A lot of vision has been developing for me out of Psalm 78 lately. It's all about passing on "kingdom stories" to the next generation. Here's an excerpt:
"...I will speak to you in a parable. I will teach you hidden lessons from our past- stories we have heard and known, stories our ancestors handed down to us. We will not hide these truths from our children; we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the LORD, about his power and his mighty wonders...
so the next generation might know them-even children not yet born-and they in turn will teach their own children. So each generation should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting his glorious miracles and obeying his commands." Psalm 78:2-7
In the Vineyard, we were launched out of a tremendous outpouring of power. The experience of so many in the early days of our movement reads like the pages of the New Testament: sick people got well, demons came out, people encountered God in real ways.
I remember as a teenager and young adult, I latched on to these stories; I was so intrigued.
And in the process of listening to them being told and re-told, something mysterious happened:
I saw the treasure in the field and I knew that I had to give my whole life to this thing.
I had to do all the things Jesus has authorized his followers to do:
I had to heal the sick and drive out demons and take authority over nature, and learn to hear God's voice. And I had to teach others to do the same things.
We saw this happen with groups of teenagers in Kansas City. We'd tell the stories of Jesus and then put them into action. I'll never forget watching skin instantly grow back over open sores, deaf ears opening, a little boy in a wheelchair getting up and walking for the first time, chronic conditions being healed, and powerful prophetic words being delivered- all in response to the prayers of some regular kids who still hadn't finished their homework.
We must never stop telling stories of God at work. It's the first step in the next generations discovering Jesus and His Kingdom, and taking this thing and running with it.
We're about to start this up here in Halifax. I met with some leaders today and in the next few weeks we're going to get groups of young people together, tell our stories and then simply try this stuff out. I have great confidence that God's Spirit is on it.
I'll post more as these things develop.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Our Next Steps
I love this picture! I remember seeing this sign as we crossed into Nova Scotia near the end of our 35 hour drive from Kansas City, and welling up with an incredible excitement; we were actually doing this thing! For me, there was a sense of stepping into the larger story of God at work in an area. There was a sense of the Kingdom advancing.
Well, living under the active rule of God in our lives always engages us in an incredible tension:
On the one hand, God has spoken. We've experienced sort of a charismatic catharsis inside us, and there's a sense of great favor and empowering in the Spirit that takes place. During these times, we can immediately become convinced that from now on we'll essentially live in the third heaven, coming down to earth from time to time for an occasional Starbucks run.
However, what we discover as the journey unfolds is that responding to the voice of God tends to work differently than that. Often there are very mundane things attached to our new seasons of life; things like unpacking boxes, sorting out trash from recycling, and lifting heavy objects to move them to new locations. Then in the midst of these things, we experience God breaking in around us with tremendous power.
This has always been the way it's worked for people who sense God speaking to them:
Moses had these dramatic encounters with the manifest presence of God, and then spent much of his time simply doing hard work like walking through a desert, organizing groups and administrating food service for a group of complainers.
Paul would raise the dead one day, and have to go make some Coleman tents for the Boy Scouts group the next day.
Our new adventure into Halifax is a wonderful combination of both the Natural and the Supernatural . On one level we're doing the hard work of transition- moving, looking for work, planning, getting provincial driver's licences etc. And yet all the while God is doing things.
In the 17 days that we've been here:
-I've told the story of God's leading to a guy in the Shell station- (He asked- "Are you really from Kansas!? What the heck are you doing way up here for?"). As I explained it, he got so excited to hear what was going on. (It reminds me of John Wimber's advice to church planters: "Tell your story everywhere you go. Tell it to anyone who will listen. Tell them why you're here, and what God has spoken to you." There's definitely something about that that can grab people's hearts and allow them to see the treasure of the kingdom).
-We've been able to give words of knowledge for healing to people and pray for the sick with demonstrations of power.
-I've been invited to do a 4 week training on Intimacy with God and Empowering in the Spirit beginning later this month on Sunday nights.
-God has been giving intense vision about training young leaders in the area to do the ministry of Jesus; learning to heal the sick and move in authority and spiritual gifts.
So much has been happening already. What have I learned?
Very simply, in the course of it all, I've become convinced that in everything we're doing, we must look for and invite and expect the arrival of the kingdom. As we do, God will work in great ways around all of us.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
An Unusual Journey
As a teacher and a story teller, I love narratives about men and women who, in the midst of regular life, hear the voice of God, and it absolutely transforms everything.
So many times, I've told the story of Abraham and Sarah:
A couple of senior citizens, sitting out on their porch one day planning their Alaskan cruise, when God shows up! He tells them to leave the comfort and familiarity of everything they know, and to go to the place that He'll show them. They didn't even know what lay ahead, they simply knew that if God was in it, that's where they wanted to be.
This journey to the Atlantic Coast of Canada has been much like this for our family. What would cause well-established leaders to uproot from a spiritual community in Kansas City where God was at work, and circumstances were going well, to set out for a place that's largely unknown and there are no guarantees of anything? If we're not on drugs and we haven't lost our minds, why would we do something like this?
Well, looking back over the journey, we see it's been the voice of God. The story goes like this:
1) In the summer of 2005 we took a trip to the east coast of Canada for the first time. As I was sitting on the rocks @ a place called Peggy’s Cove in Nova Scotia talking to God, I felt the distinct impression that I was going to live there. Almost immediately after that Jen turned to me and said, “I want to live here.”
I figured, "That's just what people do on vacations! Everyone thinks they want to live in a beautiful place that they visit for the first time!"
But a few minutes later, the swirl continued...
2) Jen went into the post office in Peggy's Cove, the exact same place she had gone 23 years earlier as a 7 year old girl, and she met the same lady there that she met when she was 7!
This was either a really strange coincidence or something was stirring.
3) Just a day or so later we went to a historic church in Halifax on a tour. I met the tour guide and struck up a conversation. He said “I moved out here from Victoria, B.C. (my home city) 15 years ago." As we talked, I learned he had been a part of the church I grew up in and my parents are still active part of today.
4) That Sunday we visited the St. Croix Vineyard in New Brunswick. Gary and Joy Best and their family just happened to be there on vacation. In talking to them, we discovered they were visiting the same places we were in a different order.
Either God was at work, or I had somehow just stepped into an M. Night Shyamalan movie...
See, these things are what we know as “divine appointments.” God is setting up the circumstances around us. They're often very unusual, and you can feel the presence of God in them as they happen.
5) As we visited the Vineyard that day, Peter Fitch, the lead pastor there and Dean of St. Stephen's University told us about a group of Scottish Presbyterians on the Atlantic coast who had been praying and were waiting for a great move of God in their region. As he spoke, something inside us knew that we had a part to play in this.
6) We arrived back in Kansas City, and over the coming weeks we just kept sensing this draw to the east coast of Canada. It was very unusual. Through a prophetic puzzle of sorts, God had deposited something into our hearts that we could not shake.
7) The sense of calling continued, and then a little over 2 months later, my friend John MacGirvin, not knowing the things that had developed in our lives, prophesied to me: “You came from the west, but you’re going to the east. There’s a move of God coming to the Vineyard in Eastern Canada and you'll be a part of it. It's a healing movement that will start in the east and move across the nation to the west. " He also said “East is Best. And Best is East. There’s something around Gary Best that is significant in this time." (It was a short time later that Gary and Joy Best relocated from the West Coast of Canada to the East.)
8) In December 2005, I had a dream where a messenger appeared and said to me “Call Larry Levy.” Larry is the senior leader of the Halifax Metro Vineyard in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
9) While I would never endorse playing Bible roulette, in January of 2006, I was praying about Halifax, and had an impression that if I opened my Bible God would give me something about the ocean as a sign. I immediately opened the Bible to Psalm 29:3 “The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD thunders over the mighty waters."
I thought- "That's got to be random chance- I'm going to try that again":
I opened Bible again to Habakkuk 2:14 “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.
10) That same day, I shared the sense of a call to the city of Halifax with Mark Warner, our senior leader at the Vineyard in Kansas City. He looked at me and said, “I’m reading a book about Halifax right now!”
Confidence continued to grow that God was setting this whole thing up!
11) The next month I was driving and praying about going to the east coast of Canada. A car pulled in front and license plate read “LITEHOUSE.” (The lighthouse is synomous with the Atlantic Coast). These were all tokens; kisses from God reminding us that He’s at work in the midst of this.
12) In March of 2006 John MacGirvin prophesied again. He said he saw that I had been plowing a field for about 3.5 years and experiencing a time of harvest. Then he saw me entering a season of rest and refreshing for a short time before another season of plowing began. He reiterated that I’d have a part to play in the healing revival coming to the Vineyard in Eastern Canada. He saw the work expanding into many different fields (places throughout the nation).
13) I suppose I take a lot of convincing because later that month I was asking God if we were really supposed to leave Kansas City and go east. Immediately a car pulled up in front of me, and the license plate read “CYA BYE.”
14) We went to Vineyard Canada’s National Conference which took place in Halifax region in the summer of 2006. God's Spirit was with us powerfully, and we saw remarkable healings and prophetic revelation take place in a number of ministry times. There was a sense of something significant happening there.
15) During the week we were out for the conference, we visited the Halifax Vineyard two weeks in a row. We immediately felt right at home and engaged in ministry times with the kingdom of God breaking in with words of knowledge and healing.
Those were just a few of the events that have led us this far. We arrived in Halifax 10 days ago, and we're beginning to find our feet in the midst of boxes and chaos!
We have a great sense of God at work.
One of the things I've learned is that if we keep our eyes open, and our hearts attentive, we'll discover He's doing things all around us. Saty tuned for more as the journey unfolds...
So many times, I've told the story of Abraham and Sarah:
A couple of senior citizens, sitting out on their porch one day planning their Alaskan cruise, when God shows up! He tells them to leave the comfort and familiarity of everything they know, and to go to the place that He'll show them. They didn't even know what lay ahead, they simply knew that if God was in it, that's where they wanted to be.
This journey to the Atlantic Coast of Canada has been much like this for our family. What would cause well-established leaders to uproot from a spiritual community in Kansas City where God was at work, and circumstances were going well, to set out for a place that's largely unknown and there are no guarantees of anything? If we're not on drugs and we haven't lost our minds, why would we do something like this?
Well, looking back over the journey, we see it's been the voice of God. The story goes like this:
1) In the summer of 2005 we took a trip to the east coast of Canada for the first time. As I was sitting on the rocks @ a place called Peggy’s Cove in Nova Scotia talking to God, I felt the distinct impression that I was going to live there. Almost immediately after that Jen turned to me and said, “I want to live here.”
I figured, "That's just what people do on vacations! Everyone thinks they want to live in a beautiful place that they visit for the first time!"
But a few minutes later, the swirl continued...
2) Jen went into the post office in Peggy's Cove, the exact same place she had gone 23 years earlier as a 7 year old girl, and she met the same lady there that she met when she was 7!
This was either a really strange coincidence or something was stirring.
3) Just a day or so later we went to a historic church in Halifax on a tour. I met the tour guide and struck up a conversation. He said “I moved out here from Victoria, B.C. (my home city) 15 years ago." As we talked, I learned he had been a part of the church I grew up in and my parents are still active part of today.
4) That Sunday we visited the St. Croix Vineyard in New Brunswick. Gary and Joy Best and their family just happened to be there on vacation. In talking to them, we discovered they were visiting the same places we were in a different order.
Either God was at work, or I had somehow just stepped into an M. Night Shyamalan movie...
See, these things are what we know as “divine appointments.” God is setting up the circumstances around us. They're often very unusual, and you can feel the presence of God in them as they happen.
5) As we visited the Vineyard that day, Peter Fitch, the lead pastor there and Dean of St. Stephen's University told us about a group of Scottish Presbyterians on the Atlantic coast who had been praying and were waiting for a great move of God in their region. As he spoke, something inside us knew that we had a part to play in this.
6) We arrived back in Kansas City, and over the coming weeks we just kept sensing this draw to the east coast of Canada. It was very unusual. Through a prophetic puzzle of sorts, God had deposited something into our hearts that we could not shake.
7) The sense of calling continued, and then a little over 2 months later, my friend John MacGirvin, not knowing the things that had developed in our lives, prophesied to me: “You came from the west, but you’re going to the east. There’s a move of God coming to the Vineyard in Eastern Canada and you'll be a part of it. It's a healing movement that will start in the east and move across the nation to the west. " He also said “East is Best. And Best is East. There’s something around Gary Best that is significant in this time." (It was a short time later that Gary and Joy Best relocated from the West Coast of Canada to the East.)
8) In December 2005, I had a dream where a messenger appeared and said to me “Call Larry Levy.” Larry is the senior leader of the Halifax Metro Vineyard in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
9) While I would never endorse playing Bible roulette, in January of 2006, I was praying about Halifax, and had an impression that if I opened my Bible God would give me something about the ocean as a sign. I immediately opened the Bible to Psalm 29:3 “The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD thunders over the mighty waters."
I thought- "That's got to be random chance- I'm going to try that again":
I opened Bible again to Habakkuk 2:14 “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.
10) That same day, I shared the sense of a call to the city of Halifax with Mark Warner, our senior leader at the Vineyard in Kansas City. He looked at me and said, “I’m reading a book about Halifax right now!”
Confidence continued to grow that God was setting this whole thing up!
11) The next month I was driving and praying about going to the east coast of Canada. A car pulled in front and license plate read “LITEHOUSE.” (The lighthouse is synomous with the Atlantic Coast). These were all tokens; kisses from God reminding us that He’s at work in the midst of this.
12) In March of 2006 John MacGirvin prophesied again. He said he saw that I had been plowing a field for about 3.5 years and experiencing a time of harvest. Then he saw me entering a season of rest and refreshing for a short time before another season of plowing began. He reiterated that I’d have a part to play in the healing revival coming to the Vineyard in Eastern Canada. He saw the work expanding into many different fields (places throughout the nation).
13) I suppose I take a lot of convincing because later that month I was asking God if we were really supposed to leave Kansas City and go east. Immediately a car pulled up in front of me, and the license plate read “CYA BYE.”
14) We went to Vineyard Canada’s National Conference which took place in Halifax region in the summer of 2006. God's Spirit was with us powerfully, and we saw remarkable healings and prophetic revelation take place in a number of ministry times. There was a sense of something significant happening there.
15) During the week we were out for the conference, we visited the Halifax Vineyard two weeks in a row. We immediately felt right at home and engaged in ministry times with the kingdom of God breaking in with words of knowledge and healing.
Those were just a few of the events that have led us this far. We arrived in Halifax 10 days ago, and we're beginning to find our feet in the midst of boxes and chaos!
We have a great sense of God at work.
One of the things I've learned is that if we keep our eyes open, and our hearts attentive, we'll discover He's doing things all around us. Saty tuned for more as the journey unfolds...
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