Category Archives: 5-Fold Ministry

-Is the Baton Being Passed to the Asian Church?

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Here’s a link to the latest article by J. Lee Grady: “Has the Baton Been Passed to the Asian Church?”

Grady asks this question in a visit to Singapore and observes that the Asian Church is coming of age. For years, those of us in the West have looked upon the church in Asia as a mission area. Now I have heard many talking about how the Asian church might actually be found leading the way in the near future.

I have a cousin that travels to South Korea on business who mentioned to me 10 years ago that Korea was well on its way toward becoming a Christian nation. Then recently I have read about the expanding house church movement in China and have seen several forecasts that China could actually become a Christian nation within 20 –25 years at the current pace. Remarkable and exciting.

In his article, J. Lee Grady list 3 reasons why the Asian Church will be come a major factor globally in the future:

1. They are taking world evangelism seriously.

2. They understand the importance of the Holy Spirit’s power.

3. They are investing in the next generation.

It is really amazing what is transpiring in Asia but also in Africa and in South America too, along with a secret harvest going on in Muslim countries. A world wide harvest/revival is ongoing just about everywhere except in North America, Europe, and the West.

Asian churches are beginning to send missionaries into North Korea and the Middle East plus African churches are actually sponsoring new missions in the UK and Europe.

If the current trends do continue then Grady could be correct. What use to be the mission field and the tail is well on the way toward becoming the head.            

-California: Everything That Can Be Shaken…

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              (Image via Wikipedia)

The LORD will march out like a mighty man,
like a warrior he will stir up his zeal;
with a shout he will raise the battle cry
and will triumph over his enemies. –Isaiah 42:13

There have been a lot of prophetic words lately about California suffering a major earthquake. Meanwhile the earthquake scientists at Caltech are warning us that a major quake is coming our way sometime within the next 5-10 years so all Californians need to be prepared.

In the news, around here there is concern about how the state will be able to pay its bills and avoid bankruptcy. Unemployment is as high as it has ever been in the Golden State. Remember that during the Great Depression of the 30’s folks came out west to California to find work. Now jobless people here are going the other way heading for Arizona and Texas. Last month 75 major companies left California for different less taxing states.

Meanwhile among my friends and family, many have had dreams and visions of major catastrophes coming our way. One of my sons who is one of the most accurate prophetic folks that I know even had a very real and vivid vision of a flash of light and a mushroom cloud appearing on the horizon as we were in the car together heading down the 91 freeway toward LA.

If you look at what happen in Missouri this week and the tornados that sweep across other areas in the last couple of months it is easy to see that we are living in different and chaotic times. I can’t remember a period in my lifetime when so many natural disasters have occurred one right after another.

A lot of us out here have been praying about how we are called to respond. A major word that was read to our congregation on Sunday indicated the following:

Everything that can be shaken will be…what remains will be solid.  It is not a time to run and leave, but a time to gather together and fight, a time to prepare for harvest.

Isaiah 42:13 was also cited (see above).

I believe that this message not only applies to our area but the entire country. We are living in chaotic times on many different levels both natural and spiritual, but the Lord is ready to do battle and bring forth a great Harvest in the midst of it all.           

-2011: Year of the Joseph Butterflies?

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Some prophetic folks around here keep seeing visions of butterflies in connection with 2011. Lately we have had lots of rain in the natural which is usually a portent for an abundance of butterflies in the spring.

The message seems to be that many ministries and called ones have been hidden up and have been going through a time of preparation or metamorphosis but will soon be released to fly and do what they have been called to do.

Some are like Joseph who did his best as a slave in prison but was released in a day to do and be what he was really called to do. Others have been doing ministries they have not really been called to do –e.g: prophetical ministers and evangelists serving as pastors. These are about ready to be coughed up on the shore like Jonah and finally become who they are really called to be and do what they are really supposed to do.

-Internet the Key to Fulfilling the Great Commission?

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Here’s is an observation made by Walt Wilson, founder and CEO of Global Media Outreach during a recent conference at Biola University:

“By 2015 there will be WiFi everywhere on the face of the earth.”

“We are the first generation in all of human history to hold within our hands the technology to reach every man, woman, and child on the earth by 2020. Our generation has within its grasp everything that is required to fulfill the Great Commission.”

The Internet is changing everything. No this is not an exaggeration and I happen to believe that in spite of all the controversy God is behind it all. Just like the Roman peace, road system, and universal use of the Greek language made it possible for Christianity to spread across the known world in the first generation. Today the internet is doing the same thing in this generation—actually making it possible for folks to begin to talk about fulfilling the Great Commission of taking the Gospel to every nation.

Right now I know of several Christian ministries that are targeting unreached cultures and people nations through the Internet—places where it is impossible and illegal for missionaries to go. Nevertheless people in those nations are coming to Christ and new churches are being planted.

It is pretty incredible how the Net has made the world a much smaller place. The Islamic autocrats can no longer keep their folks from finding out the truth about Jesus. One Click with the browser and you can get the best Bible teaching of all time no matter where you live. In fact my blogs including this one have been visited by folks from nearly every country on Earth—196 to date. We are living in exciting times.

-The Door is Cracking Open?

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On Sunday VCC Pastor Mike Hudgins Told us something we all knew but really didn’t know the extent of. Over 70 folks have committed their lives to Christ in the last month at our services.

There are three worship services so most of us who attend just one are not always aware of everything that is going on in the congregation.

Pastor Mike has given invitations for salvation every week and at every service for years and I don’t think 70 have come to receive God’s free gift in a whole year to date much less in a month. Usually folks will come forward after the service to receive healing and further ministry but few in wealthy South Orange County California have come up front to receive God’s free gift. But all that has changed now and 7 more came up for salvation at the end of that 9 am service on Sunday.

As Pastor Mike was telling us about this development I saw a picture in my mind of a door just barely cracked open. Then the Holy Spirit clearly said to me that it wasn’t just here but all across America and North America for that matter—the door was cracking open.

What does that mean? And how should we respond? That’s what I asked the Lord.

First of all it is time to pray for all those children of ours and relatives who aren’t saved. Even the ones we have given up on. Remember also the friends and neighbors who have rejected the Gospel in the past.

It is a New Day in America and the Door is cracking open!

Jesus is standing at the door and knocking once more across this whole land. Pastors, Bible teachers, and leaders: Tell your church that it is a New Day!           

-A Word for 2010 From ACPE: ‘Third Great Awakening’

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Here’s a link to a prophetic Word for 2010 from the Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders (ACPE) distributed by Cindy Jacobs. It a compilation of the prophetic releases from that group.

The preamble makes some good points in regard to present era prophecy:

There are differing variables that can affect the timing and/or coming to pass of these words:

  1. All prophecy not contained in scripture is conditional.
  2. The timing of when the prophecy comes to pass may occur over a longer period of time than one calendar year.  Some take many years to fulfill.
  3. It is possible that prophetic warnings will cause either the person or nation to repent and so turn away the judgment prophesied.  Biblically, this happened when Jonah prophesied to Nineveh and the city repented, causing God to relent.

There are a number of points in the document that hit home and confirm some of the stuff that I believe that the Lord has been saying to me. Particularly poignant is word that a new wind of the Holy Spirit is coming that touches a number of different nations in a special way.

The sections-  ‘Third Great Awakening’ and ‘Evangelism’ leaped out at me in particular:

Third Great Awakening

We believe that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that came on November 11, 2009, in Kansas City signaled the beginning of a Third Great Awakening that we prophesied would come to America and the world. November 11th was the day the Pilgrims made covenant with God in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Many intercessors across the nation are crying out to God for the nation to once again become “a city set on a hill.” If we continue to pray and call out to God, the nation will shift.

Evangelism

Many churches will wake up and evangelize the lost in their cities and nations. Thousands will be swept into the kingdom of God through new “power evangelism” movements in which people [will be] shown by supernatural means that God is real.

Churches who haven’t baptized in years will begin to see many people come to Christ. Dead churches will become resurrected under the fire and power of the Holy Spirit’s working, and many [who are] lost will be swept into the kingdom of God.

I really do believe that there is another ‘Great Awakening’ coming to North America that will touch hundreds of churches and cities in a special way across all of North America.

One of the keys to the new awakening will revolve around the Kingdom of God (that is the rule of God) invading into the marketplace where we all spend a majority of our lives. An expansion the Kingdom into the workplace and businesses where we spent our daylight hours.

It is in that process that God the Father will help his children to overcome their debts and become economically secure even in the midst of major recession. Not only that, but find spiritual blessing, purpose, and fulfillment at work and in businesses.

We’ll look at more of this message in later posts.  

-Remembering Oral Roberts…

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I remember watching Oral Roberts on a 10” black and white TV screen as a kid in the 50’s and wanting to grow up as a preacher/healer just like him.

I get choked up all over again watching this video. Unless you lived in the early 50’s you really don’t have any idea how really terrifying polio was in those days. Thousands of kids were on crutches in America and there was no medical answers for it until the shots came along in the mid 50’s.

Oral was one of the last of the Pentecostal healing/revival evangelists that toured across America preaching in tents after WWII. He was the among first to take it to the next level with a regular program on the new TV media that soon was in every home across the country.

All the recent controversy with his son and all the stuff the media and late night comedians have said about him and a 900’ Jesus sort a makes us forget what a blessing his ministry was to millions of Americans in the 50’s and 60’s. Really the first major national TV evangelist and one which helped to take Pentecostalism from the other side of the tracks to the main street in America.

Here’s a statement made by Billy Graham in memory of Oral:

“Oral Roberts was a man of God, and a great friend in ministry. I loved him as a brother.”

Graham also told reporters that he had spoken to Oral Roberts three weeks ago by phone, and that Roberts had told him then that his “life’s journey” was nearly over.

-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.

-Another Muslim Comes to Christ Via Vision

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I found this over at Persecution Blog, the original is from Reuters. Testimonies like this never really get old and bring a smile to my face and joy to my heart every time:

Amin said he became aware of Jesus Christ after dreaming that a figure dressed in a white robe approached him in a forest and handed him a Bible.

“When I told my father I had become a Christian he just stared at me without speaking. Then he said: ‘From now on, you are not my son. Go to those people, let them feed you and give you a home — we’ll see who cares for you’,” said Amin.

He left town, stopped his studies and now lives from translation work offered by a Christian missionary group.

Response: Thousands of Muslims are coming to Christ every year through dreams and visions. It is a radical decision for these folks when they come out of the closet and declare their new faith in Jesus. All are rejected by their families, most suffer some kind of persecution, and many even face death.

These folk really know first hand what Christmas is all about and received the gift of his Son Jesus regardless of the consequences.           

-Apostolic Ministry Today?

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Here’s a link that I found to an article by Ed Stetzer on apostles today. He has a number of links which show that churches even outside of Charismatic and Pentecostal circles are looking at the question of apostolic ministry for today and the continuing need for that type of ministry.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 

12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,

13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood,  to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,

14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.  –Ephesians 4:11-14 (ESV)clip_image002

Response: Pastors, teachers, and evangelists are accepted ministry types in every church. No one denies that we need them today—that these types of ministries have ever ceased in the church. However, this is not the case when it come to apostles and prophets.

I have read so many different commentaries over the years which flatly state that the ministry of apostles and prophets ceased in the apostolic age with not so much as one good Biblical reference to back up the charge (Please don’t give me I Cor. 13clip_image002[1]–the use of it here violates several recognized hermeneutic rules).

I believe that ‘apostolic ministry’  is not only for today, but never really ceased in the church. Some of the major ‘missionary’ leaders of the past, which have planted churches in far away lands and supervised them down through the entire history of the church, were involved in ‘apostolic ministry’ whether the church recognized it or not.

We should be able to concede that the original apostles, who walked with Jesus along with others from the first century like Paul, may have had a unique position in the founding of the church and writing scripture, without concluding that the need for that type of ministry ended when they all passed away.

After all, has the church really reached  ” …to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”—or are some of us still children—or are some of us still being ‘tossed to and fro’  like the scripture says? I believe that the answers is yes! Therefore we still need all the help we can get in the church today.

I will admit this, it does bother me when I see some ministers with the title– ‘Apostle’ in front of their name but it shouldn’t. If the Lord calls one to that office the title goes along with it and we should get use to it in the church

Right now, I am entirely comfortable with people referring to others as having an ‘apostolic ministry’ or even as being called an (lower case) ‘apostle’. But I look for the day when those with the title of Apostle will increase along with a work that will remind us of the Book of Acts. I believe those day are coming soon along with a world-wide Great Harvest in every nation.

Interesting to note, nearly everyone of the folks I know of involved in an effective ‘apostolic’ type of ministry have been commission by Jesus Christ in some direct way—usually through an appearance or a vision of the Lord.

We are living in exciting times when the church is once again beginning to recognize the ministry of apostles and prophets in our midst.