As a young man, I had an encounter with the Holy Spirit, one evening on the backside of the college campus I was attending. The Holy Spirit showed me the great "restoration" of the church that was coming in the days ahead. A glorious church emblazoned with New Testament likeness and strength. Then God gave me a life verse for which I've centered my ministry on since then. Isaiah 58:12 "You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in and raise up age old foundations for future generations."
Since then I have gone through several major moves of the Holy Spirit. During the early 1970's, I was swept up into the great Jesus People movement and introduced to the concept of "what a New Testament Church" would look like. It all began for me at the Upper Octorara Presbyterian Church (commonly known as Parkesburg) with Pastor Jim Brown. People from all over the Eastern Seaboard came every Saturday night to experience the Holy Spirit in ways the traditional church had not known. Great teaching from John Poole, Bob Mumford, Malcolm Smith and many others stretched us beyond anything we had learned from our own denominational traditions. It was awesome. My own home church, Immanuel Baptist Church, not only saw many young people coming to Christ but as a church we began discipleship groups, held teaching meetings every tuesday, thursday and Saturday nights to lay a firm foundation of faith in those who came to Christ. Over 600 hippies filled our church halls. Our church leadership (after 100 years of history) deconstructed our church government and instituted elders and deacons. We saw people saved, healed, baptised in the Holy Spirit all the time. We left the nice church baptismal for local rivers and lakes and baptized hundreds. We went street preaching, passing out tracks, held outdoor services in the city square and witnessed things similar to what we read about in the book of Acts. However, the underlying prevailing teaching and hunger was about "The restoration of the New Testament Church." Our question was, "What does it look like and how were we going to get there?" After all, the scriptures taught that the glory of the latter house was greater than the former.
Then in 1983, a friend of mine introduced me to James Robinson, Rick Godwin, Tommy Williams, and Milt Green in Dallas, Texas. Little did I know what was about to happen. One morning my friend, Jim Ammerman asked me, "How would like to go see a group of Baptist leaders having their demons cast out?" I was intrigued, so we went down to the Dallas Convention Center and there I had an encounter that would alter my life in a new way. Prompted by the Spirit, Jim sensed I was to introduce this Baptist group to the Holy Spirit and sent me down to the stage to find a way to introduce them to it. I went to Milt Green and he opened the door for myself and Tommy Williams to share it with the group and we witnessed hundreds of leaders encountering the Holy Spirit in was they had never seen before. It resulted in me sharing with Rick Godwin, James Robinson, and others about the great "restoration" of the church. As a result, a great revival swept from there to churches all over America and around the world.
Seven years later, I had the great opportunity to meet Pastor Frank Houston and his lovely wife Hazel (Hillsong Church). Frank was an awesome man of God. A bit of a Smith Wigglesworth. He had an uncanny gift and use of the "Word Of Knowledge." He invited me to teach and minister at his church in the heart of Sydney, Australia regularly for a number of years. There I witnessed hundreds coming to Christ, major numbers of people encountering the Holy Spirit and healings galore. While I was with him he introduced me to his son, Brian Houston and the church now known as Hillsong. Wow! All I thought at the time was, "if this music and worship experience ever gets to American shores, this is going to explode and change the face of worship in every church." It did. That's all history now.
But, who would have guessed that God was about to unleash his power across the world through a little church in Tronto called, Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship (formally Toronto Vineyard). In 1994, I had the opportunity to meet John and Carol Arnott. They prayed for me and I was totally blitzed by the Holy Spirit for several days... which turned into weeks and years now. Before God can "restore the church," he has to restore us. During these years, I pastored in Annapolis, Maryland. God sent two great leaders who influenced "Toronto" to come and minister at our church throughout the next decade... John and Paula Sandford. They taught us about "healing" in ways I've never understood before. Mass moves came over our church. Leaders like John Paul Jackson, Cindy Jacobs, Marc DuPont, Wes and Stacy Campbell, Frank and Brian Houston, Che Ahn, Tim Hall and many others came and taught at our church. An unprecedented encounter of the Holy Spirit began with us. To date I had encountered three different waves of the Spirit laying a firm foundation that "Restoration" was possible.
Each emphasis of the spirit lasted in ten year increments. So, what would the turn of the century hold as another wave moved in? The first three decades of my life in the spirit were dedicated to "The restoration of his people" and "making church: relevant for contemporary people. It broke traditions, introduced new worship cultures, leadership styles, church government, restored apostolic ministry with apostles and prophets being recognized and encouraging the use of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in ministry... and then we moved into the turn of the century. It has become a very different time and is presenting a major call on all of us to shift the way we have experienced things in the past. We cannot get stuck in previous moves of God... change in on us.
Beginning in 2000, the world was about to shake. Y2K fears unleashed the contemporary church to grapple with the historic rise of Islam in the East and it's attack on the west. What was this all about. Well, for those who are interested in Semiotics, the emphasis of the spirit moved on the idea of taking cities and nations for God. This has been an absolute threat on the powers of darkness. Here in Annapolis, we went to the city dock to repent and ask God's forgiveness for our city's involvement in the Sin Of Slavery. We had learned as a church that is we were to witness a prevailing church in our own city we would have to address the principalities, powers and wickedness holding our city captive. As a result, we gathered in 2003 at the shores of the Chesapeake with William Haley (Son of author Alex Haley, known for his Pulitzer prize winning book, "Roots"), John and Paula Sandford, Winkie Pratney, Alister Petrie, Gloria Roberts and many others to break the power of darkness off our city so that we could create a new culture of cooperation and unity amongest our own city leaders. As we did this we witnessed signs and wonders... just like George Otis Jr.'s tranformation videos. http://www.glowtorch.org The emphasis of the Holy Spirit has been pointing all of us to bring about citywide transformation. This emphasis has been about "creating a culture" for God's habitation in a city. Without the culture being set... there can be no move of God's spirit. You just can't rock up an expect a major outpouring of the Holy Spirit when the sins of the past have not been addressed by the church. Read II Chronicles 7 carefully and then look at historic revivals and God's preparation processes for his work to take a firm root in those historic iconic ways of revival. What does a church without spot or wrinkle look like?
So here we are in 2012, the supposed end of the world as we know it. What does God have in store for us? I think Exodus 33:19 speaks what lies ahead for us, God said, "I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion." These are the years when God is calling for Relational Holiness so that he can incarnate himself through us as the Body Of Christ. This means that "relationship" is more important than the business of church. Too many people are just going through the motions of contemporary worship looking for the world's acceptance. Assets, buildings, tech tools, numbers and cash are not the measure of success. It's time to unplug the amps, the hype, the large prayer demonstrations on malls and get back to the "organic" new testament" singleness of heart... and allow Christ in us to become our Hope... Not the mechanics. Recently, on facebook someone rehearsed a Willow Creek slogan, "The church is the hope of the world." No it isn't Jesus is!
God is "focusing" on us getting our "relationships" in order. Husband and wives, Hearts of fathers restored to children, churches joined together in unity and community, racial divisions addressed and healed, honoring each others cultures and diversity- every place where God can incarnate himself. Years ago, I asked Bob Mumford why the move of the Holy Spirit ended in Philadelphia and why the church got so divided. He said, "Well, it is like the story of Jacob when he first sees Rachel. She was coming down a hill with her flock. IT WAS NOT THE TIME for the watering of the flock. However, Jacob didn't care. He wanted to flex his muscles and show off his good looks to the girls of his dreams. Normally, when a well was opened, the shepherds of Israel would gather together with their flocks at a certain time. The cap stone on the well was very heavy so as to protect it from the enemies destroying it. So together they would gather around the capstone, lift it together and then each would take a turn watering their flocks. After watering their flocks, together they lifted the capstone and placed it back on the well until the next time they gathered Not so with Jacob, He was gifted and wanted to show off his wares to Rachel... just like so many leaders in the church today. They see the Body Of Christ and want to show off their gifts and flex their stuff before her to impress her. When Jacob removed the stone, he had the adrenaline to lift it off but did not have the strength to put it back after her flock was watered. Churches and leader have become "self-centered." They only want to market and attract people to their own gigs. They reproduce "self-centered" people who only want to build their own dreams and live their lives to their own purposes. Bob Mumford was right. So, once again the church needs to "repent, and turn from her own wicked ways" - then we will hear from heaven. Do we have to go around the mountain one more time? Or can we just go in and possess the land? Some are planning to go through the same old motions. I once heard the definition of insanity as being "doing the same over and over again, expecting a different result.
I believe the continuing work of the Holy Spirit and our journey toward the restoration of the church - is to get our "relationships" right. Our broken relationship with others can't just be swept under the rug any longer. Our ends does not justify our means. If the statistics of the church is found in the same brokenness of the culture then what message does the church have to the culture. The church's colonial nature (Starbucking) is incompatible with the Holy Spirit. God incarnates himself in human form. He chooses to engage himself in diversity. Jesus choose twelve diverse disciples... that the religious establishment couldn't handle. Out of this diversity came unity of purpose... first comes relationship, then come mission, then comes church. Not the other way around. God is not calling us to build glorious ministries. He's calling us to return and engage ourselves in him and to reconnect ourselves one to another. Read the prayer of John 17.
Today, I'm going to bust out of the mold. I'm on vacation for the next week and as much as I love our church I am going to surprise and support another local church this morning to let them know that they are just as important to me as our church is. Can't wait to worship with them.
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