Calling Unhealthy What It Is 8/7/22

There was a lot of extreme unhealthiness in many of the old time Christian communities growing up. Sitting here thinking this morning after a convo we just had with Jacoby about appropriate church attire - many of the “mature” believers from yester-year were much more zealous for keeping young people from wearing hats in church than they ever were about helping those young people truly mature in Christ or find their purpose in life. Well, truth be told, you cannot impart what you don’t have yourself. Even many of those considered great men or women of God or “faith giants” had no clue how to steward and raise up people and never grew beyond their own church’s ideology themselves. Church (the building and the emphasis of all the rules attached to it) was often an idol that kept people from actually knowing the risen Christ personally. Man, I saw and heard (and EXPERIENCED) a lot of damaging stuff over the years. Thankfully however, the Lord uses all of it and any place two or more are gathered in His name He is there in the midst. That’s why no matter how much of the gospel of the kingdom people fully walk in or don’t walk in, God still shows up and does as much as He’s permitted to do in those places.

Having traveled throughout some of those places recently, I am baffled at some of the things that come up in conversation that reveal just how far out of any sense of balance or normal much of that still is. Having been part of raising up or helping to facilitate various communities and groups over the years that are focused on revival, breakthrough, true deliverance, growth, impartation, calling greatness out of people and genuinely walking with them in the day to day, it’s an incredibly stark contrast from what the old church streams thought was normal or healthy. The kingdom is bigger than your church. The kingdom is bigger than your ministry. The kingdom functions through unity, being one as Jesus and the Father are one. The five fold ministry still exists primarily to equip the Saints for the work of ministry. It does not exist to simply lord your own ministry over them. If you are a pastor or function in any of the other offices of the five-fold ministry, you are responsible to raise up men and women of God and to reproduce yourself. Not simply to make them dependent upon you, but to help them become a powerful living epistle themselves.

If you cannot let go of any of your own ministry, platform, personal time etc. to actually invest in those God has entrusted to you, you will give an account for it. Discipleship is a lifestyle thing and absent of love, it will not happen. You cannot love ministry more than you love the people God has called you to lead. First and foremost, you need to love the Lord and you need to love His people. Have you mentored anybody? Have you spiritually fathered or mothered anybody when you were not on the clock so to speak, conducting your services? Have you called greatness out of anybody? Have you helped them find their spiritual gifts? Have you helped them have a safe space to learn to operate in those things God has gifted them with? Have you created consumers that are dependent upon you or are you creating producers who can stand soundly on their own 2 feet and demonstrate Christ to those around them? Do you want them to serve you or serve Jesus. Do you want people to be limited to bringing others to your church as a means of evangelizing and keeping them so you can add to your number or do you want them to be empowered to evangelize, heal the sick, bring deliverance, prophesy and restore the hurting themselves? So many thoughts today, not enough room for it all.