Hi all,
With our conference in Tulsa October 8-11 quickly approaching, I wanted to give you an update. The policy at our conference center in Broken Arrow is that masks are a matter of choice, so that is what we are following. We will be in a large room with plenty of space, for we are keeping the conference numbers to around 100, allowing plenty of room for those who wish to maintain social distancing.
As of this writing the middle of August, life is fairly normal in Oklahoma. Most schools are doing in-class openings, though some are doing online for the first few weeks, movie theaters are reopening this week, all stores and restaurants are open and so on.
We like the small numbers because the Holy Spirit can flow in worship, there is plenty of time for personal ministry and flexibility when teaching – time for Q&A and to go off subject to answer questions and address issues people are experiencing. It also allows everyone to get to know one another – a very rich and intimate time in the Lord! We are filling up so if you are coming please complete registration within the next month.
We are waaaayyy behind in emails.
With the virus shutting down churches or causing them to adapt to online meetings, we are overwhelmed with people asking about house churches in their area, or want help starting a house church, and so on. That help we provide is very hands on, very time consuming, so we appreciate your patience.
House church the way to go?
In the US, home school numbers have skyrocketed this year. We wonder if the traditional in-class school will ever get back to pre-Covid normal. With movie theaters having been closed so long and numerous cable TV based studios making their own movies, we wonder if the movie theater business will ever get back to pre-Covid normal. With so many restaurants shutting down dine in for a time and having to switch to delivery and carry out, we wonder if the restaurant business will ever get back to pre-Covid normal.
With churches being shut down or using online services, we wonder if auditorium churches will ever get back to pre-Covid normal. We think not. Remember how the Lord told me in December last year that house church would be the way to do church – (meaning the common, not exclusively) – we are seeing that based on our work load at least.
We are also having a few auditorium based churches looking at changing from the auditorium to house church as a permanent move. My experience these 18+ years has been these fail miserably without outside help from us or others who already have a network of house churches.
That’s because pastors look at house church from the auditorium perspective, which is like a program, like a multi-level marketing structure, and it just doesn’t work that way. They also don’t want to put in the time required to learn about house church, and then allow time for their leaders to do the same. The switch from program and building based faith to relationship based faith is huge, and takes time.
Acts 2: 46 tells us right after Pentecost the disciples were ‘daily in the temple and also from house to house’. That went on for a year with one foot in the temple and one foot in the house as they learned how God moved out of the building and into people. That adjustment period between Acts 2 Pentecost and 8:1-2 when every disciple left the city except for the apostles was about 1 year. That’s it, just a year. But the people needed that year to adjust from temple thinking to relationship based thinking.
Perhaps if there are auditorium pastors reading this and thinking about changing their church to house church, they may want to contact us for help.
Acts 2:42 tells us they kept their home meetings rather simple: They were together in fellowship with the apostle’s teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayers.
A cell group is a small part of a church that is still focused on the Sunday morning large auditorium meeting. By contrast, in house church the church in the home IS the meeting. A Biblical and historical house church will rotate who leads and who hosts with each meeting as is practical, rather than having it always in the same home with the same person(s) speaking.
Many so called house churches are merely miniatures of the auditorium, rather than rotating homes and rotating who leads. House churches are discussion oriented while cell groups are sermon oriented. But there is a process to follow so that that people comfortable with opening their homes, are ready to do so. There is a process to first model meetings that are allowed to follow the giftings of the host(s) and/or leaders, rather than just teach something and just say ‘do it’.
There is so much more…but people are so indoctrinated into the 1700 year old auditorium way of doing church the simplicity of family and relationship based church of the Bible has to be learned. But once you ‘get it’, the auditorium way seems so foreign and I must have heard people say hundreds of times as this point, “I could never go back.”
So for those who got used to staying home during the virus instead of ‘going to church’ in the auditorium, what percentage is eager to get back to that auditorium? Many have found meeting with friends and family enriching in their faith and the auditorium has become irrelevant….
When the Lord appeared to me in November, 2001 and said He wanted me to “start a house church and house church network” and that it was “against a time to come. Be a resource for them, for it is against a time to come”, I can see we needed these 18 years just to be able to get to a point we can be a resource for people wanting to start church in the home, church with the family and friends.
But last December in the visitation when we were discussing this, He said we were just at the start, “Like standing on the sea shore letting your toes get wet, but you’re about to wade into (far) deeper waters…”
Chris is doing well
They lifted the ban on visitations a month ago, allowing home visits based on weekly virus reports for the state, so we are back to a more normal schedule and are thrilled! When it was last shut down and we talked to Chris he thought dad was sick so I couldn’t come get him, and asked with such a tender and concerned voice: ‘Are you okay dad?’ – and when I assured him I was not sick he said as he chuckled, “Goooood dad, see you next week!”
One issue we’ve had with him is wheelchair use. A stroke at age 17 left him with only his right arm usable, so at the group home he has had a ‘1 arm wheelchair’. A normal wheelchair has a wheel rim to grab to make the wheel turn, but his has had has a 2nd rim on the right side that when you turn it, the chair can turn left or right. When you hold and turn both rims the chair moves straight. But that feature has consistently broken, making it difficult for him to get around the group home.
Having had enough of the inability of the group home to keep it maintained, we’ve taken It upon ourselves to buy him a chair with a different system. Expensive but needed. This has a lever on the right side that is pumped forward and backward to propel the chair forward. It also has a switch for forward and reverse. Chris loves race cars and he is always wanting to ‘help’ me shift the car from park to drive, so this week he will have his own shifter to race around the group home with.
On a personal level, we are still doing some trim work and have some ramps and concrete work to do at the house, but things are progressing from the tornado almost 1 year ago, and the kitchen water leak last November. We are ready to be done with projects and repairs!
Prophetic – One of the things the Lord told me ‘as it stands now’ (upon telling me to pray about it) concerned the election this November and the days preceding it. He said ‘as it stands now’ the election will be contested, and there will be demonstrations and riots and it will go to the Supreme Court – I’ve shared that in past e-newsletters. But in the February/March time frame the country will start to settle down from that issue…At the time He likened this fall (northern hemisphere) as another ‘birth pang’ lasting through that February/March time frame.
He also said something intriguing: “2024 will be an interesting year.” And left it at that, lol. In the past when He has done that sort of thing it means He will share more with me closer to the time. He never changes, for in Luke 19: 11 it says “He added and spoke a parable…because they thought the kingdom of God would immediately appear…” It is the same situation in our day. This comment was something He added as we spoke.
I suspect He commented that way because I’m bombarded by people calculating the rapture and wanting me to comment on if it will be this May, and now that has passed, this September, and so on. His statement doesn’t require any one of us to be on planet earth for 2024 to be an interesting year. It is however the next US presidential election year.
Another thing I’ve not shared much was that He said to “watch Italy” because it would rise up in leadership in the EU – look for Italy in the coming years to have some political stirrings, and then to rise in the EU to assert its voice against Germany and France, and seek to stir things up a bit. Some there will even talk of exiting the EU.
That would be significant because political things, even those prophesied about, take years to develop fully, so we can look for the start of things in our time. In Revelation 13 and 17 we learn of a leader overseeing ‘7 mountains’ and has 10 horns, which we are told are 10 kings that give their authority to the beast. The point is that a single leader will rise up to subdue and/or lead multiple nations, meaning the end of a plurality of governance in the EU at some point future.
Someone, somewhere will rise up to change the structure of the union, so watch for continued turmoil and discussions in the EU. That fact He told me to watch Italy and that it will rise up, is prophetically significant since the Revelation was written when Rome ruled the European and Mediterranean nations. Many have long claimed the Bible speaks of a ‘revived Roman Empire’ in the end days, giving rise to anti-Christ, so Italy will be something to watch.
Thank you for your prayers, your giving, and just being in our lives. We are a small ministry in terms of how most measure ministries, with just me and Barb, our son Brian and his wife Amy overseeing it all. Your gifts enable us to continued and make a huge difference in our lives. Thank you.
When you donate, when you write, when you email – you really are prayed for and we give thanks for you.
Much love and blessings!
John & Barb.
