I grew up in the CRC, and am still here, along with my family. I'm married to Daryl, who has a construction business. I had a CPA license for 10 or so years, then I added EX to the front, and MOM to the back, so now I'm an EX CPA, MOM =). I am MOM to Duncan, Ian and Samantha. Our family also owns a raspberry farm, and in the summers we get to work out there.
thanks Jeff... our inner man =) our inner being =), the eyes of our hearts...the spiritual senses, good stuff... hmmm... i'm going to keep reflecting on the nuances between emotions, passions, feelings and affections... as there tends to be disdain for these types of sentiments, and the intellect aka the cerebral per Pete, is instead highly regarded, and almost idolized... so, theoretically, should there be a balance?
very confirming as John mentioned our new heart, and I've been wrestling w. our (reformed tradition) over emphasis of Jer. 17:9 (wicked heart) and Is. 64:6 (deeds are filthy rags), instead of emphasizing that we are new creations in Christ, and we have been given a new, good heart. That Jesus purifies our acts and makes them beautiful, clean, fine bright linen worthy of the wedding garment for His Bride. and as I'm re-reading Richard Foster's book "Celebration of Discipline"..
But, Jeff, I would be interested in further explanation of why you think orthopathy was a tangential, yet unspoken element regarding the 3rd wave pentecostal discussion/report... what do you mean by that?
again, thx. for taking the time and sharing your perspectives on this =)
BOQ..When is the last time you heard someone (including yourself) in the reformed tradition shouting for the LORD? Really shouting, all out victory yell? I don't need to know, but I simply ask the question, because in our reformed tradition of worship I have never heard it happen. eoq
Ok, I can't say this anymore =)... as a result of the prayer summit earlier this week, I have now been in a crc gathering where shouting in worship happened! Praise God! He is expanding our worship and prayer in ways we have not traditionally used much (if at all)!
thanks for elaborating Jeff... I find that interesting for a number of reasons...
also, back to the original question... if we are looking for a formula that works every time, ie. pray A, do B, say C, and then D happens, that's man's way... I think the part that is hard to grasp, is that it cannot be humanly manipulated or orchestrated. The Spirit is always in us, but His anointing upon us ebbs and flows at His will, that cannot be humanly orchestrated, only asked for and sought after through obedience and our relationship with God. ABC&D are key elements, but there is so much more. (it's kind of like my struggle with HC Q&A #83... what are the keys of the Kingdom... the HC gives 2- preaching and discipline, but I think there are many more that it doesn't mention).
as for the appreciative inquiry, Pete, I'm curious why you use this technique?
per Pete VB: Yet I have heard preaching (years ago) where Christ was the one who died for me so I owed Christ my good behaviour. eoq
isn't that the 3rd part of the HC... our service is a response of thanksgiving for what Jesus did? Or is thanksgiving different than we "owe" Him? That's another part of the HC I struggle with, yes, thanksgiving should/does prompt service/obedience/praise but what about because He is worthy? It's not only about what He has done or can do for us, but primarily because of Who He is! This is why the angels praise Him, they aren't praising out of a response of thanksgiving for their salvation.
I will say, in some of the messages I've heard/read where Christ was preached and the power of the Spirit was evident (at least for me), there was a focus on Rev. 5, Worthy is the Lamb... I've seen this focus with the Moravians and Count Zinzendorf, I see it as the fuel for night and day worship and prayer, Dan Henderson (Worship Encounters) shared that is the main reason we worship/pray, because He alone is worthy to receive all the glory! Because He deserves the reward of His suffering, our souls!
look forward to the rest of your "systematic" responses ; )... and pray God's blessing and anointing on you (and all the other pastors) as you prepare and preach His Word this week... we are praying for many to come to Christ (or experience that renewal John's friend testified of, through this Passion week!
I have several women that the Lord has connected me with that are involved in various abusive type situations within the Church, and if you want to get an idea on how that has fared so far, you can read my recent comment under the Pastors network in response to a post by James Dekker titled "of Rob Ford and Pastors".
to summarize, we have found that spiritual leaders are protecting each other, at the expense of the victim, and that abuse thrives in a culture of shame and silence/cover up... and this is a very sad witness to the Church.
anonymous aka protecting victims, feel free to contact me directly (I think you can do so through clicking on my name and there is a tab to email me)... FYI, none of the situations in my experience deal with domestic abuse though, but would fall under other related type garbage. In one of the situations, it has been going through the Church Order process, and so I have become familiar with the CO a bit through that particular situation.
I am reminded of Acts 6:4, which is applicable for the church's spiritual leaders (elders, which includes the pastor). Those are the 2 most important callings of our leaders. and if other "duties" are taking time away from these 2 primary callings, then some evaluating and assessment probably needs to take place. So I echo the focus on accountability of the devotional and prayer life for the spiritual leaders. One survey (not recent, I found the results in the praying church sourcebook, but i have heard of these "confessions" from spiritual leaders in the last year or so as well) showed that of 2000 presbyterian and reformed pastors, 95% spent less than 5 minutes a day in prayer =(. makes me wonder (the charismatics were a little better with an average of 18 minutes per day). Another statistic Dan Henderson (pastor, author, speaker, etal) mentioned was that of the time a pastor spent in ministry of the Word and prayer, 95% of that time was focused on ministry of the Word, and only about 5% on prayer.
by praying =)... we pray for prayer... that a Spirit of prayer will be poured out in our congregations, in our denominations... we pray that God will help us become men & women of prayer. We pray that our churches will become houses of prayer (Is. 56:7; Matt 21:13), that we will be a church devoted to prayer (Col 4:2; Acts 1:14, 2:42, 6:4 =) there it is again! We pray that the Holy Spirit will convict us of prayerlessness where necessary, and help us to make the commitment to implement the change needed for us to become prayer warriors.
Some will tell me, but you have the gift of prayer. Prayer is not a gift, it's a command! I pursued prayer - read books on prayer and researched people who prayed like Praying Hyde, Count Zinzendorf & the Moravians, Rees Howells, Hudson Taylor, George Mueller, etc. , went to conferences on prayer, joined prayer groups, went to prayer gatherings - even if they were of the charismatic or pentecostal stream, and the Holy Spirit graciously and generously taught me a lot through many different ways/people, and through it God has mostly "converted" me from a Miss Martha to a Miss Mary.
The LORD often wakes me up in the early AM as well, and that is a significant part of my personal time with Him. I love this time because it is undisturbed (we have 3 kids ages 11 and under). I have wrestled through many things with Him in those early morning hours. He has used that time to give insight, significantly change the direction I'm going which gave me more time to spend in prayer, as well as enjoy sweet time with Him in the secret place (Ps. 91:1 NKJV).
Our church participates in 24/7 prayer in the county, where 30+ churches each take one day of the month and commit to covering those 24 hours in prayer through having the people in their congregation sign up for a time on that day. We have .5 hour time slots, but many of the churches do a full hour for each person. One of the churches in our area has 200+ people praying an hour each week. All the churches can focus on the same requests specifically for our county, if they so choose.
Thanks John... now I pray when i have to do what i call my "Miss Martha" work. I've had times when i don't want to leave the "secret place", but i have to get the work done, and I'm thinking it's going to take me 10-15 hours to do this project and then it only takes me 3-5! I've thought another project would take me 3-5 hours and it only takes 1-2, and another time when I thought it would take 1-2 hours and it only took 20-30 minutes. I've experienced the LORD helping me get some of my "Miss Martha" work done! Those are all testimonies in themselves. I love "driving" berry harvester on "auto steer" at 1 mile an hour in the warm summer sunshine with the smell of raspberries, eating them to my heart's content... that's probably my favorite God time! and getting some work done too!
John, I was more afraid not to pray. I was thinking about it after I posted yesterday, about why I pursued prayer, what prompted my pursuit in the first place. And I was reminded that the Holy Spirit used 2 nightmares and a testimony of prayer over about a year's time (2005-2006) to compel me. After the first nightmare i remember thinking there was no human way out of that situation, it was impossible to escape, and a while later upon reflection, I realized the only way out was Jesus Christ. In the nightmare I was in a dungeon of hell like Peter describes in 2 Peter 2. As soon as I read that passage some time after my nightmare, I knew that's where I was in my nightmare.
The testimony of prayer was the second significant "event", it was about a casino in California that became a Kingdom church because the community prayed. The reason that came up was because a casino was coming to our area, and someone shared that testimony with several of us. We're still praying it into a house of prayer for all nations =)
the 3rd event, was another nightmare, and this one was a "hell on earth" situation, I remember waking up, and I asked God, what do we need to do so that this never happens. and i "got" one word... PRAY! That very day I went to the first Moms in touch prayer group at our kids' school, and have been pursuing prayer ever since. That was the same day as the shooting at the Amish school in Pennsylvania, which I don't remember hearing about until later, but was in some ways similar to my nightmare, so those 3 all were within hours of each other.
Not saying I understand how dreams and visions work... but those were significant "events" that prompted me to pursue prayer. And those were just the beginning. There have been many other confirmations as I started pursuing prayer, that further/continue to encourage me as well.
I know God always has our best interest in mind, because He's God. One phrase that I use is that it's always for His glory and our good. Our good is secondary to His glory, but because He's God, it's an easy thing for Him to make both happen at the same time. When I pray with the healing prayer ministry, that is my assurance to people if they don't experience the healing they are expecting... that God is not answering our prayer in that way at this time because He has something better for them.
I see that I had added a paragraph while the networks' "spam" protector was down time, and then my first one ended up going through... so here's the last paragraph =) sorry, my computer started doing strange things...
John:
I think it's great you are thinking of ways to increase time with Him. He will totally honor that. One of my hopes for our denomination, is that we will start a similar 24/7 prayer movement/relay like we do in our county, similar to the Moravians (see link for some info on the Moravians)
with 1000 churches in the crc that have a lot of "well-churched" fairly mature members, we should be able to get every day covered at least once. So John, I would love for you to pray into that "movement" with me.
What are you thinking or seeing as a connection here? I'm interested in why the decline prompted you to ask this question about evangelism and worship...
I do believe there is a very strong and significant connection along with Michael Bentley... Dick Eastman's stories in "Prophetic Worship" (2011) testifies this to some extent... that when the "every home for Christ" ministry began 24/7 worship and prayer around the clock (ok that's redundant ;) along with their outreach, they saw the number of salvations and contacts increase significantly...
There is also a very strong correlation between ongoing prayer and evangelism... Worship and prayer are 2 of our primary callings as believers, and the evangelism flows out of this time in His Presence... the Moravians were a powerful testimony of their mission movement flowing out of a powerful outpouring of the Spirit in 1727 and 24/7 prayer started a few months later and continued for over 100 years, with this small community being the first to send out 100's of non-clergy missionaries around the world - the Moravians were an inspiration to John Wesley, as well as to William Carey, considered the father of modern missions... another key with the Moravians is they were so in love with Jesus after that outpouring...
We have all the "Transformation" testimonies, if you aren't familiar with them, that testifies to how prayer changed communities that were very dark and lost... here's the link to one of the videos... I think you can find a promo piece on you tube too
these are but a few of the many testimonies/resources, although the ones I shared are not crc
The Glory books by Ruth Heflin Ward also share testimonies of when they are worshipping and God lays a specific group to pray for and the next day, they hear that many came to the LORD the previous night...
again, thousands, and probably millions of testimonies... though not all compiled into one nice package at this point for analytical data that I know of.
So curious, if you discover there is a strong connection (which I'm positive of it), then what?
Posted in: Defining 'preaching of the Word'?
thanks Jeff... our inner man =) our inner being =), the eyes of our hearts...the spiritual senses, good stuff... hmmm... i'm going to keep reflecting on the nuances between emotions, passions, feelings and affections... as there tends to be disdain for these types of sentiments, and the intellect aka the cerebral per Pete, is instead highly regarded, and almost idolized... so, theoretically, should there be a balance?
very confirming as John mentioned our new heart, and I've been wrestling w. our (reformed tradition) over emphasis of Jer. 17:9 (wicked heart) and Is. 64:6 (deeds are filthy rags), instead of emphasizing that we are new creations in Christ, and we have been given a new, good heart. That Jesus purifies our acts and makes them beautiful, clean, fine bright linen worthy of the wedding garment for His Bride. and as I'm re-reading Richard Foster's book "Celebration of Discipline"..
But, Jeff, I would be interested in further explanation of why you think orthopathy was a tangential, yet unspoken element regarding the 3rd wave pentecostal discussion/report... what do you mean by that?
again, thx. for taking the time and sharing your perspectives on this =)
Posted in: Defining 'preaching of the Word'?
BOQ..When is the last time you heard someone (including yourself) in the reformed tradition shouting for the LORD? Really shouting, all out victory yell? I don't need to know, but I simply ask the question, because in our reformed tradition of worship I have never heard it happen. eoq
Ok, I can't say this anymore =)... as a result of the prayer summit earlier this week, I have now been in a crc gathering where shouting in worship happened! Praise God! He is expanding our worship and prayer in ways we have not traditionally used much (if at all)!
Posted in: Defining 'preaching of the Word'?
thanks for elaborating Jeff... I find that interesting for a number of reasons...
also, back to the original question... if we are looking for a formula that works every time, ie. pray A, do B, say C, and then D happens, that's man's way... I think the part that is hard to grasp, is that it cannot be humanly manipulated or orchestrated. The Spirit is always in us, but His anointing upon us ebbs and flows at His will, that cannot be humanly orchestrated, only asked for and sought after through obedience and our relationship with God. ABC&D are key elements, but there is so much more. (it's kind of like my struggle with HC Q&A #83... what are the keys of the Kingdom... the HC gives 2- preaching and discipline, but I think there are many more that it doesn't mention).
as for the appreciative inquiry, Pete, I'm curious why you use this technique?
Posted in: Defining 'preaching of the Word'?
I pray that "renewal" be multiplied many times over in the Church... wake us up LORD!.
Posted in: Defining 'preaching of the Word'?
Because He is worthy! Worthy is the Lamb!
per Pete VB: Yet I have heard preaching (years ago) where Christ was the one who died for me so I owed Christ my good behaviour. eoq
isn't that the 3rd part of the HC... our service is a response of thanksgiving for what Jesus did? Or is thanksgiving different than we "owe" Him? That's another part of the HC I struggle with, yes, thanksgiving should/does prompt service/obedience/praise but what about because He is worthy? It's not only about what He has done or can do for us, but primarily because of Who He is! This is why the angels praise Him, they aren't praising out of a response of thanksgiving for their salvation.
I will say, in some of the messages I've heard/read where Christ was preached and the power of the Spirit was evident (at least for me), there was a focus on Rev. 5, Worthy is the Lamb... I've seen this focus with the Moravians and Count Zinzendorf, I see it as the fuel for night and day worship and prayer, Dan Henderson (Worship Encounters) shared that is the main reason we worship/pray, because He alone is worthy to receive all the glory! Because He deserves the reward of His suffering, our souls!
Posted in: Defining 'preaching of the Word'?
amen! it is a delight, not a duty!...
look forward to the rest of your "systematic" responses ; )... and pray God's blessing and anointing on you (and all the other pastors) as you prepare and preach His Word this week... we are praying for many to come to Christ (or experience that renewal John's friend testified of, through this Passion week!
Posted in: How Do We Handle a Domestic-Violence Husband Whose Restraining Order Is Expiring?
I have several women that the Lord has connected me with that are involved in various abusive type situations within the Church, and if you want to get an idea on how that has fared so far, you can read my recent comment under the Pastors network in response to a post by James Dekker titled "of Rob Ford and Pastors".
to summarize, we have found that spiritual leaders are protecting each other, at the expense of the victim, and that abuse thrives in a culture of shame and silence/cover up... and this is a very sad witness to the Church.
anonymous aka protecting victims, feel free to contact me directly (I think you can do so through clicking on my name and there is a tab to email me)... FYI, none of the situations in my experience deal with domestic abuse though, but would fall under other related type garbage. In one of the situations, it has been going through the Church Order process, and so I have become familiar with the CO a bit through that particular situation.
Posted in: What are best practices for doing the monthly Pastors' reports to the Elders?
I am reminded of Acts 6:4, which is applicable for the church's spiritual leaders (elders, which includes the pastor). Those are the 2 most important callings of our leaders. and if other "duties" are taking time away from these 2 primary callings, then some evaluating and assessment probably needs to take place. So I echo the focus on accountability of the devotional and prayer life for the spiritual leaders. One survey (not recent, I found the results in the praying church sourcebook, but i have heard of these "confessions" from spiritual leaders in the last year or so as well) showed that of 2000 presbyterian and reformed pastors, 95% spent less than 5 minutes a day in prayer =(. makes me wonder (the charismatics were a little better with an average of 18 minutes per day). Another statistic Dan Henderson (pastor, author, speaker, etal) mentioned was that of the time a pastor spent in ministry of the Word and prayer, 95% of that time was focused on ministry of the Word, and only about 5% on prayer.
Posted in: What are best practices for doing the monthly Pastors' reports to the Elders?
I'm glad you get to see it that way, John!
How do we change those 5 minutes/day?
by praying =)... we pray for prayer... that a Spirit of prayer will be poured out in our congregations, in our denominations... we pray that God will help us become men & women of prayer. We pray that our churches will become houses of prayer (Is. 56:7; Matt 21:13), that we will be a church devoted to prayer (Col 4:2; Acts 1:14, 2:42, 6:4 =) there it is again! We pray that the Holy Spirit will convict us of prayerlessness where necessary, and help us to make the commitment to implement the change needed for us to become prayer warriors.
Some will tell me, but you have the gift of prayer. Prayer is not a gift, it's a command! I pursued prayer - read books on prayer and researched people who prayed like Praying Hyde, Count Zinzendorf & the Moravians, Rees Howells, Hudson Taylor, George Mueller, etc. , went to conferences on prayer, joined prayer groups, went to prayer gatherings - even if they were of the charismatic or pentecostal stream, and the Holy Spirit graciously and generously taught me a lot through many different ways/people, and through it God has mostly "converted" me from a Miss Martha to a Miss Mary.
The LORD often wakes me up in the early AM as well, and that is a significant part of my personal time with Him. I love this time because it is undisturbed (we have 3 kids ages 11 and under). I have wrestled through many things with Him in those early morning hours. He has used that time to give insight, significantly change the direction I'm going which gave me more time to spend in prayer, as well as enjoy sweet time with Him in the secret place (Ps. 91:1 NKJV).
Our church participates in 24/7 prayer in the county, where 30+ churches each take one day of the month and commit to covering those 24 hours in prayer through having the people in their congregation sign up for a time on that day. We have .5 hour time slots, but many of the churches do a full hour for each person. One of the churches in our area has 200+ people praying an hour each week. All the churches can focus on the same requests specifically for our county, if they so choose.
Posted in: What are best practices for doing the monthly Pastors' reports to the Elders?
Thanks John... now I pray when i have to do what i call my "Miss Martha" work. I've had times when i don't want to leave the "secret place", but i have to get the work done, and I'm thinking it's going to take me 10-15 hours to do this project and then it only takes me 3-5! I've thought another project would take me 3-5 hours and it only takes 1-2, and another time when I thought it would take 1-2 hours and it only took 20-30 minutes. I've experienced the LORD helping me get some of my "Miss Martha" work done! Those are all testimonies in themselves. I love "driving" berry harvester on "auto steer" at 1 mile an hour in the warm summer sunshine with the smell of raspberries, eating them to my heart's content... that's probably my favorite God time! and getting some work done too!
John, I was more afraid not to pray. I was thinking about it after I posted yesterday, about why I pursued prayer, what prompted my pursuit in the first place. And I was reminded that the Holy Spirit used 2 nightmares and a testimony of prayer over about a year's time (2005-2006) to compel me. After the first nightmare i remember thinking there was no human way out of that situation, it was impossible to escape, and a while later upon reflection, I realized the only way out was Jesus Christ. In the nightmare I was in a dungeon of hell like Peter describes in 2 Peter 2. As soon as I read that passage some time after my nightmare, I knew that's where I was in my nightmare.
The testimony of prayer was the second significant "event", it was about a casino in California that became a Kingdom church because the community prayed. The reason that came up was because a casino was coming to our area, and someone shared that testimony with several of us. We're still praying it into a house of prayer for all nations =)
the 3rd event, was another nightmare, and this one was a "hell on earth" situation, I remember waking up, and I asked God, what do we need to do so that this never happens. and i "got" one word... PRAY! That very day I went to the first Moms in touch prayer group at our kids' school, and have been pursuing prayer ever since. That was the same day as the shooting at the Amish school in Pennsylvania, which I don't remember hearing about until later, but was in some ways similar to my nightmare, so those 3 all were within hours of each other.
Not saying I understand how dreams and visions work... but those were significant "events" that prompted me to pursue prayer. And those were just the beginning. There have been many other confirmations as I started pursuing prayer, that further/continue to encourage me as well.
I know God always has our best interest in mind, because He's God. One phrase that I use is that it's always for His glory and our good. Our good is secondary to His glory, but because He's God, it's an easy thing for Him to make both happen at the same time. When I pray with the healing prayer ministry, that is my assurance to people if they don't experience the healing they are expecting... that God is not answering our prayer in that way at this time because He has something better for them.
Posted in: What are best practices for doing the monthly Pastors' reports to the Elders?
I see that I had added a paragraph while the networks' "spam" protector was down time, and then my first one ended up going through... so here's the last paragraph =) sorry, my computer started doing strange things...
John:
I think it's great you are thinking of ways to increase time with Him. He will totally honor that. One of my hopes for our denomination, is that we will start a similar 24/7 prayer movement/relay like we do in our county, similar to the Moravians (see link for some info on the Moravians)
http://www.thewellumc.com/templates/System/details.asp?id=39121&PID=623515
with 1000 churches in the crc that have a lot of "well-churched" fairly mature members, we should be able to get every day covered at least once. So John, I would love for you to pray into that "movement" with me.
Posted in: Any research on the relationship between worship and evangelism?
What are you thinking or seeing as a connection here? I'm interested in why the decline prompted you to ask this question about evangelism and worship...
I do believe there is a very strong and significant connection along with Michael Bentley... Dick Eastman's stories in "Prophetic Worship" (2011) testifies this to some extent... that when the "every home for Christ" ministry began 24/7 worship and prayer around the clock (ok that's redundant ;) along with their outreach, they saw the number of salvations and contacts increase significantly...
http://www.ehc.org/inside.jsp?sectionid=3&pageid=94
There is also a very strong correlation between ongoing prayer and evangelism... Worship and prayer are 2 of our primary callings as believers, and the evangelism flows out of this time in His Presence... the Moravians were a powerful testimony of their mission movement flowing out of a powerful outpouring of the Spirit in 1727 and 24/7 prayer started a few months later and continued for over 100 years, with this small community being the first to send out 100's of non-clergy missionaries around the world - the Moravians were an inspiration to John Wesley, as well as to William Carey, considered the father of modern missions... another key with the Moravians is they were so in love with Jesus after that outpouring...
Link on story of Moravians
http://www.ctlibrary.com/ch/1982/issue1/118.html
We have all the "Transformation" testimonies, if you aren't familiar with them, that testifies to how prayer changed communities that were very dark and lost... here's the link to one of the videos... I think you can find a promo piece on you tube too
http://revivalworks.com/scripts/prodView.asp?idProduct=26
these are but a few of the many testimonies/resources, although the ones I shared are not crc
The Glory books by Ruth Heflin Ward also share testimonies of when they are worshipping and God lays a specific group to pray for and the next day, they hear that many came to the LORD the previous night...
again, thousands, and probably millions of testimonies... though not all compiled into one nice package at this point for analytical data that I know of.
So curious, if you discover there is a strong connection (which I'm positive of it), then what?