centuries.

Prophetic:  Jonah, God’s prophet, was called to evangelize Nineveh.  At first he fights his calling, then flees his calling, and is swallowed by a whale. Keith Green cries out to today’s prophets,  “You see the need, you hear the cries, so how can you delay? God’s calling, and you’re the one, but like Jonah you run. He’s told you to speak, but you keep holding it in, oh, can’t you see it’s such sin.” The prophet learns to “listen” to the Holy Spirit.  When the Holy Spirit gives revelation and tells the prophet to speak, he better be obedient and speak, or it’s sin, for he has missed the mark. The Rhema, living Word, must be beside the Logos, the written and proclaimed Word, if the church is to again be effective.

Apostolic:  To those who “see over” the church, the leaders Green cries, “How can you be so numb, not to care if they come? You close your eyes and pretend the job’s done. You close your eyes and pretend the job’s done. Don’t close your eyes, don’t pretend the jobs done.”  The job is not done; it has only begun.  There is so much to do.  Church leaders should feel overwhelmed, needing the guidance of the Holy Spirit, than feel confident, sitting back, feeling everything is OK; everything is status quo, and you keep just doing what the church has just been doing for decades. 

We got the challenge from the prophetic voice of Keith Green over thirty years ago, but how have we replied? Doing the same old, same old?  I have heard that “insanity” is defined as continuing doing the same thing over and over when you know it won’t work.”  Keith is crying out to stop the “insanity” in the church.  Let’s be open to retooling, renewal, rebirthing, redoing, and relooking at what we, the Church, has been called to do, and find new creative ways to do it under the guidance of Jesus’ precious Holy Spirit.  I too support Keith’s cry against the church’s “insanity”, and ask you to be open to what the five fold can do to bring maturity into the lives of Christians to be more like Jesus, to equip these saints for the work of service, and to bring unity to a fragmented  body, the Church.  Quite a challenge! Join me in my walk, my journey, as we look at how the five fold points of view and passions can be an effective tool to the body of Christ.  How will you and I respond?

Keith Green’s “Asleep In The Light” Again Comes To Light!

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part LXI

I can’t shake this question, “Who Is My Brother’s Keeper”?  It keep resounding in my head. “Who is My Brother’s Keeper?”

In church yesterday, we sang a chorus about revival and an awakening.  I can’t help remember Keith Green’s classic song, “Asleep In The Light,” and the impact it had on me when it was first released.  The church needs to again listen to its lyrics:

Do you see, do you see all the people sinking down? Don’t you care, don’t you care are you gonna let them drown?  How can you be so numb not to care if they come? You close your eyes and pretend the job’s done. “Oh bless me lord, bless me lord,” you know its all I ever hear. No one aches, no one hurts, no one even sheds one tear, but he cries, he weeps he bleeds, and he cares for your needs. You just lay back and keep soaking it in. Oh, can’t you see it’s such a sin. ‘Cause he brings people to your door, and you turn them away, as you smile and say, “God bless you, be at peace,” and all heaven just weeps ‘cause Jesus came to your door and You’ve left him out on the streets.  Open up, Open up, and give yourself away. You seed the need, you hear the cries, so how can you delay?  God’s calling, and you’re the one, but like Jonah you run. He’s told you to speak, but you keep holding it in, oh, can’t you see it’s such sin. The world is sleeping in the dark that the church just can’t fight ‘cause it’s asleep in the light. How can you be so dead when you’ve been so well fed. Jesus rose from the grave and you, you can’t even get out of bed. Oh, Jesus rose from the dead. Come on get out of your bed. How can you be so numb, not to care if they come? You close your eyes and pretend the job’s done. You close your eyes and pretend the job’s done. Don’t close your eyes, don’t pretend the jobs done. “Come away, come away, come away with me my love. Come away, come away, come away with me my love.”

The lyrics are so relevant today, almost 30 years after they were written. Here we are praying for an “awakening” and the price of that “awakening” streams through my mind through Keith Green’s lyrics. In order to experience this “awakening” will take “brokenness”.  Brokenness is always an ingredient to revival.  Until we completely surrender to the Lord, allow His Holy Spirit to take the lead, we will not experience the revival we seek.  The “Great Awakening” of the 1700’s swept America with the call of repentance.  That cry is going forth two and a half centuries later!

It may be prophetic, but I believe the church in America is about to get what it has been praying for.  Joining the cause of smaller government, budget reductions, and tax relief, will come the responsibility for the Church to do Mathew 25 as I shared in my last blog.  A response to Keith Green’s song will become a reality.  The sleeping giant, the Church, will again be called to rise up and take care of the poor, the sick, the widows, the elderly, the lost, the dying, etc.  It will take sacrifice, faith, grace, mercy, and love, all ingredients the Holy Spirit has to offer.

I remember standing in a crowd at an Jesus rally in the ‘70’s hearing Keith sing his song and thinking what a “tough” word it was.  His prophetic message hasn’t softened, but our response to it has.  Awake church!  Now is the time for retooling, redoing, reviving, renewal, rebirthing, but it will come with a price.  My questions is “Is the Church willing to pay that price” or better yet, “Am I/You willing to pay that price?” And the questions still resounds in my head, “Who is My Brother’s Keeper?”

American Greed: Sheep And The Goats? Come On American Church!

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part LX

“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” Jesus said those words, yet the political climate today, especially among fundamental evangelical believers, is not to give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s but keep it because it is “my money.”  In America we have looked to the government to supply services that we deem necessary, not the church.  We expect the government to educate our children, feed the hungry, provide for the homeless, care for the aging, supporting the mentally ill or the mentally or physically challenged, aide our libraries, fund our police and fire departments, snow removal, crime and prisons, etc., etc., but at no or little cost to us, the taxpayer.

Thirty-seven years ago we had a Superintendent of Schools where I work say that we could do almost anything we wanted as long as “it was at no cost to the district.”  That motto has become the school district’s mantra until a financially anorexic school district faces insurmountable challenges with state budget crunches.  Slush funds are dwindling, taxpayers are crying for relief, so they are asking staff to freeze pay, take cut backs, give up the power to negotiate, and bust teacher unions. 

American’s don’t want to invest in anything unless it benefits themselves.  That mentality births and feeds greed.  We are told to invest in the stock market to become rich, to produce jobs, but the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer, and jobs are getting out sourced.  The same attitude that prevails educational finances has also become the mantra for government.  You can do anything as long as “it is at no cost to the taxpayer,” unless it benefits the politician. 

What happened to investing in your children, our youth?  What happened to taking care of the elderly?  What happened to aiding the poor, the misfortune, the hurting?  What happened to the sacrifice for those who are defending us in our arm services?  What happened to civil responsibility? 

This attitude has even filtrated the Church in America where many attend, requesting physical, moral, and spiritual support from the Church at “no cost to the church ‘attendee’” if they do not tithe.  But that which we Americans are crying out against, so we can live in our houses defined by the number of bathrooms, two car garages with new cars, watching our large flat screen high definition televisions while our kids play video games and talk on their expensive phones, are the very things the Church is suppose to do.

Maybe we should hear the cry of Mathew 25:41-46: Then the King will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you game me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’  They will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ Then they will go away to eternal punishment.” The sheep and the goats, the saints and the ain’ts, the doers and the not doers is a strong powerful parable that is relevant to the American attitude today.

Church, if America is telling the government not to do the above, and “we the people” are the American government, then the American Church must step up and tell their people to “feed the hungry, water the thirsty, take care of strangers, cloth the naked, provide health care to the sick, reform the prisons and reach out to prisoners who have served their time.”  Jesus said that we will be judged by those criteria! The retooling of the American church will have to re-address how the church faces these issues and challenges.  If there was ever a time for the Church to move forward in influence, it is now as the general population backs away from the very things Jesus has instructed us to do. American Church, let’s be the sheep we have been called to be, the doers!  Let us lead in a time in our history where Americans are looking for leadership. 

“Walking Away" From The Walk?

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part LIX

I have been reading about early Church history of the first three centuries and the writings of the early Church Fathers.  I can only imagine the second century Church’s challenge of facing change.  The believers are several generations away from the original apostles and believers who actually saw Jesus on the earth.  They could not go back to the Paul’s, Luke’s, Peter’s actual face-to-face encounters with Christ unless they were written down.  “Faith”, the believing in the unseen, now became stronger because the Church was removed from first hand accounts of Jesus.

Now was the time for change; now began theological debates about the person and divinity of Jesus and the Trinity.  The “experience” of “walking with Jesus” was being replaced by reason, thus theology (Theo = God. -ology = study; thus study of God). Doing theological exegesis on doctrine became the norm by prominent church leaders.  The “walking experience” with God became the sitting on one’s butt “studying” about God.  Wars have been fought over theology, major schisms developed, heresies born, challenged, then crushed, and historically, fragmentation of the Body of Christ, the Church, became its fruit.  “Power” over who runs the church, alias church politics, over came the inverted pyramid of service that the kingdom of God appropriates.  Several centuries after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the major split between the Eastern Orthodox Church centered in Constantinople and the Western Church centered in Rome became prevalent.

What happened to the personal walk of each believer?  What happened to the Road to Emmaus experience several disciples experienced shortly after the resurrection?  What happened to the daily walk by faith?  Matters of the mind, reason, took over matters of the heart, the Jewish Lamad way of perceiving things?  Intellect and reason now superseded experience and faith.  We, the Church, still face this battle even today.  People with earned intellectual religious degrees lead the church over older Christians who have spend a lifetime faithfully experiencing Jesus in their lives.  At least in the Western world, knowledge still supersedes faith in church structure and leadership.

How can the Church return to the teaching of “service”, the inverted pyramid of one carrying a lot of people on their shoulders than ruling over a lot of people?  Historically, the most effective form of evangelism is when there is one-on-one sharing of one’s “experience” of Jesus Christ in one’s life.  Even though Jesus had to question his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”, he still chose to “walk” with them for the last three years of his life so that they could “experience” him.  Even though he did a lot of “teaching” to them those three years, it was still the “walking out of their experiences” with him that would prepare them for apostleship,

They saw and experienced the one-on-one evangelism of Jesus talking to the women at the well and the revival it created in her hometown. The feeding of the 5,000 and the raising of the dead of the women's only son, and "Jesus wept" when hearing of Lazarus's death displayed the pastoral spirit in Jesus. They sat under Jesus’ teaching, though they had trouble understanding it until the Holy Spirit had been released to become their instructor.  They met and walked with the prophetic living Word, the living Son of God, the fulfillment of scriptures where again they did not realize its truths until the Holy Spirit later revealed it to them.  Finally their three-year “walk” with Jesus and later their Emmaus “walks” with the Holy Spirit would prepare them for apostleship.

God had established the five fold, the passions of servanthood, through service, to prepare His Church.  The passion of spiritual birth was born through evangelism, the passion of nurturing and caring was fulfilled in “walking” and providing for His disciples, the passion of teaching was released through Jesus, the Living Word, as he attempted to instruct his disciples how to “walk” out their faith through daily experiences, the passion of the prophetic was released in the fulfillment of the Messiah, the Living active Word in mankind, right before their eyes, and the passion of the apostolic was birthed through these “walks” with Jesus and fulfillments through the Holy Spirit.  I propose that this is the pattern the Church should seek if it is to “equip” or “prepare” the “saints for the work of the service.”

Unlike the early Church fathers, two centuries removed from Jesus’ appearance on earth, we, the twenty-first century Church are two millennium removed.  We should have learned that a walk of faith through “reason” and “knowledge” only brought on a long period called The Dark Ages which had its grips only broken by the Reformation when God’s spirit was again released on God’s people for the works of “service” to the kingdom of God rather than the religious kingdom of the church.

History has proven the Church needs change, yet is slow and reluctant to embrace it.  The Church was birthed and built on principles of the kingdom of God, sacrifice and service.  Power and might produced by the Holy Spirit were replaced by political power and might.  The church changed from an agent of “serving” to an institution “to be served.” 

“In the last days, I will pour out my spirit on your sons and daughters,” boasts the book of Acts of the Apostles.  That pouring has begun at the closing of the last century.  Now it is time to allow the Holy Spirit to take that “new birth”, that evangelistic out pouring of the Holy Spirit, and begin to develop it pastorally, through nurture and care, while teaching its believers through day to day experiences, grounded on the Word of God, the Bible, and released into a living work known as the Church, through the reestablished apostolic over sight.  The five fold is about to be developed no matter if you believe it or not! Are you willing to embrace it?

Accountability Through Diversity: Little Boxes, Little Boxes Made of Ticky-Tack?

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part LVIII

I remember the song in the ‘60’s called Little Boxes by Malvina Reynolds. The lyrics read, “little boxes, little boxes, little boxes filled with ticky-tacky; little boxes on the hillside, little boxes all the same.  There’s a green one, and a pink one, and a blue one and a yellow one, and they are all made out of ticky-tack, and they all just look the same. 

And the people in the houses all went to the university where they were put in boxes, and they all come out the same. And the doctors and the lawyers and business executives, and they put them all in boxes and they all came out the same. 

And they all play on the golf course, and they drink their martini’s dry, and they all have pretty children, and all the children go to school, and all the children go to summer camp, and then to the university where they put them all in boxes and they all come out the same.

And the boys go into business and marry andraise a family in boxes made of ticky-tack, and they all look just the same. There’s a green one, and a pink one, and a blue one and a yellow one, and they are all made out of ticky-tack, and they all just look the same. ”

Churches are no different, for Baptist produce “Baptist boxes”, Lutherans produce “Lutheran boxes”, Pentecostals produce “Pentecostal boxes”, Non-denominationalist and independents produce “Independent boxes”, etc.  No matter what label the church group, they produce “their own kind”, their “little boxes”.  All these different boxes boast of being under the same label called “The Church” because they all try to produce the same image, but they look different because they look only as their own kind.

Can an individual local church produce different boxes?  It is tough, but it can only be done if there is diversity in the church itself.  My blogs have been about that diversity, known as the five fold: the recognition of evangelists, shepherds, teachers, prophets, and apostles in every church.  There are believers in almost every church who have the burden to win the lost, who want to nurture and care through hospitality, who want to teach the Word, the Bible, who want closer living, intimate spiritual walks with Jesus, and who have a burden for the Church as a whole.  They are already there! What a diversity of points of view or passions, but how do you get these diverse dialects to speak the same language, the language of the Church, the language of the active, living Word of God?  I propose only through relationships and accountability to one another.

It is amazing that opposites attract in marriage; what was the weakness of one they find to be the strength in their spouse.  Diversity is often the very strength of a marriage though it does bring it own conflicts when it seems the two are not speaking the same language.  Communications is a key to a successful marriage.  Even though each spouse can be coming from a different point of view, a different passion, what seems like a different language, only through constant dialogue, communicating with one another can a strong lasting marriage be molded, formed, or bonded.  The same is true with the Church.  Diversity is its strength, and only through continual communication between God and His people through the Holy Spirit and between God’s people to each other can meaningful, successful relationships be established in the Family of God.

An evangelist can give new birth to others, a shepherd can give nurture and care, a teacher can give the foundation of the Word of God, the prophet can give spiritual life, and the apostle proper over sight seeing over the other’s gifting while drawing their diversity into unity.  This unity through diversity can only be done when each and every one of them is willing to give to the other, but also receive from the other, from their strengths.  This giving and taking by “laying down one’s life” for each other brings accountability like has never been seen in the Church for centuries.

The Church’s calling has not been to produce “little boxes” labeled with their groups identity, but reproducing, developing, and equipping its people to grow into the image and maturity of Jesus Christ, bringing unity to this diverse body.  People should see Jesus when looking at a believer, not a Baptist, a Lutheran, a Pentecostal, an Independent, etc.  The Church needs not to major on the minors, producing little boxes, but major in the birthing, nurturing, and developing of people into the image of Jesus Christ, a major undertaking!  Only through this development will come true accountability!

Who Is Accountable?

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part LVII

When a company retools, to whom are they accountable?  It could be to the shareholder, the investor, or to management, or to the working force.  In order to make a profit, all three must work together and be accountable to one another, or a product will not be produced nor a profit made.

If we are to retool the Church, to whom will the Church be accountable? To whom are those in the Church to be accountable to?  At the end of the last century, may “independent” churches, trying to avoid becoming a denomination or being part of a denomination, were birthed, held together by loosely held associations with other independent churches or totally independent from anyone.  The Missional Movement came in to existence in order for these loose federations to communicate with each other without being accountable to one another. I attend a church that is independent and currently is not under anyone’s umbrella of protection, guidance, or advice beyond the local church.  What does that say to the Body of Christ, the Church, as a whole?  To whom are we to be accountable to if anyone?

Inside the local church structure, to whom are we to be accountable?  I am told the Pastor, Elders, or leadership team.  I have been taught that I need to give a tithe to the local church to support this leadership team and/or staff as part of my accountability to them.  What then is their role of accountability towards me?  Are they accountable to me in some way? How?  I attended a church of near 3,000 this past Sunday, and realized that there is no way the pastor even knows, or even has met with each member of his flock over the past year.  The people feel accountable to him as their pastor, but what is expected of him towards them: a sermon each week, but not a personal relationship?

The church is built on relationships, and true accountability is a give and take situation.  It is reciprocal. I John 3:16 says that we need to lay down our lives for our brethren, but we cannot do that without a relationship.   Any mega-church knows that it has to have a small group ministry if it is ever going to “disciple” its flock.  I recently heard Kent Henry pointed out that during the last decade we, the church, have opted for high-tech, rear projected screens, with internet, social networking capabilities, high quality sound systems and lighting, producing an entertaining product attracting large numbers of people, but we have failed in “discipleship”.

What is a “disciple”?  What is “discipleship”?  Ephesians 4 calls it “equipping”, or preparing, “the saints for the work of the service”.  What does “equipping” mean? What actually is “the service”?  I believe that effective equipping can come only through building and establishing relationships that are accountable to one another. Only through relationships can effective “serving” or service be taught.  If we “serve” one another through relationship, we establish accountability to one another.  Think of your best friends.  Why are you best friends?  Your intimate friendship is based on the accountability of your intimate relationship.  You accept one another, even at your worse, and you listen to one another giving and taking advice.

The church has to recognize that accountability does not come by positions or offices held in a church, even though the Bible teaches to honor those in leadership, but in relationships with one another.  Big Brother programs have been effective toward needy children, but the church needs a Mature Believers in Christ program where older men build relationships with younger men, older women build relationships with younger women, not as another church program, but in actual relationships that take time, nurture, and care.  If that is established then the reciprocal will happen when the young will then take care of the old, the widow, and the widower. The book of Titus deals with this endeavor.

So how is the Church to be retooled? It should be retooled through relationships which will produce accountability.  Anything less will become just programs, changing every month or every cycle, the very trap many churches find themselves in today.  Let’s focus on relationships, the laying down of our lives for each other, which is a deep relationship of accountability.

Is The Church Our Brother’s Keepers?

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part LVI

We count on the government for programs, programs to take care of the homeless, the poor, those without medical insurance, those with mental, physical, or learning handicaps, those struggling with drugs, those released from prison, the elderly, preschool, public school, fire and police protection, etc., etc.  As a Christian, I ask what do we count on the Church for here in America? Spiritual guidance, of course, is of essence, but the church is no longer the social hub of American society, nor supplying “services” to the poor, the sick, the aging, and hurting as it once was.  Many hospitals and institutions of higher learning boast the name of past church influences. With all the government budget cuts, what influence can the church reclaim?

People are looking for someone who cares, who will give guidance, hope, answers to tough questions, and courage to face tough situations, but doesn’t demand a monetary payment for their kindness.  They are not necessarily looking for professional services, but acts of kindness from every day people, friends, neighbors, Christians who care.

If the church embraced the five fold they would have an evangelist who would give hope, offer a new birth or a renewal spirit.  They would have pastoral gifting, individual believers reaching out with care and faith when helping people through difficult situations reassuring them that they are not alone as they face and walk through their struggles.  They would have a foundation of faith through the Word, the Bible. They would have spiritual guidance of learning that the Written Word can become the Living Word, walking out spiritual principals through the prophetic.  They would have the assurance of over sight, someone seeing over their welfare and the welfare of others as a whole body, a family. 

So the Church needs to reevaluate its role in American society, retool itself to be more effective to those in need, and rethink how it does church.  The challenge is will the church continue to just rely on tradition to get it through, or become innovative and creative, allowing the Holy Spirit to retool it to meet the needs of the hurting and lost, and exposing the Kingdom of God to the world.

There’s A Whole Lot Of Shaking Going On (Continued…. Again!)

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part LV

When a bar tender prepares a mixed drink, often he puts the proper ingredients into a glass, then places a “shaker” over it and shakes the ingredients together!  Without the shaking, the drink will not be as good, individual tastes will be too strong or too weak. A whole lot of shaking can make a good drink.  On the other hand, if you get sedimentary water from the stream that is cloudy, you can let it sit, and the sedimentary sinks, producing what looks like clear water.  Unfortunately a whole lot of shaking of that jar produces what was originally in the jar, a muddy, unclear mess.

A whole lot of shaking can produce two results, a good blend or a messy one!  The church is often afraid of allowing a whole lot of shaking because it “naturally” expects the results to be a messy one.  Shaking can bring cloudiness to a situation.  Only through filtration can the water again be pure.  So what is the filtration device for the Church to use? I propose that the filtration device is the Cross through the Holy Spirit. 

As I have said in earlier blogs, the only way to experience the “supernatural,” the vertical relationship with the Godhead is allow it to penetrate, to dissect the “natural”, those horizontal relationships we have.  That vertical dissection to the horizontal produces the Cross.  Only when we take “messy shake-ups” in our lives to the Cross can we bring clarity to situations by allowing the Holy Spirit to work in our lives.  Because of the cross and resurrection, Jesus’ mission to life as a human, the Son of God, the Living Word in the flesh, he could now go back to the heavenlies to sit at the right hand of God the Father to intercede for the saints.  His job is now one of intercession on behalf of those whose faith believes in him.  Only upon his return could the Holy Spirit be released to “bring all men unto Him”!

Only through the filtration of allowing the Holy Spirit to work in and through our lives can we filter out the muddy mess to produce clear “living water.”  Jesus said, “If a man thirsts, let him drink from the living well”, drink life through the “living water,” Jesus Christ.  Only through “shaking, then filtrating can we get the pure water we seek.

On the other hand, a whole lot of shaking can bring a blend of different tastes, liquors, drinks, fruits, etc. into a totally invigorating concoction of a drink.  Those tastes which tasted good individually taste even better when blended together.  There strengths together become the strength of the drink only after a whole lot of shaking and stirring.  In order for the five fold, the evangelistic, pastoral, teaching, prophetic, and apostolic passions can come together is if the Holy Spirit does “a whole lot of shaking” to bring them together, and I think the Church is beginning to experience that “shaking”.  At least that is my prayer of faith.

For this to become an actuality, there needs to be a shaking, exposing the impurities that lie in the pure “living water” of Jesus Christ in his Body, the Church.  After the working of the Holy Spirit to bring purification, then more shaking can produce the blending of five different points of views, five different passions into one, producing maturity in the Body of Christ and unity. 

That purification process for the believers in Christ will come in a brokenness, a willingness to “lay down their lives for their brethren”, and a hunger for God in a degree never felt before by the Church. It will be the Church again facing the Cross, the cross roads of the “natural” and the “supernatural”, allowing Jesus to be King and Lord, and allowing the Holy Spirit to do what He has been sent to do!

Often in my previous blogs I have asked, “Can you/we/I trust the Holy Spirit?”  If we can’t trust the Holy Spirit, the out come will only be muddied waters when the shaking begins.  If we can, then we will drink from “living water” and eventually enjoy a “blend” like never before experienced, a refreshing, a renewal, a rebirth.

Have you gotten it by now; there is a whole lot of shaking going on!

There’s A Whole Lot Of Shaking Going On (Continued….)

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part LIV

It has been a whole week since I last wrote a blog, and sometimes I need just to be quiet.  I love to be in a worship experience and just “listen”.  That occurred last night when Kent Henry came to our church.  I have been in and out of Ken Henry events over the last three decades, and have learned to respect him for his ability to listen to the Holy Spirit and change with times.  I have watched him physically grow from a dark haired “cool dude” appealing to youth to a grey hair of wisdom.  Kent is still Kent; still digging deep for Jesus.

Now you have to understand, Kent Henry concerts are not quiet, band jamming, bass driving, drummer letting loose, background singers singing with all their might, and Kent doing his thing.  In the past I would have been engulfed by it all and just join into the activity, but last night the Holy Spirit drew me in, being aware of my surroundings, but just focusing on Jesus and “listening” to the still small voice as the decibel level increased in the sanctuary.

When Kent read from the book of Lamentations, Jeremiah cried out the doom that Israel was about to face, a woeful song, as Kent actually began to sing the scripture as a Jewish cantor. That is when the Lord again beckoned me again about this “shaking”, reinforcing that in American “institutions” are and will continue to be shaken.  We have seen the financial institutions shaken over the last four years, almost bringing America to its knees.  People learn to “trust” in the stock market, forgetting that it rises and falls, and many financial plans collapsed with the shaking.  Now educational “institutions” are being shaken, not only at the public school level, but also at the higher educational levels.  The family as an “institution” has been attacked and badly battered over the last two decades as what use to be abnormal and dysfunctional is trying to be recognized as the new normal and status quo.

Then the zinger: I heard, “Why would the Church be exempt, particularly when it has become an “institution” too?” Ouch!

I have struggled for years over the questions of how do we allow the Church as an “organism” to become an “institution”, or what is the process needed to free the “institution” to go back into an “organism”.  “Organisms” have life: “institutions” have structure.  How do we put life into our structures?  How do we structure life in our churches so that they don’t become institutionalized (program driven, staff driven, numbers driven, budget driven)?  When we get stuck in a path, sometimes it takes “a whole lot of shaking” to release us from the rut in which we have entrenched ourselves.

Sometimes the very structures that we built that gave form to a movement become the very barriers that prohibit the continual movement of the Holy Spirit.  I have done an in depth study on the “blue print” of Herod’s Temple, the temple at the time of Christ, which vividly displays the “barriers” that structure has produced, prohibiting one from entering the Holy of Holies, the very Presence of God.  Barriers dividing Jew from Gentile, male from female, priest from laity, serving priests from passive priests, and everyone from the High Priest who only once a year had the privilege to enter the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement.  By the time Jesus arrived, “structure” was in placed; Jesus always challenged the “structures” of his time.  He did a whole lot of shaking, eventually causing an earthquake at his crucifixion, and the freeing of himself from the structures of a sealed tomb at his resurrection.  Jesus knows how to challenge an institution to produce life, an organism. He sent the Holy Spirit to orchestrate the transformation of institutions back to organisms.

So what does the Church have to do? It’s first inclination is to “RE-structure” itself, with “new” programs, “new” staff, “new” personnel.  That is where the Church is missing the mark.  The Holy Spirit is not about “RE-structuring” but “renewing”.  Dumping the old is part of the gospel message, for in Christ Jesus “all things are new”.   Renewal, rebirth, being “born again” is the heart of the evangelistic message, a message that Church better be prepared to hear or it will hear the song of Jeremiah to this generation, the song of lamentations. The evangelistic message is for the “lost”, and as a Church sometimes we must admit that we have “lost” our way, always in need of a Savior, always open to renewal, change, regeneration, rebirth.

There’s A Whole Lot Of Shaking Going On

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part LIII

When there is revival, a whole lot of shaking is going on!  Things get stirred up; change is imminent.  Often with revival comes messy situations with all the stirring.  When I cook in our kitchen, I usually make a mess to clean up because there is a whole lot of stirring, a whole lot of shaking, a whole lot of baking.  Getting all those different ingredients into the bowl is one challenge, keeping them from spilling out on the counter is another.  Only after the stirring comes the baking which solidifies all those different ingredients into one solid object, usually to be consumed.

As a public school teacher, I know that there is a whole lot of shaking and stirring going on, politically, and through educational reform.  Facing budget cuts in Pennsylvania, the education system from its State sponsored Universities down to its public schools are facing tough decisions.  Teaching, which has been looked upon as a stable profession, is about to get its legs cut out from underneath them.  As I said in earlier blogs: Teachers were revered in the ‘70’s because of the space program, respected in the ‘80’s due to Reaganomics, but in the ‘90’s it began to be the scapegoat of our society, being blamed for everything and labeled as failing.  That attitude was reinforced at the turn of the century as education was not only to blame, but also looked upon to fix itself.  Now in the second decade of this century it is asked to not only take the blame, fix it, but sacrifice for its good while American society itself is unwilling to do the same. 

While teaching The Diary of Anne Frank this year, I realized today’s students don’t understand the sacrifice it took at home to support our troops in World War II. They have no idea what a “ration book” is, nor the need for one.  We want our Ipods, Ipads, the access of the internet, social networking, and our 72 in. 3D digital TV’s with hundreds of channels for entertainment.  Our houses are measured by the number of bathrooms and how many car garage it possesses. Sacrifice?  We are supposedly in a “sluggish” economy, yet we still live as if in the boom days of the last century.  Americans always want “more”, never satisfied with what they have.  We want the new and improved Iphone, video game, software program, or electronic gizmo as soon as it come out.  Everything is instant; everything is throw away. How can we understand sacrifice?

We were told by Bush to invest in 401 plans in the Stock Market instead of pension funds before its crash during the last months of his presidency.  We are told private health care is better for all, when millions of our own Americans have none and can’t afford any because of low wages.  The rich are getting richer, and the Warren Buffets, Bill Gates, and Donald Trumps are idolized as the saviors of our society, living like fat cats as the middle class disappears. These men won’t preach sacrifice, and I am sure they will not practice it either. There is a shaking going on.

I almost feel like a Jeremiah, or other prophets that saw a whole lot of shaking going on in their time, and it did not look favorable, but they spoke out.  They usually met ridicule and were not popular with the political movements of their day, but they spoke out.  I feel that public education is just a microcosm of American society.  The American church also reflects the mores and attitudes of American society. If the pillars of American society are being shaken, then I am sure the pillars of the American church are also feeling it.

So I ask, “How should the American church react to all this shaking, all this stirring, all this cry for change?  How much is the Church willing to embrace.  Do they want revival to meet the challenges of a changing society?  It will take a “total surrender” and a “total breaking” of the believers of Jesus Christ if they are willing to surrender to the Holy Spirits lead and directions during this time of change and challenges.

If industry had to retool to survive the changes in this century, and now education faces a retooling, why does the Church feel it will be exempt?  The cry is a cry of a prophet, “prepare ye the way!”  Instead of being reactionary, the church must be a “leader” in this change, so let’s face the music and the time, and begin to accept the fact that America’s church needs retooling too!

Evangelism: Is It Like A Computer Menu?

Retro-Blob: Saved on my computer on June 16, 2004

I have had the privilege of attending many mass evangelistic crusades in my life.  At my first week long Billy Graham Crusade in Baltimore, Md., Dr. Graham was greeted as a celebrity to which he commented, “The last time my Lord came to town as a celebrity, in one week they crucified Him.”   Being a part of the outdoor Jesus Festivals in the 70’s which drew tens of thousands was awesome.  Most impressive to me was the Promise Keepers “Standing In The Gap” Crusade that saturated every inch of the Mall area of Washington, DC from the Capitol building to the Washington Memorial encompassing well over a million men.  The total silence created by praying men on their faces impressed me beyond words!

In spite of the large crusades that win souls for Christ, I still have to ask what happens to all of the souls that were just won for Christ!  One day while working on my computer, I had to save a file.  I became astonished when pulling down a menu screen I discovered over 30 different choices of formats to save my file.   I was apprehensive knowing that if you do not save the file under its proper format, you could not call that document up later under a different format.  With no standard set by the computer industry, all this diversity didn’t flow together.  In fact it opposed one another.   ¨

This made me reflect on one of today’s attitudes of the church.  When a new convert is saved, he is automatically labeled a Catholic, or Protestant, or Pentecostal, or an Evangelical, or a Fundamentalist, a Conservative or a Liberal, a Main Line Denominational, or an Independent, etc.  Even under those main divisions there are subdivision ie. Protestant: Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Methodist, Baptist, Mennonite, Church of God, Church of God in Christ, Church of the Brethren, and even Lutheran.  Under these subdivisions are even smaller groups: several kinds of Baptists, Lutherans, Mennonites, etc.!

When one is “saved” and labeled, he/she too is formatted through doctrine and theology by those who lead him/her into that decision, and has trouble functioning under or with another program or label.  Like the computer system, an argument over which program (or church organization) is better, more efficient, etc. propagates.

Some believe that  the church, like the computer industry, has no one standard (except the one they personally believe in), so all its diversity doesn’t flow well together either!  This belief is based on a false premise.  There is one standard by which all new born Christians are saved (or formatted), Jesus Christ.  Only through Jesus can one be saved, have eternal life in the Kingdom of God, have peace with his maker, the world, and with himself.  The only thing that can make diversity unite in the church is Jesus Christ by His Holy Spirit.  Mass evangelism proves this.  The invitation is not to become one of the above church labels, but to ask Jesus into one’s heart, being born again in Jesus Christ, creating a new spiritual life.

The church needs to quit fragmenting itself with labels that aren’t compatible with other labels in its own body!  Let’s pray and work for a body of Christ that is centered, focused, and moving forward with only one goal and aim, that of an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ!  If that is done, then the Church will never have a menu bar to be dropped bringing division again!