A week or so ago I asked if you thought we were really living in the end-times. The conviction that we are, of course, has many implications for our lives (and lifestyles). It also has another unfortunate side-effect: it transforms the nature of our evangelism and discipleship. For if we are at the end of this age, and we believe that we will be on the earth (not somewhere else) when the end-time judgments begin, then we are forced to re-evaluate our entire ministry approach.
Urgency changes everything.
When you understand that my desire is to prepare and equip believers and unbelievers with a faith and confidence in the leadership of Jesus that can endure extreme distress, trouble, and trial, you have a paradigm that understands a bit where I am coming from when I say some the outrageous things that I say. I have no desire to win someone to Christ and help them enter into an ongoing conversation about the normal Christian life. My desire is to win someone to Christ and stir them to be fully given to Him, fully loyal, and willing to die for Him that we might gain everything in the exchange.
I don’t want to see converts as the fruit of my ministry. I want to see martyrs. Will the people whom I minister to lay their lives down for the sake of Jesus and the nations of the earth? Will the fruit of my life include a core of Christians who gave all they had in the name of love? Did I do the same? These are some of the only questions that matter to me as we approach the Second Coming of Jesus.
Yes, we can effectively lead someone to Jesus; but will they stay with Jesus?
I fear that many in ministry today are content with doing the “pre-marital counseling”, are happy when the two parties (Bride and Bridegroom) get married, yet rarely see the marriage through until the “death do us part” phase. I have an urgency to equip young believers with a faith that endures - that He might find faith when He comes. If the question of Jesus in Luke 18:8 does not haunt you, then perhaps you should re-examine your pursuit of ministry?
Of course, if we are not at the end of the age, then please - by all means, carry on as normal.
David
June 13th, 2007
40 days is a long time.
I, for one, am finding myself in dire need to refocus and set myself again for the next phase of our 40-day fast and not lose momentum. Initial zeal and passion that ignites the heart at the beginning phases of a corporate fast can quickly fade in the midst of something like this. It’s so easy for me to disconnect from the reasons that I said “yes” to this fast in the first place and lose my way a little related to time, energy, and prayer. How tragic to endure a 40-day fast and find that I prayed less not more?
It’s a fight in our weakness to say “yes” to God - not one time, but minute by minute, choice by choice, step by step. I feel like the offer of a lifetime has been extended to me - to participate in a historic fast that in many ways is a continuation of a true historic fast - and yet my mind and my heart are prone to wander. And so it is that I present myself to the Lord again today, asking for fresh grace and power to lay hold of a resolve that is beyond me. I want a resolve that is God-birthed and ignited. I want a fresh zeal to arise within me to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
I do not simply want to lay hold of an expression of Christianity - even a “better” one. I want to lay hold of Jesus. And so I press on.
How are you doing today? Let’s go again, together, into the fresh pursuit of His heart and His high calling for our lives.
David
June 12th, 2007
I just found Ben’s Wikipedia article on the “wordcast” phenomenon…
June 9th, 2007
I think I passed out for a few minutes after I read this article by Walker, Texas Ranger. Any article that contains the words:
“For that reason I believe theistic patriots need to be wise to atheists’ overt and covert schemes, exposing their agenda and fighting to lay waste to their plans.”
…and:
“For these liberal groups to win the war of ideological dominance, they know they must minimize the effects of Christianity, which many are doing (unbeknownst to others) behind the scenes through lobbying and legislation.”
…well, let’s just say I’ve found my favorite article ever. I have already bronzed it. I also printed part two on a quilt and now use it for my warmth at night. No one will win a war of ideological dominance against the Chucktator of Painland.
He goes on, by the way, to comment extensively on the continuing global wave of delight over “Chuck Norris Facts”.
I often visit his website so I can listen again and again to Chuck personally welcoming me to his website. I will often follow up that visit with a quick stop-over to this site to watch his commercial.
In all seriousness, his two articles on the threat of atheism were quite good, and right on the money. He really is a sincere and committed Christian, and that makes me really happy. And feel safe. For the articles really did make me giggle throughout as I came to the shocking and comforting realization that, in the fight against radical atheism, I’ve got Chuck Norris on my team.
My next prayer request is to read an article by Mr. T threatening to pity the fools who sign up for “Oprah Christianity”.
David
June 9th, 2007
Something that Brandon Hammonds prayed today got the ol’ wheels turning in my head and heart. He prayed that a missiology of signs and wonders would emerge in this generation. “Missiology”, for the uninitiated, is properly defined by the Oxford dictionary as the study of religious (typically Christian) missions and their methods and practices. Missiology and praxis (practice, as distinguished from theory) are two major buzz-words in the evangelical church in our day. The related term, of course, is missional - a term that captures the desire for the church to be relevant (or “contextual”) in its efforts to reach the hearts and lives of unbelievers. These efforts involve the message, morality, and methodology (thank you, Wikipedia…) of the believer who seeks to see the lost come to the saving knowledge of Jesus.
Brandon’s prayer stirred me again with appreciation for my missiology - as he so succinctly stated, a missiology of signs and wonders. I understand why cursing and drinking might help some in the emerging stream contextualize for unbelievers the aspects of the gospel that matter (winning the lost by not majoring on the minors - or what they might feel is a non-issue biblically). I can see why, in frustration, they would see the current expression of Christianity as one that is insufficient, irrelevant, and hopelessly unsuitable to present to an unbeliever in this hour. In many ways, I happen to agree.
Yet I long for a way to reach the lost that is radically different than being personally authentic, hospitable, and relatable. While I appreciate that, I am hungry to see more than a warm embrace and a conversation. I want something inexplicable, something transcendant, and something wholly inarguable to take place on a regular basis when I whisper the name of Jesus. I want to see the power of the Holy Spirit that the early church saw. I want to see the dead raised, I want to see the sick healed, and I want to see the demonized suddenly free. I want to see what the Apostle Peter, Charles Finney, and Jonathan Edwards saw: hearts cut in two with conviction of sin with a fear of the Lord and a yearning to repent. I want to see what Stephen and thousands of martyrs have seen: gnashing of teeth and the stopping of the ears because of the tormenting power of the truth for the heart that rages against God.
I want more. So I give myself to prayer and fasting, with the understanding of the uselessness of a conversation in which neither party has much of substance and depth to offer one another. I want to answer the great crisis of the hour from a place of significant personal encounter with the Living God. I do not want to answer the crisis facing the western church with an empty missiology. I want to gather in a solemn assembly in the face of a national crisis and appeal to God with all my might to relent and leave a blessing behind (Joel 2:14), or as Peter called it, a “time of refreshing” (Acts 3:19). That methodology and approach is incredibly frustrating for some evangelicals, as it seems to leave no immediate answer for the one who does not know Jesus. God’s answer of “who knows” in Joel 2 seems to lack the impact one would hope for when my neighbor is suffering, lonely, and depressed today.
I understand that frustration. It feels weak to wait. It feels powerless. In God’s economy, I tend to think of those two emotions, well, as the point.
What’s your missiology?David
June 8th, 2007
Like many of you I’ve been slogging away through this 40-day fast. I’m also a little on the busy side (in terms of being on a 40 day fast). Things are progressing nicely as we move towards our second prayer room - I feel as if we’ve entered the “calm before the storm” phase of things. Time will tell. My writing here has been sporadic, however, for a few other reasons - particularly a couple of projects I’m taking on over the next few months.
The project that has top priority (in regards to writing) right now is, I can now officially announce, that I’ve begun work on my second book. No title yet, but the subject matter is something that I care deeply about; namely, this question is on my mind: how do we know we’re in the end times? Obviously that subject was heavily on my mind when I posted the question to you a few weeks back, and it’s one that I am looking forward to fleshing out in more detail. What I care about the most is providing a tool for many to use to bolster their faith regarding what the scriptures say about the hour in which we live and the lifestyle that is therefore required to live - without apology.
What’s at stake
With the rise of preterism we are seeing a slight groundswell of momentum in some circles regarding the dismissal of the prophetic scriptures and their implications for the days to come. Preterism, for the uninitiated, is the school of biblical interpretation that dismisses the writings of the prophets in the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation in the New Testament to the past. All prophetic scripture, in other words, is seen as fulfilled by 70 AD. Most Preterists now waver a bit on the “all”, leaving the Second Coming as the one unfulfilled event to come - though the system still leaves any of the details that take place around the event of the Second Coming to the past. I find this theological system more troubling and dangerous than dispensationalism, or pre-trib theology. So I will be examining this system here and there in this space in the coming days.
Secondly, scoffers and mockers are sure to emerge as the hour gets late - Peter prophesied this two thousand years ago. There are many who have a vested interest in this time frame not being the end of the age, and will seek to convince any who listen of their mindset. Thus, those who seek to set themselves to live radically for Jesus in this hour are going to soon find themselves under assault, and I hope to help equip them to press on into the call of God in this hour for their lives.
Personal considerations
Beyond that, I wanted to break the news to you here to give you context on some of the posts that are going to pop up here and there over the coming weeks. Basically, I get to use this little wordcast to “explore the space” (as someone once said related to cowbells and Blue Oysters) and invite you into my thought processes as I write over the next month as well as discuss some related subjects that wouldn’t make it into the book itself. This seems like a fun experiment to me, I don’t know if this kind of thing is being done throughout the publishing world, and thought you might be interested in the process (somewhat). I’m sure someone more intelligent and more creative somewhere else in the blogosphere has thought of this concept, but how many of those guys believe that Jesus is going to shatter the nations at the valley of Meggido after He returns, followed shortly afterwards by the entrance of an impossibly huge floating city hovering over Jerusalem? I’m willing to bet my thought processes are slightly more quirky than theirs.
So, I hope (now that the ball is rolling) to post more frequently, not less. Let me know what you think. I still plan on continuing to post on different subjects such as the emerging church, the sermon on the mount, and other topics that interest me - this little journal has always been a means of expressing myself on topics I don’t normally get to write about - but I’m looking forward to the continuing dialogue regarding the last of the “last days”.
David
June 5th, 2007
As you may or may not have heard, I am giving the primary leadership to the second prayer room that IHOP-KC is birthing on July 2nd. The current prayer room is now the Global Prayer Room, and is the focal point for our broadcasts and webstream to God-TV and the nations. We have felt the need now for some time to establish a second prayer room on our missions base - one that can continue to function as a “prayer laboratory”, even as we seek to establish the first one as our primary “prayer furnace”.
(more…)
May 29th, 2007
In light of my question about the end of the age, Lauren posted an interesting question related to college:
“I really do believe it’s the end of the age, but that’s being challenged by pressures to go to college. My friends once asked me if how sure I was if we are close to the end. My answer was that I am ready to bet my future on it. I only have a year of high school left to make up my mind for sure, but if I believe that we are with in a few decades of Jesus’ return, I don’t want to waste 4 of those years in school getting a degree that will help me make money.
I want to pursue the knowledge of God and devote myself to prayer and ministry full time. I know that there is no time to waste, so even in high school I’m trying to pursue God with all my heart. The every day things of life don’t matter as much because they are so temporary.
Dave, what are your thoughts on college? If your own kids were about to graduate from high school, would you rather see them go to FSM or get a college degree?”
I’m going to first give my answer to Lauren’s question, and then use the subject as a springboard to a broader topic related to our time and the end of the age:
Specific to this question, it is well beyond the scope of my understanding to discern the will of God related to the course Lauren’s life should take - and of course, she knows that as well. I will say, however, that the highest thing is not to engage in full-time ministry; 98% of the body of Christ is called to the marketplace, for instance. The highest thing is to be fully given to the will of God for our lives - there can be no lesser or greater thing. Thus many are called by God to serve diligently (and wholeheartedly) in the workplace as a “burning and shining lamp” to those who are lost and in need of salvation. Others are called by God to give themselves in the workplace to prayer and fasting while extravagantly giving to the poor, the needy, or the work of the gospel.
So, statistically, the vast majority of the body of Christ can and should give themselves faithfully to be trained and equipped in all manner of Christian (and non-Christian) colleges and universities. Having been involved now in full-time ministry for the last ten to fifteen years of my life, I have seen very few that have given themselves to labor in a college setting and not use some of their education in a ministry context. In fact, even education that seems “useless” on the front end will often serve a purpose years down the road that will greatly surprise the ones who were sure that they were “wasting” their time. Very little done to please the Lord ends up being wasted energy.
(more…)
May 28th, 2007
I haven’t posted much this week for a few reasons - birthing a second prayer room is time-consuming, thus there is much going on in my little world. The other reason I haven’t snuck a post in this week is because I’ve been researching like a madman for my next post examining the emerging church or the “emergent conversation”. I want to understand the dynamics involved so that I do not say anything unfair or out of bounds. I want to accurately represent the viewpoints in question, but to do so takes time.
In the meantime, discuss this little tidbit with me, because I’m curious - do you really live and think like it’s the end of the age? It’s one thing to believe it may be, that it could be, or that it probably is the end of the age; but how are we really living in light of what time it is? If we say it’s the end of the age, how does that information shift our thinking, living, time, and energy?
I wanted to hear from some of you how you are practically walking out the answer to this question - if you are. If you aren’t, I’m interested in that too.
David
May 26th, 2007
…and I’m glad you’re still with me. A few asides before I post sometime later:
1. I camped. No electricity, no running water in our little cabin - but we had a wood stove. I’m ready for the end of the age - all I need are guns and soup.
2. I avoided ticks. Barely. A few close scrapes and narrow escapes, but I avoided ticks. Never has one man applied so much bug spray to himself.
3. I fought off huge forest creatures. Raccoons and possums mostly. But they were big.
4 . I need a vacation.
David
May 23rd, 2007
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