As it it in Heaven

One of the things that we are undertaking here is to revolutionize culture. I mean we are challenging the standard of earth with heaven's standard. If we were to try to attract the world to Jesus by becoming relevant to their culture, we would be moving in the wrong direction. I am deliberately calling people away from all of their previous commitments and understandings to commit without reservation to the cultural standard of heaven as it is revealed in the Bible.

It is not easy to question the beliefs, customs, practices and social behavior of our nation, but it is really needed. Think about it. The world is disgusted to hear that the culture of the church does not differ from theirs. The church has adopted the culture of the world. You have, no doubt, seen the statistics about divorce, morality, spirituality, character and on and on. Worse yet, you have probably seen the worst sort of failings in those who are called to lead the church. How would you like to be a part of heaven's answer to this?

Kingdom culture goes right to the question of, "What is God doing?" As the song puts it, "We will go where He goes, say what He says, and pray what He prays!" I am not condemning the church or its leaders, because I do not believe that is what God is doing.

Heaven models finding ways for the prodigal to come home, even if you must bear the cost yourself--like Jesus did. We do not see him leveling blame at people for being in bondage to the devil. Instead, he sets them free and encourages them to walk in the things that he created them for. Even though this strategy did not always result in freedom for the individuals he was ministering to, he offered the chance anyhow. Consider Judas, who was a thief before he was put in charge of the offering bag. Did Jesus not know what he was? No way, Jesus knew what was in men without asking. He was offering Judas a chance to become something more. Judas did not choose to take the offer.

Forgiveness is one part of heaven's culture and has to be exercised towards yourself before you can take it to others. When you don't let yourself off of the hook, it is called shame. Jesus paid the whole price for you to walk out from under shame. The devil will try to convince you that you are forever tainted by...whatever. We need to realize that that is not from God. Forgiveness and redemption come from God through Jesus who bore all of the blame and shame that we deserved.

The same is true for people who have offended and hurt us. They need to be let off of the hook. The mission that Jesus was on, and is still on, is destroying the works of the devil. Although people hurting people is one of the major themes that the devil employs, we are not fighting against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers.

Let me put it another way. The culture of heaven is more concerned with maintaining relationships with people than with rules and regulations. We are told to maintain the unity of the Spirit, but some people add all kinds of junk to that. Do you know people who are willing to destroy relationships if someone does not agree with their favorite ideas about the faith? That is what Jesus said that the Scribes and Pharisees of his day did. They were too interested in their interpretation of the law and in their rules, and too little interested in the presence of God and his love for his people.

The presence of God, and his love have enough supernatural power in them to transform everyone who comes close. Lets let go of the culture of the world that keeps us from putting our full attention on Jesus, and with passionate, abandoned love for Jesus chase him until we catch him!

Pastor GIGO

The Reward of Serving Him

I've created a monster! Pastor Got-It-Going-On is on a roll!

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The average person who lived in Jesus' lifetime understood that the earth and its people are captives of Satan and in need of being freed from that bondage. People of our time, however, need to be reminded of how God's creation fell under Satan's domination, and to see how Jesus' mission on earth fulfilled God's plan to win back the earth. Adam and Eve were the very apex of all God's perfect creations (Gen. 1:26). Only Adam and Eve had the capacity for a relationship with God, and part of God's plan for them was to give them dominion over all the plants, fish, birds, and animals (Gen. 1:28). The teaching of the first chapters of Genesis is this: through disobedience and sin, Adam and Eve lost for all of us our original innocent relationship with God. They also lost for all of us dominion and authority over the earth (Gen. 3:17).

What had been created as a place that was only to benefit and bless people, now became a hostile environment, subject to calamities, famines, parasites, violent storms, and all of the other things that we now view as "natural" disasters. Mankind became victim to Satan's whims and death loomed as the ultimate victory of darkness. Satan had tricked man out of this place of dominion and had established his own evil influences and purposes on earth. Man is now prey for all forms of evil-- including sickness, hunger, natural calamities, demonic attacks and death.

This is why God initiated a plan to reclaim his beloved creation and place the original stewards back into authority over it. In 1 Cor. 15:20-24 we see Jesus as the Second Adam who came to live a sinless life, die on the cross and rise again from the dead. In this way he fulfilled all righteousness as the perfect atonement for what Adam and Eve had done, and for all of the sin that we have fallen into since then. Jesus destroyed Satan's power and earthly dominion and took it from him. Jesus was manifested to destroy the works of the Devil and has now called us to walk in that same calling. He has given us the authority to partner with him in this mission: confront and destroy the works of the Devil everywhere we see them.

Satan and his allies, the demons, stubbornly hang on to the earth to work whatever evil they can upon mankind who are objects of Gods love. Jesus has won absolute power over the works of Satan, but the moment that he calls in the chips and the dominion of the evil kingdom comes to an end, all of the people who are still lost in its influence will be lost. So lets go for it in the name of Jesus and win for the lamb the reward that he gave his life for: all people everywhere in a fresh innocent relationship with God, walking in the authority, wonder, and power that he has given to all of us who love and serve him!

Pastor GIGO

The Kingdom of God

The "Kingdom of God" on earth is only to be found where the Holy Spirit is moving and people are yielding to Him! That is why Jesus taught us to pray for the Father's will on earth as in heaven, because that is what the Spirit is doing. The word "kingdom," in the New Testament, means the rule of a king--not the things or the lands that belong to Him. In other words, you are only drawing near to this kingdom to the extent that you are actively involved in the supernatural ministry made possible by the Holy Spirit. Let me state it another way, you cannot live by the ways of this world and be Christian!

You cannot just stick "God" on your way of life and expect him to bless you.
And you cannot stick other things on your walk of faith and call them Christian! We are commanded to get His ways!

Mt 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Those who have not understood this verse have made it a message of morality, but it is a message of faith and power. The message of the kingdom is the message of power, but because the church has not walked in this power, we have a credibility problem. "Credibility Gap" used to describe our disillusionment with our national institutions- primarily government, media and politics. Many Americans no longer feel that they can believe what government leaders and the media tell them are "facts." It is commonly believed that there is an enormous gap between reality and what we are told.

We have developed a similar credibility gap in the church. It only takes a cursory reading of the Gospels to see that there is a huge difference between the life and ministry of Jesus in the New Testament and the experience and ministry of much of the church.

The claims of Jesus carried credibility because he backed up what he claimed to be with supernatural endorsement. When he claimed to be the Light of the World (John 8 & 9) he fed over five thousand people with a few loaves and fishes; as the Prince of Peace he brought peace not only to a stormy sea, but also to the victims of violent demons (Mark 4 & 5).

In Jesus' kingdom message of the Rule of God (Mark 1:15, Matt. 3) his words and works were a complete unity. Jesus designed our faith so that the credibility of his ministry would continue through the church. In the early years, the church did continue to minister in both word and works, but today much of Christ's Body is ministering in word only.

Our words tell of the wonderful works of our Savior, but the accompanying supernatural works of the Holy Spirit are missing in most cases. What our world needs most is to see and experience the Jesus of the New Testament in all his compassion, truth, wisdom, and power!

Pastor GIGO

God Encounter

Pastor Got-It-Going-On has graciously agreed to put down his quill, come into the 21st century and write a post.

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To represent the good news of the Gospel as being fully expressed by God's love for us, or even Jesus' incredible sacrifice for us, is to fall short of Jesus' full message and mission. There is a theme that contains these elements of truth, but goes on to explain the works of Power that Jesus demonstrated.

The powerful supernatural working of the Holy Spirit through Jesus was in the context of a war with Satan. Recently, I was telling a friend about what the Gospels reveal of Jesus' worldview, and to my amazement, he told me that his church taught him that there was no personification of evil! No wonder the church is becoming irrelevant today. Jesus' message and everything he did was designed to reveal the kingdom of God in the context of freeing people and creation from the dominion of the evil kingdom. Each time we see Jesus heal someone of disease or free someone from an evil spirit we see the Kingdom of God defeating Satan's kingdom of evil. Jesus' miracles of healing and deliverance, and his power over nature and death demonstrate his passionate love for us and his provision for us to walk in the same things that he did--and even greater. The same Jesus who healed the blind man and delivered Mary Magdalene of seven demons also walked on water, stilled violent storms, and raised at least three people from the dead! What could be greater than these things?

Are these dramatic examples of "God showing off?" Is Jesus merely flexing his divine muscles? No! Jesus was not just performing these things just for shock appeal. These startling miracles are an invitation for you to go deeper in your own God encounters. If your faith is not founded on your experience of God destroying the works of satan in your life, then you are a candidate for the most amazing and wonderful upgrade that you can imagine, and even more than you can imagine. God is looking for people who are ready to say to him, "you are everything I want, I renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil." Living in radical love and commitment to Jesus will automatically propel you into his mission to reclaim and restore the earth and its inhabitants to wholeness and destroy the perverse works of Satan. That means that the anointing is not for your enjoyment, but it is given to you for the sake of others! As Bill Johnson says, "you owe the world a God encounter!"

Pastor GIGO

WOW!

That is pretty much all that can be said for what is currently going on in the Church of the Amorphous Mass. There has been a dramatic shift in our meetings and the Holy Spirit is SOOOO present. We've pretty much added another service because we simply can't get enough.

Pastor Got-It-Going-On has a lot of wisdom in this. He paid attention to the things John Arnott has been saying about Toronto. The Toronto Outpouring is in it's 13th year. That is because God gave Arnott the wisdom to not let his team burn themselves out. Stewarding revival is as important as initing something in the Spirit, and John Arnott has done an incredible job of that.

Grace has a sister, Glory. Glory has been coming and has the most beautiful voice. The Lord is doing such an awesome restoration in her, and is giving her songs to sing over people the way other people get prayers and words. It is a beautiful thing.

Pastor GIGO's Number One Son has applied to the School of Ministry at Bethel. We are believing with him for acceptance (they have like 5,000 applications for 2,000 slots) and the finances to pull this off. Number One Son has worked dilligently and saved for this, but there have been some really intense things that have come up that have drained his resources.

The face is still in the carpet over at the Remnant's house. You can only see it at night. It is amazing. We have found a few feathers floating around after our services. I don't want feathers, I want to see the whole angel.

There has been such a change in the level of intensity of the peole who are hanging out with us. We want more. We want to do higher up and deeper in. Animal told me last week that he appreciates the fact that they are having to stretch in worship to go beyond where they have ever been. People are meeting together to pray outside of church. Whenever people get together for any reason, they wind up praying. There is such a hunger.

When I see these things, I remember why I love church planting so much.

Weird Manifestation Award Winner

Yep, it's a face. It appeared in the carpet where we held our prayer meeting this week.

We win the Weird Manifestation Award for the week.

We decided to pray at some one's house this week. We had been meeting in a park to pray, but after Saturday and Sunday decided that maybe we didn't need to be out in the open when we got together again.

When he opened the meeting in prayer, Pastor GIGO asked for angels to come and minister to us. Something new - he's not done it before.

We have a list of things we pray for. God has been answering A LOT of requests we've been making lately. It's fun to mark stuff off the list as the request gets answered. Sometimes we pray for people who are there as well. It's generally been rather laid back and free-form.

It stopped being laid back this week.

Pastor GIGO's second son, Prophet-boy, was powerfully touched while they were at Jesus Culture in Redding, CA. He came back a different young man. He has taken stands for his faith, been out on the streets ministering and in general acting like someone who has had a fire lit in their heart. Sunday night he asked for prayer for a release of the Holy Spirit. He's prayed, but never received a prayer language. He got that. Tonight, he asked for prayer for a release of the prophetic in his life.

We prayed for him until he hit the floor. He was on his knees, though, and Pastor GIGO pounced on him and prayed until Prophet-boy couldn't sit up. He was out on the floor for quite some time. When he got up off the floor, the image above was in the carpet where he was laying.

Being us, we took pictures. Lots of pictures. And emailed them to everyone we knew.

Grace (which means God's powerful presence that enables you to be who He's made you to be and gives you the power to do what He's called you to do), the young lady who was so powerfully touched by the Holy Spirit over the weekend, was there. Pastor GIGO was a paratrooper in an earlier life and has the knees to prove it. His knees decided to make their protests about his current activities (he was laying carpet earlier in the day) known, so we prayed for him. Grace laid hands on one of his knees and it was like an electrical current running though her hand into his knee. I could actually feel things moving in his knee as we prayed. He reported a 60% improvement then and later said it was even better. Grace is now a little maniac who will pray for anyone about anything.

Someone who is not part of our group came by later in the evening. She said that when she walked in the front door, the anointing in the room was so strong she nearly fell back out the door.

It was after 11 pm when we called it a night. The only reason we left that early is most had to get up at the crack of dawn to go to work.

What was the purpose of all this? What happened for us when we saw this image is that we were filled with awe that the Lord would do something physical to answer us. What we are craving is more of His presence, not more manifestations. We are excited to hang out together and do the stuff.

People are praying more. They are spending more time with Jesus on their own because something has been touched in their hearts. We come together and there is such a sense of the presence of the Lord that none of us want to leave it. We just want to sit and worship Him. People are reading their Bibles and actually getting good stuff out of that.

The manifestations are cool only in that they draw us into deeper relationship with Jesus. They are like jellybeans the Lord is throwing out to us to help us find our way to where He wants us to be.

What Does It Look Like When God Shows Up?

Pastor Got-It-Going-On and his family returned from their much-needed vacation to Redding, CA where they attended Jesus Culture. From everything I have heard and seen on the Internet, this event ROCKED!

We met for our usual Saturday meeting. The young lady that I wrote about previously and her family came. She wanted MORE, and boy did she get it.

Worship was great. They turned our drummer, Animal, loose and let him follow after the leading of the Spirit. I don't know about anyone else, but when that happened there was such a release of the Holy Spirit for me. I danced until I nearly passed out.

One of the things that we have been doing is releasing people into art. We have easels and art supplies in our meetings. If the Lord shows someone something during worship, they are welcome to draw, paint or otherwise represent it. When we break, then those who have created a media piece share the interpretation. One of the Thundering Herd drew a beautiful picture of the crucifixion against a setting sun. He didn't have an interpretation of the drawing, but it was a picture of what Pastor GIGO was going to preach - the finished work of the cross in healing from Isaiah 53.

The awesome thing about Pastor GIGO's sermon was that it represented a major shift for him. We discussed whether or not healing was part of the atonement last year and his position at that time was that it was not, it was part of the goodness of God. He has grown in his understanding and now sees it as part of the atonement.

That is one of the things I love about this man. His brain has not atrophied from lack of use. He is actively growing in his knowledge of God as he pursues the Lord and pours his life out in that pursuit. There is something tremendously comforting about leadership that is willing to say, "I learned something new and adjusted my theology according to what I am learning from the Lord." That might wig some people out, but for me it means he is on the same journey I am on and has no illusions about having arrived. We are all chasing Jesus together and that is more exciting than I know how to describe.

After some excellent teaching, we did what is know in Toronto circles as a Fire Tunnel. You line up in two lines facing each other, send some poor victim through and we all lay hands on them as they move through the tunnel and pray for the Fire of God to fall on them.

It did.

By the time we finished this part of the exercise, very few were left standing. Some people were in need of some ministry from the Lord and people gathered around them to pray. Others we just left in the floor and let the Lord minister to them. My young friend was quite overwhelmed with the presence of the Lord and shared it with whomever she touched. It was quite amusing.

Our normal 2 hour service lasted about 6 1/2 hours. No joke. We started at 7 and ended at 1:30 am. We prayed, we laughed, we worshiped. I hadn't seen anything like it since the early days of the Toronto outpouring. No one left. Not people with kids, no one.

Even after we locked the building at 1:30, there was still a group of us out in the parking lot praying. We prayed and talked until 2:30 am.

The next day we decided that it was so wild, we wanted some more, so we begged Pastor GIGO to hold another service. We met at someone's house this time and that meeting went on for 5 hours. None of us wanted to leave. We just wanted to pray and worship and hang out with Jesus.

What it looks like when God shows up is addictive. Very addictive. It's not about the manifestations, it's not about this or that or the other thing. It is about Jesus. It is about falling in love with Him all over again and wanting Him more than food or sleep or anything else.

The book of Acts talks about this. It tells of how the early church met together every day and that there were times when the Holy Spirit even shook the place where they met. It tells of how thousands were added in single meetings and that people were added to the church daily.

I can't think of anything more addictive than that.