Tribal Gathering Report II

So Thursday picked up with an amazing session led by Rolland “Tigger” Baker.  Tim Johns decided to nickname Rolland because he would spend most of worship sneaking up on people and blasting them with the Holy Spirit.  No one seemed to mind, but it was a little jolting to see people falling all over the place when someone just touches them or points his finger at them.  I loved watching Rolland.  He was having more fun than anyone else in the entire building.

Rolland ended up speaking that morning, too.  I think Rolland’s message was the most profound and impacting session of the entire conference.  Rolland taught about God as a God who is joyful all the time.  His message flew right in the face of what we think is spirituality, but more often than not is unbelief and defeat.  I’ll list just a few quotes, because I would fail miserably at summing up the message.  “Did you know God is more childlike than you are?”  “I’ve raised very few people from the dead when I’ve been in a bad mood.”  “We have to stop doing things for the Lord that we can pull off if He doesn’t show up.”  Hopefully when I get the CD from the ROCK, I will post about 10 to 20 minutes of it on “Jesus, The Church, and the Coming Kingdom.”

This day also happened to be my birthday, so Christy and I went to Subway to celebrate with Sean, Bryan, and John Gross.  During lunch, John shared a prophetic word with me about what God is about to do with the house church we’re launching in Cedar Rapids that had to do with kicking people out of their safety zones so that they can grow and strengthen themselves.  Look for more on that little adventure in the near future.

Later that night, we returned to the conference center to hear Heidi Baker exhort us to not move forward without the presence of the Lord.  Heidi preached about Moses being unwilling to attempt ministry without the presence of the Lord, even though he had angels leading them and the Lord had promised an abundance of provision.  Moses treasured the presence of the Lord above all else.  That is what caused him to be great in God’s sight.  I was struck by my own ability to move forward without the presence of the Lord, even in ministry, and how shallow my life is because of that.  The Lord messed us up again after the message. 

This day was a great day.  It was also my birthday.  The presence of the Lord was sweet and He realigned my heart to trust His sovereignty and to wait for Him in more things.  The Lord would be harder on over the next few days, cleansing my heart of impurity, but this day was a great day.