Posts Tagged ‘church’
Is the House of Prayer movement running out of steam?
FIRST—This afternoon (Sunday, November 22) at 4pm is the Revival Church Thanksgiving Dinner! Come on out and make some new, hungry (for turkey AND revival!) friends! Then, we’ll kick into strategic pursuit of revival at 6pm. www.detroitrevivalchurch.com.
Is the House of Prayer movement running out of steam? That question is sure to elicit a wide range of emotions and reactions, from radical disagreement to a yawn of indifference.
Here’s my thought: The House of Prayer movement is a strategic and divine plan of God. However, the House of Prayer movement in its current form is to bring 
recalibration to the church—it in itself is not meant to be an enduring structure.
Now, allow me to bring some clarification. The church is to be a house of prayer for all nations. Those of you who follow my ministry know my heart on this topic well.
I feel it is utter insanity that prayer is nearly non-existent in churches today. I mean, lets talk about this. Churches that don’t have prayer as the primary ministry and activity is like encouraging people to stand in a shower with no water. It’s so obviously nonsensical.
Prayer is the clear, tangible connecter between man and God. It’s the conduit of relationship that Jesus made possible for us on the cross.
Matthew 7:21-23 (NKJV) 21 "Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'
The clear idea here is that it’s possible to align ourselves with God, work for him, be dramatically involved in his business, while also not knowing him, not ‘saved’.
So, the problem is that we have churches full of devoted people, people who are working, serving and ministering, who don’t intimately know God. This is a more serious issue that we can imagine.
In my book The Terror of Hell I wrote about a dream that shook me to my core. As I prayed for interpretation of that dream, God wrecked my theology and comfort level. He said, “John, many people in the church will be shocked one day to find themselves in Hell.”
I believe the House of Prayer movement is a necessary shock to the church system. It must bring recalibration to a prayer-starved church.
It’s re-emphasizing the call to return to our first love. Check out this striking scripture:
Luke 10:25-28 (NKJV) 25 And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" 26 He said to him, "What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?" 27 So he answered and said, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,' and ‘your neighbor as yourself.' " 28 And He said to him, "You have answered rightly; do this and you will live."
This should be our primary salvation scripture. This should be our primary salvation strategy. The question was clear: What shall I do to inherit eternal life? Love God! Deeply! With every part of our being!
If we do this, and let that love reach others around us, we will be saved.
So, with prayer being the vehicle of relationship and intimacy with God, we must be severely alarmed when that vehicle is out of service.
The Global Prayer Movement and the House of Prayer Movement are not one in the same, though, of course, they are uniquely connected. The Global Prayer Movement is ramping up and gaining momentum. Right now, it seems that the House of Prayer is its primary driver.
However, this cannot remain. The church, with its governmental authority and biblical mandate inherent in it, must receive the baton of intimate, prophetic prayer from the House of Prayer movement.
I don’t believe Houses of Prayer, in their current form, can survive indefinitely. They must transition into or merge with churches.
For example, we see the International House of Prayer in Kansas City functioning as a keenly focused prayer ministry. People there pray hours a day as their primary life activity. However, it also functions as a church. They meet that need for people. They have no need to send people to a ‘real church’ because IHOP is a church.
Additionally, this year, they moved from an 80%/20% model of prayer/ministry to a 50/50 model. Their prayer is enabling and infusing church ministry.
I know this is a provocative and even offensive question, but if we at least consider it I believe we’ll be well on our way toward reformation in the church: Is it possible that IHOP and prayer-fueled ministries like it have a radically higher percentage of people who are truly saved than a typical church?
I’m not saying they have better theology or that they are somehow elite. I’m decreasing this issue to the lowest foundational level. They pray. The are intentionally applying the Luke 10 salvation strategy. They are focusing on the call to intimately know God.
This strategy and primary focus must return to every typical church on every street corner. That’s what the House of Prayer movement is doing. Rick Joyner says that if house of prayer leaders do their job well, they will work themselves out of that job. The true, biblical structure is the church, which is a house of prayer for all nations.
If houses of prayer succeed in their mission, there will no longer be a need for houses of prayer as we now know them.
Thoughts?
A new partner in revival : many resources available to you
FIRST- Be sure to listen to a clear message on revival strategy. I believe the fire of God will erupt in you as you listen. If you want to know what Revival Church is all about, you’ll find out as you listen to this message. We’ll use it for leadership training in Revival Church as we call people into position for the coming move of God. It’s titled “Intro to Revival Church- The Joshua 3 Mandate.” Listen now at www.detroitrevivalchurch.com/teaching.
SECOND- I want to take loads of people with me as I minister at Revival Nation Church in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada on Sunday morning, November 8th. Let me know if you want to go! (You’ll need your passport.)
Revival Church is deeply focused on impacting your life with the message of legitimate revival. The Lord burned in my spirit recently a call: Hope & Hype- We must move beyond unfulfilled hope and man-made hype.
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, and God will always out do hype if we let him.
We are seeking new ministry partners locally and around the nation and world to infuse Revival Church financially. The Detroit mission is demanding, yet we know that success here will result in a domino affect through the nation and around the world.
You can give your tithe or special offerings on our new giving system at www.detroitrevivalchurch.com/donate.
Additionally, you can set up RECURRING donations on the same page. A monthly recurring donation would be a wonderful way to plant seed into this fertile soil all year long.
Here are some of the ways you can stay connected to our ministry:
- NEW internet radio show at www.detroitrevivalchurch.com/radio. You can pray with us, listen to prophetic insights and vision casting and, if you would like, call in to the show and participate. Every Monday at 8pm sharp we'll start with focused prayer for an outpouring in Detroit and then we’ll move on to discussion.
- FREE teachings. You can listen to the messages from Revival Church every week, and also enjoy a vast archive of past teachings at www.detroitrevivalchurch.com/teaching. Be sure to listen to The Joshua 3 Mandate and Six Enemies of Fulfilled Destiny from this past weekend.
- Subscribe to our email updates. I regularly share prophetic messages, insights and teachings on a variety of topics. You can also be alerted to new sermons that are uploaded, special events and other news items. www.detroitrevivalchurch.com/subscribe.
- Podcasts on the go. I regularly call in from my cell phone and record quick, punchy podcasts. If the Lord is burning in me on a certain topic, I just pick up the phone and share. It’s instantly added to the site at www.detroitrevivalchurch.com/podcast.
- Articles. You can read articles on revival, prayer, prophecy and other topics at www.johnburton.net/blog. Be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed!
- Books. I’ve written five books, and am convinced that the Holy Spirit will impact you powerfully as you read through them. www.detroitrevivalchurch.com/resources.
- Facebook. Become a FAN and follow along with everything that’s going on in the church. http://facebook.detroitrevivalchurch.com. Also, send a friend request to my personal profile at www.facebook.com/johnburton.
- Twitter. I update to Twitter several times a day. Follow me at www.twitter.com/johneburton.
- Personal ministry site. Head over to www.praytherevolution.com and see booking info, my bio, video and other info not on the Revival Church site.
Thank you for your support of this ministry. Your donations are very meaningful and will go a long way toward enabling ministry in Detroit and beyond!
www.detroitrevivalchurch.com/donate.
John
City strategy : Multiple church commitment
It's time to stop presuming people will only commit to one local church or ministry.
I regularly consider how we are going to see the massive reformation in the church come to pass. The way we see church today will become a distant memory as the entire structure changes.
We’ll need to take intentional steps toward a city church structure, which means the face of the local church is going to morph considerably.
Some preliminary steps:
- Multiple church commitment: We will begin to see people primarily commit to one church and also commit (truly commit, no hopping allowed!) at a lesser, yet still significant level at other churches. When this happens, every church won’t have to be focused broadly on everything, but they will focus intently on the few areas they are called and gifted to facilitate. When the body is expected to connect at only one church, they in turn have no other option but to expect that church to have a broad focus. The current system works against itself. When the reformation comes, a family will connect in one church where they will serve and sit under apostolic leadership that’s running with strength in a streamlined ministry, and on other days and nights of the week they may serve at another church’s youth ministry, Bible study or small group.
An important element here is that instead of limiting themselves to senior leadership at the local level, the various leaders of the churches in the city take on the role of associate leaders of the city church. So instead of thinking of it like people frequenting multiple local churches, they are actually strategically connecting in multiple departments of a single city church. One night they are in the teaching department growing in discipleship and on another night in the prayer department serving in intercession. These departments are actual churches and ministries spread out all over the city.
The five-fold ministry does not have to function in every single church or ministry. It's not realistic for that to happen. One church might be led by someone in a teaching office while another is led by a prophet. Pastors will give leadership to small groups and other ministries. Evangelists will train and lead out in strategic soul winning events. Apostles will govern and serve all of the city's leaders by casting vision, gathering the Ekklesia in the region and instructing at a high level.
Local church pastors will have to surrender their solitary leadership position in people's lives and begin to emphasize the city church more than their own local church. Senior pastors will then lead the way multiple times a month into other events, conferences, prayer meetings, church services and small groups in the region. People under their leadership will truly experience refreshing and renewed passion as they are no longer limited to what a single local church can provide.
- Prayer as a primary ministry: We must start where the first church started in Acts 2- in the prayer room. It’s shocking how absent prayer is in the church, and it’s terrifying how few Christians are intimately connected with Jesus in the place of prayer. I propose we cancel most everything we’re doing in the church and hit our face night and day and pray, and soak, and intercede and declare as a corporate body.
- Connecting with apostolic and prophetic leaders: We need to pray in, invite in and partner with apostolic and prophetic leaders who God is preparing right now. Who is God going to use regionally to help give leadership to a move of God? It probably won't be your local church pastor, but your pastor and everyone in your church should support whoever it is.
Time Magazine : Detroit financial reformation : The church
As I have often shared recently, I have felt since before we moved to Detroit in May that there is a coming two-fold spiritual AND financial revival.
The Church is in the midst of an opportunity unlike any other in our lifetime- to display the power, effectiveness and efficiency of biblical Kingdom financial principles.
Revival Church is in its infancy, yet we are determined to see a business department develop that will do the following:
- Offer deliverance from wrong mindsets, demonic influence and a spirit of poverty
- Train in biblical financial principles
- Equip people to develop new skills
- Actually have business opportunities identified for people to step in to
We don’t only want to offer hand outs- the goal is to see people proactively move from unemployment, welfare or sub-standard employment situations into health, prosperous and biblically sound new realities.
The testimony about Detroit should be: We cannot deny that God, His Church and biblical principles were the direct reason for financial revival in Detroit.
Here’s some snips and a link to an article by the folks in the recently purchased house here in Detroit- Time Magazine. I left a comment on that site.
http://detroit.blogs.time.com/2009/10/12/a-key-to-our-salvation/
A Key To Our Salvation?
Personally, I don't need to read any more "letters" to or from Detroit, but at least in this one Detroit native Ryan Mack offers a reasoned, proactive take on seedy businesses, our economic climate and what more we can do to change our material conditions.
Most intriguing to me is the following:
What would happen if churches learned how to combine forces and create economic development corporations? The largest employer in Queens, New York is Floyd Flake of Allen AME Church Cathedral and last I checked he has $30+ million Corporation with over $75 million in real estate assets. Other churches like Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, Harlem Congregations of Community Improvement, and the list goes on across the country of how churches have used their leverage for the greater good of the community. We can do the same in Detroit. If done right, an economic movement of the church can create thousands of jobs for the city of Detroit.
Whatever your position on faith and religion, do you think Detroit houses of worship can and should develop a broad-scale cooperative effort to attack the city's worst problems?
Local church/City church – The coming reformation
When I was leading Revolution House of Prayer in Manitou Springs, Colorado, a common theme was the establishment of the city church. I outlined this concept on the white boards there and we prayed into it fairly regularly.
Here’s a twelve minute podcast on this topic that will help you understand and also pray into the coming shift in Detroit. I write about this in my book 20 Elements of Revival as well.
http://www.cinchcast.com/praytherevolution/1769.mp3
In this City church model we’ll see local churches take on the identity of departments of the larger City church. People will participate at a high level at a primary local church and at lesser yet significant levels at a variety of other ministries.
This will enable one church to focus intently on the few callings in the primary giftings they have been given, while allowing other churches to function in their specific callings and giftings. Churches no longer have to attempt to cover every base. As we work together on a city level we can pool our strengths and giftings.
Someone may primarily be involved in a local church that mainly focuses on evangelism, while also attending other churches on other days and nights of the week that are geared toward teaching, youth, pastoral care, etc.
A great example is the house of prayer movement. They pray as their primary focus. People attend the house of prayer while also attending other churches at different points during the week.
Here’s a simple diagram of this idea from the vantage point of Manitou Springs, Colorado. We’ll see people involved in several different churches and ministries every week. I see this idea coming to Detroit and other cities as well. You can see the larger, easier to read version at http://praytherevolution.com/images/Manitou-Springs-Vision-Map.gif
