Saturday, 19 September 2009

The Body of Christ has Apps!

Update 20th September:I've added a bit to this post.It's blue! This picture is nicked from Apple, so in return I've left a hyperlink to their iphone app page!

The Body of Christ has Apps.

I was talking to a sister in the Body of Christ today. Her marriage is rocky. There are various issues that in this case the husband, and it is the husband, has to work through. Every couple has to work through differences , but if the Bible said it was wrong to dress up as a giraffe with purple spots, and that is what your husband did....repeatedly...causing trouble for the whole family...then further action would be called for. You understand the issues are a good deal more serious than dressing up as a giraffe!

What came out though is there is a lack of infrastructure in the sister's locality. (This was not the UK by the way). In Derby in England the couple who took our wedding, have been used to set up "Celebrate Recovery". This works through gritty situations of hurt and addictions, and is one answer in the Body of Christ today. It is so successful it is also being rolled out into UK prisons for those who want it.

In the UK we also have Ellel Ministries that specialise in demonic deliverance issues. Also, right now Mark Stibbe has it on his heart to set up a centre in the middle of nowhere, out of the public eye, to be a safe place for pastors and leaders to get freed up before they get exposed and take a lot of hurt people with them.

This week on Dan's site we have been discussing the pros and cons of "Covenant Eyes". And like the above situations, there is not a hard and fast answer. Just to say God can use these "Apps" in the Body of Christ as vehicles of freedom. But readers of my blog will know that there is a side of me, like Julie and Lydia, that freak out at some of these things. We are convinced that a lot of the problems are caused because in bringing people to the Lord nearly no one "explains the grace of God in truth", so from the word go people are building their Christian life like the Tower of Pisa.....SQUIFFY!

However that being so, I still want to talk about Apps. And here, less about ministry systems and more about the genuine God birthed stuff in the Body of Christ. In the Power of Teams

I describe the power of God magnified through a group of believers who have set themselves a God-goal. A goal birthed in God, and needing God to carry it out, but en route following in obedience the practical steps that He directs. Bob Gordon in the above example believed for a fabulous kitted out bus to share the gospel in with teams committed to that purpose - believing the Holy Spirit for God appointments all the way.

Now, after decades of the Holy Spirit being poured out, there are "thin places" on the Earth. Groups of believers who "have stuff" in the spirit. If you go to Bill Johnson's church Bethel you are very likely to get healed. If you went to stay with Kenneth Hagin with a fever or some ailment, while you were in his house you would not have that ailment. This was the atmosphere in which he lived. You might get it back when you left, but that was up to you. The ailments did not like Kenneth Hagin's house.

In the 80s after being rigorously trained in pressing through in praise and worship and waiting on God through the ministries of both Edward Miller and Jorge Pradas, Emsworth was a "thin place" of God's Presence in the manifestation of both praise and worship. You go in some places and praise is like a lead weight, but in Emsworth it became easy. And probably for that reason, we became a little too blase about it.

In Romsey near Southampton UK a lady had ME(chronic fatigue syndrome). She was called Marion Daniels. After a fight she was healed. But thereafter she had a facility in bringing deliverance to other ME victims. She also has much experience in dramatic healings breaking through families after a senior member has renounced freemasonry and the freemason curses. Instantly, maybe a grandchild will be healed of deafness. And they may be in a completely different part of Britain.

Corrie Ten Boom's biography has been filmed in "No Hiding Place". Through the breaking experience of her hatred of the female commandant, God birthed a supernatural love seed, that meant thereafter she had an anointing to bring love into situations, and to lead other Christians into Christ's love.

Now here's the point! For years the Body has had these pockets of anointing, but people have been content to have their little bit of the Kingdom. Well now no more. These Thin Place anointings are for sharing! Everywhere in the Body. People running to and fro throughout the Church equipping the saints. Faceless people. No more Fred Smith Ministries Incorporated. Just plain ordinary old Chris Welch, Julie Morris,Dan Bowen...going around imparting "the stuff" they've got in God. Their Apps! For the Body of Christ.

As a prophetic sign of all this back in 1991, when I set up a company to handle my CD I registered No Name Ltd.

No Name meaning not some big ministry name. And also taken from Philippians when it says of Jesus, He was made of no name, no reputation.

Roll out the Apps!

So to sum up, I want to encourage believers who feel they are in holes! That which you may struggle with, may already be valid "faith currency" in some other portion of the Body of Christ. It was for this reason I guess we used to toddle off to hear Benny Hinn and Morris Cerullo. (Not to put off any who still do!) If someone has got something in the Spirit that is not available in your vicinity, why not learn from them, I say? This need not necessarily mean you are "Conference chasers". In the end only the Holy Spirit will make it clear what you've got to travel for and what you have to wait on God for in your home environment and workplace.You will find both examples in the Bible. Elisha had to travel past a whole load of naysayers to be at the place where Elijah was going to leave him and transfer the anointing in double measure. The disciples however were instructed to remain in one location in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit was poured out among them in Acts 2.

I think the Free Believers network (places like Facebook) can be quite Fascistic in this respect. Who gives them the right to determine who is to be listened to and at what distance? Freedom is operating as a Kingdom without walls.

Some Americans from revivals early in the century, (and therefore by the 1970's quite grounded in God,) came to little old Grimsdells Lane in Amersham,UK. The two phrases they used to use were "supernaturally natural". And "Pass the platter round, take what is for you and leave the rest!" By that they meant , in any gathering of old and young Christians, there were going to be some things the Holy Spirit was saying to one lot, that He wasn't saying to others. Just take what's yours and move the platter on!

For some of us it's quite a big thing to bring our children through to experience God for themselves. For others in the Body of Christ this is already the norm.

In Emsworth the Casa Biblica was made up of really cool (apart from me ofcourse) Argentinian Spanish French and English young men and women. It was very natural for the next generation to want to emulate their hunger for God.

In Rustington is a street evangelism group who ran the children's work (my son Ben's age group) in 2008 RIVERcamp. They had clear Holy Spirit anointing and gifting for the task. Ben was impressed.

This weekend some of our church were in Fareham for teaching on youth led by people from Bethel, California entitled No More Crumbs. Some of our young people were encouraged to prophesy over the parents. It was fantastic, we heard.

The thrust was that children ARE NOT secondclass citizens in the Kingdom of God. And the teachers had clear gifting in presenting this subject.

So what is not yet normal for you maybe just a plane ticket away. Or as in this last case, paying for their ticket to get them over here. But who has heard of these servants of God with these giftings? Nobody. Does it matter? No , not really. The Body is stacked full of such giftings now, waiting to be released from nation to nation, locality to locality. There are things inside you that nobody else but you can share into the Body. There are things that you have now, from the word go, that would be a blessing in the Holy Spirit this week to someone else in the Body.

4 comments:

  1. You are such an encouragement Chris! You obviously love the body of Christ ~ Thanks!!!

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  2. I like what you said here: "[T]here is a side of me . . . that freak out at some of these things. We are convinced that a lot of the problems are caused because in bringing people to the Lord nearly no one 'explains the grace of God in truth,' so from the word go people are building their Christian life like the Tower of Pisa."

    I agree. Technology in the hands of the Spirit is wonderful (like this blog, for instance). Technology in the hands of men who like their legalistic philosophies is of no help at transforming hearts.

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  3. Lydia- I expect you've had glimpses of how wonderful the Body of Christ is when it gets going...some of the events you've been to.
    I once made the mistake of asking Eldred Linden (an IMA/Sam Fife/Move type ministry) what his hobby was? Ever humble, he quietly replied that he didn't have much time for a hobby. By this he meant bythe time he'd been round the jungles of South America, and Asia on donkeys and on foot, coupled with all the standard conference fayre of the more civilised (so called)nations....generally speaking the Word of the Lord about the Preparation of an End-time bride.....Actually it did make going down the bowling green a little bit difficult!
    As each person sees in the Spirit the amazing nature of this multinational church....ever more manifest...well it's hard not to fall in love with the Church.

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  4. Luke thanks for stopping by.I have just read some of your articles. They are very good.

    Discipleship. I could do a post on that. I've referred quite deeply to it in my series:thirdlevel look at ministry.

    The thing that is coming to the fore in Havant in the last months is :Fatherhood and relationship.
    Jack Fortenberry has just done a book which I will be offering soon called "Corinthian Elders".

    We have Greek systemes in the church, but as you write this "rabbi" and disciple way of operating is really unknown. We've had a Greek version. Asystematized version. Not that Ern Baxter/ Juan Carlos ortiz and others in the early shepherding movement ever meant it that way.
    I can truthfully say God blessed me with the real model in a man called Ron Knight in Amersham. We hadn't a clue what we were modelling. Or how rare it was. It just seemed normal. And we were all just following Jesus step by step. Around 1973. So when Ern Baxter and Ortiz turned up, we said "Wow...that's what we're doing". Imagine how boggled we were by the manufactured version that went right through the churches in the western world! His wife and I were chatting about it again over the weekend.Every structure has to be birthed through the Spirit. Everything else is just "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil" stuff.

    That's what the coming multitudes are going to be hungering for...a relationship with The Master Jesus...but helped along by experienced Christians who are prepared to relate with them...but not to yoke them to themselves, but give them a leg up to experiencing Christ in their own form...their own life story!
    SO SO SO SO SO SO far from anything out there at the moment.
    Seminaries haven't a clue.
    Churches haven't a clue.
    Pastors haven't a clue.
    So called Apostles haven't a clue. They aren't actually apostles...not in the Pauline use of the term...they are "Warehouse builders" With Hillsong Music attachments.
    An Apostle is like Alan Vincent who recently actually sat down with the people he was boarding with in Lee On Solent (friends of mine) and said tell me...what is it you are not getting. That's the first time anyone anywhere had done that with the husband, man to man. Transplanting Christ Himself is apostleship. The rest is getting people across the Red Sea, but not having a clue what to do with them then.

    You may have guessed I feel a little strongly on this. I think I'm building up strength for a Paul and Peter moment(remember the grace struggle in Acts)with some of the world's leading so-called apostles. "Rubbish,"I'll say, "You are not apostles. You don't even know about the 3rd level yet for your own lives, let alone transmitting it and imparting it to thousands of others. You are as lost as they are!"

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