Originally written 20 years ago, a
pioneer’s message on our need for the Holy Spirit’s power is just as
relevant–and prophetic–today. Dennis Bennett was a priest in the
Episcopal Church who became known as the father of the modern
charismatic movement after he proclaimed from his pulpit on April 3,
1960, that he had been baptized in the Holy Spirit. Within weeks he was
asked to resign his pastorate at thriving St. Mark’s Episcopal Church
in Van Nuys, California. He continued his ministry, moving into the
pastorate at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Seattle, where he stayed
until 1981. In 1968 he founded Christian Renewal Association with his
wife, Rita, who is its president today. Dennis died on November 1,
1991, a year after he wrote this article, which is adapted with
permission from Mission & Ministry, then the magazine of
Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. It is
a reminder that, in any era, the foundation for ministering to the
world isn’t us alone, but the Holy Spirit, who works through us to
change people’s lives.
I had a vivid experience of receiving the Lord Jesus as
my Savior when I was 11 years old. I found He was alive and wonderful
beyond belief but afterward spent much time looking for what came next.
I tried to find that first, careless rapture of my conversion over
again. At times I would sense that the Lord was still very much with
me, but my awareness of Him was limited, although my intellectual
belief was strong.
You who have been brought up in this age of awareness of
the Holy Spirit cannot imagine how blank we were on this topic back in
the 1940s and 1950s and even later. Kenneth Scott Latourette in his
masterful two-volume history of the Christian church, which covers
church history up to 1976, does not even mention the Pentecostal
revival! Yet without question the growth of the Pentecostal movement is
a most striking phenomenon of modern church history.
In my personal Pentecost, the joy and glory of God broke
in upon me in 1960. I recognized it as the same kind of experience I
had when I accepted Jesus, only much more vivid and constant.
It didn’t seem to matter whether I was awake or
asleep—or what was going on—the new awareness of God stayed with me. It
was an incredible new dimension in my spiritual life. I had been trying
hard to become more aware of God; now, all of a sudden, He was with me
without my having to seek Him.
I had no precedent for this experience. It was not the
fulfillment of any expectations that had been implanted in my mind. I
had never attended a Pentecostal church and had no notion what they
taught or believed. Moreover, I did not receive the baptism in the Holy
Spirit in a church setting, but in a private home, praying with two
Episcopal laypeople.
True, I had done a good deal of research over several
months while I was looking into it all, but the friends who witnessed
to me simply told me faithfully what had happened to them and then
prayed with me. After that I didn’t have a great deal of further
contact with them.
It concerns me that so many Christians nowadays seem not
to grasp, or perhaps have not even had a chance to grasp, what happened
back there 2,000 years ago and can continue to happen today as people
receive the same Pentecostal experience. I believe the baptism in the
Holy Spirit to be the drivetrain by which the power of the Spirit
travels from the engine to the wheels.
Evangelism starts the engine, but without the drivetrain
the people of God do not move very far, and soon begin to wonder when
Jesus is going to come and take them away from a world they obviously
are unequipped to cope with!
Acts 8:14-17 clearly tells how Peter and John prayed
with the Samaritans to receive the Holy Spirit after their conversion
and baptism with water through Philip the evangelist. Jesus made
receiving the baptism in the Spirit mandatory—and for a very good
reason, since it is what makes the power of God available through the
individual believer to the needy world.
In those early days in Van Nuys we experienced what it
was like to be “early Christians,” both from the excitement of
discovering how real it all was and from finding out how quickly one
could become unpopular! We found out for ourselves why people in the
first century were willing to risk their lives to belong to the
fellowship of Jesus of Nazareth.
None of us may have literally risked our lives, but we
did risk our reputations, our jobs, our friends. I saw the amazing
fellowship and love with which people were drawn together after they
had been set free in the Spirit, and to me it was worth the challenges.
I soon found, though, that there was much in me that
could quench my new awareness of the Holy Spirit. He never leaves us,
but I would lose my awareness of Him if I did not follow His leading.
During these last 30 years I have been
learning how to continue to respond to the Holy Spirit in me, so His
joy and power and freedom can continue to flow in and from me. I have
certainly failed far more often than I have succeeded, but the Lord is
patient. The main desire of my life is still to enjoy more of what I
knew at the first.
So, in retrospect, my concern is still
to keep that first fire burning—not to lose my first love. Yet I have
learned that He doesn’t forsake me. It is always I who forsake Him, or
at least make my environment distasteful and untenable for Him, so that
He has to retire into the depths of my spirit, where my soul is not
aware of Him for a time.
It has been a difficult three decades, but I would not
go back to the time before I was baptized in the Holy Spirit for
anything in heaven or earth. There is no nightmare I can imagine that
would be more devastating than to lose this awareness of the reality of
God.
Now what about the look ahead? I hear
today that the charismatic movement is dying down. Some say the
Pentecostal and charismatic movements have both passed their prime and
are to be replaced by a “third wave” of the Spirit that, however,
denies there is any experience of a baptism in the Holy Spirit after
salvation and claims it all happens when we accept Jesus. It also
maintains that it is not necessary to speak in tongues to be baptized
in the Spirit.
Either of these lines of thought show
that the purveyors thereof have not grasped what this Pentecostal or
charismatic renewal was and is all about. This is mainly and usually
because people have not themselves received the baptism in the Holy
Spirit, and therefore are sympathetic and well-meaning brothers and
sisters commenting on something they have not entered into.
Many have the impression that the
charismatic renewal is simply one among several programs for
strengthening the church. But the charismatic renewal isn’t one choice
among several. It is the renewal of the experience of Pentecost as
people respond to Jesus Christ’s instructions to all His followers that
they are to be empowered before they go out to the world with the good
news.
The charismatic renewal is not an
evangelical revival; although more than anything else it has fueled the
current interest in evangelism. It is highly important that we see the
difference between revivals—which are occasional and short-lived
upsurges of response to God—and this global renewal of the experience
of Pentecost, which has been going on with increasing momentum for
nearly a hundred years.
This is the breaking forth of the Holy Spirit from the
religious prison in which He has been confined through much of
Christian history, so He can begin to make Christians what they are
supposed to be: centers of power and joy for the refreshing and healing
of the world.
Evangelism is the initial offering and proclamation of
forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ, and the receiving of new
birth in the Holy Spirit. After this has happened Jesus commands us to
receive the freedom and power of the Spirit, to release the Holy Spirit
who has come to live in us, so that He can bless us and work through us
(see Acts 1:4-5).
We can be so near to seeing this truth and yet so
dangerously far away. The Holy Spirit comes to live in us when we
receive Jesus as Savior, that is absolutely true; but we do not
necessarily receive Him, that is, allow Him to rule in our lives.
Through the baptism in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of
God is allowed to extend His influence over our outward lives—our will,
intellect, emotions and bodies. Not surprisingly He begins with our
speech, and begins to tame the unruly member, to make it usable by our
Lord so He can give us words to adequately express our praise and love
to God in “words which are not in our power to say” (Rom. 8:26, Basic
English Version).
Thus we can pray and intercede for
ourselves and others in words that precisely express God’s will. This
taming of the tongue also makes it possible for God to speak through us
to His people, in prophetic utterances and also in gifts of tongues,
which are then understood through the companion gift of interpretation.
I haven’t changed my essential convictions about all
this. I’m still saying the same things I did 30 years ago, although, I
hope, with much more understanding of what it all means.
What is happening to people today when they receive the
freedom of the Spirit is just the same as at the first, except that now
we understand much more about it. The church is not primarily a
preaching or teaching institution. It must be charismatic. It must
manifest the gifts and fruit of the Spirit, for they are the continuing
signs that Jesus is alive and ready to bless people now.
People are weary of talk about
religion, whether by semi-believing intellectuals or arrogant
fundamentalists, and they are especially weary of ill-natured
Christians who condemn everything and everyone, including one another.
(This includes the so-called liberals who use social concerns to bring
people under condemnation.)
But if people see the glory of the indwelling Spirit in
their friends and neighbors and experience His fruit and gifts pouring
out of God’s people to heal body, mind and spirit, they will be drawn
to the love of Jesus, and they will indeed receive His complete
healing. Jesus did good works, healings and deliverances, and these are
what showed people the kingdom of God was “at hand”—that is, right here
and now.
He tells us to do the same. It isn’t any different
today. If people see Jesus doing these things through His followers,
how can they refuse to accept Him?
Evangelism brings people to receive Jesus, and then the
Holy Spirit can come and live in them. The baptism in the Holy Spirit
is letting the power of the Spirit flow out to bless, first of all, the
individual and then the world around.
When Peter was challenged by the other
apostles and brethren because he had ministered to the Roman centurion,
Cornelius, and his household, Peter responded: “As I began to speak,
the Holy Spirit fell upon them as upon us at the beginning. Then I
remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, ‘John indeed baptized
with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If
therefore God gave them the same gift as He gave us when we believed on
the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?” (Acts
11:15-17, NKJV).
This is what Jesus promised at the first. Let us not be
found with those who withstand God but with those who will stand with
God so that this great response to His love and grace in the Holy
Spirit can continue unhindered in our day.
THE STORY CONTINUES
Read our May 1980 cover story detailing Dennis Bennett’s extraordinary life at Bennett.charismamag.com.
You might think you're smart when you get out of college, but I suggest that the real education is only just the beginning. In an Amish kitchen in Bird-in-Hand,
Pennsylvania, in the heart of Dutch country, I saw a sign I’ll never
forget: “Too soon old, too late smart.” When I saw it, I thought it was
memorable but hardly meaningful. I was 21. Now the words are
meaningful, but I can barely remember the farmhouse. I am 62.
Sometimes I have the fantasy that I will sit up on my
deathbed and cry out, “Oh, I get it,” and lie down again and die. The
Amish have it right.
Recently a friend said he wished he were 21 again. The
thought held little interest for me, but he made an intriguing
counteroffer: What if you could be 21 and know what you know now?
That held more allure, but it begged a question: What, if anything, do I now know that I wish I had known at 21?
I came up with 10 things, none of which I think I would have placed on my priority list at age 21.
1. Inner healing is greater than outward success. It
is probably impossible to arrive at 21, let alone 62, without wounds in
the inner person—deep wounds that need God’s healing grace. The more I
see of inner healing and the more I face up to my own inner wounds, the
more I wish I had let Messiah touch my deepest hurts earlier in life.
That childhood hurt, that hidden outrage, that long-suppressed horrific
memory can lurk like a monster in the basement waiting for years, even
decades, to rise and wreak havoc.
Hiding the monster, denying that it’s down there, is a
dangerous game. The temptation is to create an alternative reality
where success and accomplishment and appearances seem so very real and
the monster but a mirage. If I were 21 again I would bore down into the
inner world of me and find Christ’s healing touch in the darkness under
the floorboards.
2. Mercy is greater than justice. I
have found that many in the church want the wayward to “get what’s
coming to them.” Too often, there is a shortage of mercy among the
followers of Christ, who blessed the merciful in His most famous
message, the Sermon on the Mount. Were I 21 again, I would learn and
practice mercy, knowing that later I would need it.
Churches, boards, denominations and individual believers
who hanker for justice when a colleague stumbles may be planting for a
bitter harvest. They gloat over the sins of others, humiliate the
fallen and demand their administrative pound of flesh.
Competitiveness and legalism are the death of mercy.
Mercy makes love real, acceptance and understanding a practice, and
tenderness a way of life.
3. Kindness is better than being right. Just
before my friend Jamie Buckingham died, I asked him for a word of
wisdom. He said, “It is better to be kind than to be right.”
At 21, I advocated my positions too aggressively. I
argued with an eye toward winning, unconcerned about the heart of my
“adversary,” who may not have been adversarial at all. I made debate a
contact sport. In preaching I let the bad dog off the chain, to the
applause of the gallery.
Should time travel be mine and were I to be back in the
land of 21, I would be kinder and less concerned with being right. Too
many young adults give little thought to kindness.
They Twitter hurtful words like
poisonous birds. Their humor is mocking, acidic and unkind. And they
are more concerned with being thought clever than with being kind. The
value of gentleness has declined on the world market; if I were 21
again I would wish to know the worth of a kind word.
4. Serving is better than being served. Encircled
by their entourages, the “success” merchants of modern Christianity
place high dividends on being catered to. When I was a pastor, the
church I led invited a singing group to come minister. Their list of
special demands, including a particular type of orange cut into equal
fourths (I kid you not), was five pages long. We canceled.
I wish I had known at 21 how hollow is
all that outward stuff. I wish I had known that caring, not being cared
for, is what Christ had in mind.
I wish I had changed more diapers instead of leaving that
to my wife. I wish I had served more meals, carried more bags, held
more doors and lightened more burdens.
5. Brokenness is the doorway to wholeness. This
mysterious paradox was hidden from me at 21. I feared brokenness. I ran
from it, and when it got too close fought it off with all my might.
If I had but known brokenness was the key to my healing,
it would have lifted such fear from me. I thought it would maim me at
least and maybe even kill me. Now I know that there is very little real
wholeness that does not emerge from real brokenness.
6. Truth is liberating and devastating. Jesus
said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” My
friend Jamie tacked on, “But first it will make you miserable.”
How true. There is a phrase popular among many young
adults that I quite like despite my usual distaste for pop jingoes. It
is, “Keep it real.” I am not sure of all that is meant by it, but I
know what I mean by it.
I wish I had known not to fear the truth about myself. I
wish I had known that the temporary misery of the truth was worth going
through to find the freedom that it brings.
7. Learning is greater than education.
I am a university president, and Oral Roberts University (ORU) is a
great university. I am not saying that higher education is unimportant.
What I am saying is, I hated getting educated.
At 21, I was a miserable college senior. I was a
miserable student from the first grade right through high school and on
through three degrees. I was miserable because I did not understand the
connection between education and learning.
If I were 21 again, I would still go to college. But this
time I would go to learn not just to graduate. I would unleash my
curiosity, embrace the process, worry less about my grades and enjoy
learning.
How strange that I love to learn at the age I am now. I
read voraciously—any subject. I want to know, to understand, to go
deeper. If I were 21 again I would take that to college.
8. Giving is sweeter than gaining. I
believe in the laws of the harvest. If there is any place in the world
that understands “seed faith” it is ORU. Seed faith is not a new idea
to me. I believed it at 21. I practiced it and am blessed today because
it is real.
Yet I wish that at 21 I had known the sheer joy of
giving. I know God will bless us when we give, and sometimes we have
made this merely a method to gain. I wish I had realized the joy of
generosity. I would have given more and delighted more in the good that
giving does and less in the returns it provides.
9. Forgiveness doesn’t fix everything. Not
the happiest truth I wish I had known, but it’s among the most
sobering. Had I known this I might have been less callous, less
reckless and more mindful of the cost.
There are things, relationships and hearts that once
broken cannot be fully “fixed” by forgiveness. The wound, the uncaring
and insensitive word—they may be forgiven, but the damage from them may
never quite be right again.
When I was 21 I just wanted to be forgiven. I wish I had known to do less damage.
10. Prayer is more powerful than persuasion. In
all of life, at every age, conflict is an inescapable reality. I wish I
had known younger that in conflict and crisis talking to God works
better than talking to people. At 21, due perhaps to youthful
arrogance, I thought that I could talk my way through everything.
Self-sufficiency, a dangerous habit, breeds
prayerlessness. The older I get I find that crisis drives me faster to
my knees and more slowly to the phone.
I have seen God turn hearts around, change organizations
and melt opposition by prayer alone—when no persuasive speech could
have made a difference. If I were 21 again, I would spend more time
talking with God and less (far less) persuading others to do what I
want.
I wish I had known more than I did at 21. I might have considered one or two of these truths, but I doubt I would have fully appreciated their value.
I do not think I want to be 21 again. But if I had to, if
some evil genie made me go back and live it all over, then these are
the things I would want to know and the things I would want to believe.
Mark Rutland is the president of Oral Roberts
University and author of 13 books. He also leads a missions and
church-planting organization, Global Servants.
YOUR TURN To share what you wish you had known at age 21, go to 10things.charismamag.com.
In an age of Twitter and Facebook, churches too are breaking new ground in evangelism, humanitarian aid and community development. 1. Expecting Miracles in Las Vegas
Every other week, Scott Linklater, 32,
and teams of sidewalk evangelists make their rounds on the notorious
Las Vegas Strip, where they distribute gospel tracts that resemble huge
$100 bills. They see the 40 million tourists who visit the Strip
annually as their mission field, and in the last year have shared the
gospel with more than 120,000 people.
Out of the outreach effort grew the
Expectation Church Network—a group of “simple churches,” or house
churches, affiliated with the International Church of the Foursquare
Gospel. “In order to share the gospel, we can’t spend our time and
resources on the stuff that other people spend their time and resources
on,” Linklater says, referring to the overhead and administrative costs
associated with church buildings. “Necessity is the mother of
invention.”
Expectation Church currently links eight
simple churches, and Linklater hopes that together they will share the
gospel with 200,000 people on the Strip this year. In time, he wants to
reach more than 1 million Vegas tourists annually. “We can justifiably
say we can do that as we build up more and more workers,” he says.
2. Reaching Unchurched Millennials in Minnesota
When Peter Haas and his wife, Carolyn,
moved to Minnesota to plant a church, they hoped to launch an
arts-focused ministry that attracted the unchurched. Five years later,
what they’ve built is Substance Church, a 2,000-member congregation in
St. Paul where 70 percent of the members are part of the Millennial
generation, or under age 30, and most were previously unchurched.
A former rave disc jockey, Haas, 34,
says he always hoped to build a church for people like himself—“who are
very open to God but can’t relate to what we perceive to be the
organized church.” Known for its ultra-contemporary worship, Substance
Church meets in three locations, but Haas says the ministry’s style is
not the real draw. He says research shows that most unchurched people
are multiethnic and under age 30, and they feel disenfranchised in
churches where the average age of the platform leaders is over 40. “We
felt we’ve got to make sure we’re representing people they can relate
to on our platform,” Haas says.
But a bigger key, Haas believes, is
fostering Christian community by helping members find a core group of
friends who will support them in their Christian walk. “We’ve lost that
communal element to Christianity,” Haas says. “Our whole philosophy
hinges on getting every single person in a small-group community in as
short a period of time as we can and getting them into ministry. That’s
the driving force.”
3. Redeeming the City in Milwaukee
Holy Redeemer Institutional Church of
God in Christ in Milwaukee, burned its mortgage in 1987, a year after
it was established. Since then the 5,000-member congregation has been
moving aggressively to empower the residents in its city.
Led by Bishop Sedgwick Daniels, the
church established a credit union; K-12 school; housing complex for
senior citizens; $15 million youth center that houses a Boys &
Girls Club, theater, and social service agency; and a free health
clinic. The next project, Bishop’s Creek, will include more than 120
three-bedroom townhomes, a hotel, shops, water park, and a dormitory
for children that are displaced. Funded through church giving as well
as grants and business partnerships, phases one and two of the $70
million project will open this year, with the hotel and water park
scheduled to open in 2011.
“The vision of the church is to win
souls for Christ,” Daniels says, “but ... we have a divine mandate that
says we are to be mission-minded. We’re to feed those that are hungry,
clothe those that are naked, preach the Word or make it accessible. In
order to do that, you must first give a hungry man food, as did Christ
... and they can readily receive the Word. So you provide services, and
you provide a holistic environment where that Word can be embraced with
love because it’s demonstrated through care.”
4. A ‘Servolution’ in Louisiana
Dino Rizzo has a clear ministry goal: to
start a revolution of service in churches worldwide. He’s starting in
Louisiana, where he and his wife, DeLynn, are meeting the needs of the
poor and hurting through The Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge.
The 7,000-member church has 10 campuses,
including two Dream Centers that provide food, clothing and other needs
in some of the poorest areas of their city. Church members also
regularly mow lawns, help neighbors move and give away water on the
local college campus as part of an outreach initiative influenced by
pastor Steve Sjogren’s book Conspiracy of Kindness. When temperatures dipped below freezing last January, Healing Place gave away dozens of space heaters.
“We were not serving to grow a church,” says Rizzo, who released his book, Servolution,
last year. “We were serving because of the cause of Christ in our
hearts. We felt like that was the best tool to reach people who Jesus
died for in our community. As it caught fire and people got a hold of
that, it just began to blossom and take off.”
Rizzo’s vision to see a “servolution”
comes closer to reality each year. The ministry has two campuses in
Africa, and in March it hosted Servolution 2010, when churches
worldwide led 10 days of community outreach in the run-up to Easter.
5. Reaching the World From North Carolina
During a missions trip in the 1980s,
pastor Michael Fletcher of Manna Church in Fayetteville, North
Carolina, had what effectively amounts to an awakening. “Sometimes when
you’re in your own culture, you’re blind to the lostness of people,” he
says. “When you go somewhere that’s not your own culture, you see
things as they are. ... And I just said, ‘We’ve got to reach people,
we’ve got to go.’”
Today he nudges the members of his
5,000-member church to engage people outside the church walls through
dozens of outreach efforts Manna Church leads. “We have a global
strategy—if there are unsaved people in your home, it goes from the
head next to you on the pillow at night right around the globe,”
Fletcher says.
That passion to reach the lost also
influences Grace Churches International, a ministry network that has
grown from 27 congregations when Fletcher took over in 2001 to more
than 400 in 69 nations today. “When we talk about ministry partners, it
isn’t just send money, it’s hands-on, be involved in what they’re
doing,” he says.
The goal is to build the kingdom, not
one congregation, Fletcher adds. “Selfishness has hijacked the church
in the West,” he says. “That’s a fact. We think about ourselves, meet
my needs. That’s not Christianity. Christianity is giving. It’s giving
the gospel of Christ to [the world].”
6. Rescuing the Homeless in Atlanta
Like most other U.S. churches, Rescue
Atlanta Church led by pastors Mel and Teresa Rolls has services twice a
week, on Sundays and at midweek. But that’s where the similarities end.
Roughly 70 percent of Rescue Atlanta’s
members are homeless and another 25 percent are from troubled
inner-city neighborhoods. A hot breakfast is served before Sunday
services and a warm lunch before midweek Bible study. In addition to a
food pantry, the church has laundry and shower facilities, as well as a
clothes closet and medical clinic.
“I really believe the success of what
we’ve done in the 21 years we’ve been doing this is that we get into
their lives to where we earn the right to speak into their lives,” says
Mel Rolls, an Assemblies of God minister. “They see we’re their
friends. We’re not trying to herd them into church. We want them to
trust us, then trust the message, then they follow.”
Despite the unique makeup of Rescue
Atlanta, the Rollses encourage church members to serve others. They
support missionaries worldwide and members have been sponsoring
children in Haiti since long before the January earthquake. After
flooding wreaked havoc in Georgia last September, teams of homeless men
from Rescue Atlanta helped families who had lost everything. “The
congregation is amazing,” Rolls says. “They give. We receive an
offering every time we have a service. No one feels like they have to
give, but they do give.”
7. A Florida Church That Left the Building—Literally
In 2003, pastor Byron Bledsoe was
leading a growing Southern Baptist church in Orlando, Florida, that was
drawing 1,500 people each week. Its denomination had even recognized
the ministry as a top evangelistic congregation.
But instead of being excited by the
commendation, Bledsoe was troubled. He knew that only about 10 percent
of the people the church reached each year had been previously
unchurched. “If we didn’t exist anymore, nobody in the community would
even care,” Bledsoe says.
That nagging discontent led him on a
two-year journey that culminated in some radical moves. He phased out
the choir for a worship band and transitioned the Sunday school into
home-based cell groups. But the biggest change came in 2007, when the
church sold its campus and started holding services in a movie theater,
losing 1,400 of its 1,500 members in the process.
Now
known as C3 Church, the ministry spends “every extra dime” on outreach
projects such as feeding needy families and providing backpacks for
students. Bledsoe says the strategy, though painful, has yielded some
unexpected fruit. Most of the 600 people who attend services each week
were previously unchurched. And the congregation has become ethnically
diverse, just like the city.
Adrienne S. Gaines is the news editor for Charisma magazine.
SEE THEM IN ACTION
See some of these innovative churches in action at trendsetters.charismamag.com. Also tell us about churches in your city that are finding creative ways to reach the lost.
1. Live Life ‘In Front of Jesus’
By Jack Hayford
I’m often asked, “What is the one thing above all
others that is a leader’s priority?” My answer has little to do with
personal gifts or professional skill. But it is the thing that will
become the foremost reason people will trust and follow you and the
reason God will put His seal of approval on you. The one thing is
integrity of heart.
Leaders with integrity of heart listen to the Holy
Spirit’s whispers, yield to His slightest “pings” of conscience and
submit to His goads of correction or direction. It is found and
sustained by daily choices of a conscience that yields to, and a conscientiousness that abides in, this sobering and inescapable truth: Every moment, I am naked and exposed in front of Jesus (see Heb. 4:13).
That I should live my life “in front of Jesus” is the
counsel my mother engraved upon my heart as a child. It was never used
to condemn, but spoken to teach me to live self-confronted by that
reality. It has never produced perfection in me, but it has provided
life-long protection from self-will, presumptuous indulgence or
presumed self-righteousness. To live your life in front of Jesus will
keep you on the sure course unto life, the pure path of love and in the
securing fold of truth. Jack Hayford is founding pastor of
The Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California, and former president of
the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel.
2. Be God’s Answer for a Hurting World
By Lisa Bevere
God created the woman as the answer to
Earth’s first problem: that man not be alone. Today there continue to
be problems that only God’s daughters can answer. Our world is
heartsick and in need of intimate, safe connections. The problems loom
so large, the needs are so vast, that our response must at once be
intimate and enormous.
Lovely ones, I want you to rise up in
strength, so you can enlarge the lives of others and hear the cry of
the broken and captive. Any gift, ability or talent you have was given
in order for you to improve the lives of others. There is something
within you that this world desperately needs.
Together women of all ages are writing
this chapter in the history of God’s daughters. He is relating the
mothers, daughters, sisters and grandmothers for their personal
strength and spiritual growth, and for His kingdom purposes. Together
we are stronger than any of us are standing alone.
Women are God’s answer to hurting
relationships, an impotent church and a dying world desperate for
healing. You are a voice for those who’ve been silenced. You are beauty
amid desolation. You, daughter, are God’s answer. Lisa Bevere is an international Bible teacher and the author of numerous books, including Fight Like a Girl.
3. Embrace the ‘One Thing’
By David Shibley
A truly successful life is measured not by its duration
but by its direction; not by its parties but by its purpose; not by
what was amassed but by what was dispersed; not by the embracing of
things but by embracing the one thing—to love Jesus supremely and to make Him loved by people everywhere.
To be effective in ministry, you must pursue God daily through prayer and Bible study, and guard your integrity. If you lose trust, it’s game over. Stay true to Scripture—believe God and His Word—and keep evangelism and discipleship central.
Give high priority to cultivating relationships with God,
your spouse, your family, and a few trusted friends, and always protect
your “base,” which is your marriage and family. Allow yourself to grow
from opposition—we can all learn from our critics—and let
disappointments work for you. Steer clear of bitterness.
Discover and develop your dominant spiritual gifts and expect miracles. Pour into others, and do what it takes—count the cost, pay the price—to be faithful to your calling. You
are the beneficiary of a century of the Spirit’s outpouring. Live in
such a way “that all will honor the Son” (see John 5:23). Inspire your
generation to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission. David Shibley is the founder of
Global Advance, a ministry that equips church and marketplace leaders
to help fulfill the Great Commission.
4. Cultivate a Relationship With Jesus
By Mike Bickle
When looking back over 35 years of
ministry, the single most important truth that I can pass on to younger
leaders is the absolute necessity of taking the time to cultivate a
vibrant relationship with Jesus. The pressure to grow a ministry can be
overwhelming. It comes with many hidden traps that can kill our
spiritual lives. Many leaders today confess to living spiritually dry,
disillusioned and burned-out lives. This is the inevitable result of
pursuing ministry without a vibrant relationship with Jesus.
Jesus corrected the church in Ephesus
for working hard in ministry without maintaining a fresh love and
devotion to Him. He exhorted them: “You have persevered and have
patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become
weary. Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your
first love” (Rev. 2:3-4, NKJV). Growth in ministry is good, but it can
never replace your relationship with Jesus. Ministry service without
the foundation of intimacy with Jesus inevitably leads to burnout and,
thus, to far less ministry in the long haul.
Satan’s strategy is to distract from the
simplicity and purity of devotion to Jesus (see 2 Cor. 11:3). He knows
that if we lose this, we will be much more vulnerable to
disillusionment. We must intentionally cultivate a responsive heart of
love to Jesus. It does not happen automatically. It is something that
we must set our hearts to do all the days of our lives. Mike Bickle is founder of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Missouri.
5. Seek the Kingdom
By Bishop George McKinney
My first word of counsel to every leader is drawn from
biblical wisdom—“seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,
and all these things shall be added to you” (Matt. 6:33). When a
person’s priorities are out of order, his life will be filled with
confusion and God’s given purpose will not be fulfilled.
Confirm your status as a citizen of the kingdom of God by
acknowledging His authority over your time, talents, opportunities and
treasures. When seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness is top
priority, you will be able to experience faithfulness as a steward of
God’s blessings.
Second, “trust in the Lord with all your
heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways
acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths” (Prov. 3:5-6). It
is essential for servant leaders in the kingdom to maintain an ongoing,
intimate relationship of trust and obedience to God. Challenging
situations tempt us to lean upon our own understanding. Always remember
that God has promised to be with us at all times and that He delights
in our acknowledging and trusting in Him. The kingdom is His kingdom,
and we belong to Him; we are God’s responsibility.
God’s call to ministry is a call to preparation. It is not a call to success, but a call to faithfulness. Bishop George McKinney is pastor of
St. Stephen’s Cathedral Church of God in Christ in San Diego and a
member of the denomination’s 12-member General Board.
6. Don’t Be Offended
By Bob Mumford
Years ago, people built traps in order to catch birds.
They would balance a box on a stick tied to a rope and birdseed or
other food would be placed under the box. When a bird came to eat the
seed, the stick would trip, and the box would fall on the unsuspecting
bird.
In Greek, that stick is called the skandalizo, translated “to offend.” When skandalizo
becomes your portion—and it will—and you find yourself in a spiritually
or emotionally dark box, it is often difficult to recover because you
can feel like you’re fighting a tar baby. Every move is the wrong one.
Every prayer sounds like a poorly verbalized whimper. All counsel seems
petty or counterproductive.
Being scandalized or offended is one of the most binding
traps into which a believer can fall. In many ways, it goes far beyond
simply being hurt, deceived or ensnared by carnal sin; it has the
capacity to totally undermine and destroy our walk with the Lord. When
we have been scandalized, we really do not care what anyone thinks. We
feel the early signs of deep-seated anger, and if we are not careful we
can rapidly be sucked into the vacuum of rage and depression.
Jesus warned us about not being offended. We must allow
God to do things that we would never expect. Maturity involves guarding
against stumbling, falling into sin, or giving up our faith because our
expectations were unmet. Bob Mumford is a veteran charismatic Bible teacher and founder of Lifechangers ministry.
7. Lead By Example
By Nola Warren
During our years of ministry in Mexico, my husband and I
have had the joy of mentoring hundreds of young men and women as they
prepared for their God-given ministries. We always used the apostle
Paul’s admonition in 1 Corinthians 11:1 as our guide: “Imitate me, just
as I also imitate Christ.” We have always believed that is the best
mentoring system of all, and it was one of the many truths we taught
our own five children.
Always remember: Lead by example. As we
are instructed to follow the example of Christ, we should remember the
example He left. Jesus was love. He was sacrificial. He humbled
Himself. He came to serve, not to be served. We need to love those who
come to us for mentoring, sacrificing for them and never expecting them
to serve us, but rather serving them ourselves.
And parents, don’t forget about the little leaders of
tomorrow living under your own roof. They also need to be loved and
trained in the ways of our Lord. Nola Warren is a Bible teacher and longtime missionary to Mexico.
MORE MENTORING
Find out what advice other ministry veterans have for the next generation of church leaders at mentors.charismamag.com.
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