Archives for the Spirituality category

God Evening 3

The third consecutive God Evening took place (read about week 1 and week 2 if you have not done so already) and the sense of anticipation in the sanctuary was almost tangible. God had met us in such dynamic ways in the past three weeks that even the realisation that most of our senior leaders were away did not damped the sense of expectation and anticipation.

The night started with the sharing of a word that the prophetic team had received (they had spent an hour before the event praying and seeking God’s face about the evening) – it was a verse from Isaiah 64:5 which says: “You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways.” Our hearts lifted as we realised that God comes to meet those who wait for him with joy.” Instantly we knew that the theme for the evening would be the joy of the Lord. No-one had to even say that was so!

A worship leader prayed that God would come and inhabit our praises – that it would not just be a visitation but a habitation.

The pastor leading the meeting shared her intention to teach for five minutes before giving the rest of the evening to pressing into the glory of God. But first she invited people to come forward to testify about what God had done in recent weeks – one spoke about the joy that they experienced; another about understanding grace properly and not needing to perform before God; and another spoke about relaxing and allowing God to touch us and use us even if our minds tell us that we have not spent enough time with God during that day. That was a critical word, because we sometimes feel like we are unworthy to minister for God because of stuff in our lives – but God was challenging that works-based mentality in his presence.

The pastor then shared from Hebrews 6 that God rewards faith – we need to believe that God is at work and then step out in faith to partner with him. She shared from Ephesians 5:18 that we are to be continually filled with the Holy Spirit – and that it is in tough times (as in the context of Isaiah 64) that God floods our hearts with joy. Psalm 2 was referred to as justification for laughter that has happened in our midst on Tuesday nights – for even God laughs at his enemies who try and stand against him – it is like someone throwing an acorn against an armoured car – futile! We have the victory – for greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world! The joy of the Lord is our strength!

She then shared that when someone manifests in our services there could be one of 3 causes:

1. God is doing something phenomenal in the person’s life – and all we say is “more Lord” (a phrase that I struggled with some weeks back as I felt we should focus more on giving God more of us than looking out for more of him – but clearly as we are experiencing a deeper sense of his presence each week there just seems to be a strong case to crying out for more of God in our lives and in the lives of the people we are praying for.

2. A demon is either coming or going – when we worship, an atmosphere of heaven is created on earth and demons have to flee. If demons are coming, we need to worry, but that is pretty much never the case – they are always fleeing from the presence of Jesus. If this is the case, then all we say is “more Lord”.

3. The person is doing it – but we are always involved to some extent in what God is doing. Even when we were saved, we heard a message and had to respond in prayer, or with some action, to symbolise what God was doing in our hearts. Whenever the Holy Spirit moves in our lives, we have to step out and do something – so we are involved. God influences our hearts and we respond to what the Holy Spirit is doing. If people draw attention to themselves or cause a distraction that is a problem, but otherwise we say: “more Lord”

I think we all got the message – we want more of the Lord in our midst, in our lives, in our families, in our businesses, etc. We were challenged, that when we sense the Holy Spirit coming upon us, and we feel that we need to do something, we must go ahead and do it – even if it makes us look stupid – like lying on the floor, doing new hand movements, waving a flag, etc. We were reminded about a message preached on Sunday that worship is an automatic response to a revelation of God. We have no option but to respond!

The final challenge before we started to worship was to do more than worship with our voice – but worship with our whole being. And boy did we worship!!! It was a lively start of physically expressive worship songs, but very quickly there was an intimacy and a joyfulness that came over the audience. Clearly God’s joy was in the sanctuary. A prophetic song was sung, preceded by a Scripture from the Old Testament, and we corporately sang a new song about rising as God’s beloved to come and meet with him. Words of declaration were sung about the freedom that we were experiencing in God’s presence.

After about 30 minutes, the pastor invited folk to come forward if they needed prayer.I was hoping to be a spectator on the night and just be on the receiving end of ministry but when 50 people flooded the front of the sanctuary (there was probably around 250 people in the audience) there was no time to stand back.

This is where I was surprised by God. On previous occasions in my life I have known that God was about to use me by a unique sign. I would maybe heard a word spoken in a foreign tongue and I would start to sweat – as I knew that God wanted me to step out in faith and speak out the word of phrase that he had given me and trust that he would give me the rest of the interpretation. Well, tonight, there was a whole new sign that God was about to work through me: my right hand would start to shake (pretty much uncontrollably, unless I held it tightly under the armpit of my other arm. I would engage with people (mainly guys) and ask them their name and how I could pray for them, and almost immediately I would know how to start praying for them and my arm would shake and they would immediately fall to the ground – it was almost as if the power of God was welling up within me and would be released in an instant.

To say that this was unknown in my life as little as three years ago is an understatement. It has been building up over the past years and seems to be reaching a whole new level. There was a guy who was almost twice my height and there was no way that I was going to climb on a ladder and attempt to push him backwards. The moment I laid my hand on his chest, he went to sleep for about 10 minutes. When we chatted later he spoke of how God had met him so powerfully and he knew he was changed. He had asked for prayer to be a better father and husband.

A chap who is physically (not mentally) challenged also was overwhelmed by the presence of God as I prayed and he too lay in a peaceful “sleep” as God did a work in his life. One colleague manifested more dramatic manifestations as I prayed and ended up resting before the Lord, but he shook a great deal for what seemed like forever. Even the leader of the evening that I sensed God wanted me to share a prophetic word was overcome and struggled to stand in God’s presence as I prayed for her.

One more truly exciting part of the evening was the speaking of prophetic words into people’s lives – including teenagers that were in the sanctuary. I felt prompted to speak about one receiving the wisdom of Solomon (that he would just look at his friends and have godly insights into what is wrong in their lives) and the other the spirit of Nehemiah (that he would be accomplish great things for God, have a divine ability to see what needed to be done and mobilise people to get the work done). Other words and lines of throught came to mind as I prayed for people, and judging by the affirmation they would make – it seemed as through they were fully agreeing with what I was sharing with them.

In fact, the evening started out when I met one of the guys that I had prayed for two weeks back and had spoken bold word about a brand new business venture that was going to be beyond his wildest dreams – well, he testified of how in the past weeks he has started a new bakery business and this week he has seen that his earnings are up 180% – now that sounds like something unique that only God can do!

One of the “lay” elders shared a prophecy near the end of the evening about how that as we worship God and experience his joy, that something was taking place that was flowing out to supernaturally impact our land. We ended singing a prophetic new song about our land being changed.

As I reflect on the night and my past – I have one comment to make – that for so many years we believed in the infilling of the Holy Spirit – but we almost NEVER prayed for it to happen. And that is pretty much what we spent the whole evening doing – praying that God would fill us, and fill people that we were praying for – with his presence. And he answered our prayers and came and did it – mostly in dramatic ways, but in some instances in quiet ways.

The elder mentioned as we were leaving, that in our crime filled city, Johannesburg, people are hesitant to go out on a weeknight (any night for that matter) but the parking lot was packed out on a Tuesday night. He suggested that we need to keep these mid-week meetings happening as God was doing something profound and people were responding by arriving with expectation to encounter God.

God Evening 2

The second God evening, in this current series of three Tuesday night meetings, took place last night. At least four of the key pastors were away on the evening and even though the focus is on God, I arrived at the church with mixed emotions. Would God still choose to manifest himself as he did last week without key leaders being present? Well, there was no reason to worry. God showed up!

Pastor Iain Shippey began with an exhortation from Ephesians 1:13 and spoke about the seal of the Holy Spirit – we are marked by God – which denotes ownership and protection. We are sealed as God’s sons and daughters. Iain read from Romans 8:15 and asked me to share some thoughts on adoption out of our own adoption process. I spoke of how I had no understanding of adoption before we began our own adoption process, with Drew Nguvu, and how I had wondered if I could love him as much as I had loved my biological children who were 10 and 12 when we adopted Drew. But the opposite has proven to be true – there is a security and depth in our love for Drew that in some ways goes beyond natural birth. We had chosen him and he is ours. There is nothing he needs to do to earn his place in our family! He has our name and is ours! The congregation seems to resonated with my repeated refrain: “He is mine/You are mine!”. Iain stressed how that God defines our love and that his voice should be the loudest voice in our lives. We were challenged to bask in the love of God and this invitation led to a time of exuberant praised based on the understanding that God had adopted us.

As we worshipped I experienced a depth of abandonment to God that I have never felt – it was as if I was giving myself wholeheartedly to God and despite the consequences, truly meant it with all my heart!

We listen to words from scripture about how that God knows us intimately and has created us wonderfully (Psalm 139).

I sensed that we needed to pray down the love of God – to ask God for an anointing of his love, just like John Wesley had experienced with his baptism of love. I shared this with Iain who got up and shared about our identity in God and led into a powerful time of praying for people who came forward. Many were overcome by the power of God and many simply experienced a new depth of awareness of the love of God for them.

After a song, Iain shared that so far we had focussed on our identity, but that there was a city, a country and a continent around us and that God wanted to release the blessing of Abraham and the blessing of Rebecca (from Genesis 15 and Genesis 24 respectively). This led to an intense time of intercession where we cried out for the city of Johannesburg. Someone shared the Psalm: “Say to Zion: Here is Your King” and this led to the repeated shouting of: “Jozi: Here is Your King”. I am sure the roof considered lifting off! When the shouting led into a song, Bayethe Nkosi (hail to the king), the declaration was overwhelming!

The last theme for the night was about “calling those things that are not as though they are.” People came forward, one by one, to pray about areas of life in our city and continent – they were not asking God to do thing as much as declaring them as done – here are some of the declarations that were made: Jobs for all people; homes for all people; justice for all people; women to rise up as nurturers; men to rise up as leaders in their homes; school leavers to choose service and not status or financially focussed careers; an end to famine; performers who give God glory; godly role models on television; new entrepreneurs to arise; youth to know they are called and chosen; media to become a channel of God’s beauty and truth; Africa to be healed of AIDS; and non-citizens in South Africa to be blessed.

The night ended with a dramatic drum solo to symbolise how God was marching through the land – and the final act was the blowing of a vuvuzela (the instrument that is used at football stadiums across South Africa)!

All praise to the king!

The night was different for me personally, probably because I was more involved in leadership this time, but there was no less awareness that God was present and that he had moved dramatically as we spent the 2 hours focussing all our attention on lifting him up and experiencing his presence. I look forward to next Tuesday night with great anticipation.

God Evening 1

During the month of September in 2009 we set aside three Tuesday nights as God-evenings. We normally have one such event a month (if you are unsure what it is all about, see the blog post I made about it on this blogsite before reading further).

Our church has just started a new series in Sunday mornings called Invitation: Grace, Worship, Supernatural. It is a series devoted to exploring how we are love live in light of God’s grace, how God is calling us to enter deeper into worship, and it will end with a focus on how the supernatural is supposed to be a part of our daily lives.

On Tuesday night, the 15th of September we gathered in our church sanctuary for the first of three God-evenings in the month. After a rousing gathering song and the song, Rain Down (by Delirious) we listened to Pastor Andrew Gossman give an impartation based on Romans 8 – we were reminded that there is nothing we can do to receive God’s favour because his grace is freely given based on the finished work of Christ on the cross, so we are able to enter into an experience of worship with the Father just as we are.

It was not long before we were radically overwhelmed with the manifest presence of God in the building. We heard the sound of rushing wind and “felt” the waves of his presence washing over us. Here are some of the manifestations of the move of God that I personally experienced:

1. Being Weighed Down
On only two other occasion in my life have I experienced the sensation of being rendered immobile in the presence of God – and the one was just before I stepped out in faith to launch disciplemaking movements in numerous countries around the continent of Africa, a calling for which I felt profoundly inadequate to accomplish and God confirmed the calling by pinning me to the ground and sending waves upon wave of his love and affirmation on me until I walked away willing and empowered to do what he had called me to do. Back to the God-evening – on two occasions in the night as a wind of God’s presence blew through the sanctuary I found myself unable to move – I was standing at first and found myself frozen to the same spot for what seemed like hours. It was probably only about 10 minutes – but when I finally could move I knew that God had been doing a supernatural work in me. On second time it happened, I found myself literally collapsing int a kneeling position and could not move or sing for another significant period of time. All I could do during these times was commune with God and enjoy his presence.

2. Laughing
I have always thought that laughter in worship belongs to the lunatic fringe and so you can image my surprise when waves of joy flooded my heart and I found myself unable to contain the joy and all I could do was laugh. There was such a sense of lightness and happiness that I sensed, that it was not something that could be contained with just “happy thoughts”. It was not uncontrollable, but I guess it could have gotten to that place if it had continued much longer.

3. Anointing in Prayer for Others
I then experienced a profound send of God working through me as I prayed for people who came forward, first to receive a touch from the Lord, and then business folk who were looking for an anointing on their lives in business. As I prayed for people, you could just sense the person was dramatically receiving a touch for God – they would respond in  physical ways as I laid my hands on them and it was clear that God was touching them in profound ways.

4. Prophesying Over People
I then had the experience of receiving divine guidance for five different people in the room – and spoke words of direction and inspiration over each of them as God allowed a prophetic gifting to rise up within me. One was a word of encouragement and comfort and affirmation of God’s love for a brother, another was a vision of how God was going to help them develop a unique idea in business and how it would become a movement and not just a business idea, for another it was about how they had not been recognised or listened to in their work place and how that was about to change, and for another it was words about what God is doing in the worship ministry among teens at our church – how he had heard the prayers for breakthrough in worship among teens and how that God was rising up to accomplish his desires.

5. Receiving a Gift
The final manifestation that i can remember in this incredible evening of worship, was the receiving of a gift from God. One of the worship leaders spoke of how God had just placed in his hands a trumpet (in a vision format and not literally) and how that God was wanting to give each of us a unique gift. We were encouraged to extend our arms and “see” God give us a gift. I immediately “saw” God give me a pen and my hand began to move as if I were writing. I am in busy writing a chapter for a book on youth ministry for Zondervan, and even though I have always written manuals and stuff for wed-distribution, I have never actually set out to write a book. I sense that this is going to change in the coming months and years.

Well, if that was the first of three God-evening for the month of September, I can not wait for the next two sessions. Watch this space.

Fresh Moves of the Holy Spirit

At our leaders meeting today I heard a report Connie Bennot (who together with her husband, Bill Bennot, started the His People church in Johannesburg, South Africa) about what she believes is the five moves of the Holy Spirit being evidenced around the world today:

1. Worship

2. Healing

3. Breaking down of the wall between the natural and the supernatural

4. Increase in apostolic leadership

5. Reversing of the curse – a release of women in ministry

While the primary work of the Holy Spirit will always be to glorify Jesus – there is fresh wine being poured out in the world today and fresh wine skins are needed to contain what God is doing.

Manifestations and Impartation

In a conversation with a friend today I used two words and he frowned at me as I mentioned both.

When I spoke about manifestations that were taking place in our church meetings (such as healing, being weighted down in God’s presence, laughter, the appearance of gold dust and other such occurrences in the manifest presence of God) he said that he had always equated the phrase with demonic activities and not godly ones.

Looking back on my life, despite have being brought up Baptist, I remember many different kinds of godly manifestations taking place along the way:

(1) Being immersed in God’s Word (I recall in a war zone in Angola having a brother pray over me and for the next three days I consumed the Word of God from cover to cover and it was like what I read was burned into my mind and I can recall so much Scripture because of that experience).

(2) Weeping uncontrollably (I recall a Baptist Summer Camp Experience in 1991 where I wept uncontrollably for hours throughout the weekend as God brought waves of conviction on me for my life and how I needed to pursue absolute surrender) sovereignly chose to grace us outside Kimberly in the Free State.

(3) Being pinned to the floor (I recall a Baptist Theological College Camp when I received a call from God to launch  a disciplemaking movement across Africa and was feeling really under qualified for the job – God moved in, immobilised me and showed me with waves of affirmation and anointing for at least an hour – and believe me, I would have gotten up if I could have – it was a little embarrassing for the youth professor to “act” that way)

And so I could go on and on with unusual yet significant physical manifestations of the encounter with God – some of which are not unlike what happened to Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel, etc.

So I like the word, manifestations – as it reminds me that God is at work in the world (of course the flesh and the devil can get on board as well) and that our Christian life is meant to be something that goes far beyond the cognitive domain.

The other word is impartation - and some might be tempted to consider it a synonym of preaching – but there are times when we preach and little impartation takes place. To impart is more intentional – for me it is the transfer of insight or passion or gifting from one person to another that results in significant life change taking place. I know that I am not done preparing to speak to teens or adults until I have prayed that God would grace my words and presentation in such a powerful way that I might impart life and whatever is needed to those listening.

And the Bible? Well the Apostle Paul spoke about gifts being transferred by the laying on of hands; he longed to visit a church to impart life to people; and many of the 25 One Another commands in the New Testament have to do with physical contact. I have realised that I am way more open to the idea of transfer from one human to the other than I was when the original Toronto blessing broke out. I recall being critical of South Africans who travelled to the States to bring home whatever it was that was taking place there. I think I was wrong and narrow minded.

The alternate is a virtual world where we don’t need to gather to receive anything from anyone else and where we have little or not physical expressions of our relationship with Jesus.

So I am open to manifestations and impartation – even though my spell checker has just rejected the word “impartation”!

Shepherding Teens Into a Move of God

The igniteYOUTH team, that I lead, spent the whole of this morning grappling with how we need to repond as a youth ministry within a church that is starting to experience a significant moving of God. As a church leadership we have been experiencing amazing visitations at our Tuesday morning staff meetings and at occasional God Evenings that take place on Tuesday nights once a month. The church has set aside three Tuesday nights during the month of September to bring the wider congregation into the outpouring.

The move of God is characterised by an increased sense of God’s presence in our midst and God’s power in our midst particularly in healings, the pophetic and even dramatic physical manifestations among people.

Our time praying and grappling as a youth staff was prompted by a question from one of our senior leaders who asked whether the teenagers would be joining the church at the Tuesday nights God Evenings. My initial response was that we had tried with mixed results in the past to get teenagers out to mid-week events like cell groups and that our main focus is on our Friday night and Sunday events as well as school contact and one on one mentoring. Some of the leaders mentioned that they would be willing to come and teach and minister within the youth programs if the youth don’t attend.

This got us going as a team. We realised that our ministry at present is foundational, personal and issue-driven – and not leading in areas like openess to the supernatural realm, or teaching on faith. We sense that we need to bring our teens to the place where their faith is developed to receive from God.

But we also do not want to forfeit the opportunity for teens at His People to miss out on what God is doing – so our tentative (i.e we will commit this to further prayer in next two days) decisions are:

1. We will promote the God Evenings in our Friday and Sunday events – sharing how we have been experiencing God in deeper ways lately and have set aside these evenings to seek God for a wider outpouring of His Spirit.

2. We will personally speak with teens who are following after Jesus to encourage them to start preparing their hearts for what God is going to do and have them pray about attending the sessions.

3. We will communicate with their parents at some stage probably via letter to inform them of where we believe that our church and ministry is heading in terms of openess to God.

4. We will continue to develop an environment of trust between adult leaders and teenagers  so that our teens know that we are on a journey together and are not without direction and focus.

We came away from our meeting with a firm conviction that we are responsible to shepherd the teenagers at His People Christian Church into this new season in their lives and the life of the church.