An offensive church

There’s a way to develop a church that will provide extreme opportunity for offense—and also the promise of great power.

FIRST—the situation in this nation is extremely serious. Pray with us for favor and open doors to get the prophetic message of revival, reformation in the church and city strategies out to the masses. Some have come to us feeling we must get on the radio or on television as soon as possible. If you can give toward this, please do! www.detroitrevivalchurch.com/donate. (15 minutes a day on a popular radio station in Detroit will cost around $2400 a month)

AN OFFENSIVE CHURCH

In a hyper-grace church world, the type of message that I was rocked with on Sunday night might be dismissed or even renounced. Our ministries have become conditioned by the perceived needs and demands of the seekers instead of the demands of scripture for radical surrender. Even when discussing the concept of revival, most believe that it will enhance their churches, while in reality revival brings us back to the cross—and anything in our churches that doesn’t embrace the cross will be crushed.

Revival, when it comes, may actually result in many churches closing down under the pressure of the offensive demands of the cross. Other churches will remain open but lose a lot of lesser committed people. Finances might plummet. Everything will be at risk. If we want God more than we want our churches to grow and our own personal security, then get ready for our paradigms to be violated and calibrated.

At Revival Church Sunday night, God wrecked me.

He said that churches could be birthed and developed from one of three different places:

  1. The Board Room—In Acts 15 we read about the Jerusalem council. The simple parallel here is that we can meet and discuss how church should be done. Come up with a great plan, follow clear wisdom, appoint leaders and let them run with a plan of action.
  2. The Upper Room—This one surprised me when God started talking about it. Of course, I love the idea of functioning out of a white hot atmosphere of prayer and prophecy. My book 20 Elements of Revival outlines this in detail. However, it’s true that there’s a certain temptation to participate in a movement that has the hopes of some power encounters, signs and wonders. We can inappropriately focus on the outward explosion while forsaking the true cost of participation. We can have upper room style conferences and churches that gather together the masses, but we’ll have limited impact if we don’t consider the next place that God spoke to me about.
  3. The Cross—Where two or three are gathered, He is there. This was never more literal than at the cross. The offensive call to full surrender, to the terrible cost of the cross, must sound louder than any other alarm. It’s rare to find churches that emphasize the extreme cost of a life in Christ. The call to the cross is inconvenient, extremely costly and wildly offensive—and few will respond. Many are called, but few are chosen. Our churches must be driven by repentance, by surrender to a fearful call. As we launch our churches with people who refuse to scatter (remember, even devoted disciples ran away from Jesus when confronted with the cross!), and with people who actually sit at the foot of the cross in the face of severe threat to their very lives, it will be a church that cannot be stopped.

STOP TRYING TO GROW HUGE CHURCHES—AND YOU MAY FINALLY GROW A HUGE CHURCH

The point? Start the development of your church, and continue it’s process, from the cross. Raise the bar as high as Jesus did. There’s a false doctrine in the church that rightly emphasizes that Jesus paid the price that we could not pay, but wrongly communicates that we have no part to play in the process.

I’m radically concerned that MANY, MANY people in the church…in really great, Spirit-filled churches, have chosen to avoid the cost of following Jesus, the cost of the cross (Jesus isn’t the only one assigned to a cross—we are as well), the call to deep intimacy, and due to a false grace message are convinced of their salvation when, in fact, they are not saved.

If we build churches around the cross, the crowds will be VERY small. Maybe only a few. Only two were at the cross with Jesus. But, the resulting victory and power will explode the church into the nations.

Then, we’ll move into the upper room, and into the board room as the Church develops in wisdom and power.

Extreme Breakout : ElijahList : John Mark Pool

FIRST- Have you seen the Brit Hume video where he at the Fox News desk suggested that Tiger Woods become a Christian? It’s amazing. Check it out here.


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Now, check out this prophetic word by John Mark Pool for the new decade, and how some key issues that we’ve been proclaiming here in Detroit are in the report.

You can see the original article on the ElijahList by clicking here.

Here’s some portions from the word that hit home here in Detroit along with some of my comments:

However, God does not want His own family to reside in the "natural" mind that is at war against our spirit being.

Last night at Revival Church the call to move into a continual supernatural life was burning in me. We must learn to see, walk, hear and operate in the invisible realm.

…there are three main components the Lord told me we will overcome in the year 2010:

We must possess and abide in a land we have conquered.
We must occupy our land by "title deed" ownership rights.
We must realize our identity in God to rout our enemy.

This issue of authority has also been very prominent with us. As we advance within the realm of our apostolic authority, we will possess, abide and occupy. We’ll rout the enemy over Detroit… but only as we continually initiate change through obedience and prophetic declaration.

2010 is the year to breakout of the ‘naturally minded' wilderness.

We are being repositioned into the vision of perpetuating our eternal purpose spiritually.

Now we will allow the Lord to change our hearts into hunger for the supernatural destiny. This means we will indeed become more "super" natural beings than carnally existing citizens dwelling on earth as though it were our only motivation for living.

Be prepared to have strong supernatural desires overwhelm your natural mind.

Amen!

America is About to Be Financially Restored. God wants the economy to be restored to the Christians whom He had to know He could trust! World financial leaders will become astounded how much Israel will now play into this "financial restoration" of the USA.

Yes!! I’ve been saying a lot recently that there will be reports that the economy of Detroit and Michigan restored due to biblical principles. God and His Church would receive the recognition for the coming great turn around.

Detroit—will be moved by Hollywood as never before. Detroit will begin a new dance and a new sound from Heaven. It will glorify God in the streets of the city and spill into other major city streets across our country. Motown is going to become God's town!

That sounds familiar!

Let’s get into position and intentionally advance according to God’s design!

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Blessings to you all!

A Regional Revival Center – Mass Deliverance – Prophetic word on Detroit’s finances

I’m sitting in an Alistair Petrie summit in Sarnia, Ontario Canada right now, and I’m stirred!  He’s talking about principles of city transformation, which is the capture-00000-10-24-2009 topic of the hour in Detroit.

I’ve been connecting with Bishop Larry Jackson and others this week in meetings, and it seems that God is suddenly sparking a lot of hearts at the same time.  Urgency is increasing quickly.

Revival Church has a mandate to focus on regional revival and transformation.  Our heart is to effectively connect the city church, pour into it and do our part in starting fires of revival.

SUNDAY

4pm- If you have any level of interest in the mission of revival at Revival Church, you are invited to a very important meeting tomorrow (Sunday) at 4pm.  This is a gathering and vision imparting meeting that will give you a lot of info and will help you connect with other revivalists.  We’ll be downstairs in the children’s ministry room.  Again, this is for anybody reading this message, whether you have been with us since the beginning, or you’ve never been to an event. (please be prompt and also be respectful of Mercy and Truth Church that will be meeting in the sanctuary until 5:30pm for a special event)

6pm- Join us for a night of passionate prayer, declaration, worship, dance, freedom in the Holy Spirit and vision driven teaching.

MASS DELIVERANCE

There have been some interesting prophetic words on my life regarding ‘mass deliverance’.  I function in personal deliverance regularly, and have started to see deliverance on a corporate level ramp up.  What I feel is coming next is mass, city-wide deliverance.  Alistair Petrie is teaching now on this concept!  As vivid and undeniable truth invades a person, that person can easily and suddenly be free.  As the secret things come to the surface and as light is shined into a situation, the power that deception has had is instantly dissolved. 

This will also come to a city.  Strongholds will break on a city level.

PROPHETIC WORD- KINGDOM FINANCES

For example, last night I had a strong prophetic impression.  God was saying, “Now! Now! The church must move now in the financial realm.  Right this moment the secular world is sitting around board room tables planning on instilling principles and methods to rescue Detroit from financial ruin. This must not happen. The church must not allow the world to run ahead and put into place humanistic strategies that will bring greater harm.  The Church must set into place Kingdom principles in the city.”

We can’t afford to let the world maintain its level of influence on the economy.  The Church and biblical financial principles must be brought into the story!

Alistair Petrie said, “Kingdom finances will be released as integrity and Kingdom culture develops and prevails.”

He also said that the church is a litmus test of the society it is in.  The culture of the church is an indicator of the culture of a city.  We must see Kingdom financial (and all other!) principles activated in the church and individual local churches of Detroit.

He said, “You can’t pray for transformation in your city unless you go through the same thing yourself that you’re asking for others to experience.  We must become ‘changed agents’ before becoming ‘agents of change’.”

Click for directions: Revival Church meeting at First United Methodist Church, 24036 Greater Mack, St. Clair Shores, MI 48080

John