To His Majesty

Before me I see a path……and on the path is the name Inter-dependence. On one side is a ditch called independence………on the other side is a ditch called co-dependence. I see a body of pioneers, who part of them have fallen on one side…..and part have fallen on the other……and both of them think their side is the solution, but neither realizes they are both in a ditch.

The Lord said that for them to get out of the ditch they have to establish some things:

1. Who are they?
2. What is their purpose?
3. What is their destination?
4. What are their chief problems right now?
5. what problems do they need to deal with right now before doing anything?
6. what problems can be dealt with later.

Here’s my take:

1. We are pioneers. Like lewis and clark, or daniel boone, or davy crockett, or Thomas Edison……we discover new territory. Woven into the fabric of our lives is a strong sense of self-reliance and stubbornness. Our personal destiny requires a greater autonomy than most churches due to the fact of our calling, But in order to come into our destiny we must humble ourselves and become inter-dependent because we cannot reach our destiny by ourselves.

2. Our first purpose is intimacy with God. To learn to respond to the context that God sets day in and day out in our walk with him. Basic relationship goes like this. Context, Response and Agreement…….So I set a context with my friend, my friend responds to it and then their is an agreement we both understand one another……..out of that agreement comes intimacy. This is our first purpose.
Our second purpose is to cause Jesus to invade every arena of the culture and every walk of life. In essence to go from preaching just a gospel of salvation to preaching a gospel of the kingdom. What’s the difference? A gospel of salvation is where I tell somebody how to get saved so they go to heaven when they die. A gospel of the kingdom takes the 3 biggest problems a person has, no matter what they are and solves them through co-operation with the Holy Spirit which gains credibility in the eyes of that person THEN preaches the gospel. The gospel of the kingdom is the gospel of salvation preached in the context of problem-solving…….it is NEVER abstract.
So when Jesus says that He wants us to disciple all nations that means to go in and fully rebuild the nation in all areas: The church, the family, business and finance, arts and entertainment, communication and media, law and government, and education. we rebuild the culture in all areas from the ground up using the principles of the word.

3. Our first destination is to bring the presence of God into the church, through the intimacy model I mentioned above. Our second destination is to press that presence out until there is an open heavens over the area. Our third destination is to begin to press that presence out until it reaches the nations.

More to come………

1. You need more autonomy and not less. You need to be able to own your own land, be debt free and able to shift and move in dimensions as the Lord directs. We need to be able to think for ourselves and to create a generation of church-leaders who can improvise and move with Visions that God wants to give our body anywhere and everywhere God wants to go and that this place we are in right now is a training ground for a new breed of ministry…….which I believe will require greater, not less autonomy over our church. I believe we are like Abraham being called out to a land we do not know, to a city whose maker and builder is God.

2. The church needs more mobility not security. The four principles of warfare are: firepower, security, mobility and leadership. Firepower is your ability to apply fire to the enemy. Security is your ability to protect your troops. mobility is your ability to move your forces in order to gain a battlefield advantage. leadership is your ability to know when to use firepower, security or mobility. presently the problem in the church is a dearth of mobility not security…..that is our problem. Walls can protect, but they can also become prison walls very quickly and inhibit true freedom. The Bible says “Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.” that is also translated “Where the Spirit is LORD, There is liberty.”

3. You have to choose between security or happiness. You need to follow the Lord, but in our woundedness some may want to run to a secure place, but this place will make us miserable because we are not following the Lord but our flesh. The only place we would truly be happy and safe is in the will of God…….not in a place that seems safe but frustrates the purpose that the Holy Spirit calls out in us.

4. We want accountability for our leaders, but not control of our church, our lands and our leaders. We want administrative help….but the right kind of help. As we found out in the wall street crash…….regulation and de-regulation can be good, but it is the right kind of regulation and the right kind of de-regulation that helps our economy. We want help…..but this is the wrong kind of help. There is a reason we need a certain kind of control.

5. We need to let God be King of the Church instead of somebody else. When the Israelites asked for a king, it was out of a need for security and was a reaction to the problems they had been having. But their demands were not a good one because they rejected the Lord as king. We may want to run to a safe place out of a desire for medication for our fears, but we would be running away from the Lord and from the Lord’s desire to be King over our body. I believe this decision presents us with a choice…..who is to be king? Are we the king….? Is some man or institution the king? Or is God the King of The Church? I am not rejecting institutional authority, or saying that authority is bad……but our reasons for wanting them would be to have a king instead of the Lord. What KIND of authority does God want over our life? What kind of Regulation does God want over our life? What kind of Tool is our church supposed to be(as opposed to other churches)……and where is God taking us?

6. You have prophecies to fulfill. you need to go back and re-read those prophecies over this body when it was commissioned again. I believe that they will speak more clearly than I have in this m+atter.

7. We are a body of pioneers……..like lewis and clark or columbus you have the skills…..but now the permission from the Lord to have the autonomy to explore some areas in Him that few churches have had the right to explore in a long, long time. God is inviting you to search undiscovered realms in Him. He is calling you to come with Him and follow Him on an adventure where there are no roads, and no civilization…..a wild, undiscovered country in the Spirit. We are being called to leave the well traveled roads and blaze new trails….this is our mandate and calling………..this is who we are…….pioneers, explorers, mapmakers, adventurers……The safest place is in the will of God…..and for us, that is out there in the wild undiscovered country of God. We have no business staying within the city limits.