Sorry for the long gap in between posts, but this month has been extremely eventful for my family. We’re in the process of selling our home and moving and it’s been CRAZY. Actually, I really want to tell the awesome story of what God is doing with us in relation to our provision and finances but that will have to be in another post.
What we’ve been going through, as a ministry can be summed up in one word: Stability.
Now, stability is a bad word to most Christians? It means “boring”, “tired” or “tedious”. But it’s what we are going after right now. I appreciate the short bursts of growth, power and forward momentum. But until we reach a place of stability, those bursts will simply come and go, leaving us disheartened and disappointed, with the taste of revival lingering in our hearts but without the substance of revival in our midst. When we have stability, we have the whole enchilada. When the supernatural becomes natural, then we are reaching a place of stability. I don’t want another “drive-by” touch of revival. I want to wake up with it, go to bed with it and have it in between.
In the last year and a half we have had a pretty sustained burst of forward momentum. Don't get me wrong, not everyday is neon and lights, but quite steadily for the last 18 months we have been moving forward at an explosive pace. We went from having weekly believers meetings to teams going outside the church, taking the Kingdom everywhere they go six days a week. We went from having no house churches to about 15 of them. We’ve been catapulted into taking part of the greatest move of God in history. It’s going on right now all across the world as normal, everyday believers pick up their sword and enter the fight for the souls of our cities. We’ve been catapulted from complacency into action, from revelation into manifestation and from being meeting centric to being equipping centric. We have been catapulted into being doers of the word and not hearers only, putting feet to our faith. Actions have been added to our belief and good fruit is the result.
Now we have to maintain, grow and develop something that’s still very much in its infancy. We have to change the baby diapers and start to grow up an infant move of God. The new believers have to be discipled. The touch of the Kingdom of God in their lives must become their lifestyle. Everything that has been gained must be cultivated and kept. Every foot of ground that we have taken in lives, in neighborhoods and in our city must be fortified and expanded. The groups of two three and four believes must become ten, fifteen, twenty and thirty. The house meetings where believers are being discipled need to start bursting with life. We want these living room meetings of new believers to be standing room only!
THE EVERYDAY MIRACULOUS
Not to say that there aren’t miracles happening. In fact, just this last Sunday we had over and hour of testimonies of salvations, healings and miracles. We have had multiple financial miracles in our midst, family members giving their lives to the Lord and instant answers to prayer. An infection in the arm was healed on the streets in Atlanta and bleeding in the brain was stopped as a couple of believers agreed in prayer. In a house church meeting last week, a man with reduced vision due to cataracts and a burning in his stomach (possibly an ulcer?) was instantly healed when he received prayer. His eyes cleared up and the pain left his stomach right away. Did that take place at a big conference or special meeting? Nope. It was just Tuesday; yet another day in the week when believers are stepping outside the walls of the church to “do the stuff”. Actually, there is hardly a day that does by that I don’t get a phone call, get an email or get told an awesome testimony of the “Everyday Miraculous”.
There are trials and there are tests. Some of the new believers have fallen away from the faith, being taken captive again by sins that once ensnared them. It hurts all of us when something like this happens. We are praying, we are fasting and we are believing God to break their hearts once again. The enemy strikes at our progress and we strike back. Just a few weeks ago, the work came to a grinding halt for a week because at a church picnic there was an outbreak of food poisoning. Dozens of people were taken out from their jobs, schooling and ministry for over a week. Every step is contested by the enemy, but we’re just not going to give him much air time in talking about his work.
MULTIPLICATION
The season that we’ve been in has been one of addition, but we are strongly feeling that we are entering a season of multiplication. The Lord is highlighting areas of the States, areas of the world and people groups where we are being sent to equip the saints to do the same stuff we are doing; Power evangelism and house church planting. We don’t necessarily feel called to just plant churches in other countries, but we feel a calling from the Lord to establish church planting movements in other cities, as well as in other countries. In just the last month or two we have received multiple invitations to several places around the states and also Africa, India, Pakistan and Eastern Europe. Truly, God is up to something.
To me, the true sign of success in ministry isn’t having large, well attended meetings or a sparkling church building that houses an unstable work. It would be to have a growing, thriving ministry that is stable and bearing much fruit, week in, week out, month in, month out and year in, year out.
But that's just me.
