Beware Gypsy Presbyteries

“Beware gypsy presbyteries!”

It has been fifty years since the warning was prophesied to the church in that city. It was one of the larger cities of the greater Pacific Northwest region, and the prophet declaring the word was known by the church of that city, and was respected. “Beware gypsy presbyteries!” he declared.

I’ve been thinking about that word, and I’m hearing God breathing on it for my region. In fact, I believe God is re-breathing that word to the entire Pacific Northwest. He’s probably saying it to more than just our region, but I have confidence that this is the season for the Northwest to hear it. Fifty years ago, the church didn’t hear, or they didn’t understand, and there was a price that was paid for their failure, but that’s not the story I’m telling here.

But before I tell the story, I need to be clear about the position that I tell it from. I am not opposed to traveling ministries; I am not opposed to prophetic ministries. In fact, I have good friends in both camps, and I serve ministries that are in both camps. What I am about to say is not a declaration that such ministries are in error. That would be an untrue accusation. In fact, the very prophecy we’re discussing here was delivered by a traveling prophetic minister.

Think with me about that simple sentence: Beware gypsy presbyteries:

· Beware: watch out. There’s danger here. Be careful here; don’t get caught in it.

· Gypsy: in the less-politically-correct times of a half century ago, a gypsy was “a member of a people with dark skin and hair who speak Romany and who traditionally live by seasonal work and fortunetelling.” They traveled from place to place, with no roots in the places they visited, and no accountability in those places.

· Presbyteries: Bill Hamon defines a prophetic presbytery: when two or more prophets and/or prophetic ministers lay hands on and prophesy over an individual, a body, or a region, to minister a prophetic word, to identify gifts and placement in the Body or in leadership, to impart gifts and callings, or for ordaining to an office of ministry.

It’s probably worth mentioning that this a metaphor: I am not suggesting that there are either individual prophets or groups of prophets wandering from town to town performing fortune telling under the guise of prophetic ministry just to make a living. I’m sure that does occasionally happen, but again: that’s not the primary warning here.

These days, we have a large number of traveling prophets, visiting town after town, prophesying. I would expect that, like the gypsies of old, they were tempted to declare what people wanted to hear in order to generate better offerings, but again, that’s not the primary warning here.

The warning is to guard against depending on prophetic words from traveling prophetic ministries who have no root, no stake in this region. There is good that can come from visiting prophetic ministries, even from ministries that we don’t well know; the warning is against depending on those.

And this is a warning to the church; I am confident that this is a warning to the church in my region; I suggest you ask the Holy Spirit if it’s a warning to the church in your region as well. Fundamentally, this is a warning that the primary prophetic voice in our region must not be from traveling ministries. Our primary prophetic voice needs to come from the prophetic people of our own region.

Thirty years ago, there were a relatively large number of traveling evangelists. They’d come into town, hold a week or two worth of meetings, collect that many offerings, and move on to the next town. A few people came to Christ, more folks renewed forgotten vows, and some of the saints were encouraged. Sometimes.

But it was not an uncommon occurrence that the evangelist would say some things that confused some of the sheep. In my community, the departure of an evangelist would leave uncertain saints worrying about “Can a Christian really have a demon?” or “Can I really lose my salvation?” “Am I really in danger of hell after all these years?”

Pastors would talk with respect about some of the evangelists; others, they said, would “Blow in, blow up, and blow out!” and the pastors would be left to clean up the messes, soothe their worried sheep and answer their difficult and sometimes unnecessary questions.

In our generation, we have more prophets than evangelists blowing into town, declaring a prophetic sermon, prophesying with varying degrees of accuracy over several people in the audience, collecting the requisite number of offerings, and blowing on to the next town. Again, the pastors are left to clean up the messes, soothe their worried sheep and answer their difficult and sometimes unnecessary questions. These days, the questions include, “The prophet said this would happen; why isn’t it happening?” and “Why won’t the pastor recognize me in the role the prophet said I am called to?”

In other words, there are a number of pastoral problems with the church depending on traveling prophetic ministers. In order to deal with the pastoral questions, there is a temptation to reject the traveling prophetic ministry; I’m not sure that’s the right solution.

But there are also significant apostolic problems when the church depends heavily on travelling prophetic ministers, particularly when she depends on un-connected gypsy presbyteries. Some examples:

· If we don’t stand up and take responsibility for hearing what God has to say for our region, then why should we expect people who have no investment in the region to labor to hear God’s heart for our region?

· Prophetic words often don’t come to pass by themselves; we need to labor with them: fighting for the promises, fighting with the promises. Prophets who blow into town, declare a word (even a good word) and then are gone to the next town cannot labor to birth the word that’s been declared.

· If we depend on guest speakers for our prophetic declarations, then what happens when we need to hear from God and there is no guest speaker in town this weekend?

· When a church, a region, depends on others to bring the word of the Lord for them, then they have no motivation, no reason to raise up their own prophetic community. The church is justly famous for teaching on the gift of encouragement, the gift of giving and others; recently, the church has begun teaching on the gift of prophecy and how to hear God’s voice, but how often has either a congregation or the church of a region taught the people of their own region about how to walk in the difficult office of a prophet?

· If there are no prophets raised up and recognized in the region, then how will the church of the region recognize and stand up to the agenda of darkness and declare, “You shall not pass!” As a result, the region stands with weakened defenses.

If we are to be a healthy people, we need to develop a measure of strength in all of the gifts in our region. We will do well to welcome traveling prophetic ministries, but we need to develop lasting relationships with them; fortunately, in this generation, it’s very possible to build lasting, distant relationships.

I believe the Spirit of God is calling for maturity in the prophetic (in all of the gifts, really). It’s time to raise up mature prophetic communities in our region, communities that have the maturity to declare the word of God to our region, both to the church and to the “secular” community, communities that are self-replicating, raising up their replacements, communities that can discern and judge the declarations of the gypsy presbyteries.

Hands on!

I was reading through Acts 6, and my attention was drawn to verse 6. 

The story is the appointment of the first deacons. Our verse:

Acts 6:6: They presented these men to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.

The next verse points out “So the word of God spread, and the number of disciples multiplied.” There was a connection between this action and the spreading of the gospel. This is a powerful thing.

The New Testament Model

The Bible is thick with examples of God’s people laying hands on folks. Matthew 19:13 is the first NT example of someone laying hands on: “Then little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them.”
  

Mark 16:18 says that we will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.

Acts 13:3 speaks of the commissioning of the world’s first missionaries: So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.”

Acts 19:6-7 shows another application for laying on hands: “And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.”
  

So the Bible shows us we lay hands on people for four purposes:
  

1. Imparting a general blessing, such as our modern practice of baby dedication.
2. Healing the sick. In fact, Mark 6:5 suggests that healing is easier if we lay hands on in the process.
3. Commissioning people to an office, or consecrating them to that service or office. This one appears to be more dangerous than others (see below).
4. Imparting an increased manifestation of Holy Spirit’s presence and gifts. See also 1 Timothy 2:8 and 2 Timothy 1:6.

Luke 21:12 talks about a fifth kind of laying on of hands, but I don’t think we want to adopt this practice: “But before all this, they will lay hands on you and persecute you.”
  

The Danger of Laying on Hands

Some will correctly point out that the Bible gives a warning to the topic as well:

1 Timothy 5:22: Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, and do not share in the sins of others.This appears to reference #3 above: commissioning people to an office. And of course, a warning against laying hands on someone hastily is also an affirmation that while we must not rush, we are expected to lay hands on them.

There are members of the Body who – out of fear of error in this matter – have become unnaturally cautious, perhaps fearful, about laying on of hands. As a result, we have, intentionally or otherwise, come to the place where it is not acceptable to lay hands on an individual and consecrate them to service without at least a Bachelor’s degree in ministry. Preferably this is combined with a number of years of successful ministry, where “successful” is defined as “without significant moral failure.”

It is not my intent to minimize the danger. It is also not my intent to react out of fear and miss out on what appears to be a powerful weapon available to the sons and daughters of the Kingdom of God. I understand that there is a real danger; let us not fear to use the weapon because of fear of the danger.

  

The Invitation to Lay on Hands 

  

We are, in fact, clearly expected to lay hands on people in order to manifest the kingdom of God in them. I consider it similar to “painting the target” in modern warfare: “Holy Spirit, this is where to strike!”

Acts 6:6: They presented these men to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.

As I read the verse, I had the distinct impression that Holy Spirit was saying that we’re authorized to use laying on of hands more than we have been, and that we’re missing out on a fair bit that God wants to do in us, and on a fair bit of what we want to accomplish in him, because we’re missing out on the resources available to us.
  

Multiplication From Laying on Hands

  

I have been observing that the church is finally making a wonderful transition. For many years, we would work on increasing the effectiveness or range of our gifts. Evangelists would travel to more cities and host larger events. Pastors gathered larger churches. Teachers spoke to those larger congregations, and then to television and radio audiences, and then began to distribute tapes and CDs of their ministry.

It was a season of effectively adding to their ministry to increase the good things that were being accomplished in God’s name. More recently, churches, leaders and ministries have been offering training schools to raise up a new generation of leaders, to multiply their ministries. Growth always happens faster by multiplication, of course, than by simple addition.

The Book of Acts, the beginning of the Church, started the same way: “And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:47) When the twelve apostles laid hands on seven deacons, the next verse points out “So the word of God spread, and the number of disciples multiplied.”

This is actually the second time the New Testament speaks of the number of disciples multiplying: the first was verse 1, which led to the appointment of the deacons. It was because the crowd was multiplying that they started laying hands on others, and it was because of laying hands on others that the numbers were multiplied.

It is clear that laying hands on individuals is both a response to revival and a means of maintaining it. From this point forward in Acts, the spotlight moves from the apostles who had been doing the miracles to the deacons who were now the focus of the miracles. The twelve were not removed from the picture; they continued to teach (that was their main reason for appointing the deacons), and they governed the burgeoning megachurch. Later, the focus moves to the apostle Paul, who was healed and commissioned through Ananias laying hands on him.

The church grows when we lay hands on.

The Hidden Goodness of God

If God is good, how do we explain all the evil that happens to good people? How do I as a believer respond when my family, when godly people, are struck with unspeakable evil.

In the book of Job, we as readers get to peek behind the scenes of Job's torment, and we see what he does not: that it is Satan who does the work, and that he is inspired to do it by God's boasting of Job's righteousness. The book ends with the un-enlightened Job accusing God of the evil done to his family, and demanding an explanation for that evil. God's evasive answer is very enlightening.

God accepts the blame.

At no point in the book does Job learn that it was not God's hand that killed his family and destroyed his livelihood. God's answer can be boiled down to two arguments:

1) Job, you aren't big enough to understand, and

2) as a sovereign God, don't I have the right to take sovereign action?

It was only when Job understood those points that his fortunes were again reversed.

I conclude that I, like Job, am not big enough to understand all that goes on in the heavenlies. I know my Father is good. I know that He will bring something that His omniscience defines as "good" out of the tragedies that hit my life and the lives of the Cassie Bernals of the world. And I know that no matter what goes on, I can trust Him, even if I don't understand: justice will one day be done.

Oh yeah: I also know that when Satan steals from me and from mine, he owes me at least double for that theft. I don't need to stand there and suffer: my Daddy and I can fight back, and because we win when we fight, we can grab all the plunder I can carry from Satan's stinking, twisted fingers!!

God is good, but sometimes we have to apprehend that goodness by faith, not by our understanding.

Whose Spy Are You?

Now [the 12 spies] departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. Then they told him, and said: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.”

Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.”

But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.”

-- Numbers 13

Twelve spies were sent to spy out the inheritance God had provided for them. Two returned with good news, ten feared the worst. I see this kind of division in our day.

It’s apparent: God is on the move; Aslan is on the prowl. He’s saying to his people something very like he said to Abram in the beginning: “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you.” (Genesis 1:21)

God is clearly calling his people into action, and he’s saying very little so far about what he’s bringing us into. He’s clearly following the principle of Romans 14:23: “whatever is not from faith is sin.” If he were to tell us too much, we could not respond in faith. So he says, “Come to the land that I will show you. Eventually.”

One of the key principles for the day is that we must follow what he is saying now, not what he has already said. By way of illustration, we look at Abraham again: God gives him a son, then some time later he commands, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” (Genesis 22) Had Abe held onto that word, a true word that God truly had spoken, Zack would have been a corpse on top of the mountain; but because Abe did listen, he saw the ram, the provision from God, and sacrificed the animal instead. Zack’s life depended on Abraham listening for the “now word” of God.

Likewise, if we follow what God has said rather than what he is saying now, we will miss what he is doing now, and we will suffer great loss. Therefore one of the day’s key lessons is to learn to follow his still, small voice. Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice and I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27) It’s time for us to live up to those words.

It goes without saying that we listen to his voice; any other will lead us badly astray.

A second opportunity for growth comes this way: many believers are reporting that the season in which we live is an intense season; the pressure is heavy and is increasing, the pace is fast and picking up. The pressure is a temporary phenomenon, but the completion of the lesson is different than what many of us have experienced or hoped for. I believe that the season will end, not with the lifting of the pressure upon us, but with our growing to the point where the pressure is no longer a hindrance to us. It is we who will change, not our circumstances.

So our second lesson is about responding to difficulties. The lesson is about how we respond to pressure: do we respond with growth or with complaining? Do we notice what God is up to? Do we celebrate where we see his hand, where we hear his voice? Or do we notice the difficulties first? Do we fix our eyes on the obstacles in front of us? Do we notice the growing darkness more than we see the growing light?

If we recognize the darkness first, then whether we mean to or not, we are aligning ourselves with the ten spies that spoke out against what God was doing, who led the people in the rebellion that cost every last life in the community except Josh and Caleb.

Those ten had no expectation that they were condemning an entire people to death with their words; they believed that they were simply reporting the truth as they was it. But the truth that they saw, the spirit that empowered their words, brought three million people who believed them to an early grave.

The question is about what we speak about, what we meditate about; it’s about the words we use with each other. Jesus said, “… those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man.” (Matthew 15:18) If our words are about darkness, then our lives will be defiled by the darkness about which we speak.

Does that mean we should bury our head in the sand and pretend that there is no evil? Come on, you’re smarter than that: of course not. We don’t pretend the evil is not present; we simply don’t give it our primary attention; we don’t talk about it, we don’t empower it.

When we measure the darkness, we fail the great test of our day. When we celebrate the Kingdom and it’s King, we pass the test, we overcome the darkness, we fulfill Jesus’ prayer, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”

So what are you reporting about?

The Revival at the End of the Age?

Many people are declaring something along the lines of, "The greatest revival the world has ever seen is just ahead. The greatest miracles, the most wonderful wonder-working Church the world has ever seen is near." This is a wonderfully encouraging word.

The value of such a word, however, is determined not by how happy it makes us feel, but by the fruit it brings in the lives of those who hear it.

First, I need to clarify: I am neither denying or affirming that such a revival is coming. What I am doing is questioning the nature and the timing, and the results of these kinds of proclamations of it.

It is clear that the church has a consistent history of taking our strong wishes, presuming their truth, and building wonderful theologies of wishful thinking upon them. The above statement, and many more like it, was made more than half a century ago, and that might suggest that, at a minimum, his ideas of "just ahead" may not be the same as we normally mean by "just ahead.” The statement, while hopeful, has missed its mark.

It seems that every generation since the original Pentecost has believed that they were the final generation. So far, every single one of them has been proved wrong. Hope is a wonderful error, but it remains an error: hope built on an assumption is not hope built on God. Hope built on wishful thinking is a false hope, and false hope is my concern.

And this false hope has very serious consequences: the assumption that that we’re on the brink of a sovereign revival, then the human species tends to back off, to slow down in our part of the labor. It was a problem in the first century church (read 2 Thessalonians 3), and it remains to this day.

This complacency leads to (at least) two results:

1) Since the return of Christ is predicated on our success at certain tasks (Matthew 24.14), this false hope in fact delays the return of Christ. If we're not getting our part done, then we are delaying his part, his return. and

2) Because, many hopeful Christians have, over the centuries, complacently sat back and rested because of such a false hope, the result has apparently been that millions of individuals did not hear the gospel from their testimony, and presumably many of them are now suffering in hell, simply because some of those who were called to preach the gospel to them were waiting for the sovereign revival we’ve been declaring for so many generations.

I am suggesting that this is a problem: our focus on a sovereign revival is delaying the triumphant return of the Messiah, and is condemning people to hell. I repeat: I am not challenging the belief that such a revival is coming. I am challenging our response.

Nor am I suggesting that we deny hope to people. A hopeless church is an inactive church. Yet historically, a church motivated by false hope has also been a less active church. So what can we do?

Perhaps the answer is in avoiding either extreme position. Perhaps the answer is better found in honestly acknowledging, “Yes, God is going to do something dramatic. No, we don’t know when." Perhaps instead of focusing on what He is going to do, we can focus on what He has instructed us to do.

Jesus commanded that we pray, and gave us a model that includes praying, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on Earth.” He’s commanded that we go “to Jerusalem, Judea and the ends of the Earth.” He’s commanded that we preach the “Gospel of the Kingdom” (which is not the same as “the gospel of salvation”). He’s commanded that we make disciples “of all nations” (not “in” all nations). And he’s commanded us to “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons.” And he’s commanded that we do this with Himself, “Lo: I am with you always, even to the end of the Age.” There is a lot for us to do!

The end of the age will involve Jesus doing some things and it involves the Church doing some things. If the Church will focus on the person of Jesus rather than that part of the work that is His responsibility - if instead we will focus on doing the things that are OUR responsibility - then the work will be done sooner, and better, than it has been over the past couple of millennia.

It’s Time To Negotiate a New Contract

Most professional sports begin with a training camp of some kind. And many training camps begin with a level of controversy: very often, there are a few individuals that don’t show up for the beginning of camp. They’re often some of the best players, and they’re holding out in order to negotiate a better contract.

There are benefits and drawbacks for that renegotiation. The good is that a new agreement can be created, one without the assumptions of the previous season.

The drawbacks are plentiful in that kind of a negotiation. Chief among them is the fact that this quickly becomes an adversarial negotiation: opponents, each trying to get their own way.

And contract negotiations that impose on the sports season are always a distraction. They distract the players, those men and women who are preparing themselves for the upcoming battles. They also distract the fans, the people who are watching from the sidelines, including those that play the game at another level (whether PeeWee ball, or high school or college sports programs).

Any professional contract, for example a professional sports contract, is an agreement; the terms of my contract will spell out what I will do and what you’ll do. Generally there’s a correlation between how successful I am and how well I’m rewarded.

Michael Jordan had an amazing contract with the Chicago Bulls. He was paid handsomely, and he earned it: he was arguably the best player in the history of the team, both in terms of how he played (and won) the game, as well as his impact on the business: more fans bought tickets because Michael was playing.

Michael serves as an interesting example. In 1993, he quit playing basketball (he called it “retiring” to honor the terms of his basketball contract) and started playing minor league baseball. Suddenly Michael was playing a new sport. I’m not privy to Michael’s finances, but while “the best player in the history of the team” may earn a multi-million dollar paycheck, a very lanky outfielder in a mediocre minor league baseball team probably doesn’t get the same reward.

When the game changes, it’s time to negotiate a new contract.

That was surely true for Michael’s move from basketball to baseball, but that’s also true when a player moves from college ball through the draft to the world of pro sports. Matthew Stafford played football for Georgia for a few years, and he did quite well. College football players don’t When the Detroit Lions drafted him, they gave him a contract worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $42 million.

When the game changes, it’s time to negotiate a new contract.

We can say it in spiritual terms:

When there is a change of the priesthood, there must also be a change of the law. Hebrews 7:12

We’re in a season when the game is changing. Have you noticed the changes? God is on the move. For the last couple of decades, He’s been restoring the prophetic gifts to the church. In the last couple of years, he’s been taking it to the streets. For the last decade or so, He’s been restoring healing gifts to the church. In the past year or two, he’s been taking those to the streets. (Have you seen the videos of healing breaking out at Disneyland?)

I might even go so far as to suggest that we’re experiencing a change of priesthood.

Two thousand years ago, there was a fairly significant event that turned our relationship with God on its head; as a result, no longer are we under the law, but we are under grace. I suppose every generation needs to grasp that for themselves, that the church is not a minister of the law, of rules, of expectations, but it’s a place where we’re beginning to experience “the priesthood of believers.”

For generations, the pastor of the church has been “the minister,” and they meant it: he’s the one that studies the word and on Sunday morning, he presents it. He’s the one who visits the sick and prays for them, who welcomes visitors to the church.

In the past several years, we’ve watched as the body of the church step up out of our pews and begin to do the work of ministry. We’ve moved from “Pastor as minister” to “the body is the minister.”

When the game changes, it’s time to negotiate a new contract.

Finally, many of us as individuals are experiencing a transition to, for lack of a better term, a new level in God. We’ve outgrown the old; like in a video game, we’ve pretty well beaten the bad guys on our level, we’ve picked up all the plunder from the level we’ve been on for the past few years (or decades). Now we’re going through the awkward and uncertain phase of stepping into new role to which God is assigning us.

When the game changes, it’s time to negotiate a new contract.

So we are in a new game. The rules have changed. It’s time for a new contract with the team we play for. Besides, we didn’t change the game. God has changed the game. He’s ready for the new contract as well, though in the Bible, He called them covenants. I guess that’s what Jewish sports teams call their contracts. Bible scholars talk about the Adamic covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, the Davidic covenant, the New covenant. Lots of covenants.

Just as in professional sports, or with union contract negotiations: we can continue to work under the old contract if we choose, accepting less reward than is our due. A friend of mine said it this way: “That the old contract is up, the one where we had to accept 3 pennies for every dollar that we are worth”

When we negotiate our new contract with the Captain of our team (Human sports have the coach on the sidelines; ours is on the field of battle with us!), there are some principles that still apply:

First, we do not negotiate from an adversarial position, but from a position of favor. We don’t need to fight to persuade him to grudgingly give us the kind of reward that we are worth: he’s the one who is arguing, “No! You’re worth more than that! Ask for this as well!”

Then, knowing that God is your Daddy, your advocate, and that you’re his favorite kid, ask what you should contend for in this season: your kids? Your finances? (Yes, that’s legal!) Your marriage? Your community? Your region? Your nation? Another nation? An area of freedom in God? A new realm of ministry?

This is the part of the contract where you’re negotiating for what you’re going to get cheap on yourself here? What is it you really want? What are you willing to contend for, for that’s the third part: what is the work that you are willing to do to on your part?

Michael Jordan didn’t get paid his gazillions of dollars just because he was a nice guy. He earned it by playing the most amazing basketball that we had ever seen. He put on his jersey, marched out onto the court, picked up the ball and did whatever it took to put it through the hoop on the other end.

In our realm, we have some very valuable skills. We intercede and God changes things. We declare things, and they come to pass. We stare down the enemy with the praises of God in our mouths and all of Heaven breaks loose to destroy that bit of hell.

In times past, we’re told of worshipers who marched around cities, ahead of armies and in the courts of hostile kings. Today there are mountains in Korea, covered with tiny caves, each filled with praying believers. I know a man who has fasted forty days twenty times; he watches limbs grow out and gold dust form on his hands when he prays for the sick. I know another who fasted 120 days and saw the world change around him.

This is absolutely not a case of earning the rewards that we’re asking for: our families, our communities. But there is reason to suggest that if we are not willing to fight for our dreams, our children, our marriages, then who is? If those dreams don’t move us to passion, why in heaven’s name should we expect that they’ll move God or His angels to passion?

And so I counsel you to negotiate your contract for this new season that we’re entering: determine in advance what you want to have happen, and what you’re willing to do in order to lay hold of those dreams. Determine how you will respond to the favor of God that is calling you to pray, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”

Guarding How I See the Church

I've had to make some adjustments to how I see ... no, ... how I look at the institutional or denominational church.

You see, I’ve made a change. For those who read this blog regularly, you may not find this surprising, but here’s my change: I’m not entirely convinced that everything about the institution of the church in North America is completely inspired by Heaven. Shocking, I know. (What’s really scary: there are some folks who would take issue with that statement.)

I live among a people whose passion it is to pursue God. Some among us have left behind the participation in Sunday morning traditional church meetings. Many more of us have a sense in which we have transcended them: we still participate in local church meetings, but our first loyalty is to our Heavenly Father, and our second is to our relationships among the Saints; only after that comes the local church gathering. (And no, Sunday morning church is not synonymous with relationships among the saints.)

In every move of God I’ve seen (and I’ve seen several), there are two things that are pretty consistent: a) the people who are still embracing the last movement are the primary persecutors of the present move (and the new move often comments on this), and b) the people who are embracing the current move often define themselves by the last move: “We’re not like this; we’re not like that!” (We don’t notice this as often.)

Unfortunately, often “We’re not like that!” turns into permission to complain about all the things wrong with the old movement, with the previous traditions, with the way others do things. That’s not appropriate. Often enough, the complaints themselves are legitimate: they may be the very reason that there is a new movement, the reason the last one no is no longer as fresh as it once was. But permission has not been given us to publicly point out the failure of others, except in a very few circumstances. (See Matthew 18 for details.)

I have discovered that I have had to make some adjustments to how I look at the institutional or denominational church.

First, I have to not look too much. I am not a member of the institutional church. I don't aspire to be. I have no ambition to train people to be good at being obedient institutional members of an institutional church, so I don't need to look too much, and that's good, because when I look, I have more ability to criticize, and that also is not my goal.

I have a good Friend who said, "I will build my church," and I've come to understand that he's serious. Inductively, I observe that he is the only person he expects to build the church. I observe that "will" is not conditional, so the building is a certainty. And I observe that he uses a possessive pronoun: he considers the church to be his. Since I want to impress this friend, I've tentatively concluded that criticizing his "work in progress" is not conducive to favorably impressing him. Besides, I really am in favor of his church being built up. All of it!

Third, I've observed that the more I criticize when someone else does it wrong (or what I think is wrong), the more difficulty I have in doing it right. It doesn't matter what "it" is: if I focus on the errors, I don't have as much capacity to live rightly, or to help others live rightly.

Fourth, if my public message is about the failure of another group, how is that going to help that other group to grow, to improve, to overcome their challenges, whether I’ve seen them aright or not. Who among us has been encouraged to grow and change by continually being torn down? I believe that when I stand before God, I will be accountable for the effect of my words on those I lead, as well as on those I do not lead.

Oh, one more: I have become convicted that the institutional church that I see the faults of is not real: it's a caricature. I see what once was, back in the day when I lived among them, which is not who they tend to be now; and I see their worst, because that's what stands out the most. Moreover, the time between "back then" and now, coupled with my complete lack of God's anointing to remember their failings, has led to a skewed and incomplete memory.

I understand that when I look at “The Institutional Church,” or “The Last Move of God” or whatever group I am no longer part of, I am going to see things that I no longer believe in, and probably a few things that I have never believed in. That’s fine, but my job is not to point out the errors of those I am no longer among. My job is to follow God in the ways that he’s leading me and to train those around me to do the same.

And my job is especially not to complain about the Church for whom my Savior died.