Author Archives: Dr. Mike

-How to Change Traditional Churches into New Testament Churches”

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(Image via Wikipedia)

Found this on Monday Morning Insight-an article on Guy Muse’s blog: “How to Change Traditional Churches into New Testament Churches”

Here’s a list of 15 suggestions that does certainly sound like the NT church alright –some of which may be the direction that the American church needs to go in the future or maybe not:

1. Replace professional clergy with Priesthood of all Believers with authority to baptize, break bread and equip fishers of men. (1 Peter 2:9clip_image002)

2. Replace Church building with “House of Peace.” (Luke 10:5-9clip_image002[1]; Matt. 10:11-13clip_image002[2])

3. Replace programmed Sunday service with daily informal gatherings. The Bride of Christ must have intimacy with her Lord every day and not just for a couple of hours a week lest she become unfaithful. (Acts 2:46-47clip_image002[3]; Hebrew 3:13) Continue reading →

-Pentecost:The Importance for Us Today and in The Future

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Today is Pentecost. For many that was a wonderful event that happened at the beginning of the church to kick things off. After the church was established and the Bible was completed than Pentecost began to fade in importance and became tantamount to the birthday of the church—at least so goes one interpretation of church history and theology.

Then along came Azusa street and churches began to call themselves ‘Pentecostal’ and hundreds of millions came to Christ through that movement around the world. Now far more than half of the Christians in the world believe that the “Gifts’ are for today and experiences similar to Pentecost are constantly re-occurring and renewing the church. In fact, it is only among Christians in the Western world that this is an issue at all.

I believe that the example of Pentecost and the early church is going to be very important for the American church as it is in the midst of change. The 120 first Church of Jerusalem Christians were a group that was continually under some form of persecution. First from the Jewish authorities and later from the Romans. It was only through the power and counsel of the Holy Spirit that the church was able to survive and spread across the entire known world in one generation.

This is also happening in the present generation. It is said that more have come to Christ in the last 40 years or so than in all the previous generations combined. If you live in Europe or even in some parts of America, the church seems to be in decline, but not so everywhere else. There is a great harvest going on in Africa and Asia, and South America also is beginning to pick it up.

In the Western world and in America, Christianity was an institution and part of the culture—but increasingly not so anymore. In the future it will be increasingly important for Western Christians to take seriously the examples of Pentecost and the early Christian church as never before—a church that thrived and grew under persecution.

Strangely enough, the example of the Chinese Christians could well be a pattern for Western churches and particularly the American church to consider in the future. They band together to create home fellowships and supporting communities in the face of governmental and cultural persecution.

They continue to grow through prophetic inspiration, healings, sign and wonders, and miracles. Note also that nearly all of their leaders are self supporting—in these difficult economic times there are churches all over America that can no longer afford a full-time pastor, particularly in small mid-western towns. This example is also currently being duplicated in India which is in the midst of incredible revival.            

-A Las Vegas Move of God

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So many go to Vegas to see cards, dice, and slot dials moving. But God and His Holy Spirit also move in places that folks never expect.

There’s a move of God happening at Central Christian Church in Las Vegas. It is a large ‘mega’ church, but 2,500 folk have come to Christ in the last few months and they recently had a baptism where they expected 500 but 1,200 got dunked instead, Praise God!

Here’s a video of the baptism celebration:

Here’s a response from the senior pastor Jud Wilhite:

“Nothing in the past 15 years of ministry prepared me for what I witnessed, I still don’t have words to adequately describe it. All I can say is, ‘Only God.’”

…”I haven’t been able to fully process it,I doubt I ever will. What I do know is that this was not about great programming, but about our great God who chose to move in people’s lives in a tremendous way, in one of the world’s least likely cities. … We are boasting about the Lord today and so thankful that we could witnesses His move.”

-James Goll: “The A,B,C’s of the Prophetic”

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Quote from James Goll on the Prophetic today:

You see, we must understand some basic things concerning the nature of the prophetic. Few, in fact very few, prophetic words are ever sovereign declarations that will come to pass without any conditions being met. Most prophetic words are invitations into a process of becoming. Often, the Lord is more interested in our becoming a word and not just getting, releasing or receiving a word.

The prophetic at its best is partial, progressive and conditional. That is not the fault of the prophetic person – it is the way it works biblically, historically and how it works today.

Let me run that by you one more time – the gift of prophecy is partial, progressive and conditional and the conditions are rarely revealed at that time. This is where personal responsibility takes over and each believer must search out the King’s heart for the keys to unlocking the revelation.

There is a big difference between the revelation and the manifestation! As I have said many times before, the gap between the revelation and the manifestation is called the “until clause.”

Response: Readers-what do you think? I might have worded it differently but it does sum up my experience with the prophetic in the church today.

-The On-going Revival in Cuba

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(Cuba via Wikipedia)

Strang Report: When Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, there were 89 small Assemblies of God churches in Cuba which remained until 1989, then revival came. Since then the Assemblies have grown from 12,000 members to over 500,000.

Incredibly the government authorities agreed and encouraged them to continue their growth through a house church movement in order to accommodate everyone who wants to worship. Since then it has grown to include 3,000 house cell groups and over 900 Church buildings.

Not mentioned in the article–the AOG aren’t the only Christian groups that have been experiencing incredible growth in Cuba at the same time. There are also a number of indigenous Cuban church organizations that have grown in the same way—all of them experiencing healings, diverse gifts of the Spirit, miracles, and numerous signs and wonders in the process.

-Has God Has Pushed a Great Big Reset Button?

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(Image by tillwe via Flickr)

I have been addressing this for several month now—Has God pushed a big ‘reset’ button? Some prophetic folks believe that God has grabbed the entire world system by the jaws and turned it upside down to position it for the very last days or as Grady says—hit a big ‘reset button’. Regardless, no matter how painful it is—God is definitely at work here. All the systems of the world have been thrown up in the air and where they land only God knows for sure.

The American church is particularly vulnerable because it was so tied to the old cultural and economic system of America that is now being tested and transformed. Change is ahead whether we want it or not, for better or worse. If the church tries to hang on to the old world system it will be changed into something that is clearly not Biblical.

Those churches that continue to be guided by the Holy Spirit and uphold Biblical teaching and principles will be transformed in a positive way—but not in the eyes of the world. The dominant American culture from now on will be increasingly critical and adversarial with those who are faithful to ‘Biblical’ Christianity.

-Kingdom Economy: Do No Participate in The Spirit of Fear and Worry

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(Picture via Wikipedia)

It is time for the American Church to stand up and be all that we are called to be. In the wisdom of the world it is a time to shrink back, retool, and curtail or cut everything back that isn’t necessary. But the Church is called to follow a different path than the world.

My Children—Do Not Participate in the Spirit of Fear and Worry!

The enemy has sowed fear in the world economy but the church and Christian families must reject that spirit of fear or worry and participate in a Kingdom Economy—Seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness. (See: Matt. 6:24-34clip_image002)

We can no longer serve two masters—if we continue to identify with the world we will continue to live in fear and we will have every reason in the world to worry. God says that his children are not to worry!

That is exactly what Jesus said and I don’t believe that he was just preaching a nice 3-point Sunday sermon. No, He is the creator of the universe and if anybody knows how it really works it should be him and he says not to worry!

I can hear you saying—”Now Michael you just don’t know what my family is going through right now—we can’t pay our bills and we don’t know where to turn. All our credit cards are maxed out and they have doubled the interest and the minimum payments plus we are 3 month behind on the mortgage—yet you say not to worry1”

I don’t say anything—that’s what God’s own Son says to his people then and now.

I am in the same boat many of you are in wondering where the money is coming from to pay my bills and keep food on the table—but I have learned to stop living in fear and to trust God in the midst of it (well at least most of the time). My business is off 35% and that would usually mean my income would be too but the numbers don’t make any sense right now and at the end of each month I have just enough to pay for everything.

Three out of four of my adult children (ages 29-38) are out of work and the 4th one just took a job that pays 1/2 of what he use to make. One son had to move back home with his 2 kids so our expenses here actually increased significantly. Originally, I had planned on retiring in October and was well prepared but I lost most of my retirement funds with everyone else.

Yet in the midst of it all God was patient and gracious enough to put up with my fear, grumbling, and worry for the last 4 months—finally I’m starting to get it and my priorities are changing. Good–by worry, Good-by fear, and hello Praise the Lord no matter what! But I’ll probably need to re-read this post the next time I pay the bills.

I’ll leave you with one more Bible lesson to be shared and lived—You see my friends we are called to live by faith (I Kings 17:7-24clip_image002[1]):

There was a widow and her son living in Zarephath of Sidon. She only had a small amount of flour and oil to make one small final meal for her and her son—then they would surely die. Along came this foreigner named Elijah who asked the woman to share her last meal with him and she did. You all know the story—that little dab of oil and flour never gave out and better yet she later received healing for her son who was raised from the dead.

Nice story but what does that mean for us today? The same God who provided for the woman and her son is still God today and his Economy still provides. The God who fed 5,000 is our Lord and Savior– We are called to continue to give even in our own time of need.

We are called not to worry, Called to live by faith, and Called to continue giving. That’s God’s Kingdom Economy. And guess what—he will also bless us with healing and raise the dead just like he did for that poor widow who gave out of her poverty and need.

May God bless us all, may he rise up and bear us with healing on his wings, and may his praises be upon our lips and in our hearts everyday. Amen.

-“A Fresh Anointing”

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Here’s some great thoughts from Pastor Mark Batterson:

“The longer I preach the more cognizant I am of this fact: my words don’t mean anything without the quickening of the Holy Spirit. I’d rather have people hear one word from the Lord than a thousand of my sermons!
My prayer coming into 2009 was simply this: a greater anointing. Honestly, I don’t even know what that means or how it happens. Just keeping it real. But I know I want it and need it. And I feel it. I preach with more conviction now than I did six months ago.”

Response: Praise God! That is what I call an encouraging word in these troubled times—more of the Lord, more of his anointing, more of his Holy Spirit, more of HIS word. Rejoice! This is exactly what the whole American Church needs.         

-American Church: Good-Bye Cultural Christianity Hello New Reality

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(Dr. Mohler via Wikipedia)

All sorts of articles, polls, and publications have sounded the warning trumpet lately—calling attention to the ‘decline of Christianity in America. What we really are experiencing is the death of ‘cultural Christianity’—the kind that I talked about before– in the 50’s growing up with everyone in my neighborhood identifying themselves as Christians except the Jewish family down the street but they believed in the same Biblical morality as every other American.

Times have changed indeed—the culture wars are basically over and the church has substantially lost—even among a whole lot of folk who identify themselves as ‘Christian’. Here is a recent quote of Dr. Albert Mohler addressing the new cultural environment that the American church could soon be facing:

“We are going to discover that cultural Christianity is what eventually disappears in a secularized age.

Cultural Christianity has been so much a part of the environment of our ministry and of the expectation of our churches that it’s going to be a very different situation for the pastor of the First Baptist Church to worry about being arrested rather than to worry about whether he’s going to get the first seat in the restaurant.

… When you start looking at a lot of the logic of what is becoming endemic in the culture toward the future, we’re going to be in a very different situation than we’ve ever faced before.

And we’re going to discover that we are not as many as we thought we were.

… We’ve got to prepare students to be ready for that and to be able to lead churches to be able to understand what it means to be the church when we no longer have the cultural supports that we had counted on, wrongly, I think, all these years.”

—Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler Jr. [Baptist Press, 4/23/09]

-An Incredible Creative Miracle

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Here’s the testimony of an incredible ‘creative miracle’. A creative miracle is when God does the impossible and re-grows dead or missing tissue-like a missing arm or in this case replaces dead lung tissue.

This is the story of a little boy named Jacob who was one day in bed with life threatening lung disease and cardio complications and the next weekend boogie boarding at the beach on a fine warm Southern California spring day.

It is also a praise report of provision for the whole family during the crisis, and a story of unseen prayers of regular folks like you praying for healing and provision. The following is a first-hand account from Jacob’s mother:

PRAISE GOD !!!

Jacob had his appointment with the Pulmonologist this morning at CHOC.  Dr. Y. was STUNNED by the incredible difference in his CT Scan!!!!

The prior CT Scan showed his left lung was 90% filled with Nasty Battle-Droids…I mean Pneumatoceles.  The Doctors could not see ANY healthy lung tissue.  They “hoped” if they did surgery to remove the dead lung tissue and the HUGE Pneumatoceles they may be able to salvage a portion of his lung and healthy lung tissue “might” re-grow. 

Also, the border of Jacob’s lung was so damaged that it was allowing his lung to push into his heart causing pain.  The Doctor’s were worried that Jacob’s dead left lung would damage his healthy heart.  That is why then called the heart and lung surgical expert, Dr. Palafox.  If they were removing the lung and the heart had been compromised he would be the best man to take care of them both while he was inside Jacob’s chest.  They planned to remove the “dead-lung” to save the heart.  You have two lungs and can live with only one…the heart is a non-negotiable. 

The healthy lung tissue is now THERE and the Pneumatoceles are NOT!!

God did not need to wait for surgery to clear anything out of His way… He just created NEW HEALTHY lung tissue just like HE did when he formed Jacob’s lungs originally 8-years ago!!  The border of Jacob’s lung is now strong and his heart is not being touched in any way.  Praise GOD!!

<<Read the rest of this incredible testimony>>