Quarbyists and Brethrakers

Pictures taken from interior and exterior of Mayflower barn,built from the Pilgrims Mayflower ship timbersThe property was sold by the Quakers in 2006

Quarbyists and Brethrakers

by Chris Welch on Thursday, 14 July 2011 at 14:35 on Facebook

Since God let the whole New Covenant seed fall into the ground and die a death, because it still contained dead religious works seed, then began again with Luther a raising up of a Church "come down out of heaven", we as a New Covenant people have been trekking along the by now familiar furniture of the Heavenly Sanctuary. The brazen altar of the one time Exchange of Life that took place in the Body of Jesus on the Cross.

The Laver of God's Word where we see mirrored our glorious new Indweller, Christ.

Then came the tricky bit. Forgotten by most for hundreds of years....

How do you do this bit again? Aaaah. You don't. The Holy Spirit does. You see there is no natural light in the next bit. It's the Holy Place. The one before the Holiest Place which is the final destination.

The Holy Place is only lit by the candlestick. Nuffink else.

And in here we have stayed , in different manifestations, for hundreds of years now.

The early discoveries of the manifestations of the Holy Spirit were made in the Quaker movement. Hence the quaking and the shaking.....initially through godly terror coming on those saving themselves from much of what was around at the period: Free- for- all fornication, drunkenness, gambling...

Shortly after came the Darby movement of Brethren. Their enlightenment about the Word is very like today's Fred Pruitt or Andre Rabe or Francois DuToit. They were an incredible missionary movement, who firmly believed now we have the Word in all its fulness....and my....in their skilful expositions , was it ever full?, that we had absolutely no need whatsoever for the supernatural and the manifestations of the Spirit. We are mature now.

If you took Ole's Pillar of fire and Cloud exposition to extremes that's what you'd end up with. You can read it on my blog.

The reason I've squashed up the two main exponents of this area of God's tabernacle into one weird mish mash in the title is this.

For next to 2 centuries we haven't advanced in real terms at all in the Body of Christ. Because nothing new has been uncovered. The Quakers and the Brethren are both joined at the hip in this respect too.

Both movements uncovered the true structure of the Kingdom of God. i.e. Pretty well none!!!!

In the Holy Place we really are functioning not just as Luther said in theory, here everyone really was behaving as a Kingdom of priests.Anybody could have a "hatha". King James says each one hatha gift (1 Corinthians 12)

Brethren and Quakers were NO END of trouble for salaried hirelings of the Kingdom in all the previous sects. Their way of operating was utterly offensive and threatening. What if all Christians behaved in this way. I wouldn't get my salary, then I'd have to go out and work for a living?!!!?

The pentecostal movement of the 20th Century insisted on an experience with the Holy Spirit, but this was just a stronger echo of the Continental Pietist movement. The charismatic movement of the 1960s was a kind of "catchup" rerun of earlier movements to collar more of those in denominations, and quicken them to some spiritual realities.

BUT ESSENTIALLY NOTHING WAS NEW . It IS ALL THE SAME RERUN OF HOLY PLACE revelation.

The twin revelations of the Holy Place are these. And they are both sides of the coin .

Darby = the 12 pieces of shewbread as revealed in the Light of the Holy Spirit's candlesticks, the enlightened Word.

Quakers were more forcibly contemplative and proactively waiting on the Living Holy Spirit to "move " a person to express a gift of the Spirit. This definitely errs more to the candlestick of the Holy Spirit directly.

And do you know something? If you attend an Andre Rabe event, or a Francois event, or invite Fred Pruitt round, this is largely what you'll get....a Holy Place format, almost Brethren dish, served up with piping hot Christ to nourish you and propel you onwards. Much the same as the Brethren.

So what changed?

This is personal opinion. Others may want to add to this.

I would say nothing in Christendom really changed in terms of the corporate until two men did something slightly different. One man, face down in an Episcopal crypt for months on end. The other a retired missionary of WEC.

First the crypt

Graham Pulkingham was totally totally broken at his own powerlessness as an Episcopal Minister surrounded by a broken area of downtown Houston. Like the priests in Joel 2, his brokenness led him to crisis encounter...I believe in his person, he experienced the death and resurrection of Christ in real terms, the way a lot of us on Facebook now have. In that openness of spirit he found his way to David Wilkerson's office and the rest as they say is history....EXCEPT FOR THIS DETAIL....

What raised itself around Graham was unlike David Wilkerson, who remained a rather singular character to the end of his prophetic days.....

No, around Graham was something i dont really think we've seen much. Perhaps a bit with Mel Tari in the Indonesian Revival. This was a supernatural body of people packed with Holy Spirit anointing moving and living together, not just giving gifts to each other in meetings like Darby and Quakers...

No, this was getting to be an early glimpse of the sort of Body Act2 was. They didn't go to meetings. They were all an individual meeting with the Living Saviour, who when they reassembled were a collective powerhouse of God which couldnt help but hoover people into the Kingdom around them. And when they left the States, one of the first places they hoovered was our school and neighbourhood! That's why I have the Vision of the Church in my very insides to dragoon you with. I was a hoovered one....so to speak. In that moment I saw the Kingdom and I have operated in that Melchizedek Kingdom ever since, although most of those around me have stayed put in their previous incarnations thinking that because God once blessed, they too are still following the Melchizedek order. Phooey. It's moved on!

This way of ministering blows out of the water Morris Cerullo, Rheinhard Bonnke,David Hathaway....you name your favorite Power preacher....Oh Fred doesn't have one, I forgot....

Acts 2 clearly states that Peter standing with the eleven, began to speak.....

THIS IS A DIFFERENT ORDER OF MINISTRY BECAUSE YOU ALL HAVE TO BE ONE AND YOU ALL HAVE TO CARRY THE ANOINTING. Which today is tough on 2 counts. We're not single eyed enough to be in the Unity of the Faith and secondly very few carry an active anointing....you know, the one that does the supernatural!!

Secondly - The Retired missionary

His name ofcourse Norman Grubb.

Before this, who honestly knew about "separation".

Separation is the terrible terrible deadly virus that bit us in genesis 3. The lie that there is such a thing as a God out there, as distinct from the very life I am living now. "If you would be like God..." said the devil...you do this.

Well firstly we could never be like God, because all we ever were was particular branch manifestations of VINE life, how else are we going to have power to exist? There is only one self-existent one in the universe. There is indeed ONLY ONE life in the universe. Everything else, though used for its own ends, is but a derivation of that ONE PURE LIFE IN GOD.Secondly we don't gain God if we could by works, and we can't cos we're already connected...

This mystery you will have to read more about in Norman Grubb's final book Yes I Am.See my blog.I have no room here.

So what do these 2 advances mean?

What do these advances MEAN? You're kidding me! This plus the discoveries of David Swan and Ed Miller who are seeing all this from the heavenly angle are nothing less than the Corporate Entry into the HOLIEST PLACE. Because Norman Grubb wasnt ever baptised in the Spirit he never really saw church other than what it was in his lifetime, a disparate group of 3rdlevellers going around the odd group here and there all over the world, raisng up mature individuals in Christ. He had no concept of what the charismatic movement had really been preparing the world for.

A corporate empowered Body with a 3rd level vision encapsulated in my last blogpost The Lord's Prayer as Template : The Apocalypse and the Unveiling of Christ.

You see, though Graham Pulkingham could share about his experience of the death and resurrection of Christ in his being....he was too early to have twinned with Norman Grubb on all the theory. And John Wimber could have been the man in the eighties, but none of their groups would allow Nancy Gilmore to share, so John remained backward as well. Listen folks, i'm all for honoring God's servants, because John Wimber did take things a stage further from Graham Pulkingham, but , like the Bible, when it comes to my own life in particualr and now anybody elses I call a spade a spade. It's the quickest way. And John Wimber's crowd were just too arrogant and not desperate enough to listen to Nancy Gilmore . Who knows? Thirty years ago, had they done so, would any of us be bothering to write all this down now?

Possibly a third major new thing?

Perhaps there is something else too. Christian media notwithstanding. In 1976, with the new found vision of an empowered Body of Christ, fed by newly rediscovered supernatural ministries of Apostle and prophet a man called Ern Baxter in the Dales Bible Week did something different. He called everyone into their local tribes . Because we are geographical ambassadors for the King. We each have a patch!!!! And as local churches in an area, we are meant to have spiritual rulership...because right now in the heavenlies we DO! And to my knowledge the first ever serious bit of Ephesians 6 corporate warfare was carried out in the Spirit, and by Spirit direction.

This pattern was developed further in the 90s through the ministry of Peter Wagner and was mainly directed at all the inhospitable regions of the 10/40 window. God appeared to many in those areas sovereignly, without human intervention. He also raised up Rory and Wendy in particular to set up sattellite TV in a more global way than ever before. Now though I've explained the third level with them for an hour 6 months before they even knew about being called to raise up God TV, at present they are sticking firmly to first and secondlevel revelation of Christianity. What I have mentioned above.Christianity that takes us up to around 1800 or 1900. In other words, even with Rick Joyner involved, way, way, past its sell by date.

As Andre Ousterhuizen, Francois DuToit and many others will say...."Why bother with a christianiity that doesn't go beyond the veil? Does nobody know the veil was ripped from top to bottom. We can all go in now?" Yes saints. But not just as an individual expression. There is a whole corporate expression of the same truth!

• Paul Noble

  as I know something of the Brethren I will chip in here! They did experience the gifts of the Holy Spirit including healing at the beginning but closed them down because they thought it was drawing attention to themselves. They believed and... practiced the priesthood of all believers and waiting on the Holy Spirit but rapidly split as prominent teachers became the focus and the same old pyramids grew up I of Paul I of Derby Etc.See more

  14 July at 16:13 · · 1 personRichard Epps likes this.
• 

  Chris Welch Dear Rich...and Linda..I think you've got some of the gist of what you have to "do"...that is very little...i think you've been going along the path He wanted you to. Rather than take away anything, any Word that I m bringing is in the spirit of the 2 Peter 1:5 list and "to your faith add..."but this list wont help much because it is another individual list which for 20 Centuries the church has been really good at.

  14 July at 21:10 ·
• 

  Chris Welch Whoops pressed the return I'll carry on

  14 July at 21:10 ·
• 

  Chris Welch

  There are two ways God is building His House, 3 if you include the St Paul method. There's the Quarry method, as in Solomon's Temple, where all the work is done off site. And there is the Ezekiel bones method of "bones rattling as they join... together." This is the disciples and Jesus, and the disciples and Acts 2 method, and this across the whole earth is also the natural family norm. St Paul was a hybrid, being all but a murderer of Christians his name didnt come up onthe short list for church membership to most Judean churches anyway. So (probably lucky for us) He had some one to one time with the best teacher of all, Jesus. Then he filled out his revelation with some church life. Mine was in reverse.See more

  14 July at 21:16 · · 2 peopleLoading...
• 

  Chris Welch

  It's OK getting stuff individually as most of our generation have had to do, but as a method for dispersing seed it really sucks. In tuning terms it's a bit like stopping at middle C (the first note) and trying to convince someone that you'...ve tuned the whole piano.Next comes the octave. This is the blueprint church, which like the disciples in terms of churchlife, took 3 years. Then when the central octave is done you wait for the parthians and all the others to visit Jerusalem for a Feast, and you inundate the lot of them in a drunken massive hit of worship, glory and Presence, and then let the "central octave" try to explain that one away without collapsing John Crowder style on the floor

Some thoughts on Cutting The Cord

This is tonight's entry on Facebook by Paul Anderson Walsh and the first two replies.http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/paul.andersonwalsh?ref=nf

Cutting the cord
I've been thinking more and more about the believer and his or her relationship to what we call church. It struck me that it might be a bit like a baby's relationship with its umbilical cord. What I mean is that so long as the child is in the womb then the cord plays a vital role...
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Ole Henrik Skjelstad at 19:17 on 24 June
Interesting train of thought. I have been in such a process for a couple of years myself deliberating whether to leave my present church or not. I have tried, without success, the last four years to introduce my pastor to the grace message. It seems to me that God is building an "cyberspace" congregation where the New Covenant truths can flow unimpeded and I feel an urge to be in that torrent.

Bob Lewis at 20:31 on 24 June
I haven't been in the organized religious community or in an organized religious entertainment centre (some people call it church) for 4 or 5 years now. My relationship with the Loed has never been better and I do not miss the church community at all. After all, you and I ARE the church! I have also noticed an amazing increase in the "cyberspace" congregation. People "called out" from virtually every country in the world. God is (as usual) doing an awesome work. Praising and thanking Him.

......................................................

Much of the material on this blog relates directly to this question of Cutting the Cord.

If you are coming in from the outside you must forgive the jargon I use. Regular blog readers know that my use of first,second and third levels is quite specific, but as the TheoCentric bloglink shows, you can further subdivide the Christian life in just the same way that you might describe the development of our own lives according to say, decades.

But here, and in the Paul Anderson Walsh series of books the definitions of 1 John 2 are used: Children,Young Men,Fathers. These are not sexual definitions. These are Spirit.

Hence Mother Basilea Schlink (Darmstadt,Germany)was one of the Fathers in my personal life. She was one of only a handful of people in the Earth in the 70s to point to a real Biblical understanding of growth in the believer.

Unless we work from these Biblical definitions we will not understand what on earth is going on in our lives, nor have any real shape in our understanding of what church is, what church is for and what limits and boundaries are placed on the function of church.

To further confound people's left-brain understandings...and really you should be leaving these parts of your brain outside by the door for this next bit....

Ezekiel talks about a vision of wheels within wheels...

Nothing describes seasons of growth better.

Simultaneously you have the believer's growth stages

You have the growth stages of a local church expression.

But you also have the macro scale of the Church in the Earth. For centuries, the whole identity of the Church was with getting people saved from hell. In the last century the Pentecostal/Charismatic effusion concerned itself presenting a gospel of power, of signs and wonders to effect miraculous changes here and now on Earth. Actually, the initial foundation had been laid through the Quakers and the Brethren, re-establishing more Biblical patterns of meetings where "Everyone hath a", with which to bless and upbuild other believers.

The third level is I believe upon us now. This is where the whole direction of the church is set to birth Christ in a believer. Not the birth of new birth. This is rather the birth of a fully operational son of God in the Earth, who in his/her turn knows how to reproduce others to the same level. This is unique to our time period.

Further background material can be found in these places on this blog:

http://080808onnowto.blogspot.com/2009/05/life-in-three-dimensions.html

http://080808onnowto.blogspot.com/2008/12/hitchhikers-guide-to-christianity-1.html leads to No.2 as well.

http://080808onnowto.blogspot.com/2008/11/third-level-approach-to-ministry-i.html this also is a series.

So the background to my response about "Cutting the Cord" is described in much detail in the above posts.

I like Frank Viola's angle in his book from Eternity To Here. This is also to be found in Juan Carlos Ortiz's book "Disciple".

The Church is NOT ABOUT US. Although we are in it.

It is not about how we feel.

It is not about whether we enjoy it or not. But if it is conducted in the Holy Spirit we should.

The Church is for the Lord.

As Ortiz described in detail,most churches, if born again at all, are piles of unrelated bricks.

Believers neither really know why they are there. Who they really are. And what their relation to other believers is.

All of us at birth are contaminated with lust...for power, for sex, for things. Baptism in the Spirit

is not the complete antidote. The Birth of Christ in a believer is the antidote. Saul, in the Old Testament was anointed and quickly entered into leadership. David, had anointing...but he had something else too...a heart change...made even greater after the sad episode with Bathsheba.

Churches are presently run by men and women, who many times are not even born again. Or born again yet not baptised in the Spirit. Or baptised in the Spirit but with absolutely no idea that a third level of growth exists, let alone that they are called to impart to others that same Life of Christ.

Jorge Pradas's vision, greatly influenced by Ed Miller, (both in Argentina) is described in his book (in Spanish),"Congregados para darle gloria" "Gathered for the purpose of giving the Lord Glory". This is the Church. It's all about God's glory. It's about gathering around His real Presence. Learning to relate together with a King, a Lord, and Friend.

The Church is unique. When we gather as little as two or three then mystically He is there in our midst. Does this take away from our personal position in Christ? Living as Christ in our forms as us? No. But when we gather as instructed in the Bible some really unique things occur. We are given gifts for one another that are the precise rhema word that we might be needing right now...if only to confirm what God may be speaking to us individually anyway.The Power of the Lord is experienced tangibly. Unbelievers who are present are confronted with what is basically a miracle week by week...."How can such a body of disparate people such as this, all ages, all intelligences,both sexes, all backgrounds, move in such a unified unplanned fashion? Without notes? Without string pulling? Often times with completely new beautiful songs? Or specific words of knowledge about exact conditions and circumstances that could not be known...How can this happen? Especially in today's secular world?"

The problem is the Church is mostly not like that. It is string pulling. It is gathering around one leader's set of skills. It is a pile of unrelated bricks. And very little Presence. Emotion, yes. Overhead projection. Maybe a worship band. But that's not what I have described above is it?

And so anyway. This is the difficult thing for Free Believer's on the internet and this is the difficult thing for members of what I call large "warehouse churches", particularly in USA, Australia and now in the UK.

Size in itself is not a problem. But are the Biblical components for growth there for you in that warehouse church? The ones I've described to get you growing supernaturally.

To "Free Believers", pulling away from a church to establish yourselves in a more 3D relationship with God, is not in itself implausible. I had to go that way. Actually, most of the Bible characters seemed to go that way. So it's not like we are unique here.

But what is important is to get the complete overview. The answer to bad church is not no church....it is good church. And this last sentence presents a challenge to both sides of the divide:"Free Believers" and "Warehouse Christians".

Good church runs in the Melchizedek order. The Lord of the Universe runs it. He does use His own ministry giftings to achieve certain ends....but the end is ALWAYS this.

Jesus wants to live His Life through you as you. Exactly as he originally made you, before sin snaffled some of your divine image. There...just there....ministry giftings tail away into insignificance....because....hush now....the believer is in Union with his or her Christ. And what they get up to, like in a marriage chamber...is frankly no business of yours....so just back away, whistling to yourself, just as if you are not there. Got it? That is the Jesus Pattern of Ministry. So so so so far from anything out there today.

Good church has the Presence of the Living God. And frankly, no one has a clue what He'll get up to next.

Good church somehow gets over the problem of cutting the Cord.

In Song of Solomon, the first time watchmen are mentioned, it's great. Like a good secondlevel church experience, they are there to feed and upbuild a believer. Next time they are mentioned, you're having your clothes ripped off you, being paraded around in the road for heaven's sake!!!

What's that about?

That's about cutting the cord! Or the other analogy some 3rd level teachers used (now the International Ministry Association or IMA, look them up on Wikipedia) is that of an eagle stirring up a nest of baby eagles.....Time to fly little ones!!! "But I like the nest!" "Sorry, but it's time to fly! Oh, did I just push you all out? How clumsy of me!!"

If this was just theory, well it would be a bit one-sided.

From 1978-84 in particular Emsworth church (near Portsmouth UK ) were experimenting how you run meetings in the Presence of God. Also how you train up young people in ministry. What we carried was a bit of the divine DNA about how you do meetings. How people are transformed from one level of glory to another by beholding the face of the Living God in meetings. Emsworth was pretty useless at the time on articulating growth in terms of the epistles, but in terms of hands on experience it was an incredible time.

In the last few years, Peter Stott and others in the church here in Havant (next door to Emsworth) have been pursuing a similar course under the title "Key of David " meetings. (More background here) This, and the fact that several locals were all present for some of the Lakeland Florida Outpouring last year (do a blog search on Florida Outpouring),

has actually meant huge changes to how we do even main meetings here. Perhaps our smaller size helps.

Finally, in thinking around this topic of Cutting the Cord...remember a relationship is a symbiotic union. Its 2 way. For good or for bad. Whether healthy or unhealthy.

2nd level churches are only successful because people willingly go there. They are defined by a leader or leadership team that require your submission to them. They usually require your money, in a very predetermined amount. And if you fulfil your side of the bargain, they will provide you with one, two or three hours godly entertainment and teaching, and maybe signs and wonders, in the case of those with outstanding anointing.

But never forget. You willingly gave yourself into this. It's not one way. Like an abusive relationship, the battered spouse is secretly and wondrously drawn to that powerful macho figure that beats her up.

So there is both a cutting of the cord from a healthy situation, just as a teenager gradually moves ever further out from his or her family home. And there is the cutting of the Cord from an abusive church situation that forever wants to keep you as pew fodder, digesting the same cycle of sermons, about things that have little or no revelation value, so as to make you grow supernaturally. Cutting this type of cord, has greater, more fearful repercussions, because you are pulling away from status quo land, where you may continue in great personal bondage for years, without you or others being aware....until you seek to make steps to following your Bridegroom more actively.