Posts Tagged ‘prophetic’
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?
Interesting prophetic insight : Detroit, Michigan : Time Magazine
The week of a key ministry event with Chuck Pierce, Barbara Yoder and other prophetic leaders in Ann Arbor, I received a strong prophetic word regarding Detroit. Time Magazine just reported on an element that I mentioned in the prophecy.
Here’s the word I received:
“Now, now, now! The church must arise and strategically contend for reformation and restoration in Detroit and throughout Michigan.” The Lord revealed that there is a “race of rooms” in this region. There are strategic and brilliant secular people gathering in a board room, strategically thinking, brain storming, discussing and making plans for the new economic structure in Detroit. I saw them in suits and ties sitting around a large board room table. I also saw another room. It had no table, but the walls were covered in LCD screens and white boards. There were several people on their knees groaning and crying out for breakthrough, for revelation from Heaven. This was a war room.
The race of rooms is between these two gatherings. Which new wine skin, new strategically developed foundation will be implemented?
Church Pierce mentioned something similar as he was sharing. He mentioned that those represented by the board room will ‘win’, will establish for a time. But, the church will initiate reformation shortly thereafter.
I just read the latest Time Magazine article on Detroit. Check out some of it and notice the similarities to the prophecy I received:
What do you get when you mix 60 Millennials, a dozen of Detroit's brightest thinkers and lots of coffee?
The potential to solve some of the city's policy problems.
This past weekend, I attended a conference that sparked some incredible discussions about Detroit, the region's significant challenges and what they both need to do to create lasting change.
The regional workshop is part of a year-long initiative, in which Roosevelt Institute members from across the Midwest will focus on creating actual public policy proposals for Detroit and the surrounding cities.
About 60 MSU students came together in suits, ties and dresses to talk about Detroit.
Detroit was a “magnificent middle-class society. Detroit has been devastated. People did this. It was not an act of God.”
Read more: http://detroit.blogs.time.com/
Rick Joyner and Larry Jackson will be here this weekend to help give direction to the church, to intercession and strategic advance in Detroit.
Many people are converging here. One of my intercessors saw four large (the size of a 747) eagles, each one looking different, but they each had a serious, determined look in their eyes. The flew from the four corners of the nation and converged in Detroit. These are prophetic/apostolic people that God is gathering to bring the sledgehammer to the demonic strongholds in Detroit. Reformation and revival is coming.
The times we are in are more important than any of us realize.
So goes Detroit, so goes the nation. This call is for every person to contend, pray and declare the Word of the Lord over this region.
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.
Very interesting video : Prophecy management system
Times are suddenly getting very interesting in the revival/prophetic realm… and especially here in Detroit. I received a phone call from Jeff Garvin from the 
Lakeland revival yesterday. He’s very alerted to the rising temperature in the Detroit area and I’m going to be connecting with him on Saturday in Windsor.
The same is true of Barbara Yoder, and I’m going to be connecting with her in Port Huron tomorrow.
Someone received a very interesting prophecy regarding voodoo, and hours later I received an invitation to minister from a pastor in a nation inundated with voodoo- Haiti. I may be teaching on revival and prophecy in a Bible college there next month.
With all of this going on, we must learn how to steward words, dreams, visions and prophetic data.
Most prophecy is conditional. We have a significant responsibility to hear God clearly and then to steward that revelation.
Imagine a web-based system that connected people, churches and ministries in real time. A system that receives, analyzes, filters and reports on prophecies, dreams and visions submitted via smart phones, laptops and other devices from around the world.
What if everybody in a church had an opportunity to prophesy during a service? What if all of that data was analyzed and submitted via a report to senior leadership as the service is in progress? What if that same data was compared with other submissions from all over the Earth?
This is the Strategic Prophecy & Intercession Management System. It's awaiting a team of brilliant and Spirit-filled people to take on the project.
You can watch the video below, or visit the permanent page for this topic at www.praytherevolution.com/prophecy.html.