Archive for August, 2007

Where is This Storm Coming From?

Published
by
carl
on August 31, 2007
in Christianity
. 7 Comments

I heard Bill Johnson ask, “Would you rather be in a storm caused by God or the Devil?  Because you only have authority over one of them.”

Jesus stood and rebuked the storm caused by the enemy.  Jonah could do nothing but throw himself into the storm stirred by God.

August 31 has arrived and I am now facing a great storm and I do not know where it is coming from.  Jonah was in rebellion.  I do not believe that is the case here but it is possible that God is pushing us into the faith realm.  But that is a bit of a stretch.

Would you keep my family in prayer.  I mean really pray.  Like stop what you are doing and intercede now.  Fast if you feel lead.  Do you?  Why are you still reading?  You should be praying.  lol  :)

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Now playing: Scott Van Wagner - I Expect Wonders

Popularity: 15% [?]

Others May But You Cannot

Published
by
carl
on August 25, 2007
in Christianity and Revival
. 4 Comments

G.D. Watson
(1845-1924) was a Wesleyan Methodist minister and evangelist

If God has called you to be truly like Jesus in all your spirit, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility. He will put on you such demands of obedience that you will not be allowed to follow other Christians. In many ways, He seems to let other good people do things which He will not let you do. Others who seem to be very religious and useful may push themselves, pull wires, and scheme to carry out their plans, but you cannot. If you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

Others can brag about themselves, their work, their successes, their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing. If you begin to do so, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

Others will be allowed to succeed in making great sums of money, or having a legacy left to them, or in having luxuries, but God may supply you only on a day-to-day basis, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, a helpless dependence on Him and His unseen treasury.

The Lord may let others be honored and put forward while keeping you hidden in obscurity because He wants to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade. God may let others be great, but keep you small. He will let others do a work for Him and get the credit, but He will make you work and toil without knowing how much you are doing. Then, to make your work still more precious, He will let others get the credit for the work which you have done; this to teach you the message of the Cross, humility, and something of the value of being cloaked with His nature.

The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch on you, and with a jealous love rebuke you for careless words and feelings, or for wasting your time which other Christians never seem distressed over. So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign and has a right to do as He pleases with His own, and that He may not explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle your reason in His dealings with you.

God will take you at your word; if you absolutely sell yourself to be His slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love and let other people say and do many things that you cannot. Settle it forever; you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue or chaining your hand or closing your eyes in ways which others are not dealt with. However, know this great secret of the Kingdom: When you are so completely possessed with the Living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of heaven, the high calling of God.

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Now playing: Misty Edwards - I Surrender

Popularity: 22% [?]

Shameless Plea for Support

Published
by
carl
on August 20, 2007
in Missions
. 0 Comments

This week we are sending a team on a short term missions trip to Peru.

As you remember they just had a massive earthquake. This happened right in the area that our team is scheduled to go and minister.

The team is leaving this Friday and will be back the following Sunday night. I am asking for support for two reasons.

  1. There is a young man on our team of Peruvian descent who felt that he was supposed to go on this trip since its inception.  His father met his mother while he was a missionary there.

    Yet he has believed God for the finances.  He is currently several hundred dollars short of the goal. His family has hit pretty hard times the last eight months or so.

    This is the main reason for this plea. I really want to help send him. If I had the money I would gladly give it to him. He is the drummer of our youth worship team and has a great call on his life. He has done everything imaginable to raise this money and is still quite short.

  2. Our church has found a contractor that can deliver water and food together with a tent for a family for $45. If God opens the floodgates from this appeal, the remainder of the money will go to this.

You can send me an email to my personal email account at openheavens@gmail.com I can contact you via phone or email and I can give you the contact info of the church if you would like to contact them directly or if you want more information.

I am going to be so bold as to post a button to pay right now via paypal.


I will give a full accounting in this post of the donation amount and I can assure you, as God is my witness, that all funds will go to the trip, either for youth passage or goods for the earthquake victims.

Again, if you send me an email, I can give you the contact number of the church leaders or any other information you may need.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Improving Communication

Published
by
carl
on August 17, 2007
in Carl's Writings, Websites and Wordpress
. 0 Comments

Nothing spiritual here. Just some advise from a tech guy.

Can your readers contact you? You would not believe the people you will come into contact with through your blog. If there is no way to contact you, you can’t believe it because you won’t come into contact with them. Get a contact form. Here is the one I use. I am simply amazed at the number of blogs that give you no way to contact the author. It is a sure fire way to tell the readers that you are here to talk and they are there to listen. No conversation desired.

If you are new to blogging and wonder why nobody ever comments on your blog make sure they are able to. Do you require people to register to leave a comment? Unless you are running the New York Times (who by the way does not require registration to comment) this is not going to happen. If you had a contact form I would have sent you a note telling you to turn off the “require commentors to register” feature, but you didn’t have one.

And for those of you that maintain a church website: Is the location of your church clearly spelled out on an easy to find page? Nothing demonstrates small vision like having a map of your church that says “we are on the corner of Johnson and Peach.” What you are telling the world is, “If you don’t know this intersection, you would not be interested in our church.” There have been church sites that I went to that I could not even determine what country they are in. At the very least your church contact page (please tell me you at least have that) should have the address of the church, a phone number, and a contact email address.

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Now playing: Lecrae - After The Music Stops

Popularity: 32% [?]

The Devil is a Liar

Published
by
carl
on August 16, 2007
in Christianity
. 0 Comments

Just in case you forgot.  I forgot for a second, but then the Holy Ghost sent someone to remind me.

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Now playing: Bishop Paul S. Morton - The FGBC Mass Choir - CN - Let It Rain

Popularity: 26% [?]

Desire Drives Discipleship

Published
by
carl
on August 15, 2007
in Christianity and Holy Spirit
. 4 Comments

I firmly believe that the primary role of teaching is to understand experience and frame it within a biblical context. Far to many Christians have lots of bible knowledge but it is so far removed from an intimate, experiential, relationship with Jesus that it actually robs the student of faith. I believe this is why the Word says that knowledge puffs up.

Here is how it is supposed to work.

A person encounters Jesus. He is immediately discipled in the Word to gain an understanding of who this Jesus is and what He is supposed to do in response to the encounter. The more we encounter Jesus, the more we desire to gain understanding of Him and this drives us to search and understand His Word but not the Word only. And here is where most churches are failing.

2 Peter 1:5 (Listen)

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge,

It does not say add to your hunger knowledge and your knowledge faith. First faith, then virtue, then knowledge. The American church is exploding with churches that serve up a Hungry-Man size serving of knowledge every Sunday with no faith or virtue.

I began to think about this last night when a group of young men asked me to begin to disciple them in the Word. They have experienced the supernatural. They have been responding to the Holy Spirit’s conviction in character issues and now they want a firm foundation in the Word.

This is what I believe to be biblical Christianity.

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Now playing: Lecrae - After The Music Stops

Popularity: 35% [?]

Weekend Thoughts

Published
by
carl
on August 11, 2007
in Christianity and Holy Spirit
. 5 Comments
  • The AG has a new leader George Wood. My only reaction is, “Can someone hook this guy up with a template?”   Wrong George Wood.
  • I am using Cocomment again. There is a new version of the plugin. I stopped using it because it was slowing my page load times. I would give you a page link to my discussions but I can’t find out what it is.
  • The devil hates my ministry and has launched an all out assault. If you get a word please email me.

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Now playing: Hillsong United - Hosanna

Popularity: 36% [?]

Where are the Apostles and Prophets?

Published
by
carl
on August 8, 2007
in Asemblies of God, Carl's Writings, Christianity, Doctrine, Holy Spirit and Revival
. 21 Comments

This is the post I do not want to write.

The Assemblies of God is having its convention this week and they will elect a new General Superintendent. The only reason this is a big deal is because so many people think this will have a great effect on the direction of the AG.

Follow me here.

The Assemblies was born in revival as people were kicked out of their congregations for receiving the baptism in the Holy Ghost. Others formed new congregations that were on fire and sought fellowship with like-minded ministries. From the AG website:

A cooperative fellowship emerged from the meeting and was incorporated under the name “The General Council of the Assemblies of God.” Most of the delegates had little desire to form a new denomination or sect, and they structured their organization to unite the assemblies in ministry and legal identity while leaving each congregation self-governing and self-supporting. This structure continues to the present.

While it is true that the structure continues to the present, the need for the structure and the desire of the delegates has strayed far off of that original path.

You want to know the definition of a “Spirit-Filled” church today? Loud music and a little tongues. That is it. The Spirit may come in worship but He better leave in time for the welcome and announcements because we are moving the service along.

I wonder what would happen if a church could not call itself Pentecostal unless the Apostles and Prophets came and tested the meetings against Pentecost and discerned whether or not the same Spirit that fell on Pentecost was at work in the service.

Ooops, I forgot, the AG does not believe in Apostles and Prophets anymore. In fact they have a whole position paper on it. No, today the AG has senior pastors and missionary evangelists. The other terms might offend somebody. And they might actually carry the anointing that comes with the office.

No, we are happy to hear Bible stories of miracles and declarations that we will see them again but we do not want to take any risks and declare “And we are going to wait until it happens today.” And we certainly are not going to call a fast to hurry its coming.

I read lots of comments in blogs where people pray that God send revival to the AG. Have you forgotten Brownsville? God did send revival. The denomination got itself wedged into the middle and the thing and caused a series of splits in the congregation.

The move in Toronto that was mocked by many AG people still has all the key players on staff a dozen years later. The real difference? Toronto recognized that God was doing something new, left their denomination and started a new move. Brownsville tried to make the move of God fit into a denominational structure. God was merciful and touched many lives but the effect is still there. Toronto has a convention center that is paid for and all their staff either in tact or sent out with blessing to start a new work while Brownsville is strapped with debt and the wounds from the splits.

I know this is a wandering, meandering train of thought but an important point here: The AG of today lacks focus and has sought expansion at the cost of its founding mission: revival. I read Mark Batterson’s blog every day and I love what his church is doing but there is no connection between his fellowship and Brownsville, or Azuza, or Pentecost for that matter.

What does the AG need? Decentralization. Right now, churches operate within the structure of the organization. The national structure needs to be cut back to the point of only supporting missionaries. Tell the congregations to seek the Lord as to the direction He is leading and then come back in 10 years to see what structure is needed. Determine that religious spirits will be cast out of the fellowship and declare that we are moving forward in revival. Partner with what Bill Johnson, Randy Clark, Che Ahn and others are doing.

Get a fresh move of God. Open the door to let congregations that really just want to be a slightly more spiritual then Calvary Chapel to leave. Rebuild a fellowship of churches that want revival and move on in that path.

In the end, the AG needs to decide if it wants to be a cooperative fellowship of ministries born in the fire of the Holy Ghost or just the new Methodists.

I will pray for this convention. But my prayer is not for the right leader, it is for purpose.

edit:  I wanted to add that this is in no way an indictment of all AG churches.  I was speaking about the denomination and its direction.  I attend an AG church and I do not hesitate to recommend it to those seeking a church.  Simply being a part of the AG is not wrong and in fact there is much good in the denomination.

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Now playing: Jeff Deyo - Bless the Lord (Featuring Rita Springer)

Popularity: 44% [?]

Need Some Church Planter Advice

Published
by
carl
on August 3, 2007
in Christianity and Church Planting
. 10 Comments

No, I am not planting a church (hallelujah!).

But I have a good friend that wants to and he is likely to do it sooner than later.

The problem is that he is a tireless worker. While I understand this is one of the needed traits of a church planter, he is likely to personally take on every task that comes along. His plan of action for the church plant is to rent a facility and work like crazy to get it filled.

This is not very strategic.

So here is what I need from you church planters:

If you could recommend one book to a future church planter on the current successful trends in church planting, what would it be?

I am actually going to be sending this to every church planter I can find but please either comment your recommendation or use the contact form.

Thanks!

Popularity: 32% [?]

Just When You Thought You Heard Everything

Published
by
carl
on August 1, 2007
in Christianity and The Goofy Church
. 2 Comments

Just got a call to ask if I will do nude weddings.

I don’t even know what to follow that with.

For the record:  I don’t.

Popularity: 31% [?]