The Supernatural Church
Right now I’m reading Visions Beyond the Veil by R.A. Baker. The book recounts an amazing outpouring of the Holy Spirit that happened among a group of street children in a mission in China during the early part of the 20th century. Baker was the grandfather of Rolland Baker of IRIS Ministries fame.
As I read through the introduction I watched Mr. Baker defend the legitimacy of the supernatural encounters these children were having. I’m absolutely certain this was necessary, especially considering it had been a very short time since the things of the Spirit had gained any widespread acceptance. So when I saw this quote I had to share it. I think his words are as challenging and relevant today as they were then:
“Our Lord has gone. Where, oh, where is the Holy Spirit that has come to take His place; to carry on His uncompleted task; to work in the midst of His church in signs and wonders and gifts of the Holy Spirit? Has God died? If so, when? […] After all, is the Holy Spirit, this great power of Christ, the Christ whose words the wind and waves obeyed, whose words burst tombs, is this Great Substitute just a gentle influence? Where is the Holy Spirit Who shook and filled a whole house of praying disciples and through them shook a world?
These trances, visions, revelations, and supernatural manifestations are normal experiences in the supernaturally founded, supernaturally filled, and supernaturally directed Church of the New Testament, the only church the Bible tells or fortells anything about.” [Emphasis Mine]
What are your thoughts? Have you seen a church that looks like this? Share an experience in the comments below.
Photo Credit: I HOPE THIS DOESN’T MEAN THEIR ARE NO MIRACLES LEFT…! by JOPHIELsmiles
False Prophets, Acts Chapter 2, and our House Church
[Editor’s Note: This post was written in December of 2009. I post it now because it set’s the stage for some of the posts that will follow. I plan on posting the full text of the dream mentioned here in a separate post. This also will give you a glimpse into what our house church meetings look like.]
We just finished with a marathon house church meeting that was unlike anything we’ve touched as a church in a long time. I think by the end of the meeting a couple of people had significant spiritual healing, a degree of physical healing took place in someone’s back, and a lot of people feeling a lot closer to Jesus than when we started! Praise the Lord!
It all started when someone in our church shared a dream that had some end-time implications. The jist of the dream was that we have to address heresy as soon as possible before it springs up and becomes something more difficult to deal with. We began to discuss and the conversation shifted to the idea of personal responsibility in our church: It’s not one person’s job to look out for heresy, it’s everyone’s job.
It was at this point Sean started talking about Acts 2 and the necessity of living the lifestyle that we find there (eating together, prayer, fellowship, devotion to the apostolic message, etc). As we began to talk about Acts 2 and meeting Jesus in powerful ways, it became obvious that the Holy Spirit was present in a tangible way, so we began to pray for one another. There was continual prayer, proclamation, and teaching for the next two hours! The most fun for me was to watch the whole church spontaneously love and serve each other without prodding from anyone. It’s how church should be.
All in all, Jesus met us. I post this to stir you up wherever you are, no matter what type of church you meet in. Jesus desires to meet you and will rock your world. Stay hungry to meet Him and He will find you.
Antioch 2009, All Things Starfish, and Haven In The Hood
About two years ago Christy and I by the providence of God found ourselves at the Tribal Gathering hosted by Rock International. While Christy and I try to make a habit of going to the Tribal Gathering as often as possible, this year God seemed to have something up His sleeve. A work schedule that should have been impossible to navigate opened up and we found ourselves in the middle of a series of meetings that blew our minds.
The Rock’s guest that year was Wolfgang Simson, a German missions expert who wrote the mind-bending book, Houses That Change the World. To make a long story short, my life was dramatically shifted during that weekend in a way that’s hard to explain. Wolfgang unveiled his vision for multiplying house church movements being used to win masses for Jesus at the end of the age. He likened the process to a starfish, which can be multiplied many times over but never dies throughout the process.
Without going into a ton of detail, this “Starfish Vision” called for a gathering of believers to meet in Antioch in 2009 to gather before the Lord and repent for having missionary agendas that were not the Lord’s. This meeting, however, was only to serve as a springboard to a more significant gathering where house church leaders from around the world would gather to hear God’s plan for gathering in the last great harvest. I think it may look something like this.
Needless to say I was intrigued by the idea of the Antioch meeting and never forgot about it. Well, two years have come and gone and this meeting finally occurred. In the last few weeks, several of those who were there have written about what happened. You can read Guy Muse’s very personal observations here. You can get Tony Dale’s perspective here. And last but not least get the thoughts of the guy who called the whole thing together (Wolf) here.
And as if that wasn’t enough at the gathering, Wolfgang and Mercy released the finalized version of the Starfish Manifesto. The Starfish Manifesto is the culmination of a couple of years of waiting on the Lord, hearing His voice, and pairing apostolic strategy with prophetic insight. I have not read this version, but the early version I saw was amazing and challenged me to go deeper in the things that God started in me that weekend two years ago. You can download the final version of the Starfish Manifesto here.
And finally, turning our attention from Antioch back a little closer to home, I want recommend to my readers a new blog “Haven In The Hood.” The blog features two new friends of ours who moved out of suburbia and into a neighborhood not too far from us. The blog is their story about creating a little place of refuge where many think none could be had. You can check them out here.
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 