Propitiation: Strawberry Ice-cream
There are some posts like the one on the blog above you just have to taste for yourself.
This is an Isaiah 55 type of post...taste and see the Lord is good.
If I had to say about the theme of the conference here in Havant I
would say that's what it was......
God just wanted us, including many powerful UK and other ministries
to sit down and shutup...and let Him love us, leading us "experientially"
through those verses,
unpacking us,
then just speaking the words
"crowned with glory over us".
I think letting God do conferences is more fun.
For me it was an eye-opener about letting sequences of verses come alive in conferences.
Wednesday, 27 May 2009
Sunday, 24 May 2009
Big Church Day Out - the Pics
Here are the pics. I've just arrived home. Features include YFriday,Graham Kendrick,Israel Houghton and his band,Michael W Smith,Delirious (Tim Jupp the keyboard player thought up the whole event) Steve Chalke,Prayer 24/7 with Pete Greig....14000 of us and numerous side events like the Kings Orchestra,Louise Fellingham,Cathy Burton, some youth rappers from Miraclestreet.com, and touch rugby, a fun run with Sally Gunnell, food and fairground, and the free run of the grounds of Wiston House.
Some of us adults went with the youth from the church. It was extraordinarily well-managed
from the traffic direction down to loos and food facilities.
There were funfair elements for the kids, bouncy castles,jousting...a rapper stage...purpose erected marquees for the different age groups
Wiston House, although privately owned by a family for hundreds of years, (the owners became switched on by an Alpha course)....it is in fact leased out to the Home Office for conferences.
The grounds are so vast that all the activities were actually quite sparsely scattered and there was never a feeling of being too crowded out!
Near the house was a large tea tent manned by Open Doors, and serving Kingdom Coffee. Some of the members of Kings Orchestra were playing in a very English civilised fashion, while others were painting live.
A christian sports outreach were teaching the fine arts of touch rugby.
Sally Gunnell was leading a friendly 1.5 kilometer run. (sadly no pics)
Riding Lights have a younger trimmed down version which goes into schools with dramatized Bible stories and relevant contemporary themes.The picture down below is a rear view of the actors and audience in the gardens.
Cathy Burton is a local talent who sings quality toons!
The former mover and shaker behind Greenbelt Festival became the Mayor of Worthing this weekend.Instead of supporting him in prayer in the ordinary way, they gave him a crowd surf!
Prayer 24/7 highlighted some amazing projects of believers just stepping out in faith and prayer and seeing things form around them in very needy situations.
A quick tour of the large stall tent revealed a great new version of the New Testament by Colin Urquart called The Truth. It is not a paraphrase like the Message, but it is an attempt to drive home the meaning of the original greek so as to leave no ambiguity. Well worth getting! Derived from 4 Greek translations, it was the last thing Colin expected to be called to do.
As the night drew in first Michael W Smith sang a mix of many of his most beautiful and well-known praise and worship songs...like "Hallelujah,the Lord God Almighty reigns. he felt God was telling him to share about his encounter with the Father while shaving around 20 years ago...and how the whole structure of his life changed. many of his songs now are just singing to Papa! He was encouraging us about the rise in expectation for revival in this land.
Jose is one of the main drummers here. We both hail from the network of Argentinian churches called rios de Vida...which included Emsworth.
Helen Rubio and her dynasy of a family are from the same background. Jose is married to her sister Elizabeth.
We were both enjoying all the excellent music...and spirit behind the music. We both loved Israel Houghton who we'd not seen before.
For techies, some would say nerds, but I am far too polite- pics taken on Samsung D 900 mobile.
IF YOU HAVE A BLOG WITH PICS OF THIS EVENT PLEASE CONTACT ME.
BLOG RING SO FAR:http://straight2heaven.wordpress.com/2009/05/27/big-church-day-out/
Saturday, 23 May 2009
A Syn and Melchizedek summary.Part VIII
I have now made this From the Mystery of Sin to the Mystery of Syn Part VIII
The two recent series dovetail into one another and I wanted to hammer home a few of my findings over the years.
The word Pathology means the branch of medical science that studies the causes and nature and effects of diseases .
Living a more or less continuous stretch of my life in Christian community, brought me face up to the window with my own spiritual pathology and that of a community's. I wanted to find an answer. I had to find an answer. I believed from the Word that there was an answer. But I was aware that we hadn't found it. Not in our daily living.
One of the best early keys came from a leadership couple called Stan and Averil Warren. They seemed streets ahead in this living business which is why they were chosen to lead the Bible House.
Stan taught from Amos "Seek Me and Live". In other words any failure, or any attempt at moving on into our vision of what we wanted from life was going to come out of our Seeking God.
And I would have to say that most of us found a lot from God in this way. Firsthand. On our insides. And not by rote-learning off other people teaching techniques.In fact when I got the breakthrough I was looking for,this was eventually how it came. I only subsequently learned through Norman Grubb and his Zerubbabel group about "what had happened" and was able to verbalise it in the 1989 tape "Third level Christianity".
Averil used to say something interesting. Whenever we made errors in the house, or bondages in our life were being exposed....she wasn't primarily interested with just getting those issues right.
She would say simply "We need to pray God into that area of your life. You just need more of God."
Subsequently I have found out more about the detail of why these two details are absolutely correct. So rather than learning completely new stuff and starting some new weird sect or something, I'd describe it in the words of Ed Miller as just "turning the light switch on" in a room I already knew.
Sheila Atchley had an alternative image for my one about "the suspended orb of God's Word". She used the picture of a curtain rod. You've got the flowing and beautiful line of a curtain, but only because it is tensioned correctly overhead with a curtain rod.
In February I was restringing a Bechstein piano in Kegworth and only had one week to do all the strings, all the hammers ,all the dampers and then regulate the thing so that the new parts worked properly....oh and tune the thing to stability a gazillion times!!! And I facebooked people saying how tough it was "re-stringing when the tuning pins had not arrived". Because Bechsteins
have these little fixing holes in things called "agraffes", I was able to cut some of the strings to length at least, and have them sitting there loosely in position.But they do tend to flop around and obstruct each other.
So what's the punchline? Yup. The strings need to be tensioned by the presence of tuning pins at the other end. Maybe they are not up to full tension yet. For that you have to have restrung the whole piano! The whole piano shares the downstrain evenly so that one portion is not overtensioned. A fully tuned midsize Bechstein has a collective tension of 25 tons! (that by the way is another prophetic Church image)
But even putting strings on, there has to be this tension in order that strings do not foul each other.
How does that relate to us? Well, for grace teaching to really work on our insides and produce the Jesus life, we do need covenant. We do need law! But not this time as a tool for condemnation to show us our need for a Saviour. This time it is the leveraging tool that Christ uses to believe "Who we are" against.
Imagine a hippy called "Death" who a couple of us met in Amersham,round his house,witnessing to him.I was 15 or 16. The guy didn't believe in paying his way. Didn't believe in working. He had taken over a couple's house and was squatting in it. He only believed in medicating his feelings with hash. He didn't believe in marriage, only living with who he chose when he chose. If his partner had kids, then as long as it suited him he would sort of be some kind of parental figure.
Until the child crossed his will, and would be bundled out of his way.
What was going on here? He was one of the most extreme versions I have ever met of a guy who was stripping his life of every covenantal boundary. Milder versions are now everywhere you look.
People think freedom is not being shown up for being what you are. A lazy,good for nothing,non- producing,selfish ,twisted, non-relational island who demands the whole of external humanity meets him on his terms and only his terms...or stuff them all!
Death had tried to rid himself of all external measuring devices which would read back to him what an idiot he was.
We need covenantal measuring devices. They are good for our lives. This is one of the functions of the local Body of Christ. To be light to us. About ourselves.
But unless local believers know who they are in Christ, you get the opposite extreme occurring whereby far from being a House after the Order of Melchizedek who are helping you with the very real covenantal issues of life/family job etc. they are making up laws of "tithing mint and cummin". They are tethering your life to all sorts of false covenants that work to destroy your life and keep you from the very real covenantal responsibilities God has given you.
Which brings us to 2 important questions which at first seem unrelated.
Why is Body life not the same as socialism?
And is Pariotism a good or bad thing?
Here is the answer to both.
If each individual is living his or her life as Christ as me in my form...Body life is Syn Life...is collective divine life....you're living out a mystery together. And Patriotism is the healthy expression of corporate life on a national scale.
But conversely..
if each individual does not know he or she has died with Christ and his or her life is now hidden with Christ in God the Father.....
then put that bunch together and you get socialism. You might as well be atheists. You will be expressing the life of your father the devil just as ably as any Russia or China under communism.
And your collective Patriotism will be a "super" representation of your false ego image of being a god in your own right, either expressed in a Russian or Chinese form of demonstrating your atom bombs through your streets on a yearly basis, or in the more benign but even more deceived version of America, appointing itself as Big Brother nation to defend other causes,(but only when oil runs out, or its own interests are threatened) namely Iraq, but not Zimbabwe or North Korea for instance. This deceit was ofcourse highlighted 20 years ago in the album "Joshua Tree " by U2.
So to the Free Believer's network I would say the answer to bad church is not no church, it is rather church run in the order of Melchizedek.
The two recent series dovetail into one another and I wanted to hammer home a few of my findings over the years.
The word Pathology means the branch of medical science that studies the causes and nature and effects of diseases .
Living a more or less continuous stretch of my life in Christian community, brought me face up to the window with my own spiritual pathology and that of a community's. I wanted to find an answer. I had to find an answer. I believed from the Word that there was an answer. But I was aware that we hadn't found it. Not in our daily living.
One of the best early keys came from a leadership couple called Stan and Averil Warren. They seemed streets ahead in this living business which is why they were chosen to lead the Bible House.
Stan taught from Amos "Seek Me and Live". In other words any failure, or any attempt at moving on into our vision of what we wanted from life was going to come out of our Seeking God.
And I would have to say that most of us found a lot from God in this way. Firsthand. On our insides. And not by rote-learning off other people teaching techniques.In fact when I got the breakthrough I was looking for,this was eventually how it came. I only subsequently learned through Norman Grubb and his Zerubbabel group about "what had happened" and was able to verbalise it in the 1989 tape "Third level Christianity".
Averil used to say something interesting. Whenever we made errors in the house, or bondages in our life were being exposed....she wasn't primarily interested with just getting those issues right.
She would say simply "We need to pray God into that area of your life. You just need more of God."
Subsequently I have found out more about the detail of why these two details are absolutely correct. So rather than learning completely new stuff and starting some new weird sect or something, I'd describe it in the words of Ed Miller as just "turning the light switch on" in a room I already knew.
Sheila Atchley had an alternative image for my one about "the suspended orb of God's Word". She used the picture of a curtain rod. You've got the flowing and beautiful line of a curtain, but only because it is tensioned correctly overhead with a curtain rod.
In February I was restringing a Bechstein piano in Kegworth and only had one week to do all the strings, all the hammers ,all the dampers and then regulate the thing so that the new parts worked properly....oh and tune the thing to stability a gazillion times!!! And I facebooked people saying how tough it was "re-stringing when the tuning pins had not arrived". Because Bechsteins
have these little fixing holes in things called "agraffes", I was able to cut some of the strings to length at least, and have them sitting there loosely in position.But they do tend to flop around and obstruct each other.
So what's the punchline? Yup. The strings need to be tensioned by the presence of tuning pins at the other end. Maybe they are not up to full tension yet. For that you have to have restrung the whole piano! The whole piano shares the downstrain evenly so that one portion is not overtensioned. A fully tuned midsize Bechstein has a collective tension of 25 tons! (that by the way is another prophetic Church image)
But even putting strings on, there has to be this tension in order that strings do not foul each other.
How does that relate to us? Well, for grace teaching to really work on our insides and produce the Jesus life, we do need covenant. We do need law! But not this time as a tool for condemnation to show us our need for a Saviour. This time it is the leveraging tool that Christ uses to believe "Who we are" against.
Imagine a hippy called "Death" who a couple of us met in Amersham,round his house,witnessing to him.I was 15 or 16. The guy didn't believe in paying his way. Didn't believe in working. He had taken over a couple's house and was squatting in it. He only believed in medicating his feelings with hash. He didn't believe in marriage, only living with who he chose when he chose. If his partner had kids, then as long as it suited him he would sort of be some kind of parental figure.
Until the child crossed his will, and would be bundled out of his way.
What was going on here? He was one of the most extreme versions I have ever met of a guy who was stripping his life of every covenantal boundary. Milder versions are now everywhere you look.
People think freedom is not being shown up for being what you are. A lazy,good for nothing,non- producing,selfish ,twisted, non-relational island who demands the whole of external humanity meets him on his terms and only his terms...or stuff them all!
Death had tried to rid himself of all external measuring devices which would read back to him what an idiot he was.
We need covenantal measuring devices. They are good for our lives. This is one of the functions of the local Body of Christ. To be light to us. About ourselves.
But unless local believers know who they are in Christ, you get the opposite extreme occurring whereby far from being a House after the Order of Melchizedek who are helping you with the very real covenantal issues of life/family job etc. they are making up laws of "tithing mint and cummin". They are tethering your life to all sorts of false covenants that work to destroy your life and keep you from the very real covenantal responsibilities God has given you.
Which brings us to 2 important questions which at first seem unrelated.
Why is Body life not the same as socialism?
And is Pariotism a good or bad thing?
Here is the answer to both.
If each individual is living his or her life as Christ as me in my form...Body life is Syn Life...is collective divine life....you're living out a mystery together. And Patriotism is the healthy expression of corporate life on a national scale.
But conversely..
if each individual does not know he or she has died with Christ and his or her life is now hidden with Christ in God the Father.....
then put that bunch together and you get socialism. You might as well be atheists. You will be expressing the life of your father the devil just as ably as any Russia or China under communism.
And your collective Patriotism will be a "super" representation of your false ego image of being a god in your own right, either expressed in a Russian or Chinese form of demonstrating your atom bombs through your streets on a yearly basis, or in the more benign but even more deceived version of America, appointing itself as Big Brother nation to defend other causes,(but only when oil runs out, or its own interests are threatened) namely Iraq, but not Zimbabwe or North Korea for instance. This deceit was ofcourse highlighted 20 years ago in the album "Joshua Tree " by U2.
So to the Free Believer's network I would say the answer to bad church is not no church, it is rather church run in the order of Melchizedek.
Thursday, 21 May 2009
Life In the Melchizedek Order V - Melchizedek Normality
Did you get the last post?
I've sort of been pondering it ever since. I know I wrote it....but since when does that mean anything? Many are the ministers who don't get what they preach! Ern Baxter used to say he was going to buy the tapes so he could listen to what he had said under the anointing.
Peter clearly never bought his tapes in Acts 2, because his first sermon was clear....this gospel is for everyone! Paul had to fill him in again later.
Listen ! I said the way electrons and all these infinitiscemal particles behave is a picture of the Melchizedek order! But they are not special, freaky once in a lifetime occurrences...they are what you and I call "the material world". When in fact there's hardly anything material there!
This is what I received in my spirit just now as I was rubbing down a piano.
I feel Jesus just said this:
"When I wrote through Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:26 What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.
This was not a suggestion. This was not a special one off incident.
This was how I run My Church. This is how you learn how to live My normal life which is in the Order of Melchizedek.
For years you have mocked the Anglican church for their liturgy. But you have a liturgy!
Every Hillsongs conference, every new Church, every Rob Rufus Conference has a worship team and liturgy. It is good to have skilled musicians. Anointed musicians.
But don't underestimate Me. I want My church back! Musicians are not some special priesthood class. I arranged for My Church to run on 1 Corinthians 12-14 and I gave very little other details, giving you tremendous freedom. What do You do? Forget the few details I give you, which would ensure you running the church in My order, and invent your own details and wonder why I am not there in Your midst as I should be?"
I now understand with great impact why the worship team here have been feeling so uneasy in the last few months as they have caught something of God's heart on the way meetings are to be run.
I've sort of been pondering it ever since. I know I wrote it....but since when does that mean anything? Many are the ministers who don't get what they preach! Ern Baxter used to say he was going to buy the tapes so he could listen to what he had said under the anointing.
Peter clearly never bought his tapes in Acts 2, because his first sermon was clear....this gospel is for everyone! Paul had to fill him in again later.
Listen ! I said the way electrons and all these infinitiscemal particles behave is a picture of the Melchizedek order! But they are not special, freaky once in a lifetime occurrences...they are what you and I call "the material world". When in fact there's hardly anything material there!
This is what I received in my spirit just now as I was rubbing down a piano.
I feel Jesus just said this:
"When I wrote through Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:26 What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.
This was not a suggestion. This was not a special one off incident.
This was how I run My Church. This is how you learn how to live My normal life which is in the Order of Melchizedek.
For years you have mocked the Anglican church for their liturgy. But you have a liturgy!
Every Hillsongs conference, every new Church, every Rob Rufus Conference has a worship team and liturgy. It is good to have skilled musicians. Anointed musicians.
But don't underestimate Me. I want My church back! Musicians are not some special priesthood class. I arranged for My Church to run on 1 Corinthians 12-14 and I gave very little other details, giving you tremendous freedom. What do You do? Forget the few details I give you, which would ensure you running the church in My order, and invent your own details and wonder why I am not there in Your midst as I should be?"
I now understand with great impact why the worship team here have been feeling so uneasy in the last few months as they have caught something of God's heart on the way meetings are to be run.
Tuesday, 19 May 2009
Life In the Melchizedek Order IV:Havant Church and electrons
This post was triggered by reading a sentence about Shakespeare in Bill Bryson's new book.Because of the scant information regarding his life"He(Shakespeare) is the literary equivalent of an electron-forever there and not there."
I was talking about this electron image to a piano client who was an electrical engineer. One of those involved with BBC transmittors at Crystal Palace in the early years.
I was saying that in time to come people would realise that spirit was the real substance, and that what we take to be real substance is really the flickering screen onto which spirit is scanned.
Jon Sidnell would be better on this. My parents pulled out of physics teaching early to avoid the new physics which was just coming in in the mid 80s. "Enough is enough"said Mum.
Basically, Schroedinger's Cat and stuff like that is about the mercurial nature of electrons. Electrons are sort of there one fraction of a second and gone the next. They behave like waves and particles...but not both....well not at the same time. Your turn Jon.........
The Melchizedek order is precisely like this.
In John 7, the brothers of Jesus said,"You coming up to the Feast(of Tabernacles) then Jesus?"
Behind that statement was a tinge. The family lore about Jesus being left behind and Mary and Joseph losing him, then Him driving them nuts by saying, "Wasn't I just in My Father's house."So they kind of knew He had this mercurial quality when it came to the fixed Jewish Festivals.
Jesus answered them "No". Then the Bible says He went up to the Feast but in secret.
He said to His brothers "Your time is always with you".
In sin life, we are rooted in this delusion of ourselves as "alone-I's" in the Universe. Gods in our own right. Choosing what we want to do. Making our own way. Doing the "best we can".
Our time is always with us. Ern Baxter describes this memorably as "All we like sheep have gone astray, turned everyone to OUR OWN WAY."He said this was the ultimate definition of sin.
Connect ourselves to God and we find we are in a very different time system. You can do more in 2 seconds under the power of the anointing than days, weeks or decades living in the flesh.As I've described before about the epilepsy incident in France, the Power of God gets behind the atoms to the spirit disorder causing it.
Yesterday on Radio 2 Roger Royle was expounding about his patron interest in epilepsy on his slot on Wogan. "Thank God",he said,"we don't believe the cause of epilepsy is evil spirits any more." Implication: those dumb ignorant gospel writers!
Well ofcourse the writers do not understand the mechanics of the brain. The truth is after nearly 100 years active research we only know a little more ourselves. We know that epilepsy is some sort of electrical storm between both hemispheres. But those who know what it is to accept Jesus into their hearts like this:
"Lord, I'm a sinner. If You are there ,save me.Come into my life and take over as Lord."
And those who know what it is to be baptised in the Spirit, by praying this prayer:"Lord I see in the scriptures that it says "For the joy set before you,You endured the cross." And this was because this gave You the legal right to baptise us/immerse us/fill us with the joy and power of Your Holy Spirit as soon as You had ascended to heaven, sharing Your holy anointing oil of Kingship with humans!" So please fill me now. And because it says if a son asks his earthly father for an egg will he give him a serpent? Implication:No. In the same way because I have asked You for the baptism in the Spirit/gift of the Spirit then I believe You are delighted to do so and have answered me. And I start praising You for it."
These are people who then understand the realities of verses like "We wrestle not against flesh and blood". And Rog, because they write that,it doesn't mean they are dumb. It means they see clearly behind every flickering electron, there is a greater spiritual reality that must be bound before anyone gets healed in any brain cells.....or any disorder anywhere for that matter.
Actually, considering the modern discoveries/theories of the quantum world of the inside of atoms and their wackiness....actually it is our modern world that is ignorant...because it still holds too great a store on what we think we can handle/touch and taste.It needs to catch up.
Anyone who has commanded a condition in the Name of Jesus and seen it instantly change, defying all natural explanation , is more likely to say "Thank God Jesus is alive today, doing what He always promised He'd do...and it is not Roger who is in charge of science or teaching in God's church."
So this post is about normal life. Normal life being crazier than we ever supposed. In other words, being chock full of substances that are supposedly there...electrons and subatomic particles...and they are there ...sometimes. But sometimes they are not. If we take a random collective estimate we can roughly tell the mass of electrons in a given volume at any one time. But quite where they will be...and where they will go. We don't know. And if we try measuring one...it just won't be there!!! Again I'm going to need help here...before I dig myself into a hole of ignorance.
So this post is talking about the Melchizedek order as being more reflective of normal life. We live and move by the Spirit of God. We cannot tell you where we will be at a given time...exactly.Our times and seasons are not in our hands. All we can tell you is that as God instructs, His house is being built...it is getting larger and more powerful by the day...and each day we are nearer fulfilling the verse "The knowledge of the glory of God shall cover the Earth as the waters cover the sea."
Every conference here in Havant has been getting looser. This Conference was probably the first that was most like a Key of David Conference. A Key of David meeting has no agenda.There is more description here. But God is the agenda. Peter Jackson was invited under the direction of God. And it was known the sort of ministry mandate he has in the Spirit. He has a schedule. He needs plane flights to and from Toronto. But when he would speak. No one knew. Everyone planned for the Friday sessions. But God said no. So it was Thursday night and Saturday morning. I think.
And because it was the right time ("when the time had fully come") when Peter spoke the Word it had a powerful powerful effect...still being felt now. So many lives were changed forever that morning.
On Friday in the worship I literally heard the sound of heavenly office furniture being dragged from one place to another. I sang "Hear the sound of the Body of Christ moving its headquarters to the rightful place...the Throne room!!!"
Because if you think about it...the Body of Christ has been trying to run the Head. Which is nuts.
And how can you tell who is running who? Because when Jesus runs stuff He has this habit of leaking the glory Presence wherever He walks. It's a sort of give-away, really....literally.
I think Thursday night, Friday, and Saturday afternoon were possibly the most incredible times we have ever had in that room, I mean in terms of worship and praise.
Sunday, 17 May 2009
The Conference - 09- Crowned with His glory
Nutshell report to Lydia Joy and Shawna. (This discussion originated with a report on Shawna's husband Brian who has been preaching a series on grace).
I wrote:I guess I will be sharing stuff...how do you put the Presence of God into words?The main thing in a nutshell is this.The Body of Christ is moving out of one whole time period into another one.Obviously I am calling it the 3rd level. But I am adding to my revelation as fast as anyone else.
This area of knowing the Father is growing and growing.Beginning as a whisper, it is growing louder and louder as a message...now more like a roar!!Basically us humans ,we have been lied to for thousands of years as to how good the Father is....and how complete the provision of the Cross to completely....yes completely...remove the last shreds of shame from every fibre of our being. This has the most enormous ramifications on how we live life.How we worship. How we move in power to set others free. The fact is, if people are not excited right now, then the message has not penetrated yet.
In a previous post which I cannot find, I related sadly how one brother had left to join what he thought was a faster growing network. I wrote that at that time I could not share with him. He would just have to experience for himself how people go in the revolving door of 2nd leveldom, as people come in large number, but many others go straight out the other side. Mostly this is put down to people "not being up to the challenges of the gospel". But my take is that the reality of the revelation of Christ in Us as Us just isn't taught. And trying to do the Christian life yourself is a ticket to a breakdown!!!! (Peter Jackson said American stats show that 90% of those having breakdowns are religious.) Well. Now this brother is back. And he just totally gets it. I can now talk to him. He describes learning he has a relationship with the Father as being born again again. Not only can I speak to him quite freely - in the conference I was even able to share how beforehand whenever I was about to relate stuff , even before saying anything I could feel the words dribbling down my clothing onto the floor.
His whole bearing is different. He is not agressive. His spirit is lovely. He is so changed and in so little a time. What a great thing to report back having only wrote about him in an earlier blog. ie only a year ago.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Lydia Joy wrote:
You are fortunate to have a great church fellowship, not all of us have that you know!!!
I replied:
Seriously, our mandate is to plant and /or midwife them.Peter is already doing it in Paduka and Chicago.A whole bunch were so impressed at what God did in the last visit , (actually some from the Spanish contingent of Chicago New Life church,) they came over on the plane for this conference.
We are a weird church. Almost unknown, yet it is packed to the rafters with the most amazing
mothers/fathers to be...or now are...in God. We have one of the chief people of Lydia international women's prayer movement for example.
She's called Molly Osbourne.But you wouldn't know she was there. The thrust of the final session was about how ministries are totally changing to reflect this new pattern.
The mother/father aspect that I've been explaining in Third level view of ministryseries ....now already is appearing and increasingly will be. People like Rolland and Heidi Baker for instance.A lady called Chris , as well as Peter were explaining the "apparent delay" in our vision coming to pass. God Himself has held this vision in chains in heaven.Why? Because He has been preparing Father/mother ministries the world over. It's all on a totally different level to anything we have seen before.
They were explaining the total frustration our generation all feel. We don't fit in to past ministry patterns. There is nowhere for us. (I absolutely feel this. I wonder if George Warnock, pretty much a godfather to all of us,felt similarly.)For many this has led to bitterness. But if we can raise our vision, we can understand the timing of God. And what hastens the timing of God is to connect primarily with Him in intimacy. (As Heidi Baker shares.) Then we do precisely what He is instructing us to do. We nolonger hide behind ministry titles as in Tom the Sheriff. We are free to be simply Christ as us.
In preparation for this, for years and years Peter has (without any verbal reference to this pattern) been like Graham Pulkingham and taken teams of 1,2,8,10, with him on his ministry trips. He recognizes that the corporate anointing is stronger than his own anointing, but secondly that what God wants to birth is Body ministry in each locality....and not just the big fire-starter superstars of yesteryear. By taking this model from the outset, you make it clear from the word go how things operate. And ofcourse it was Jesus' pattern too!
The conference has only just finished and the reverberations of what actually took place are too early to begin to relay. Christine was profoundly,profoundly touched as were most in yesterday morning's sessions.
A Toronto leader , Peter Jackson's ministry can be described as your own personal "Shack" meeting with the Father. It is gruelling as it was in the book, but it leads to freedom.I was juggling looking after Ben with Christine and missed this particular session, but CDs of the whole thing are available.
The praise and worship was like this:
A sister church came alongside us to lead. Their style is the praise band style, but with an incredible anointing. Our young people loved them. But both teams operated in tandem - prophetically as God directed. Thursday made me want to write a poem called "The Church at the End of Time"...which I've not done yet. I was totally broken by the Spirit -force in the praise.Like a roar- like the one in 1975 Thy Kingdom Come tape of the Kansas City Shepherd's Conference. Except there were not 5000 of us , but only a hundred. So I can only think we had some assistance.
Friday night worship was like "the Body of Christ moving its headquarters to its rightful place - the Throne of God." All these are feeble attempts to explain the electricity of God's Presence.
The final worship session was like God crowning His people with His glory.
Although it was not verbalised, the whole conference ran in the order of the first 5 verses of Isaiah 55"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.
2 Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
3 Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.
4 See, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander of the peoples.
5 Surely you will summon nations you know not, and nations that do not know you will hasten to you, because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has crowned you with glory."
I saw Peter Stott at a final barbecue, and he was at one point just slumped on the chair, just drunk/ in tears at the beauty of what God is building here. He could hardly speak.
I wrote:I guess I will be sharing stuff...how do you put the Presence of God into words?The main thing in a nutshell is this.The Body of Christ is moving out of one whole time period into another one.Obviously I am calling it the 3rd level. But I am adding to my revelation as fast as anyone else.
This area of knowing the Father is growing and growing.Beginning as a whisper, it is growing louder and louder as a message...now more like a roar!!Basically us humans ,we have been lied to for thousands of years as to how good the Father is....and how complete the provision of the Cross to completely....yes completely...remove the last shreds of shame from every fibre of our being. This has the most enormous ramifications on how we live life.How we worship. How we move in power to set others free. The fact is, if people are not excited right now, then the message has not penetrated yet.
In a previous post which I cannot find, I related sadly how one brother had left to join what he thought was a faster growing network. I wrote that at that time I could not share with him. He would just have to experience for himself how people go in the revolving door of 2nd leveldom, as people come in large number, but many others go straight out the other side. Mostly this is put down to people "not being up to the challenges of the gospel". But my take is that the reality of the revelation of Christ in Us as Us just isn't taught. And trying to do the Christian life yourself is a ticket to a breakdown!!!! (Peter Jackson said American stats show that 90% of those having breakdowns are religious.) Well. Now this brother is back. And he just totally gets it. I can now talk to him. He describes learning he has a relationship with the Father as being born again again. Not only can I speak to him quite freely - in the conference I was even able to share how beforehand whenever I was about to relate stuff , even before saying anything I could feel the words dribbling down my clothing onto the floor.
His whole bearing is different. He is not agressive. His spirit is lovely. He is so changed and in so little a time. What a great thing to report back having only wrote about him in an earlier blog. ie only a year ago.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Lydia Joy wrote:
You are fortunate to have a great church fellowship, not all of us have that you know!!!
I replied:
Seriously, our mandate is to plant and /or midwife them.Peter is already doing it in Paduka and Chicago.A whole bunch were so impressed at what God did in the last visit , (actually some from the Spanish contingent of Chicago New Life church,) they came over on the plane for this conference.
We are a weird church. Almost unknown, yet it is packed to the rafters with the most amazing
mothers/fathers to be...or now are...in God. We have one of the chief people of Lydia international women's prayer movement for example.
She's called Molly Osbourne.But you wouldn't know she was there. The thrust of the final session was about how ministries are totally changing to reflect this new pattern.
The mother/father aspect that I've been explaining in Third level view of ministryseries ....now already is appearing and increasingly will be. People like Rolland and Heidi Baker for instance.A lady called Chris , as well as Peter were explaining the "apparent delay" in our vision coming to pass. God Himself has held this vision in chains in heaven.Why? Because He has been preparing Father/mother ministries the world over. It's all on a totally different level to anything we have seen before.
They were explaining the total frustration our generation all feel. We don't fit in to past ministry patterns. There is nowhere for us. (I absolutely feel this. I wonder if George Warnock, pretty much a godfather to all of us,felt similarly.)For many this has led to bitterness. But if we can raise our vision, we can understand the timing of God. And what hastens the timing of God is to connect primarily with Him in intimacy. (As Heidi Baker shares.) Then we do precisely what He is instructing us to do. We nolonger hide behind ministry titles as in Tom the Sheriff. We are free to be simply Christ as us.
In preparation for this, for years and years Peter has (without any verbal reference to this pattern) been like Graham Pulkingham and taken teams of 1,2,8,10, with him on his ministry trips. He recognizes that the corporate anointing is stronger than his own anointing, but secondly that what God wants to birth is Body ministry in each locality....and not just the big fire-starter superstars of yesteryear. By taking this model from the outset, you make it clear from the word go how things operate. And ofcourse it was Jesus' pattern too!
The conference has only just finished and the reverberations of what actually took place are too early to begin to relay. Christine was profoundly,profoundly touched as were most in yesterday morning's sessions.
A Toronto leader , Peter Jackson's ministry can be described as your own personal "Shack" meeting with the Father. It is gruelling as it was in the book, but it leads to freedom.I was juggling looking after Ben with Christine and missed this particular session, but CDs of the whole thing are available.
The praise and worship was like this:
A sister church came alongside us to lead. Their style is the praise band style, but with an incredible anointing. Our young people loved them. But both teams operated in tandem - prophetically as God directed. Thursday made me want to write a poem called "The Church at the End of Time"...which I've not done yet. I was totally broken by the Spirit -force in the praise.Like a roar- like the one in 1975 Thy Kingdom Come tape of the Kansas City Shepherd's Conference. Except there were not 5000 of us , but only a hundred. So I can only think we had some assistance.
Friday night worship was like "the Body of Christ moving its headquarters to its rightful place - the Throne of God." All these are feeble attempts to explain the electricity of God's Presence.
The final worship session was like God crowning His people with His glory.
Although it was not verbalised, the whole conference ran in the order of the first 5 verses of Isaiah 55"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.
2 Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
3 Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.
4 See, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander of the peoples.
5 Surely you will summon nations you know not, and nations that do not know you will hasten to you, because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has crowned you with glory."
I saw Peter Stott at a final barbecue, and he was at one point just slumped on the chair, just drunk/ in tears at the beauty of what God is building here. He could hardly speak.
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
My Performance-Based Acceptance Story
Here am I 37 years as a Christian and I'm about to go into a conference with Peter Stott and Peter Jackson...and I know...like peeling off onion layers...I'm probably going to "see" something more. Some other way that a realm of activity is founded not on grace...but on the inward feeling of incompleteness...so trying extra hard to make up for the deficiency.
Every single year more layers have been coming off.
I came to Christ one year after getting A grades in everything in school apart from woodwork....and yet realising all my effort and struggle achieved nothing really of any significance. I divebombed in depression. I left church. Then hearing Billy Graham in a couple of his films showed me yes an understanding of the mechanics of the gospel, which 12 years of churchgoing had denied me...but more than that...it was the Presence...the welcoming Presence of God that caught hold of me. I did not need to do anything. Jesus had done it!!
I was baptised in the Spirit 2 months later. But even after this I was still thinking along these lines:
I will perform classical guitar in the Dr Challoner's Grammar School Concert to the best of my ability to show that Christians are some good.
Guess what! My fingers failed. Awesomely. Nasty pauses in front of hundreds of people.
God!! You weren't there! And I was trying so hard for You. You have let Your Name down!!!
Do you know He loves us so much He's prepared to let His Name down?
That night I went to my friend's house. And I cried and I cried and I cried.
A prophet was there and so in the mess. In the brokenness. He prophesied in. I was rebuilt that night. I knew a Father that was totally unimpressed with my efforts. Because He loves me anyway. There is nothing to prove to Him. And like a Father that night it was like He covered Me in grace, in love,in acceptance. None of which was based on me.
And that night by the way...I died to performance musically. I have never suffered from nerves since. The truth is, that night my nerves were shredded into a pulp...I have none left...I am numb to looking stupid. People in the church here say I am bold. No I'm not bold. My anti-boldness mechanisms have been shredded. Ask John Stevens when I attempted to play at his 50th birthday...and it went equally wrong. But now it doesn't matter. God just laughs. And I just laugh too. Not that I wanted to upset John.
But those are just 2 stories. I could give yearly updates. The truth is the Fall has left us all so decimated, but it's all covered over with figleaf behaviour. And it's all so unnecessary, because the Father is not fooled.He just wants to love us free. It's good to be in a Body that is equipped to be just that- a vehicle for God's penetrating grace. And it's great that I have a person like Christine who loves me enough not to let me get away with anything. It's great to live naked with someone. I don't have to impress her. She loves me.
Actually, a defining moment for her, it turns out was me playing a classical guitar piece called Romance or Romanza... at a friend's 18th birthday party at the University of Exeter.(1977)This is one of the best I could find on You Tube.
This is all Joel's crazy idea,blame him
Sunday, 10 May 2009
John Weller has died
Every life tells a story....almost whether people like it or not.
Through a Christian's eyes John represented the lavish grace and love shown towards his family, that the Father has towards us. The same absurd nuttiness of throwing everything in behind his family.
Amidst the F words.
Amidst the atheism.
Amidst his total lack of patience with people who only half live their lives.And he represented the other F word.....but totally without any religiosity....Faith.
Faith just to go for things. To risk and sometimes hit lucky.
And certainly with Paul,his son,the singer, he hit gold. But not every Dad is there to push and shove and make things happen .
You can hear his story here:
And you can read my brief involvement with them all here.
My love and respect goes out to the family.
Friday, 8 May 2009
From the Mystery of Sin to the Mystery of Syn VII-This is what Grace does.
The prophetic always shoots forward to the future like a direction arrow. But what about today?We're right in the middle of something beautiful as church members unravel the mysteries of what God has done for us.
I was putting Ben to bed this week and a brother phoned up right then. Christine was out preparing songs for the up and coming conference so I had to juggle. No time to do anything but respond in prayer. Wasn't particularly feeling great myself. But somehow Christ came through, he told Christine the next day.A pattern that usually happened did not. It was halted in the prayer.
OK we may not be at quite revival pitch here...but on the quiet- every day- God is building-seamlessly- networks of relationships- responses of faith. You turn round every so often and gaze at what God's building- and think wow this is not the work of a man. This is awesome. I believe loads of us are in situations like this. Perhaps it is all the more beautiful because there is no fanfare...no hype....it just IS. Christine had a lovely time yesterday in our church secondhand furniture shop. Both the furniture and the money from it go towards debt relief counselling, or providing direct help to needy situations. But the thing is Christine so enjoyed being with Kaye, because she is so precious. (Her husband Ian is the one I go to see man films with, if there is something that Christine does not want to see.)
What the devil does not tell us about when enticing us to sin, is what we miss out on by not being available for the "syn" life. The truth is Life,Christs's life in us, does not live "unto itself". It's meshed in with this glorious Bride that is being prepared, this Body that is being built.People that are being called to share in this life. Attracted to its light.
Here is Sheila on what is happening with their church led by her husband Tim.(Taken from her blog)
Friday, May 8, 2009
"I'll Show You My Faith By My Works"
"Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works." (James 2)I have proof that preaching grace doesn't produce passive Christianity. Two words: Harvest Church.Nope, neither Harvest's pastor, nor his wife worry that the message of "Sola Gracia" (the "Grace Alone", history-rending cry of Martin Luther) will cause people to be without evidence of their faith. The people of Harvest Church, though they are told Sunday in and Sunday out that they have no righteousness of their own, persist and insist on abounding in righteous works. Go figure!In my church, I cannot think of a single member who is not actively involved in the lives of others. I mean that. Not. One.Those are darn good statistics for "one of those grace churches."Every single day, the saints are caring for the sick, serving little children, repairing each other's automobiles, counseling the confused, pulling off whole weddings and funerals, cooking meals for others, paying bills for those out of work, giving gifts, babysitting each other's children, clothing the poor and homeless, and preaching the gospel without regard to reward or fear of man. The people of Harvest are ever about the business of life: playing their music, painting their paintings, producing their television broadcasts, practicing their medicine, dancing their dances, singing their songs....and yeah....answering e-mails with an enthusiasm that is sincere, and writing blog entries with grace infused passion. All of it "works of righteousness".People in whom there is no guile. That's my church, for the most part. They don't treat relationships like a game of chess - always analyzing the other person, attempting to stay "one move ahead". Their love is sincere. They won't try to impress you. They don't try to be righteous. They don't try to do righteous things. They've been taught better than that. They simply are righteous.Tim and I do not even conceive of a life that does not abound in what Eugene Peterson paraphrases, in James, "...a seamless unity of believing and doing." Um...to us, in our personal lives, the "doing" literally often goes without saying. Our finest doings happen when we are unconscious of them. And the members of Harvest out-do us all the time.We love to have it so. They are our letters of commendation - commending not us, but the gospel of Christ, and the message of grace.You see, Paul said it like this: "Not by works of righteousness which I have done, but according to His mercy He saved me." Righteous works? Paul says, "Been there. Done that. Still doing." And the big deal is....? The big deal is the mercy of God. What Paul accomplished, through grace, meant not near as much to Paul as the grace that enabled him. The works themselves really are not the big deal. They are the evidence of a reality far, far greater.Here is another thing Tim and I cannot conceive of: Not being Tim. Not being Sheila. Tim can't be Barack Obama or John Travolta. I can't work the works of Laura Bush or Angelina Jolie.So...when we say we are the righteousness of God in Christ, and that it is "not I, but Christ who lives in me"...we mean that the things we do, every day, become acts of righteousness. Tim and I have been made righteous. We can't be anything but righteous, just like John Travolta can't be anything but.....you know. John.My home, its atmosphere and hospitality, is an ongoing act of righteousness. I can't help it. I am righteous. The cookies I bake are an act of righteousness, because a righteous woman created them. Our old cars...the repairs Tim makes to them are acts of righteousness, done by a righteous man, for the good of his family. When he takes his boy canoeing, it is an act of righteousness.No one needs a mandate to just "be" who they are, in Christ.The grace of God sets us free to abound in all the good works we were created new creatures in Christ to do. That might mean organizing an entire wedding reception for someone else, or that might mean traveling to Cambodia.I can find you lots of people in my church who do either one or both, every chance they get, and all of it is as natural to them as breathing.They know who they are, in Christ. They can't help but act like who they are.Really! To them, it is no big deal.
I was putting Ben to bed this week and a brother phoned up right then. Christine was out preparing songs for the up and coming conference so I had to juggle. No time to do anything but respond in prayer. Wasn't particularly feeling great myself. But somehow Christ came through, he told Christine the next day.A pattern that usually happened did not. It was halted in the prayer.
OK we may not be at quite revival pitch here...but on the quiet- every day- God is building-seamlessly- networks of relationships- responses of faith. You turn round every so often and gaze at what God's building- and think wow this is not the work of a man. This is awesome. I believe loads of us are in situations like this. Perhaps it is all the more beautiful because there is no fanfare...no hype....it just IS. Christine had a lovely time yesterday in our church secondhand furniture shop. Both the furniture and the money from it go towards debt relief counselling, or providing direct help to needy situations. But the thing is Christine so enjoyed being with Kaye, because she is so precious. (Her husband Ian is the one I go to see man films with, if there is something that Christine does not want to see.)
What the devil does not tell us about when enticing us to sin, is what we miss out on by not being available for the "syn" life. The truth is Life,Christs's life in us, does not live "unto itself". It's meshed in with this glorious Bride that is being prepared, this Body that is being built.People that are being called to share in this life. Attracted to its light.
Here is Sheila on what is happening with their church led by her husband Tim.(Taken from her blog)
Friday, May 8, 2009
"I'll Show You My Faith By My Works"
"Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works." (James 2)I have proof that preaching grace doesn't produce passive Christianity. Two words: Harvest Church.Nope, neither Harvest's pastor, nor his wife worry that the message of "Sola Gracia" (the "Grace Alone", history-rending cry of Martin Luther) will cause people to be without evidence of their faith. The people of Harvest Church, though they are told Sunday in and Sunday out that they have no righteousness of their own, persist and insist on abounding in righteous works. Go figure!In my church, I cannot think of a single member who is not actively involved in the lives of others. I mean that. Not. One.Those are darn good statistics for "one of those grace churches."Every single day, the saints are caring for the sick, serving little children, repairing each other's automobiles, counseling the confused, pulling off whole weddings and funerals, cooking meals for others, paying bills for those out of work, giving gifts, babysitting each other's children, clothing the poor and homeless, and preaching the gospel without regard to reward or fear of man. The people of Harvest are ever about the business of life: playing their music, painting their paintings, producing their television broadcasts, practicing their medicine, dancing their dances, singing their songs....and yeah....answering e-mails with an enthusiasm that is sincere, and writing blog entries with grace infused passion. All of it "works of righteousness".People in whom there is no guile. That's my church, for the most part. They don't treat relationships like a game of chess - always analyzing the other person, attempting to stay "one move ahead". Their love is sincere. They won't try to impress you. They don't try to be righteous. They don't try to do righteous things. They've been taught better than that. They simply are righteous.Tim and I do not even conceive of a life that does not abound in what Eugene Peterson paraphrases, in James, "...a seamless unity of believing and doing." Um...to us, in our personal lives, the "doing" literally often goes without saying. Our finest doings happen when we are unconscious of them. And the members of Harvest out-do us all the time.We love to have it so. They are our letters of commendation - commending not us, but the gospel of Christ, and the message of grace.You see, Paul said it like this: "Not by works of righteousness which I have done, but according to His mercy He saved me." Righteous works? Paul says, "Been there. Done that. Still doing." And the big deal is....? The big deal is the mercy of God. What Paul accomplished, through grace, meant not near as much to Paul as the grace that enabled him. The works themselves really are not the big deal. They are the evidence of a reality far, far greater.Here is another thing Tim and I cannot conceive of: Not being Tim. Not being Sheila. Tim can't be Barack Obama or John Travolta. I can't work the works of Laura Bush or Angelina Jolie.So...when we say we are the righteousness of God in Christ, and that it is "not I, but Christ who lives in me"...we mean that the things we do, every day, become acts of righteousness. Tim and I have been made righteous. We can't be anything but righteous, just like John Travolta can't be anything but.....you know. John.My home, its atmosphere and hospitality, is an ongoing act of righteousness. I can't help it. I am righteous. The cookies I bake are an act of righteousness, because a righteous woman created them. Our old cars...the repairs Tim makes to them are acts of righteousness, done by a righteous man, for the good of his family. When he takes his boy canoeing, it is an act of righteousness.No one needs a mandate to just "be" who they are, in Christ.The grace of God sets us free to abound in all the good works we were created new creatures in Christ to do. That might mean organizing an entire wedding reception for someone else, or that might mean traveling to Cambodia.I can find you lots of people in my church who do either one or both, every chance they get, and all of it is as natural to them as breathing.They know who they are, in Christ. They can't help but act like who they are.Really! To them, it is no big deal.
Thursday, 7 May 2009
From the Mystery of Sin to the Mystery of Syn VI - Network Hubs
I have a sort of plan with this subject....then life happens!!
It seems this is a bit of a motherlode.
Prophetically.
Also because I am a tuner in my daily life.
But now....also currently.
I thought the street-dance group Diversity were a great visual for this series. On Tuesday night I was gripped by a science/computer type programme in the mid-evening on the subject of networking. This was the final sentence.
Far from being a computer field only, network theory has now become one of the central subjects of research in science in our century.
In a nutshell, what began in the realm of computer linkage, has now spread to include all major science studies...with for example applications in cancer research.
It is this. Originally , it was supposed that the web was going to be an egalitarian connection process between all points on the Earth, connecting pretty randomly to all points on the earth.
What in fact transpired is that pretty soon some superhubs emerged, which have become the well-known names on the web. Google.Amazon.Ebay. And many others.
This led to a study of network theory.
Theories like
Everyone is connected to everyone by about 6 stages of separation or less.
The appearance of hubs is not random but follows a predictive path also observable in cells in our body, in organ behaviour in our bodies, in atomic and molecular particles, in non-web organizations of people- like the star circuit in Hollywood.
These observations have everything to do with how the true Church operates. Based on living linkages of "what each joint supplies". As soon as you stop supplying...and move back into "the myth of the independant self", locked back into the cynicism of you as a finite being just "getting along" in the best fashion that you as a self-determining god in your own right can handle....
The Body fractures.
The anointing leaves.
Reproduction cannot occur.
Ichabod.
It seems this is a bit of a motherlode.
Prophetically.
Also because I am a tuner in my daily life.
But now....also currently.
I thought the street-dance group Diversity were a great visual for this series. On Tuesday night I was gripped by a science/computer type programme in the mid-evening on the subject of networking. This was the final sentence.
Far from being a computer field only, network theory has now become one of the central subjects of research in science in our century.
In a nutshell, what began in the realm of computer linkage, has now spread to include all major science studies...with for example applications in cancer research.
It is this. Originally , it was supposed that the web was going to be an egalitarian connection process between all points on the Earth, connecting pretty randomly to all points on the earth.
What in fact transpired is that pretty soon some superhubs emerged, which have become the well-known names on the web. Google.Amazon.Ebay. And many others.
This led to a study of network theory.
Theories like
Everyone is connected to everyone by about 6 stages of separation or less.
The appearance of hubs is not random but follows a predictive path also observable in cells in our body, in organ behaviour in our bodies, in atomic and molecular particles, in non-web organizations of people- like the star circuit in Hollywood.
These observations have everything to do with how the true Church operates. Based on living linkages of "what each joint supplies". As soon as you stop supplying...and move back into "the myth of the independant self", locked back into the cynicism of you as a finite being just "getting along" in the best fashion that you as a self-determining god in your own right can handle....
The Body fractures.
The anointing leaves.
Reproduction cannot occur.
Ichabod.
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
From the Mystery of Sin to the Mystery of Syn V - Seeds of Peace
Martha Keys , The Fisherfolk who came to our school for a week.
This was striking because while I was away I have been reading more of "From Eternity To Here"by Frank Viola.
Probably the best way to understand this book is to imagine a time of praise which leads into a time of intimate worship.....like a Key of David meeting...or whatever your equivalent is...
then while some instrumentalists are playing gently....someone may be reading beautiful words to meditate on over a microphone. Those words could be any section from Frank's new book.
Let me put it this way. All of us now have the mechanics of lovemaking described and taught in biology or other purpose-built formats in school lessons. But how many take that biology book into the marriage bed with them? Nobody I think. If you take anything at all it is more likely to be poetry.
In the same way...we've heard a lot "about" the Church and Jesus. Many manuals have been written. But what I am saying is when the Presence of the Lord comes, how many of those manuals would you read from at those precious moments!!!!
No, at those moments...if you read from anything at all...it will be from the Bible itself...passages like The Song of Solomon...or Psalms.
Or from a rising tide of books that now includes "From Eternity To here."
they are books to be read...in relationship....in worship
and when God's presence comes. Individually. Corporately.
They began here and there...with Madame Guyon for example.
Then her influence touched countless but one was Jessie Penn Lewis, who in turn influenced Watchman Nee, which I guess Dan has finally got his fingers into.
This in turn led to The Divine Romance by Gene Edwards, which like From Eternity To Here, broadens the scope to capture the grandeur of the purpose of God towards His Bride from Eternity past, through and into creation, to be consummated in the heavenlies; in other words taking in the whole sweep of scripture.
And as Dan has discovered ,this includes unearthing the picture of a Jewish betrothal. Frank Viola describes the process in Chapter 10. In other words Song of Solomon describes this whole betrothal process, where there is quite a time lag between betrothal and actual consummation.
Here again is another example of where the devil-inspired world system scoffs at the very beauty of God's way of doing things. The devil doesn't understand anything other than impulse driven sex. Or worse rape even or violation. This idea that a couple would prepare for each other just is not even in the same horizon, no solar system. He only understands "try before you buy".Partnering without commitment; love without covenant.
Push and shove.
Marriage, he just can't conceive.
So little wonder that the world scoff at a Bridegroom who goes off and leaves His Bride for 2000 years and counting, while his "manservant" (to use the Isaac example) the Holy Spirit prepares a beautiful bride.
My little testimony in all this is that while waiting for the right time to bring out "Early Harvest", about 5 years ago I began to be quickened again to put a track on there about the Bride and Covenant Love. So this took me back to my roots of actually seeking out the double tape message of Ern Baxter at Capel Bible Week 1976 entitled Covenant Love: a Study of David and Jonathan. Well I googled for this and found Dan's blog in the summer of 2007. I had no idea that it would lead on to all this that has taken place. Meanwhile the 2nd cassette has been found in our attic!!!Which means that the 1st one may be in there. Last time we looked I bust the heating system!!!So we'd prefer it if someone else had a copy.
Now Frank's book has come my way....which in many ways is the verbalization of what was going on in my spirit. My task is to get some of this down musically. Over 37 years I have received 2 or 3 songs which are appropriate as well as having it in mind to link them musically.
The other link in my spirit comes from Kenneth Copeland's Blood Covenant series. If you can get these...hear them. Kenneth is part Cherokee , so the concept of Covenant agreement is in his lineage.In fact it was very much a part of why Cherokees did not get/understand Americans who in practice were such Covenant Breakers.
All these aspects of God's love for us come alive as we move out of sin...into Syn.
As we fuse with our Lord and with one another we begin moving in another dynamic.
It is revelation.
It is a way of living.
It is the true Jesus.
It is the real deal.
People who go on and on about morals. And trying to live a better and better life just haven't a clue.
We move out of sin, not to remain in some pure whitescape expanse like Greenland...marooned and guarding our "concept of purity". No I began this series by quoting the whole of Romans 12.
We are saved out of something to become part of something else. If we are not part of something else, we are deceived. If you are not connected to me and I am not connected to you...and so on and so on...the world over....we are all deceived. Jesus is real and he is One. He is not divided.
We can waffle on in churches or on blogs. But I just ask. Are we connected? If not we have a ways to go.
Rob and Ryan Rufus state we just pass through Romans 3 to 5 grace, then a repetition process of grace Romans 6-7 ,then we arrive at Romans 8.
Well two things prove whether they are correct. In Romans 8 living our environment which was formerly barren, starts to crack open. It starts to look more redeemed. We begin to set our immediate surroundings a bit freer. And in Romans 12, having had chapters 1 through 8, we can truly start to operate in this syn life....naturally...and ofcourse supernaturally...what I mean is it is not forced. We find it is normal for us. So these are the two proofs. Romans 8 and Romans 12.
In between by the way...the Jews start getting jealous!!! (More on another occasion!)
What my blog is about is that Romans 6 and 7 are real experiences also. There's a "reckoning/believing/confessing" of our spiritual realities...which often leads to a manifestation of the very opposite....until eventually the reality of the heavenlies crashes through the skies to bring a Romans 8 breakthrough for us. And in the reality of this, we can then sow into other's lives to see the same happen in them. This is the Kingdom chain reaction. This is true multi-level marketing! 2 tell 2 tell 2 tell 2etc etc. This is the picture of leaven, not as sin as in the Pharisees, but as Syn, the Kingdom leaven!
So in the spirit of this I was knocked for six by the manifestation of the love and anointing on the Fisherfolk when they visited our area and school. (1973)If ee cummings had written poetry about the reality of the Body of Christ: it would have looked like this Martha Keys poem.
-Probably my favorite poem to date on the subject of the Body of Christ .
I have uploaded the instrumental "Algeria" from Early Harvest CD1, here compressed for the internet(copyright AC Welch 1990).This contains fragments from Martha's poem, but really it is to listen to while reading the whole poem below.If you are interested in more details about Algeria, to save information overload it is put at the bottom of this post.Enjoy!
seeds of war and seeds of peace by martha keys
peace, peace, there is no peace
we've cried, we've tried
we cannot find it
not just the peace that glows inside: for that we have the power
in a flower or a little weed
i can find the peace i need inside
where is the peace
that can free me not to hide from you fearing to be found?
i see you coming down the street
paralyzed by fear of meeting another barricaded face
i pass by
on the other side
i return to the fear
i've learned
to live and sleep and breathe
peace, peace, there is no peace we've cried, we've tried
we cannot find it
we are whirling silences
touching circumferences
retreating
into our own orbits
we return
to the fear we've learned
to live and sleep and breathe
we need a strong peace
not a treaty
to keep us each
on our side of the line
we need a peace that flows between us
giving me to you and you to me
we need a very gentle peace
that reaches back
to when we were children:
peace that touches us
when we were hurt and couldn't cry
and when we cried and no one came
peace that holds us till we are loved free
of all the aching memories
that make me afraid of you
and you of me
we need a strong peace
breaking down the wall that stands between us
stone and cold and overgrown
with ancient vines
choking hope
we need the bond of peace:
unbreakable unshakable fact:
me given to you
you given to me
we are one
the old walls fall the old hurts heal
war-weary world
come
and see
maybe our lives can be a sacrament
love's presence in a world that's bent
the first foothold on the way to hope
we have learned to repent
not just relent
from doing what we want to do:
you hurting me
me hurting you
we've turned touched each other and we see
we are one
i am part of you
you're part of me
war-weary world if only you can see we live at peace
maybe the hope you've held inside
afraid to breathe
afraid to quench the fragile candle flame that flickered
in the fury of the war storm
maybe you could begin to breathe
maybe you could begin to believe peace can be as strong
as the killing and the wrong
we all have lived and died through
maybe you could see enough
to seek peace with us and trust that we are given to you
you're given to us
maybe we can be the life bread to fill the hole
that hope left when it died stabbed by jagged edges
of promises that broke
maybe we can be the phoenix risen from the war ashes
to pursue peace
with the passion
of the fury war unleashed
maybe our life can be a sacrament
love's presence in a world that's bent
the first foothold
on the way to hope
january 20 1973
just before Martha and the rest of the Fisherfolk came to my school Dr Challoner's Grammar School Amersham Bucks England with Graham Pulkingham . You can find it and a whole load of community testimonies in "They left Their Nets" by Graham Pulkingham 1973.
ALGERIA - instrumental Music : © A. Christopher Welch 1990. A TV documentary on RAI music in Algeria,(a sort of underground movement extolling wine, women etc., in a strict Muslim culture), still had an underlying futility and hopelessness, prompting this melody.Keyboard Cello and Piano: Michael Thom.Flute: AChristopher Welch Administered by No Name Ltd. 1991. Unlike Brother Andrew, I had no idea that the Muslim restlessness conveyed here would grow to threaten world stability,first in 1991, then in many of the incidents in the following years. Perhaps I was picking up the burden later expressed in Prayer for the 10/40 window.
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