Hi all,
First, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! You are so appreciated, more than you know. Thank you for being part of our lives!
CWOWI National Conference in Tulsa, October 7-9 (Columbus Day weekend) – mark your calendars now. As many know, we limit the size of our conference to maintain the intimate atmosphere in which we get to know one another, have meals together, flow with the Spirit in worship, and have great teaching and Q&A times. Details to follow!
We are planning for and hope to hold our EU conference in the Netherlands the first week of June, in the conference center ‘Emmaus’ we’ve used before: It would be SO good to see our friends in the EU and UK and Nordics again!
20th anniversary of CWOWI
The Lord had been visiting me a few times a year starting in April of 1986, and through 1991 His visitations were doctrine oriented more than anything else. I would most often be ‘in the Spirit’ while praying and see His realm and Him, as well as the natural world, and He would walk over to me and start by saying: “I want to teach you about…”
But He never approached the subject of how to ‘do’ church until I started asking questions in 1999. By the end of the year 2000 I had served for about 25 years in various capacities ranging from ministering to my teenage peers, to volunteer usher to Associate Pastor to Senior Pastor, Bible school Director, and held a position of leadership in a 10,000+ member church. I was also a teacher at the World Prayer Center in Colorado Springs, Canadian National Director for a ministry, and in many other ‘jobs’. For 25 years the auditorium was the only way I knew to ‘do’ church.
Hurt, falling through the cracks, manipulation
I had seen people fall through the cracks, ministered to people hurt by leadership, witnessed more scheming and manipulation in the church world than I ever did in the corporate world, and more than one Christian confessed they were lonely though surrounded by people. I didn’t see many of the problems associated with the auditorium style of church in the pages of the New Testament. I wondered why was that? I started wondering how Paul did church.
I was experiencing a huge disconnect, a widening gap, between the auditorium way of doing church and my own faith. In my heart, I knew and walked in fellowship with the Father and Jesus by the Father’s Spirit, but I was growing more and more uncomfortable and disconnected from the auditorium. I just couldn’t relate anymore. And it was more than just not liking the way Jesus was packaged, marketed to, and presented to people.
I saw a sub-culture that preached ‘we are winning’ while all around me the world got darker and darker and there was a lessening of influence by the church – yet once inside the auditorium all was well, we were winning the world, and if we can do x formula to keep the devil from us, we could have it all – The Father was either a spiritual Santa Claus or a Las Vegas slot machine – and if I just did the right thing heaven would rain blessing on me. But woe to me if I didn’t jump through the hoops and leap over that wall just as the pastor or guest teacher said!
I came to a point realizing I could walk away from the auditorium forever and my faith wouldn’t be damaged or hindered in any way.
It was what I so frequently call, ‘divine dissatisfaction’. I was going through the motions, but inside me something had changed. I was desperately asking the Father where He was going to move next. I had either been to or met or gotten to know leaders in the various ‘revival’ centers that rose quickly to prominence and then faded just as fast.
On February 4, 2001 I was in the Toronto area on a Sunday morning, and in the worship service suddenly the Lord was standing among the worship team about 6 or 7 steps from me. He came walking up to me and said in part: “See what I see: People running to and fro to this meeting and that, looking for the spectacular, thinking THAT is supernatural. While they miss the supernatural work in their midst, even in their own hearts, for the process of discipleship IS supernatural….As it was in the beginning so it must be now: I’m moving in relationships.”
I thought on those things and the rest of what He said. People looking for the spectacular (dramatic, tingling their senses, appealing to the emotions), while missing the supernatural work in their own hearts – for Christ lives in our heart first and foremost, not as some spiritual nebula ‘out there’ somewhere. Christ in me doing the work in me, that should be my first place of focus. Relationships, moving in relationships…finally I understood why the problems in the auditorium church were largely political in nature while the problems in the pages of the New Testament were relationship based in nature.
Between then (2/4/01) and October of 2001
I studied church history, and what the Lord was doing around the world. I knew the Word and Spirit are always in agreement, so I was looking for where the Holy Spirit was moving. Everywhere I turned I saw house church, heard of churches keeping things small, and various ways of doing church in the home.
I told Barb that October: “I don’t ever want to pastor a church again, but if I did it would be in our living room the way Paul did it.” I had been horrified and repenting, very nearly in sack cloth and ashes, that for my 25 years in the faith I had lifted God’s Word which I claimed to love so much and adhere to so closely, out of the context of the home based church and tried to make it work in the auditorium. Suddenly I realized my error and ‘abhorred’ myself. I was disgusted that I had pulled Matthew through The Revelation out of the home and tried to squeeze it into the auditorium. How could I go on in that structure when I now realized the truth? The NT was written by apostles doing church in the home to people doing church in the home, and its the only way the whole of the NT makes sense.
So it was about 3 weeks later I was in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
I was ministering on November 4, exactly 9 months since the Lord appeared to me in Toronto. It was a Sunday night in a church in what we might call the ‘red light district’ of Edmonton. Many of the people in the pews of this well worn church looked as world-weary as the building. There were many former addicts, sex workers, homeless and street people, now saved and loving Jesus, but still digging out of their respective situations. Suddenly during the worship as He had 9 months earlier, the Lord was there:
“I LOVE these kinds of people!” He said with enthusiasm as He walked over to me. The ‘power’ was up this time. The pastor next to me lost all strength and fell flat, face down on the floor. I fell to my knees though I quite often have that first reaction when I see the Lord whether He has the power turned up or not. This night, my strength left me and it was all I could do to remain kneeling. Later I learned the 3 Bible school students we brought with us all saw the Lord as He walked by them, nodding as He looked right at them as He passed by.
“You’ve been doing the work of an apostle, but now I’m laying hands on you as an apostle for this task: I want you to start a house church and house church network, and structure it in such a way to facilitate the development of house churches around the world.” When I asked why, He said: “It’s against a time to come. Be a resource for them, for it’s against a time to come.” When I asked if He had a name in mind He said: “The Church Without Walls International” – and I was caught so off guard, so surprised, but I knew what we had to do.
After getting home and talking it over with Barb, we opened our living room to some friends who have remained friends through the years. The first 6 Sunday mornings I taught about house church, and the next 6 they took turns leading, a different person each week – though Barb and I still hosted. After that we divided into different house churches.
That was 20 years ago, and I think we are just now starting to see the ‘time to come’. When He used old English saying, “It’s against a time to come” I immediately understood the sentence structure to mean CWOWI would be like a store house, a place of supply and safety saved up for a future time. We are just starting to see that time, in my estimation.
So what is next for the body of Christ?
Fearless
One of the things the Lord recently told me in a visitation in November is something I’ll share in more detail in January’s Weekly Thoughts and e-newsletter, but has to do with the body of Christ becoming familiar with and part of the culture of the kingdom of God. Most of you will recall how He told me earlier this year that the earth would enter another birth pang starting mid-August, heavier in September, then again in January and February with a transition in March. That involves world events, national events, but not what He is doing in us.
A few weeks ago He visited me and talked to me of next year in terms of what He is doing, that it would marked by His people becoming aware of, hungry for, and living out the culture of the Kingdom of God. Teaching will be seen and heard about kingdom culture.
As the body of Christ further separates itself from the love of the world system people will make decisions for relationships, for small groups and house church. There is happening in many a revelation of the intangible elements that comprise the kingdom of God. People will want ‘real’ people, and to really know the Father and Lord.
When He told me a few weeks ago about how He is causing those who have ears to hear about the culture of His Kingdom, I realized it meant millions of believers would long for putting divine order in their life. But I also realized the change first starts in the heart, in our thinking, and is a process – which is why I was led to record this month’s series on bringing that order into our lives. It starts in the heart, and then we have to have the strength of character to see it to fruition.
The world is splintering in many directions, leaving any in that culture unstable, unsure, and afraid. The body of Christ is coming out of that culture to His culture. We are to be fearless for we have Christ in us. Our steps have a divine order. His plans for us are undeterred by events in the world – He will continue to work His will in us!
Be focused on what He is doing in you more and in the lives of your loved ones, than events in the world. John 14: 27: “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Don’t let your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
The Weekly Thoughts series starting in January is about that visitation, and about the culture of the Lord.
We are consumed by what He is doing, and you are a big part of that in our lives. Thank you and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Blessings, John & Barb, Brian & Amy
