Are you a reformer?

A key mission at Revival Church is to effectively communicate and advance reformation in the church that is necessary to handle the coming outpouring in Detroit.

We are calling together people who are being made ready by God to run the race with us.

My favorite definition of religion is this:

Man’s attempt to use God to get what he wants

It has become normal to settle into a church that gives us what we are looking for. It’s the same mindset people use when making most decisions in their lives.

What career will give me what I’m looking for? What movie should I watch? Where should I go on vacation? Should I buy something now or wait for a sale?

Now, many decisions in life warrant this kind of analysis.

The way we participate as the church, however, is not one of them.

I like how Bill Johnson talks about trains and tracks they run on. We have become so accustomed to choosing our own course, our own level of participation, our own pace. However, with a train, everybody is on board, nobody can choose to divert from the track by going left or right. Everybody is moving at the same pace. I love that! That’s the call of reformation in the church! We must lay down our own plans and move in unity with the rest of the body at the pace God sets through apostolic ‘engineers’! This is what happened in the Upper Room! One goal, one agenda, everybody together, everybody responsive. There were no other life focuses that took precedence over the call to mission!

What’s more honorable—a soldier who enlisted in the military because of the opportunity to advance his or her career, or a soldier who enlisted simply because of their love of their country. And, they are willing to pay a great price because of that love.

The church has a mission and we must not put that mission at risk by determining our level of participation based on what it can give to us.

I believe the watering down of the call to mission in the church is a direct result of our human nature and the Western culture to get as much as we can at the lowest personal cost.

The problem is that the call to the church is a call to paying a great price for the sake of mission fulfillment with little promise of personal gain.

I’d love to find a dusty warehouse somewhere, open the doors, spread the word, start praying with fire and see who shows up.

No air conditioning, no chairs, no plethora of ministries… just a call to be in position, stay long, day after day, pray in unity and contend together for the days, weeks months or years necessary for an outpouring to occur.

So, the question is this—are you one who would respond? There will be several movements like this in the Detroit region, and Revival Church is one of them. IHOPE (www.ihopedetroit.org) is another.

I challenge you to drop your demands and desires for what you are looking for in a church and simply embrace the exciting call to zealous prayer, passionate community and to take up our crosses in pursuit of a dramatic encounter with Jesus!

See you tonight at 6pm!

(You can read more about the coming reformation in my books 20 Elements of Revival and Covens in the Church.  Order online at www.johnburtonministries.com/resources.)