Know What You're For

I had a brief moment last week where I lost my vision. I forgot why we packed up everything we owned 8 months ago, left a great life in Kansas City and drove 2,200 miles to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

God had spoken to us time and time again about the healing ministry of Jesus breaking out in the Atlantic Coast, about our involvement in stirring up spiritual gifts, teaching and leadership. And yet, somehow, in the course of life, I lost perspective and began to wonder if I should do something else. I actually went so far as to send off a resume to a Vineyard in Ohio, and before I knew it they were wanting to talk to me about becoming their new senior pastor.

Then almost immediately, God began speaking again, reminding me of why He brought us here:
-To equip others to do the ministry of Jesus
-To stir up spiritual gifts
-To teach, heal the sick and lead people to love Jesus with everything they've got
-To welcome the Holy Spirit/the manifest presence of God and help people recognize Him when He comes.
-To plant new churches in Canada that do all these things

So I said, "thanks but no thanks" to Ohio, and my vision is clear again.
See, if you know what you're for, if you know what you're supposed to do, then what you're not supposed to do will become really clear.
I've accepted again the mission we've been given, and I'm so energized to keep moving forward.

On another note, I know from conversations I've had that quite a few of you are reading this stuff. Message me or leave a comment sometime to let me know what's going on in you.

Organic Kingdom Ministry

When we read the New Testament, particularly the Gospels and Acts, we discover a remarkable thing: The Spirit of God is always at work, all around us.

It doesn't matter if we're in a worship service or a grocery store; at any moment God can break in and give us spiritual gifts to touch somebody's life with His power and love. The key to experiencing this is to simply open our eyes and try to see what God might be doing in the people around us.

This past week, it happened in our Sunday morning gathering:

I wasn't speaking or leading the meeting in anyway, but as I sat there with my family, the Holy Spirit just began highlighting people. It was like He was saying, "I'm doing this thing in that person..."

At that point, our responsibility is just to step out and take the risk to join God in what we sense Him doing. So that's what I did:

In a very natural way, I went up and gave prophetic words to the three people God showed me. All were profoundly affected. The power of God came on them, tears flowed, they were filled with encouragement and strengthened in their journeys.

What if we just did this everywhere we went? What if we looked around in our churches, in the Wal-Mart, at the gas stations, and simply said, "God, what are you doing here and can I help?" I suspect at the end of our lives we'd have impacted a lot of people. The Kingdom of God has come close to us- where can we give it away today?