Day # 1 - Living Sacrifices Worship Conference

First night of the Living Sacrifices Worship Conference at Gadsden Vineyard.
To me, it was like a family reunion. Seeing people I don't get to see on a regular basis. Catching up, sharing stories and hugs. Funny, but when I first saw Carl, I was overwhelmed by the thought that here was a man who was there with John Wimber at the beginning of the Vineyard Movement. California has come to Gadsden. 

John Barnett takes the stage to lead worship, backed by our own folks. Brook Finlayson on lead guitar, Liz Wood on keyboards, LeNola Bagley on Bass and Becky Trussell on drums. 
John opens with Never Was A Love. Simple song, profound and powerful. Proclamation of the unfailing love of God. Worship should be simple---something that touches the heart of God. As we sing, I am well aware that His presence has filled the room. I can feel Him. I am aware of so great a love that I have no words to describe it. In fact, such a love as His was never designed for words. It was given freely to be experience. I want to dive into the depths of Your love, Lord, and come up screaming of Your goodness.

Show Your Power - Old Vineyard worship song. Part of our heritage. It still rings true even after all these years. The cry for God to manifest Himself and His power, is fresh once again. Come and show Your power among us. Yet, as the song plays and I worship, I hear it with a different heart than years ago when it was first played. A heart that has seen a lot. A hear that has known the struggle and sting of warfare. A heart that has won some battles and lost others. I do not want to lose Your fire, Father. "Show Your Power" Now more than every before. Show Your power in my life.

I Delight In The Lord My God - John Barnett has found a voice, some chords wrapped in a rhythm that proclaims the simplicity of the gospel of Christ. How can you not fall in love with Jesus? I sing the words, but do I truly delight in You? I don't want these to be mere words spoken to fill the air. I don't want to have a Matthew 15 moment where I am merely going through the motions of worship, but my heart is far removed.I have found joy and peace in turning my heart to God and finding out that the desire of my heart is whatever the desire of His heart is.

Carl Tuttle takes the stage/ or rather sits down at the edge and begins to share. He plows through his history with John Wimber and the Vineyard which is so entwined in who we are as a fellowship. It is strange to sit in that room and listen to our legacy being shared who has lived it. Now before I go any further, I want to interject that as far as Carl is concerned, he is grateful for the journey but is looking forward to what lies ahead. I just didn't want anyone to get the idea that we sat around swapping "Back in my day" Stories.

Carl emphasized that we needed (as John always told us) to celebrate the diversity and the wisdom of the body of Christ. He went on to share that whenever you saw an application of Scripture which only bound up and abused people....an application of Scripture that did not lead to freedom, then that Scripture has been misused and becomes a weapon wrongly applied.

As Carl was making his closing statements, he said he would be up front if anyone needed prayer. I knew why I had come to this meeting. I began with the Vineyard in 1994. Home groups and worship were my schools at the beginning, learning how to lead worship and pastor others. When I moved into full time ministry, my seminary was a tape closet there at the church. I spent 8+ years listening to John Wimber teach. I listened to Carl Tuttle teach on worship, and now here he was at Gadsden Vineyard. I knew that I was to ask Carl to bless me for what God had out there waiting. Bless, he did! That voice that was ingrained in my heart because of the hours of tapes I had listened to, taking notes from and allowed to become a part of me, had now prayed over me. 

I drove home last night, full of God....grateful for who He is. As I turned the corner at 4th street, headed to 759....I began to sing...."O Lord, have mercy on me."  It was a good night.

More from Living Sacrifices Worship Conference tomorrow.
See you then.
God on you....

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Just Jesus

Sometimes when we read scripture, or hear a message, we have a tendency to elevate the people that are referred to. We take the twelve disciples and push them way up on the "Jesus" scale. After all, they were THE disciples. THEY ran around with Jesus. THEY were part of the His inner circle of compatriots. THEY saw miracles. People brought back from the dead (do you know fully how not natural that is).  People healed and had sight and hearing restored. THEY lived a lifetime in that three years of following Jesus around. THEY were the disciples.

It took me long time to figure this out (I am slow of thought), but any greatness the disciples were credited with was not of their own doing. Any accolades that were heaped on them wasn't because of their own ability or talent, after all the majority of the disciples were fishermen. Anything that we can ascribe to them as being positive is solely due to the fact that Jesus chose them. He chose them to train, equip and empower through the indwelling of God's Holy Spirit, to affect, infect and effect the world. THEY (the disciples) were the vehicle through which the Kingdom of God would grow and spread in this world.  In fact anyone, any where on this planet today who is receiving praise and honor because of their work in the kingdom, does so because of being chosen and sent by Jesus.

We are all called to enter this ongoing kingdom work. We are to interact with those around us and share our story...be HIS witness....Demonstrate through His power to validate the truth about who Jesus is.
We let that "M" word scare us. MINISTRY!!!!! "Oh no....only minister's are to minister."  We have fallen prey to the idea that there are professional positions in God's kingdom. We are merely lay people. Our job and our lives are to support these professional ministers. Hog wash!!! Such is further proof of how messed up the church has taken the things of God and twisted them around. Ephesians 4:11-12 reads And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Do we really thing that the highest call for the Kingdom of God is for us to be comfortable and sit on the side line while the "professionals" do the stuff? No. We are called to engage in a campaign of Kingdom love to a world that is trapped in darkness and headed for hell.

Any greatness I may possess is simply because the Spirit of God lives in me.
Any success I could ever lay claim to is simply because the Spirit of God lives in me.
Get it?
It's all about Him and nothing to do with me.
In fact, if I have to expend myself in any way, I'll do it pointing to Him. Giving Him the credit.
Such is the call and Kingdom work we have all been called to.

God on you...
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Vineyard + Worship = Our Spiritual DNA

Matthew 8:2
And behold, a leper came and worshiped Him.........

I have a lot of people question me as to why I keep referring to John Wimber so much when it comes to worship and this thing we call relationship with Jesus. "Don't you guys in the Vineyard have anyone who is current that teaches this stuff?" Well, the answer is yes. Every Vineyard Church has, as its corner stone, a heart to worship. We believe that our highest calling and purpose is to worship God. From this place we move out to affect, infect, and effect our part of the world. 

I keep referring to John Wimber in print and video because his was the voice that is ingrained in my heart and mind. His was, and continues to be, the voice that God spoke through that awakened this old heart to the power and proclamation of the Word of God.
John's voice was one that uncovered his own heart before us all. We saw a man who loved God with a burning, white hot love....yet was a man with all the flaws and short comings. He lived that way in front of us all. as John use to say..."I'm just an old fat man trying to get to heaven." There was an honesty and transparency in John that made everyone around him want to live in that same fashion. It wasn't that he excused his sin or tried to cover it with the religious trappings, but rather knew that if he did not remain close to Christ, like Peter, he would wander off into areas that were dangerous to his soul.

I have been blessed over the years to have had three men in my life who opened the scripture up to me. Rev. Don Gentry, George Creel and John Wimber.
Don gave me a foundation and love for the word of God. He taught me the basic principals of what it means to be a follower of Christ. I still have my first Bible compleete with underlined verses and scribbles and scrawls I wrote as young boy listening to Don teach.

George Creel took me to a whole other level, as he taught about the person and work of the Holy Spirit. He introduced me to the prophetic side of Scripture. I saw in George, a very humble man who knew the power and presence of God was needed to battle the darkness that hangs over this world. George knew that the Love of God would defeat the most formidable foe we would come up against.

John Wimber told me that it was o.k. for me to participate in Kingdom work. He taught me that worship was power because when we gave ourselves to God, He would come down and inhabit our praises. There was a connection that happened when we, as God's people, laid aside our problems and worries and turned our attention to Him. Thanking Him, praising Him, adoring Him.....I can't explain the how or why of worship. I just know that the air gets very clear and I hear God better during worship than at any other time.

This Thursday, Friday and Saturday,at Gadsden Vineyard Church, we are honored to have Carl Tuttle and John Barnett come to head up the 2nd annual Living Sacrifices Worship Conference. Cost is $45.00 for this three day conference, and I tell you it will be on when these two take the stage to lead us in worship. Both of these men are a part of our history and legacy as a church movement. They were part of the first Vineyard church that John started back in the '70's in California. Take my word on this one...you will not want to miss this conference.

God on you...
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Go! Make Disciples

Matthew 28:18-19
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and Make Disciples."

Go make disciples......
Locate, identify and train others to be followers/doers of what Jesus had taught.
Replicate what had been modeled and shown in the way of Kingdom work.
Teach how to pray effectively.
Teach how to break the power of demonic spirits.
Feed the poor.
Raise the dead.
Make disciples.
Funny, isn't it? No where does Jesus give the command to "Go and make converts!".
I believe the emphasis was on making disciples.
Now don't get me wrong, conversion is the opening door that leads to discipleship. It just seems that church today is more interested in catching than in making. We are all up in the "head count" business of numbers and noses. How many did you see saved Sunday? How many new church members do you have? And the list goes on and on.

Well, what if the measure of any church is not by the number who attended the service, but the number of disciples that were there. You see, to me, church should be a celebration of what took place over the last week. The times where a person exhibited kingdom behavior at their work place, or at school, or even over the fence talking with a next door neighbor.

We have been programmed to believe that the Kingdom of God can only operate and exist if the effort is a huge conglomerate of people and money all thrown together to put on some kind of event or hoo-haw for Jesus. Time and money are not the key to the Kingdom work of making disciples. Modeling in front of new believers.....telling them that they can do the works of Christ and then showing them is the key to making disciples. 

Making disciples means to seize the moment when it comes. Being aware of the people you come in contact with daily who are hurting and in need of being touched by God. Making disciples means that we are aware that every day is filled with opportunity to advance the Kingdom of God through our simply being available for God to use.  These are the things we need to be teaching. These are the tools that we need to be getting into the hearts and lives of those who come to our meetings. 

That is why I love working in recovery. To see the lights come on in someones heart and they suddenly realize that there is more to life than simply going to church or a meeting. To see them grasp the truth that Jesus wants to entrust His kingdom work to them and equip them to walk it out. To take all the religious baggage away from the call to make disciples and show them the stripped down model that it was originally intended to be.....such gives them hope and energizes them for this new life. Tell me....who better to go and make disciples of other addict's than an addict who has been freed, filled, equipped and given a mandate to operate in such a manner? 

They have lived in the enemy camp. They understand the deception and arguments that the enemy uses to keep disciple-makers away from stealing his souls that are under his control.

There is a new breed of disciple being born in this country. One who, through the work of God's Holy Spirit, is rising up from the ashes of the garbage heap to take their rightful place as a disciple of the Most High God. More than a convert! More than a church goer! They are disciples.

God on you....
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Another Look At The Kingdom

Matthew 6:33
But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.

Taken from the VBI Course, The Kingdom of God - 1.
The Kingdom of God is the fundamental theological framework of the Vineyard movement.

The very person of Jesus in scripture unifies everything we read. Jesus came announcing the kingdom. His parables help to explain the kingdom to those he taught. His miracles validated what He said and became evidence announcing the kingdom. The proclamation that the kingdom was here but not yet unites the whole flow of truth written in the Bible. God has indeed invaded time and space to take back that which was lost to the devil.

If I could do one thing in my life, it would be to come to an understanding of the kingdom of God. Not as a set of principals or dogmatic rules to live by and under the influence of, but rather it being more like air. We take it in and it sustains life. It becomes a part of us. Such is what I think Christ desires of us. Sometimes we actually treat the kingdom like "air". It is all around us (and in us) we know we need it but we don't think to much on it. The kingdom of God is first played out in our lives as we have these "divine" appointments with the Holy Spirit, or God's intervention into our time and space. Through our salvation, God's kingdom becomes real and, in my opinion, the amount of the kingdom I see and understand is in proportion to the amount I surrender to His will and leading.

In recovery, the catch word is POWER. When we speak of Power, we are speaking of the presence and person of Jesus Christ. He breaks into our personal life and affairs. Everything about us is invaded by Christ in an effort to awaken us to the reality of our need for His rule and reign (Lordship) over us. The Kingdom living inside us.

We are not called to be a passive people. Nor are we called to be spiritual "bullies". Our call is advance the rule and reign of God through His love that we experience by the work of His Holy Spirit. Not love like the world has created, but the Agape love of God which speaks truth and is willing to turn loose of those who will not receive it. We, as followers of Jesus, have been called to live by the power of the future age when we will see the kingdom of God completed. This power that is given to us by God is manifested to those who are living under the curse and power of sin. We proclaim the truth of the cross, backed by the POWER of God's Holy Spirit.

Derek Morphew, writer of the VBI Course KINGDOM 1 writes Those who are followers of Jesus live by the powers of the future age while the powers of this age continue around us. The kingdom calls to us from the future and breaks in on us. It is worth selling all we have to purchase this one pearl of great price. Let us respond therefore to the word of Jesus to "Seek first the kingdom of God."

God on you.....
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Kingdom Dynamic

Mark 1:14-15
Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel."

The Kingdom of God....God's dynamic rule and reign here on earth.
The Kingdom is here. We see it every time someone is prayed for.
We experience the kingdom dynamic every time someone is delivered from the bondage of sin.
We see it every time someone is healed. We, as followers of Jesus, are called to extend and carry this kingdom dynamic out into the market place...into our communities and towns. There isn't an agenda behind this call. No hidden motives or political positioning. There is just the love of God that should drive us to want to see others freed from the kingdom of darkness.

I John 3:8 says that the reason Jesus was manifested here on earth...or the reason He appeared, was to destroy the works of the devil. In doing so, He frees people to become disciples of His kingdom. He, in turn, empowers them to go out and make more disciples. 

That is where my heart is, to make disciples. To help equip people so that they can follow Jesus on their own. That they become able to "hear" God and follow what He is instructing them to do. To be able to trust God's Holy Spirit as He teaches them and, as they move out into the place God has called them to. 

It's all a part of the "Kingdom Now/ Kingdom Not Yet" view of God that has made more sense to me as I have studied it. We see glimpses of God's power and His Kingdom rule as we minister and pray for those we come in contact with. At Vineyard Recovery, we are experiencing this right now.We have two people we are praying for, and have been for some time. One of them, an older gentleman, has cancer and seems to be recovering and getting better. The other, a young woman, has cancer and is not getting better. In fact, her cancer is spreading and the prognosis is not good. This is the part of Kingdom work that we scratch our heads and ask, "Why, God?" I wish I  knew the answer to that. I wish I could tell you in some sort of neat package as to what is going on. I can't. I can tell you this. If we quit praying for those who are sick, then no one is ever going to get healed. 

When you look into the book of Revelation, you get a wonderful picture of the Kingdom of God in its fullness. Revelation 21:4 / And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. Unfortunately, we don't see this dynamic in our world at this point, do we? No. But we do see glimpses of it. We do see some who are delivered and some who are healed. We are able to participated with God and see salvation come to others. We are able to pray effectively and break the demonic presence in the lives of some. 

We see brain tumors disappear.
We see kidney's healed.
We see digestive problems removed.
We see insomnia taken away.
We see family relationships restored.
We see salvation to those who have lived their entire lives on the outside looking in.
We see joints and muscles relived of pain.
We see back joints put back in place and pain removed.
We see women who previously not been able to conceive, give birth to beautiful babies.
Such is the kingdom of God.
I never go into a situation where I am going to pray for someone, knowing what is going to happen.
IN fact, such things usually are accompanied with a lot of "O God...O God...O God...O God!" prayers. I realize that I am just a conduit through which God can work. It is His presence...It is His power...and it is His purpose that is being played out in this situation. But I will go. I will not have any answers to give other than, "Boy, this God......He truly is something else, isn't He?" 
He loves us when we are healed.
He loves us when we aren't, and are left with a million questions as to why not.
If you can wrap your head and heart around how much God does truly love this world, it can change the way you view life. It really is all about the Kingdom of God here, but the kingdom not yet.

God on you....
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He Will Fling A Healing On You

Psalm 107:20
He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction.

It's kind of an open ended promise, isn't it?
Doesn't really say what specific healing occurred or what condition was taking place.
But whatever it was that put them in the category of 'needing' a healing, God provided the means and way to receive it.
V17 - Fools, because of their transgressions (deeds/behavior), and because of their iniquities, were afflicted. In other words, listening and following the old sin/addiction nature has put them in the place where everything is coming down around them. The back lash from all their bad choices has now begun to manifest in consequences  that are  not good.

V18 - Their soul abhorred all manner of food, and they drew near to the gates of death.  It that doesn't sound like someone in addiction, I don't know what does. Crystal Meth will put you on the track of "fasting" for the devil. "Food? I don't have time to eat?" Food is the last thing that an addict thinks about. Give them some money and tell them they can either eat or they can buy drugs. Guess which they will choose?  All part of the twisted, addicta-logic that sin/addiction puts in the minds and hearts of those who are trapped. I can't tell you the number of people I see who come to treatment with the back pockets of their jeans touching.  

V19 - Then they cried out to the LORD in their troubles, and He saved them out of their distresses.  I love this verse, but it sure does fly in the face of how some or our modern churches address this problem. You see, I truly believe that when it says that the "Crying out" stirred the heart of God...they literally cried out. It wasn't that they thought about it.....or they whispered it....or it was in their hearts to do this. I believe that when you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, you'll cry out to God. I know it doesn't make any sense, but scripture says it catches God attention. Maybe it's because someone who truly cries out has given up. Maybe they have reached that place where they have tried everything and gone to every rehab out there, and nothing has worked. They now see that they are the problem and they need help from someone greater than themselves. At that place, what can a hearty, from the gut  "O GOD! SAVE ME!" hurt. 

V20 - He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction. what or who is His word? That would be Jesus. "Oh no, hear comes the religious spill!!!!!"  Hey, this whole Jesus-thing isn't about religion. Besides don't forget the state you were in back up in verse 19. You're the one who cried out for help. Help arrives and you don't like who it is? Mighty picky for a starving pilgrim, aren't you?  Take it from someone who has been chasing and following after this Jesus for most of his life, you can't go wrong, and you definitely can't do better.

I'll be speaking at Vineyard Recovery tonight as Seth Barber had to reschedule. I will also be speaking at North Glencoe Celebrate Recovery Sunday night, so come on out and join us.
God on you....
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