What I want and what I need. Dreaming of church

The church I want to belong to loves all

The church I want to belong to calls all

The church I want to belong to worships our Savour in spirit and truth

The church I want to belong to makes disciples

The church I want to belong to cherishes the word of God

The church I want to belong to see’s the sick healed

The church I want to belong to see’s the broken hearted made whole

The church I want to belong to rescues the lost

The Church I want to belong to frees the captives

The church I want to belong to is on a mission

The church i want to belong to hears Fathers voice and obeys

The church I want to belong to see’s God move in power

The church I want to belong to serves my community

The church I want to belong to raises up generations of warriors for Jesus

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To be in this church I need to love all

To be in this church I need to take the call out

To be in this church I need to worship my Saviour in spirit and truth

To be in this church I need to be willing to give my time up to help other grow in their faith

To be in this church I need to be willing to take time to learn to become more like Jesus

To be in this church I need to read and meditate on Fathers word.

To be in this church I need to pray for the sick

To be in this church I need to lead the broken hearted to their Father

To be in this church I need to leave my comfortable existence and seek the lost so Jesus can rescue them

To be in this church I need to point the captives to He who will set them free

To be in this church I need to know and be on the mission

To be in this church I need to seek Fathers voice and obey what He says

To be in this church I need to ask Father to move in power and rejoice when he does so

To be in this church I need to serve my community

To be in this church I need to be willing to train and lead new generations of warriors

 

 

If I want to the see and be part of the Church of my dreams I must play my part in that dream.

Why not leave a comment and add some of your own dreams of your church.

Two many churches spoil the broth

We are on holiday in the highlands of scotland and having a lovely time.

While travelling around we have been astounded by the number of church buildings and ’steams’ there have been up here.

Each one expresses a fresh move of Father in a country rich with Christian witness over the years.

However now these buildings are empty and the ’steams’ are dried up.

My question today is this how do we make sure the same does not happen to us?

I guess being wary of traditions as they arise and holding onto what Father is doing today not what he did yesterday.

Right back to the whiskey, haggis mossies and relaxing’

A word from “On High” or last nights dodgy take away curry

 I am blessed to be part of a church and indeed a family of churches that hold that the gifts of the spirit, prophecy, words of knowledge and wisdom, speaking in tongues, discernment, healing etal are not only viewed as ‘for today’ but actively encouraged so that they can build the body of the church.

I find it overwhelming that Father wants to take an active vocal part in our lives and in the life of the church and I would hate to be in a church where this is not the case or even taught against.

My only issue is that most of it does not seem to be true prophecy or words of knowledge. They produce little response and are ‘weak’ by which I mean there is no challenge from Father or real comfort apart from the ‘There, there it’s ok, poor ickle you’. I don’t see too much of that in the word.

Some Sundays, we have a long line of people coming to the front to share what they feel God, has spoken to them about. They are allowed to interrupt the flow of the worship which is taken place to bring these ‘words’ to the congregation as a whole.  

Personally I am sick of getting into a deep state of worship of / with Jesus along with my wife and children, only to have it broken to receive a word about ‘you are a flower in the field and the sun in shinning down on you and that is God’s love for you’ …. YES I KNOW and now my kids are kicking off and I have to get them back into worship of Jesus and not play with their friends Mighty Morphing Power Rangers with the kung-fu grip thank you very much! Don’t they know it’s like herding cats?

Now I am not saying that all the words are like that but a very high proportion of them are either, focused on the person giving them, very general, or freaky hyper charismatic nut-job gibberish.

I want Father to speak to the church on a Sunday

I want to hear his voice

I want Him to challenge me in my sin

I want Him to challenge me to push on into what he has got for me

I want to know He loves me

I want words from Father that cut to to peoples sin or pain so they can be healed and saved

BUT I WANT TO KNOW ITS REALLY FROM HIM FOR ME / THE CHURCH not the well meaning utterances of a few people.

We have had a number of words on a Sunday morning that have been very important both to me and the church as a whole but in truth these are few and far between. Often they are brought, prior to them being given, to the eldership well in advance and are brought by recognised ‘prophets’.

They are the people that when they stand up to share something you pin your ears back and give close attention to what they say.

Then there are the others the word-a-weekers, or the aforementioned hyper charismatic nut-job / wingnuts. The ones that you groan inwardly if you have brought a non-Christian along with you, they produce forth and it is often confused and wrapped up in so much Christian jargon you need an English-Christian dictionary to translate it, or weak and sounds as much like the Father I know as Julian Clary or Baldrick.

So what needs to be done? Well I guess the first thing to do is look at what instruction we are given in this matter from the word.

1 Corinthians 14:29 (New International Version)

 29Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said.

According to this scripture we are not to be inundated with prophecy and we need to weight what is said in line with scripture and what has been said before. You cannot do that if there are a lot of words brought.

So we have to look to the eldership to provide some form of limitation / restrictions on what, how and who brings contributions on a Sunday. Some people might not like this but “For God is not a God of disorder but of peace” so we need some order. We are also reminded that the “The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets” so they will not blow up if they are not given the chance to bring what Father has shared with them (or not). Father will find another way to bring it. He is after all an all powerful God.

BUT PRAISE GOD THAT HE IS NOT QUIET THAT HE CAN BE FOUND AND THAT HE WANTS TO SPEAK TO US