The Adventure Continues

I lead a very privileged life. I’ve Just returned from a week up in Joburg with Junction Church where what was required of me was to lead worship and help minister with heroes of the faith Keir Tayler and Mike Hanchett, two men who have seen and done much over the last 30 years. 3 things that gripped me afresh this week are as follows:

1.       Testimony is the spirit of prophecy

-Hearing story after story in meetings and over coffees of incredible power encounters, supernatural phenomena and kingdom break out moment has re-awakened a passion to live in such a reality. Accounts of faith moves, declarations and adventures of obeying the voice of God has stirred me to venture out the boat in these realms more and more. Its part of my inheritance!

     2.       Kingdom friendships are priceless

- Getting to stay with couples from the church in their own homes is something I cherish. Getting to be a part of peoples lives in such close quarters gives you a chance to grow real, robust and enduring friendships. Early morning theological debates, late night ministry philosophy discussions and all the inbetween joking and laughing knits hearts like not much else. Our futures depend on these

      3.      God has undercover warriors that are about to break out

-Spending time with, praying for, eating lunch with, praying a bit more for, drinking coffee with and you guessed it, praying some more for a host of young people in their late teens and twenties revealed the incredible depth of resources that the Lord is preparing. In a world that is marked by superficiality, the genuine desire for both radical experience and strong wells of theology show that God is about to bring prominence to a young people who take the call of God seriously and yet also with a wild abandon.

So looking over my shoulder at these three learnings, I once gain commit to surrounding myself ongoingly with people who are further than me in their God adventures (I need to hear their stories of victories won and mountains conquered), with those who are peers (we need to hold each other unswervingly to the hope we profess) as well as the next generation pushing through (they need to see my life of struggles, wrestles and triumphs).

My future depends on it. Our futures depend on it.

Something's brewing in the atmosphere...

 

A month ago tonight I found myself preaching in a church in Nelspruit to an audience that rounded out at just over 600 in an atmosphere which had nearly close to everyone present believing that anything was possible and that we were truly born to change the world. That night, huge faith stirred between preacher and audience as the life of God rose up within us in a significant way. People turned their lives over to Christ without much human prompting, repentance ran true, tears of joy and acceptance flowed strongly, blind eyes, deaf ears and other various healings of physical ailments were heralded without laying on of hands, and an uncommon unity that bypassed racial, economic and social lines was caught as something that looked extremely like the revivals of old was happening before our very eyes.

 

After 31 days of pondering this earth shaking night and the JobiJol camp as a whole, my heart has settled on five ingredients that contributed to what God did and is continuing to do. This is not an attempt to conjure up a recipe, but more just recognizing the fingerprints of heaven that are quickly becoming stronger and stronger.

1.       Missional friendships

-represented at this 4 day camp were multiple churches and personalities that came largely from the greater Johannesburg area but also from Nelspruit, Durban and Cape Town. This wasn’t a forced attempt at unity but rather the result of different layers of friendships that have been built over the last 4 to 5 years (and some longer). The camp, which happens every year in the December/January slot has gathered a momentum not because of strategic meetings, an organizational mandate or clever marketing but rather because of men and women whose hearts beat for the same thing, devoting themselves to building intentional friendships with the King and His Kingdom at the centre.

2.       High value of the bible

-What we are learning more and more these days is that God is faithful above all else to His Word. And with that as a cornerstone in our belief system we are beginning to have the audacity to believe what He says! So high on our agenda is to follow Paul’s admonition to Timothy to “preach the word” and to do so with a faith, knowing that “his word does not return to Him void."

3.       Recognizing the anointing of the Holy Spirit

-We didn’t all fast for days on end leading up to the camp. In fact, I came straight from holiday. But we are quickly understanding that the heavens were opened not by our pleas and rain-dances but by Jesus’ blood, never to be shut again. When Jesus declared that “the Holy Spirit will come upon you”, he might as well have shouted the child-hood adage of “OPEN GATES!” That Sunday night, a friend (Craig Herbert) and I met at our parked car to change shoes for the meeting, but quickly recognized that the Holy Spirit was stirring something special in our hearts. The shoes were abandoned and we prayed. Bold prayers. Open heaven type prayers. The Holy Spirit was with us, and we expected “to receive power.”

4.       A response of worship

-In every session of the camp, including the last one, the preaches culminated in us landing in worship. Or should I say taking off again in worship. It wasn’t a pre-camp decision but God so shifted our hearts from looking to push people to an emotional response, or to a manipulated altar call moment, but rather to recognizing that God was present and he was at work in the hearts and lives of the people there. It was in the worship that healings happened. It was in the worship that hearts were saved, that rejection was broken off, that the Holy Spirit filled people, that sin and addictions were broken, that lives were forever changed and commissioned. When Christ is lifted up all men will be drawn to Him.

 

 

That weekend in early January has left me indelibly changed. Grateful but not satisfied.

I love moments like these.

I love doing high ministry moments with mates like these.

But more than that, I love the momentum that these four days up country have created in me, in my peer group and in a generation who are beginning to respond to the something that is brewing in the atmosphere. 

Can you feel it?