Are You Ready For Some FOOTBALL?

Sorry that the updates have been infrequent this month… Crazy busy. It’s primarily due to a team from our church and a mission trip to visit Heidi and Rolland Baker in Pemba, Mozambique, but that is the subject of another update.

Anyway, it’s Friday night and I’m home with the kids. I just got them to bed and sat down at the computer to write out what’s been going on lately. Our outreach schedule says that I should be out taking a team on an outreach tonight, but alas, I am home. Why? Well, mainly because my wife INSISTED on going to a football game tonight. It’s not because she likes football either. In fact, she couldn’t give a rat’s hind end about the game of football. The reason that she wants to go is because in the last three weeks, we have seen several dozen kids give their lives to the Lord, over 50 instant healing miracles and a couple hundred kids get their mail read prophetically; and all at high school football games!

Last year, my buddy Joel in California gave us a great tip: Go to high school football games. They are fantastic opportunities to see the kingdom of God break out in power. Evangelistically, it’s like fishing in a barrel! There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of kids hanging out and this generation is ravenous for the power of God! If you bring the power, more often than not you will see the Kingdom of God break out and the fire of God spread all over the school.

JUST LAST WEEK...
My wife was inspired to jealousy because one of the young mommies in our church was powerfully used by God. Imagine the picture of what happened, a young mommy with her tiny 2 month old baby in a Baby Bjorn kid carrier sleeping soundly while she boldly preaches the Gospel to a rowdy group of high school kids in the concession area of a football game! Kids are being healed, kids are getting saved and there is mommy and baby right in the middle of the melee, prophesying, healing and leading people to Jesus! The prophetic revelation that she was getting was startling! She received several names of kids best friends, she told them what their parents did for a living and told them all sorts of intimate details about their lives. Now, I would pay serious money for a picture of that scene, wouldn’t you?

Well, that’s what happened last Friday and that’s not even all of it! Also last week another couple of young ladies from the church “got into it”, as we say. They had over 20 instant healing miracles in a little over an hour! Backs, necks, ankles, knees and arms all healed! Pain disappearing, mobility returning, swelling leaving and people doing things that they couldn’t do barely two minutes before prayer. After a power demonstration and the preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, they gave an invitation for kids to give their lives to Jesus. In one fell swoop, eight kids got born again! And that was just one football game out of three that our teams were at.

My favorite part of these two girls’ testimony that they gave last Sunday was that they were slogging away, praying for the sick and prophesying over people for over an hour before things started to break loose. They were being mocked and ridiculed by 11 and 12 year old kids as they prayed and nothing happened. At one point they thought to themselves, “What are we doing?” So what did they do? Did they turn tail and run away? Nope. They just kept going. They kept praying and they kept prophesying. When healing broke out, it broke out BIG.

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT…
Was just as good! One of the teams that went out had some healings start to happen right after they got there. They found a couple of kids with injuries; broken arm and sprained ankles. As they prayed for them, all the pain left and their mobility returned and kids were able to do things that they couldn’t do. The result? They run away only to come back with their friends and friends’ friends. In no time at all there is a hungry group of young people desperate for a touch of God! Necks, backs, arms, legs, ankles and necks are being healed now; each healing produces more excitement and the expectation builds. Someone with a herniated disk in their back experiencing severe pain and limited mobility is healed on the spot. Another kid with a busted ankle who can’t fully extend his foot is running up and down the sidewalk demonstrating his newfound mobility and lack of pain saying, “I’m healed! I’m healed!”

One of the kids comes up to my brother Jordan, who is 18 years old and asks him sincerely, “Are you Jesus or something?” Totally flabbergasted that the sick are healed and that these strangers (us) know all sorts of supernatural revelation about them, their only thought is, “is this guy the Lord?” They explain, “No, we’re not Jesus, but we know Him and His power is at work inside of us!” They explain the Gospel of the Kingdom and exhort many to follow King Jesus with all of their hearts and lives. They are all professing Christians, but are confronted with the reality of Heaven that speaks loudly against their dead religion.

AND THEN THE WEEK BEFORE THAT…
What I would call a Biblical miracle takes place. One of the girls in our church takes her kid brother, who is ten years old with her to a game. In no time at all they “get into it”, prophesying over kids left and right. The young guy (who is ten years old, mind you) stands side by side with his sister healing the sick and prophesying over kids 5-20 years his senior. Imagine a line of high school kids, lining up in front of a ten year old kid, waiting expectantly for the word of the Lord coming from his lips or the healing touch from his hands! Did you just hear what I said? These are high school kids! You know, kids totally obsessed with being cool that they will do anything to maintain their “cool” status… Well, what’s cool about waiting in line to hear from a ten year old?

You know, who really cares when he is dispensing the power of God!

The Real Deal

We just got through having a meeting with Surprise Sithole with Iris Ministries (www.irismin.org) in Mozambique, Africa. We had met him earlier in the year and were given the opportunity to host him again. For those of you who don’t know who he is, let me sum up. This guy is currently overseeing over 8,000 churches in 28 nations! He is a true apostle who has seen the Lord and has raised the dead many times. In addition, he and many with him have been beaten, stoned and suffered greatly for the Gospel. There is just something about spending time with someone like that, that can greatly change, shift or clarify your perspective. We were able to take him to dinner and over dinner I was able to ask him questions and pick his brain about what they are doing out there n Africa.

I was just telling my wife how much I can glean out of little impromptu meetings like that. When David Hogan was here in 2004 I had a couple of questions to ask him. When he answered them I was able to move forward in faith with what I knew the Lord was telling us to do. The result? We now are preaching the gospel on an almost daily basis and into 28 places every month! Pretty good fruit from a little conversation I would say.

REMEMBER YOUR LEADERS!
Soon after I got baptized in the Holy Spirit, the Lord spoke something so important to me about who I should learn from and what I should learn from them. He gave me this scripture:

“Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.” Hebrews 13:7

If you pay attention to this scripture, it was save you a bunch of time and energy and greatly increase the produce of your life! This scripture says that we are to remember our leaders and consider the OUTCOME of their way of life! That’s where we get so tripped up! We don’t heed this scripture and follow after what leaders SAY, not the FRUIT or OUTCOME of their way of life! So basically, we are to look at our leaders FRUIT, not their great messages, not their revelations or even their personalities. FRUIT talks, everything else walks!

So what I do is simple. I scour the earth for people who have a significant ministry along the lines of what I want to see in my own life. The result is that I have found a few who actually LIVE what they preach about! Many talk revival, but who is walking in it? Many have theories on city taking, but who has conquered a city? Many have prophecies about revival, but who is living in one? Whose lifestyle is PRODUCING what they preach? Who actually has the FRUIT of the Gospel, not just pretty words about the Gospel?

My list is short, I don’t know about yours. But David Hogan in Mexico and the guys who are working with Freedom Ministries and Heidi and Rolland Baker and whoever is working with Iris Ministries are on my list. SO when these people speak about their lifestyle, you can take it to the bank! When I started doing in our neighborhoods what David Hogan does in the villages of Mexico I started seeing what he sees! It’s not rocket science! When I imitate their faith, I get what they have! I have seen this work with Hogan and now I am looking forward to seeing it work with Surprise Sithole.

LESSONS FROM SURPRISE
Well, when Surprise was here I had a few more questions to ask him. Most of them centered on equipping and releasing leaders, something that they are doing a spectacular job of! I mean, do the math, 8,000 churches in about 7 years. 7 years x 365 days a year = 2,555 days. And they have panted 8,000 churches in 2,555 days! That’s over 3 churches planted EVERY SINGLE DAY! That’s crazy folks! And these are BIG churches! Many of them involve entire villages that come to Jesus as a result of the power of God being displayed. Many of these churches have 500, 1,000 and more!

One of the keys to their spectacular growth is because they can get in a place, preach the gospel, impart to leaders and leave leaders that produce other leaders! They aren’t churches in and of themselves, they are church planting churches! So when they plant one church in a village, many from that village will go out and plant churches. They plant one church and that church plants ten churches that plant 10 churches each! Talk about multiplication! It’s like MLM for Jesus!

So the questions I had for him were about raising up leaders. Our folks that lead people to Jesus and are discipling new believers can get worn out pretty quickly, especially when people don’t change or act crazy. And a lot is depending on them. Many times if we don’t show up in a neighborhood and lead everything, then nothing happens! What they have managed to do is QUICKLY release new leaders to lead people. With my American (business) mindset, this seems so hard to do. But that’s what I got from Surprise! Here’s a guy that oversees over 8,000 churches in over 28 nations and he is one of the most childlike, simple and joyful people I have ever met! Most church leaders that I know lead one church and are covered up in worry, doubt and fear about finances and people. Far from childlike, they are about as fun as a heart attack and have the personality of a head of lettuce. They more resemble CEO’s than childlike simplicity.

TWO QUALIFICATIONS
So as I peppered Surprise about raising up leaders, two qualifications emerged for their leadership. Now these two qualifications are so simple and so biblical that they have absolutely no place in the Western church. I guess that’s why we don’t raise up church planting movements that plant 8,000 church in 7 years and lead and disciple over a million people to the Lord in that same time frame? So, putting all your ridiculous notions of what leaders should be like, are you ready to hear how they qualify leaders in Africa?

QUALIFICATION #1 – “HUMILITY"
Surprise told us that when they are raising up leaders, they never select the person who pushes themselves forward and desires leadership over others. He told me that they are the ones that produce all the problems. I can say that in our own ministry, that has absolutely been the problem. It’s like the more they want authority over others, the worse of a leader they turn out to be! So they look for the person sitting in the back, who doesn’t push themselves forward. They are looking for humility and childlikeness. Children aren’t looking for positions of leadership, yet unless we become like a child we can’t enter the Kingdom! So they award humility, not persistence. We have given people charge before basically because they wore us out with asking, asking, asking! But in every case it has turned out badly.

Lesson learned.

QUALIFICATION #2 – “DRUNKENNESS”
I kept asking and he kept telling. He said that the ones that drink of the Holy Spirit the most are the ones they are looking for! He said that the ones who get absolutely plastered in the Holy Ghost make the best leaders. The ones that stay full, get filled and keep drinking are the ones that will best take the move of God to higher and higher levels! I thought about this and besides being a command (Be filled with the Spirit!) being filled with the Spirit is EXACTLY what leaders need. They don’t need to be full of knowledge because knowledge puffs up. They don’t need to be full of good ideas or human gifts because the church isn’t built by human wisdom or ingenuity. They need the Holy Ghost! The church is built up and strengthened through the power of the Holy Spirit! So what we need is more of the Holy Spirit and the power of God!

How simple and how profound. What this did for me is make it so simple. We are looking for people who are full of the Spirit and who are humble. They can take the move of God to the next level. Their humility allows them to be led by the Spirit. Their being filled with the Spirit enables them to accomplish much more than the one full of themselves!

Look out world! Here we come, armed with the simplicity of the Gospel!

Muchos Milagros!

Or, “Lots of miracles” in English. Last week, I had an email box full of testimonies and I just have to share them with you. One peculiar anointing that we have seen for healing has been in sending people prayer cloths and handkerchiefs that our church has prayed over, according to Acts 19:11-12. Upon contact with these handkerchiefs, the power of God routes and destroys cancer and other incurable diseases! How cool is that?

Anyway, last Sunday at church there was no preaching, no teaching and no equipping from the pulpit. Instead, there was over an hour of testimonies of the power of God moving out in the marketplace! The best part is that the testimonies came from people in all walks of life. Mommies with kids, businessmen, teenagers, students and even grandparents are out there “doing the stuff” and advancing the Kingdom of God!


GOD @ WORK
One of the guys in our church, a business man that owns a heating and air company testified how he was on the job with a Chinese gentleman he was working with. As they talked, he began to minister to the Chinese brother sharing the Gospel of the Kingdom. After a few minutes he asked the man if he had ever made Jesus King and Lord of his life. The Chinese guy responded that yes he had. “When did you do that?” the guy in our church asked him. “Well, I did it about 5 minutes ago when you were talking and I believed what you said for the first time!” Forget a prayer of salvation! This guy just heard and then believed in his heart!

A few days later this same guy came to work with an adverse reaction to working with insulation on his forearms and hands. They were very swollen and itchy. When the guy in our church saw this he said, “Remember Jesus?” “Oh yes, of course I do!” the Chinese brother said. “Well, he’s not only our Savior but He is also our healer!” He then prayed for the man. Within hours, ALL of the symptoms had left the new believer!


ESOPHAGEAL CANCER HEALED!
A computer programmer at our church had a discussion with a colleague about his father who was recently diagnosed with stage 3 cancers of the esophagus and giving a very slim chance of living. The guy from our church preached the good news of the Kingdom of God to him, that God's will and purpose for his father was to be healed, according to the Lord's Prayer. Several folks at the church prayed over a handkerchief, according to Acts 19:11-12 and gave it to the young man who was leaving for what he thought was his last trip to visit his ailing father. He took the anointed handkerchief and gave it to his father praying a simple prayer of healing.

After some time passed the co-worker came up to the gentleman from our church and said, "I don't know if it's something you did or what, but it's (the cancer) going into remission and is almost completely gone!"


COLON CANCER HEALED!
A gentleman in our church owns and operates his own business. On hearing that one of his clients was diagnosed with colon cancer he asked the church to pray over a handkerchief according to Acts 19:11-12. He gave it to the man with colon cancer who actually slept with the handkerchief. On returning to his doctor he found that all of the cancer was gone!


CYSTIC FIBROSIS HEALED!
A mommy in our church heard about a 4 year old child that lived in her neighborhood that was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis by two different doctors over a period of about a year. She requested permission from the mother, who allowed her to pray. As she prayed, she prophesied that the little girl no longer had the disease and encouraged the mother to take her back to the doctor. The doctors checked the little girl out and pronounced her free from Cystic Fibrosis!


MIRACLES ON THE JOB!
A businessman in our church had contact with a client that was involved in a very serious accident that left him in terrible condition. Upon hearing about the accident, he desired to pray for his client but others in the company would not release information about his whereabouts. This one woman at the company was, as he later found out, sick of "all that Jesus stuff".

Working with what he had to work with and simply believing that prayer knows no boundaries he prayed, believing that the Lord would touch him anyway. Several weeks later the client who was in the hospital was released. He called the gentleman in our church thanking him and giving credit to the power of his prayer for his miraculous recovery saying that he was the only one who was believing for his recovery. Even his family and close friends were resigned to his death. The lady at the company who stopped him from coming for prayer was immediately fired.


THE INCREDIBLE CHANGING DIAGNOSIS!
One of the gentlemen in our church works as a contractor and has held many of the same clients for many years. Over the years, the Lord has used him dramatically on the job to release healing over friends and family in the neighborhood. So much so that many times when these clients and family members get a bad report from the doctor, the first thing they will do is call this brother from our church to come over and pray!

As he prays, he often declares that everything the doctors saw in X-Rays, MRI’s and CAT scans will disappear and they will be given a clean bill of health. Spots on lungs, livers and brains have many times either totally disappeared or are changed from malignant to benign growths. Also, he has even prayed for family pets and seen dramatic healings and miracles, drawing their owners close to the Lord!

Just had to share...

"IT’S SHRINKING!"

Last week we were back at our old stomping grounds, the parking lot. We were out there after a hiatus of about a month. As usual, we got the chance to preach the Gospel to a bunch of very rebellious kids. We even had the police called on us. Why? Because some kids apparently don’t like hearing about the kingdom of God. Whatever. But something cool went down that really encouraged me. I was with a new friend of ours visiting from Australia. He wanted to come see us and participate in a couple of outreaches. (Think about it, 27 hours on a plane just to come see little old us!) We’re out in the parking lot for five minutes and I see a group of kids that we had preached to several weeks before, when David Baker was in town from Mexico. They were a very loud, obnoxious bunch of God haters, violently opposed to the gospel. One of the kids even bumped me with his car to get me to move out of a parking space where I was preaching to his friends! His reward for doing that was a sermon, from me, inches from his face… ha-ha.

SAVED FROM THE BRINK OF DEATH
Remember me telling the story about the kid whose neck got snapped? Well, he’s totally fine today. He walked out of the hospital only a few hours after getting taken there by the ambulance with severe injuries. God really touched him. We were fortunate enough to reconnect with him a few weeks after that happened and witnessed to him, telling him what went down in the parking lot and how God delivered him from death. That encounter left him shaken and we were there with some words of life and prophecies about his future. He let us pray for him a few weeks ago, which was a big deal. This guy has been running with gangs for years and was pretty hardened to the things of God. But not anymore!

We see him, walk over to him and he’s a totally different person! Gone are the gang clothes, the hardened look and the terrible language. I mean, we can hardly believe that this is the same guy! Since our last encounter with him, his life has totally been transformed. His Dad, who repeatedly abused him as a child had died and he was able to bury all of that unforgiveness and anger with his Dad. The Lord had been speaking to him and providing the grace to change and change he did! He sat there and told us for 15 minutes all of the differences since our last meeting. No more gangs, no more illegal behavior, clean and on his way to being sober! Thank You Jesus! Rescued from the grave!

QUIET HATRED TURNED TO VOCAL PRAISE
But that was just the start. A friend of his, another guy that was violently opposed to the Gospel barely more than a month before, came up to us to tell us what had been going in his life. He overheard our conversation with his friend, the now ex-gang member and was compelled to us of the changes in his life. Weeks before, he just sat there while we were vilified and persecuted by his friends, adding only an occasional slur in our direction. He was a tough nut, wouldn’t even speak to us, except to cuss me out. Well, he came up to us all bubbly and excited and just started talking! He told us how he had seen a couple of miracles since we last saw him and believed in Jesus now. His neighbor invited him to a ministry facility somewhere south of Atlanta and he had actually witnessed a healing of cancer in a close, personal friend. He was totally convinced and preached to us for almost 45 minutes! The Lord had dramatically proven Himself to former this God hater, transforming him from a skeptic to a full fledged preaching believer! Very cool! So now we have another ally in the fight against the kingdom of darkness. But this time, it’s an “inside man”.

Like the Lord, I try to always save the best for last…

DOES GOD HEAL SATAN WORSHIPPERS?
We received a follow up from a guy we prayed for about six weeks ago. He is literally a Satan worshipper and with his very mean girlfriend; railed against up for over an hour the last time we saw them, assailing us with the most horrendous language you could ever imagine! They were saying things to provoke us to anger and hurled some obscene garbage at us about the Lord! Sick! Anyway, after persisting with them and totally demonstrating supernatural self control (to not punch them in the mouth), we finally started getting some information from them. The big guy turned out to have an inoperable brain tumor and the doctors had only given him another 3-6 months to live. So he was going gangbusters, drinking, partying, taking drugs like there was no tomorrow. And for him, without hope and without Jesus, there was no tomorrow. That is, until we showed up. We told him of the Kingdom of God and how God wanted to prove His love and mercy to him by healing him. It took awhile, but he finally let us pray for him, under the condition that we wouldn’t touch him. So we took what we were given and cursed the tumor, only extending our hands to him, but not touching.

While we were talking with our new preaching friend, I see the Satanist out of the corner of my eye. Not wanting to be rude to my new buddy I don’t interrupt him. The “Satanist” comes up to me and hesitantly extends his hand for a handshake, looking me right in the eye (something that he couldn’t do before) and then he tells me, “It’s Shrinking!” For a minute there, I forget what he’s talking about. In fact it takes a few minutes for me to recall the whole encounter we had with him a few weeks before (sometimes I’m slow!). But he’s excited and says it to me again, “It’s Shrinking!” Getting some more details, we find out that he had been in for another appointment since we had seen him and the tumor had shrunk dramatically! I ask him if the Lord has his attention yet and he nods in the affirmative. I tell him, “that’s awesome, now what?” You see, we made an agreement that he would give his life to Jesus if the Lord healed him. He looks dead at me and says very sincerely, “I’ll give you a call when it’s totally gone”.

I love it when they come back. (Luke 17:17)

On We Go In Jesus!

The work continues as the lost are saved, the sick are healed, those with demons are set free, the poor have the Gospel preached to them and new believers are being discipled and grown up into the things of God. Just a couple weeks ago, a young man with a couple of broken ribs was instantly healed. All the pain left his body and he was able to breathe and bend normally! He was very grateful of the goodness of God on his behalf. A couple of neighbors in one of the worst places we are in are both schizophrenic and suffer greatly with anxiety and fear. We looked them both in the eye and told them that they have demons. They begged us to pray for them and when we did, both of them went from a nervous wreck to completely at peace. One of the ladies couldn’t even look me in the eye; the demonic presence was so strong in her. After prayer for deliverance she sat there and talked to me almost normally, looking me right in the eye.

It’s not always pretty and it’s definitely not polished or slick. There aren’t any programs and there isn’t a training school that can prepare you for the worst the devil can do with people. Every day in the trailer parks and low rent apartments is like an episode of Jerry Springer. Fighting, cursing, drugs, sex, sin and sickness plague the poor. It’s our job to bring in the light of God and transform once dark places into lighthouses for the gospel. It’s our job to invade the kingdom of darkness at work in the hearts, bodies, lives and homes of these poor souls. Sometimes it’s instant and a sunburst of God breaks through the darkness and depression. Other times it takes a minute. And by a minute, I mean a week, a month or a year.

We’re undoing generational garbage that has destroyed these folks for years. We’re shining light on habits and patterns of sinful behavior that has destroyed family after family. We don’t win every fight. Some people go back to their darkness. Some have the mercy and grace of God revealed to them only to turn away from the Lord. Some gain their healing, go back to their sinful lifestyle and come out the other side worse than before we met them. It’s our hope and our prayer that every one would serve Jesus with all of their heart, but that’s just not the way it is. It’s our job to love the unlovable, preach hope to the hopeless and faith to the unbelieving. Everyone loves the testimonies of when God breaks through, but few are able to hang in there when things don’t go our way. It takes perseverance and patience. It takes longsuffering and unquenchable faith. It takes a full measure of the Holy Spirit and Jesus!

GROWING PAINS
We’re going through another growth spurt right now as several more believers in our church are getting stable. That is, stable enough to make a weekly commitment to the lost, hurting and dying. That commitment means that a neighborhood will be touched with the Gospel. Imagine that, one believer’s commitment to one night a week means that they can impact two neighborhoods a month! But many, many believers can’t even do that. Their lives are in turmoil and their priorities are way out of whack. They want to be a help, but they can’t. The truth is, stable, mature believers = growth and a spreading of the Gospel. Until you are stable, the lost can’t count on you. Until you are stable, you’ll just be an irregular blip on the radar of the unsaved. But when you get stable and when you get a little commitment working on your life, all of a sudden, they can count on you. When you simply do what you say you are going to do, you stand out form the crowd as one who has integrity.

So now we are in about 25 different neighborhoods now and just keep trucking along, doing what we’re doing. Our core team is being strengthened and expanding, which is good news for the kingdom of God and bad news for the kingdom of darkness. During our weekday outreaches, it’s now common to be sending out 4 or 5 teams to different neighborhoods. Each of them comes back with stories of miracles, healings, prophetic evangelism and salvation experiences. It’s so hard to catalog and keep up with all the testimonies! I have to get them to send me emails detailing what happened each night just to keep a pulse on what’s going on. I am never disappointed.

One of the things I particularly love is hearing the reports of our folks getting words of knowledge and discernment of spirits for people, revealing their hearts and leading them to Jesus. The Lord is so extravagant with prophetic revelation; even more so when we make a determination to use the gift for evangelism. Just about everyone walking out the door now is walking in some measure of the prophetic, which is awesome. Just a few years ago, we would have deified these folks and have them traveling as an itinerant minister when they demonstrated such gifts. It’s not uncommon for the Lord to reveal very specific details about a person, their physical condition, their family situation, etc. What is predictable is their response! When the secrets of a person’s heart are revealed, all they can do is bow down and surrender their lives to Jesus!

The lists of new believers continues to grow. Many of them have been baptized in bathtubs. We had a coworker of one of the new believers take issue with that. He was offended that he wasn’t baptized into a church or inside a church baptismal, as if the water is holier there or something. Believe it or not, this was a Baptist! You would think that a good old southern Baptist boy would just be happy that the lost are converted and being baptized, but religious spirits rarely see the good.

One other interesting thing is the Lord has been sending us people literally from all over the world. We have had several folks in from the UK and this week a gentleman from Australia came all the way out to spend a week with us on the streets, seeing God move. We just know that each of them will get impacted and ignited in the things of God, taking the fire back to their cities, towns and nations. Even here in the states, there have been several folks from across the country coming to visit, to partake and to witness what the Lord is doing here. We are encouraged as others, even in our own city are making quality decisions to take up their sword and engage in this fight!

What are we going for? For starters, we want to see one American city truly and honestly fall to the Gospel of the Kingdom.

We’re going to see it.

PS – It’s my birthday! For a fleeting moment, it’s all about me! Happy Birthday to me!

“The Good Guys Don’t Hide”

That’s a line I heard from a movie some time ago that stuck with me. I actually think that it’s Biblical and we try to practice it in every situation. When we’re witnessing out in the parking lots and the police sweep in to arrest folks that are breaking the law and loitering, etc., at first we wanted to run with all of the other kids. Then it hit me, “Hey, we’re doing nothing wrong! We have no reason to hide!” I mean, after all, we’re out there witnessing to people about Jesus, leading people to the Lord and healing the sick Why should we (the good guys) run like chickens from the police? Sure, there are laws that tell people to not loiter, but we’re not loitering, we’re working for the Gospel! So I made it a policy, “Don’t run from the police”.

It’s actually come in handy a few times. It makes us stand out from the crowd. We’ll be standing there talking to people and preaching when the police will fly into the parking lot, sometimes 3-4 cop cars strong. They are there to break up groups of people, check for drugs and arrest bad people doing bad things. So when they roll in, everyone runs for their cars and tries to get the heck out of there. When we just stand there, unaffected by the police, it makes a statement. A couple of times the police have come to us (seeing that we are the only people left) to ask us what was just going down and who the bad guys are. Because we didn’t run, they assumed we were ok and not doing anything wrong. And we are!

Last weekend we saw this principle demonstrated and it made quite an impact on a group of kids who thought they were hot stuff. Friday we went down to be with a group of believers in Newnan, GA. It was a good time as we were able to preach, teach and minister Friday night and then on Saturday morning, about 30 people descended on the streets of Newnan to preach the Gospel, heal the sick and cast out devils. There were several healings as ankles, arms, backs and necks were healed instantly, on the street, in Wal-Mart and at Home Depot.


AN INVITATION
One of the places that we went was the projects. One minute in the neighborhood and you could discern that there are some rough people here doing some rough stuff. I always like to scan the area, looking for the biggest and most intimidating sinners we can find. We go to them FIRST. It’s like William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army said, “Go for sinners and go for the Worst!” So there was a group of about 6-7 kids, dressed like gang bangers. When we drove through their cul-de-sac, they gave us the “evil eye”. They stepped off the curb, walked towards us and made motions like they were reaching for something in there belt as if to say “get out of here!”

Well to some, that would be a put off, but to me it’s an invitation! All we were doing was looking for a place to park but they were looking to rumble and intimidate. Bring it on! We park the car down the street from them and walk up the long sidewalk headed their way. You could tell right off the bat that they were surprised, as if no one looking like we did (four preppy white boys) would dare approach such mean “gangsters” like them! Whatever. I have learned something ministering on the streets and it's this, “the bigger they are, the harder they fall… to the Gospel!” So we walked right up to them and immediately started with, “Listen, we’re here to tell you that the Kingdom of God is on the earth and Jesus is King!”

They weren’t impressed.

They told us, one by one, how they believe in God and how they pray at night. So I pressed it, “Even the demons believe in God!” (James 2:19) I said. “So that won’t do. My question to you is this, Is Jesus your King and Lord? Is He your boss? Do you go where He says go and do you do what He says do? Do you live your entire life for Him?” They got the picture. We weren’t playing and this wasn’t about “come to church”. We were confronting their spiritual condition and they were getting uncomfortable. After a few minutes they stopped playing and they stopped pretending. They got honest real quick and admitted that they weren’t living right and they were doing some messed up stuff.

We implored them to repent TODAY as there is no guarantee of tomorrow and the Bible says that TODAY is the day of salvation. A couple of the guys even told us that they have been thinking of getting straightened out, but they weren’t quite ready yet, they wanted to live their own lives their way for a little while longer. What a deception! I pulled no punches and went into graphic detail of what a life like theirs can lead to. Sudden, instant death due to foolish behavior is common with these thugs. We even mentioned getting busted by the police and flushing their lives away with jail time. Totally unimpressed by the words we had to say and the message that we had to preach, we pushed in for a supernatural demonstration.

I had to press in to the Lord to get anything prophetically, but after a few minutes of standing there with little to say, it started to flow. The Lord began to show us stuff about how they were into drugs and women. We prophesied over a couple of the guys, revealing giftings and callings in them. I called one guy out as a leader and told him that I saw some young ones watching his every move. He freaked a little and obviously had some younger siblings that he was conscious of. Another guy we called out as a trail blazer and a “doer”. I told him I saw that when other guys were talking about doing something, he would just go and do it! The other guys in the group started telling us that we were right on and that we must know him or something!

We asked the usual stuff, were they or anyone in their family in need of a miracle or a healing? This usually starts a crack in the tough exterior, even with the skeptics. When they see that we are willing to demonstrate our message of the kingdom with a power demonstration (healings and miracles) they open up and give us a shot. Not so with these guys. They just wouldn’t budge, no matter how hard I preached to them on getting right TODAY, they all still held to the deception that some other day they would get right.

So, when they:

1. Didn’t listen to the Gospel of the Kingdom
2. Didn’t give us an opportunity to minister healing to them or their family
3. Didn’t receive accurate prophetic words that revealed their destiny

The last thing I had in my arsenal was a proclamation. I just looked the lead guy in the eye and told him emphatically, “Since we can’t get your attention, then the Lord will have to. In the name of Jesus we're just going to pray that God do WHATEVER it takes to get your attention and help you see that we’re telling the truth.” So after that, we lingered a couple more minutes, but didn’t really have anything more to say.

Then God started to talk.


CHICKENS IN THE HOOD
About 3-5 minutes later, three police cruisers came barreling into the cul-de-sac where we were standing! Cops jump out of the cars and scramble towards the guys we are talking to. And guess who went running? The gentle Christians? Nope. The rough, “I’ll kill you for your shoes” thugs who minutes ago were totally unimpressed with the power of God went running like the chickens and sissies that they truly are! Beneath all of the posturing and pretending were a bunch of scared little boys. It was awesome. So they were running and we just stood there. They apparently had a warrant for one of the guys we were prophesying to just minutes before. They get him to the ground, frisk him and throw him up against the house, slapping cuffs on him. A couple of the other guys disappear to their homes while a few others regroup on a nearby front porch. We go up and talk to them. They’re freaked out but I don’t stop, I’m relentless: “Where did you guys go? What are you guys afraid of? Let me ask you, is that enough of a sign for you? Does God have your attention now?”

They are paying attention. One of the guys says, “Yeah, I need to get right. I have a girlfriend that’s been trying to get me straightened out. She was right, I should get right”. I tell a couple of the other guys hiding on the porch that “The good guys don’t hide”. I told them that if they walked in righteousness like us, then they wouldn’t have to run. All of a sudden, they are all ears. We find another one of the guys literally hiding inside of his house, looking out a screen window to see what’s going on. I walk up to the house and start really PREACHING through the window.

I read him the scripture in Romans 13:3-4, “For rulers are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. And wouldest thou have no fear of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise from the same: for he is a minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is a minister of God, an avenger for wrath to him that doeth evil.”

We tell him once again that TODAY is the day of salvation, not tomorrow. I look closer through the screen and realize that I have been preaching to a whole family gathered on the sofa. Grandma was motioning me to go on and saying "Amen!".

Well, when the day was done, none of them got down on their knees and repented. But one thing I know is this; they were confronted with the truth and will never be the same.

Awesome Testimony

I have a few neat stories to tell from this last weekend. We took a team to South Atlanta again on an equipping/outreach ministry trip. We saw some cool things and some signs and wonders broke out, but when I got back in town, there was an email waiting in my email box that has one of the coolest salvation testimonies ever!

Check this out:

***

From A Lady in Our Church,

Ok, so I have this massage therapist who is an ordained minister at some metaphysical church and into new age stuff. People at work told her that I heal and have psychic power, so she comes to talk to me today. (Editor’s Note – This lady has been walking in and demonstrating the power of God at her workplace for years now, healing the sick, prophesying over people and leading them into salvation and the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.) We talk for hours about the power and love of God. I gave her scripture and wisdom from scripture. She has some messed up thinking, but God gave me just the things to say.

Then she tells me she was told to ask me about my church. So I gave her directions and the web site address. Then she asks me to come to the back so she can show me something. She shows me this paper from a numerologist who told her she was going to meet a lady with auburn hair with blondish highlights (Which she has!) that is in a circle of people that is going to show her what she is to do.

So, I said, “well then, let’s do it now!” So I grab her hands and tell her about Romans10:8 believing and making Jesus Lord. She receives it and confesses Jesus as Lord. I then told her that there are some things she has been taught that are against the word of God and Jesus as Lord and God is going to show her what these things are and she will need to bow the knee to believe Jesus instead of this other stuff in order to walk in her high calling. I then told her she needed the baptism of the Holy Spirit. She got it!

She is going home to tell her 19 year old son about this and plans on being at church tomorrow to find her place. She wants to reach the youth (teens) with the power of God. I think we need to get her right out there and I want to go with her.

Now that’s what I call a prosperous day at work.

***

Yup, you read that right, a demonically inspired numerologist “prophesied” over this ordained minister at a metaphysical church that she would meet a Christian and be brought into a circle of people that would “show her the way to go”! You know that that is? An advertisement from the devil! The devil pointed this lady to one of our folks that she could receive the Gospel, get deliverance and get filled with the Holy Spirit! Talking about putting the enemy in his place!

Awesome.

Help From Mexico

The work continues. The miracles continue and the salvations continue. Five or six days a week around here, new believers are being discipled, the sick are healed and the poor have the Gospel preached to them. There isn’t a week that goes by without hearing of awesome healing miracles, financial miracles and salvation miracles. Oppressed people are set free and the lost are saved. I just heard in the last couple weeks of backs that were healed, necks that were healed and a pinched nerve with severe neck pain that disappeared. There is no shortage of signs and wonders, prophetic encounters, healing encounters, words of knowledge and prophecy happening on the streets. In fact, there is more going on than we can follow up on and support.

But that’s a fine problem to have.

A "DAVID" FROM MEXICO
We just had the privilege of hosting David Baker, a full time missionary from Mexico with David Hogan’s Freedom Ministries. In fact, he’s David Hogan’s son in law, married to David Hogan’s daughter Joy. All in all, it was a great weekend of ministry, of getting to know each other and of getting to know the ropes of how they do things down there. We want to know how they do things because they are bearing a whole bunch of great fruit! More than 500 churches, more than 300 “dead raisings” and to me, the most important thing: they have been doing it consistently for the last 30 years!

There is something about gleaning from a ministry that has been proven, that has been through 30 years of changes and refinements all while getting better all the way. It’s different than gleaning from a “Flavor of the month” type ministry. You know the type, here today, gone tomorrow. This was different. The things that they are practicing have been proven to work over the test of time. All I wanted to do was to ask a bunch of questions about the churches, the new believers, leading people to Jesus, how to take neighborhoods, etc. What was interesting to me is that the problems we have been facing with new believers, getting meetings going, etc. are the very same problems that they regularly face. There is a whole set of problems that you don’t know anything about until you are in “the thick of it”, so you are unprepared, until you actually face them. So David was incredibly helpful in identifying problems and sharing principles that work for them.

THERE IS A DIFFERENCE
More than just advice and counsel, the thing that was so helpful to me is the example that these guys set for walking with Jesus. It’s in their lifestyle. Paul continually pointed to his lifestyle and actually told his disciples to follow the example of his lifestyle. Were you to live the way Paul lived, you would get what he got. Talking and hanging with these guys, it’s so obvious the difference between them and most Western Christians.

For one, they are hyper-committed.
The level of commitment to the Word of God that would get a standing ovation among Western Christians is the baseline for these guys. Actually, I agree with them. They are normal. It’s the Western mindset that’s abnormal. All of the basic issues that you end up wrangling with most believers here in America are settled issues for these guys. No questions asked; just absolute obedience to the Word of God. Issues like authority, integrity and giving (time, finances, etc.) aren’t argued with or debated, they are strictly observed. They are respectful, full of integrity and quick to spend themselves for the Gospel. All of their decisions are governed by the Word of God. They don’t overlook things in their relationships with friends and family and strictly hold to the Word of God’s standards as they understand it.

Secondly, they are dead men.
I’m not saying that they are not human, they are people with all of the drawbacks of humanity like you and me; it’s just that unlike most of us, they have crucified their passions and desires to such a degree that they (passions and desires) are irrelevant to the will of God. Selfish ambition, agendas and self reliance are things of the past. Like I said, these are issues that you are constantly dealing with over here with Western Christians. I believe that the reason it’s so hard for Western Christians to determine the will of God for their lives is because they have so many lusts and desires vying for their attention that it can be difficult to center in on God’s plan. The answer? DIE. Die to your self, your will, your desires and get in there, just laying down your life and serving the Lord for the sake of the Gospel. After a little while, you’ll be good and dead and it will be much easier to determine God’s plan for your life, since your plan for your life sailed long ago.

Thirdly, they are “lifers” that aren’t afraid to get planted.
Most believers that I know always want to keep their options open and would never lock themselves into a location, a work, a job or a church. It’s like they have a plan “b”. If things don’t go great, they will be moving on to the next place, the next work, etc. These guys are not like that at all. They make a decision to work, live and die for a people in a country and stick with their decision. That is such an uncomfortable thought for most folks that they ignore it totally. Saying stuff like, “I’m feeling led”, they flit about from place to place, looking for greener grass. But how different would things be if we could get a few believers to settle down, get planted in a territory and make a commitment to win their city to the Lord?

Yes there would be difficulty and yes there would be trials staying and working in the same place with the same people, but there would also be fruit! A fruit tree (which we are called to be) can’t bear fruit if its’ roots are being pulled up every year or two! Why do we think that we can bear fruit when we are constantly moving from place to place, city to city, and work to work? The fact is, we can’t and we don’t. Now you know why.

I for one am inspired by laid down lovers of God, free of agendas, free of selfish ambition and totally dead to self. It’s a refreshing alternative to what is epidemic in the states; powerless preachers and prognosticators, philosophizing for profit.

Stability

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.

A Baptism Of Fire – Part II

OOPS.
Next thing I know, I am standing between the two groups, telling them to back down and not fight. I don’t know what happened, my feet just walked me over there before my brain knew what was really going on. So I find myself standing between the two sides of guys ready to rumble and I am telling the ringleaders to back down, that there will be no fighting tonight. One of the guys, through his obscene threats and cursing stops to tell me to, “Get the @#$% out of here!” I tell him that he doesn’t need to fight, but instead needs to get born again. This spawns a classic line that I will not soon forget. He said to me, “Listen @#$%^&, everyone here is born again, but if you don’t #$%^ move, then I’m going to kill you!”

Awesome.

This sends me into Gospel preaching overdrive. I start preaching to either side of the group, rebuking them for their anger and violence. I start telling them that Jesus is King and His Kingdom is a Kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy, all things that they are sorely lacking. For whatever reason, a couple more guys come up to me and threaten to hurt me. One of them has a pit bull on a leash and lets it at me a bit, telling me what he’s going to command it to do to my private parts (hint: it wasn’t very nice). So two sides are screaming and cursing and I’m preaching and getting threatened with violence! (Sigh) I love this parking lot… Well, the two sides eventually disperse and back down without a punch being thrown. We win! Right?

Well, not really.

Just a few minutes later there is a motorcycle accident. Some guy was ripping through the parking lot when a kid steps out in front of him. The guy on the bike swerves to avoid the pedestrian and the bike hits a truck and spins out on the ground, messing up the truck and the bike’s paintjob. The owner of the bike (the brother of the guy that we were prophesying to) wasn't the one riding the bike and runs down the parking lot to see what happened. When he gets there, the kid who stepped out and caused the accident is very repentant, saying he’s sorry, etc. Just when you think it will resolve without a mess, the same loudmouth from the “almost” fight a few minutes before (the guy who gave me the classic line) starts talking…and talking…and talking. He’s talking smack, defending his friend who stepped out in front of the bike. Next thing you know there are raised voices and the bike owner and his brother (that we were prophesying to minutes before) are getting into it with loudmouth.

Loudmouth starts to walk away, which is too little, too late and big bad brother jumps him, sending him to the ground with a couple punches from behind. He then proceeds to stomp his face (this is where it gets bad) and his neck! I see the foot come down on loudmouth’s neck, followed by a loud “CRACK!”. Loudmouth goes catatonic and is unconscious. Big bad brother who did the whooping’ runs like crazy when he sees that he has really hurt the guy. Loudmouth starts going into a seizure, his eyes roll back into his head and he starts violently convulsing. A couple guys out in the parking lot are EMT’s and volunteer firefighters so they come running over and are working on loudmouth. It’s not good. He’s basically unconscious and unresponsive, choking on his tongue while he’s having a seizure. I run right over to him and start praying…LOUDLY. People are getting on their phones calling 911 and the EMT guys are working on him. I command him to come back and use the opportunity to preach to several people close by, telling them that they never know what could happen, that they need to serve Jesus and stop being crazy!

His eyes roll back and he is able to talk. The EMT’s are asking him to squeeze their hands, which he cannot do. Several folks from our teams gather around the guy and they start praying. The police arrive, send everyone on their way and the paramedics arrive soon thereafter. Our group quickly gathers, gets into the vehicles we arrived in and head back to the church. When we get to the church, I tell everyone what happened and we pray for the kid who got stomped. We still don’t know what happened to him, but we believe that he was healed and will walk again. We'll find out soon enough...

But don’t forget, many people in our group are with us for their first outreach of any kind, much less a bloodbath in a parking lot. A couple of folks were physically ill with fear and intimidation, but quickly overcame to preach, pray and prophesy over the lost. Way to go! All in all, I think it was more exciting to be out there than it was to stay home and watch a rerun of Law & Order… Right?

A NEW DAY
On Sunday after church we gathered to head out for our last outreach of the weekend. Eight teams descended on nearby Woodstock neighborhoods to preach the Gospel and heal the sick. They came back with report after report of healings, miracles and salvations. A group of Hispanic men gave their lives to the Lord as one of the guys on the team persisted with prophetic words, even after they told him he was off. The encounter culminated with a group of them giving their lives to Jesus, so I think that he was right on! We received another report of a lady with a heart condition that had received prayer a few weeks earlier. She greeted the team with a great hug, telling them how God had healed her heart and how she no longer needed the pacemaker the doctors had given her.

After all the teams had returned, we shared stories of things that God had done that weekend and encouraged each other to make this “Kingdom” stuff part of our daily lifestyle.

Jesus is King!