The Faith Movement

The great late Kenneth Hagin, granddaddy of the Faith movement 

Back in the 1980s I used to go to the CMI Bible Week and browse the CMI bookshop looking at all these amazing dynamic looking books that hinted at a life that contained so much more. Typically these books written by guys like Kenneth Hagin, or Kenneth Copeland, Buddy Harrison, or other American preachers. They had exciting titles and held out promises for ordinary believers like me to access into that realm of the impossible and unobtainable which we knew was there, but somehow never in our experience.

These were books about faith. FAITH! Yes, these books had the keys - how to be promoted in life, how to sow and reap finance, how to prosper emotionally, financially, in health, how to `succeed! The key was always faith. FAITH!

The basic teaching was along these lines - God wants to do you good, he said it in His word and we know His word is true, so if you simply believe, you will have it, faith is the key.

These books also spoke about laws, like the law of faith. One of the laws of faith was that of sowing and reaping. Sow offerings and reap a financial harvest sometimes 10 times, 100 or 1000 times greater. Another law was the law of confessions of faith - the word of God confessed with faith is creative. Key verses included Mark 10 believe in your heart,confess with your mouth that it will come to heart and it will be yours. Anything you ask for believe in your heart and it will be yours.

They had phrases like "God said it, that settles it, I believe it". They taught you that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, so you just had to repeat the word of God long enough until you finally heard it. Hearing meant that you finally believed in your heart and not just your head.

There were some good basic truth as well - such as the fact that we all have faith as a gift, but we need to learn to develop it, to develop our faith muscles, to be rooted in the word, believe the over circumstances.

This stuff was exciting, you somehow felt that these books, messages had keys and principles that we needed to know to access this realm.

Today Kenneth Hagin, who was the grand daddy of this lot, has passed on to be with Jesus. But his descendants are still with us and a new generation - Kenneth Copeland, Earl Johnson, Creflo Dollar and others. They preach a great message and basically the message hasn't changed much.

Now the Faith gospel had its critics. Firstly there were the corrupt TV evangelists who misused the messages for their own personal gain. But more substantially there were theological critics. Many people rejected this because it seemed like a great big bless me party, and it ignored the purpose of bringing in God's kingdom. Others drew theological lines in the sand when they heard teachings by Kenneth Copeland on the subject of suffering, which seemed to indicate that if you were suffering it was because you were not exercising your faith properly. In fact many people felt that there was a huge incongruence between the life of  unlimited success, prosperity and health that these guys preached and the life that Jesus himself lived.

Some movements not only rejected the Faith gospel, but they so completely rejected it that they have taken almost nothing from them,and left their people woefully ignorant of the basic principles of faith and the inheritance that they have in God. I consider the NFI movement broadly in this latter category (with some exceptions), whereas my earlier church group Ministries without Borders taught the principles well, but put them into a much more balanced church context.

Whatever you think about the Faith Church movement one thing you can say is that they have a good knowledge and foundation of the word of God when it comes to faith, principles and laws. Kenneth Hagin was a prophet, an excellent teacher of spiritual things and he totally lived the stuff he taught. He taught by example and his life was very supernatural. I'd also say that a core teaching message that ignores faith and the promises of blessing is also completely unbiblical. God wants us blessed and prospering supernaturally.

But the real problem with the Faith Gospel as it is called is that it just doesn't work. I know because I tried it for years. I tithed and sowed financially and saw little or no return. I prayed for healing and then saw no result and kept believing - i.e. trying to talk myself into believing it. I prayed for jobs and various things and did my best to confess, believe and  listen to the promises repeatedly. It rarely worked. lets be honest. This stuff sucks!

A faith minister would say "thats the problem you tried it", or "you didn't believe in your heart,just your head". They would tell me that God's word is true today, yesterday and forever, and if I rightly applied the word and believed I would have a result like a mathematical solution - literally. Promise + faith + confession = result every time. You see it is a science.

If you were in the faith movement and needed a healing you would meditate and confess the word of healing until you felt that you had enough faith, then you would go for prayer and decide/try to believe in your heart, because whatever you believe in your heart you shall have.  You would show your faith with your confession. Even if you were not healed you would hold onto the confession. You would not ask God or the preacher again for healing because that would indicate that you had not believed. If you weren't healed you knew it was because you didn't believe.

Okay, so what is my point? It is not that the faith gospel is nonsense. It isn't. Of course the faith gospel isn't the whole counsel of God, and of course it has been badly applied at times.  But there are foundations of understanding there that we need. Guys like Todd Bentley, Bill Johnson, Randy Clark all understand these principles even though they aren't in Faith Churches themselves.

But no, my point is this - the faith gospel doesn't work quite simply because it has reduced the whole thing down to principles and laws. The key to breakthrough in the realm of faith is not how well or not you are applying the principles and laws but relationship. The key is RELATIONSHIP.

God doesn't give you break through, blessing and favour because you applied law but because He loves you and you asked Him. Its because He is your father and you are His son.

For the first time in my life I began to discover break through in areas like finance and healing when I started to come to Him and seek intimacy with God. I started by asking Him to show me how it worked. I started to develop my own relationship with the Holy Spirit and learnt how to let Him guide me in the way I pray.I began to discover the secret place, that sanctuary where there is intimacy with the Father. In that place I found that God started to reveal His secrets to me. In that place God showed me one time that I had everything I needed in heaven, and if I gave an offering ,I'd be able to release these riches.

From that place I decided to sow. I sowed 200 euros and received a 2000 cheque the following day from my agency as a back paid bonus that I had asked for 12 months earlier which they had pretty much refused and I had forgotten about. I have no idea why they suddenly changed their mind. I carried on sowing, and my boss called me in and told me she was giving me a £5 an hour pay rise I hadn't asked for. With the bonus my salary jumped by £7.50 and hour. That was about £1300 more a month.

A year later, facing a crises in work and the real threat of redundancy I went into that place and I felt led to decree under the leading of the Holy Spirit that I would not be laid off but that I would come into a greater responsibility, a promotion. I stood in His presence and decreed this. Three months later my boss took me aside and told me that I was being promoted to another two grades. I took over a new team. The following year it happened again and I am taking over an entire section.

It was after spending hours seeking God's presence and asking God for healing that I saw my first healing in early 2009 at church after 20 years. It was almost the only healing the church had seen in two or three years, and it came as a first fruit before healing became a feature in that church. I've seen more healings since and the church has come into a lot of healing since then. But I saw a change because I started to come to Father and to ask Him,and to cultivate that relationship. Not because I applied laws and principles outside of relationship. I never saw a single person healed ever when I applied faith laws and spiritual mathematics.

By the way, another key to this was putting God's kingdom first. God showed me that this didn't mean putting God's commitment to God and the church above my career as I had been taught, it meant seeking His kingdom  - you know - break through in healing, salvation and seeing the heavenly world on the earth. If this is where your focus is then the faith promises will awake and come alive to you. They will find you and seek you out. You won't need to spend hours quoting verses, the favour will seek you out. It will come to you!

Having said all this,I have to say that knowing the basic principles of faith - thanks to these faith teaching guys - is and was an essential foundation. These teachings give you an educated basis from which to understand God and His kingdom and then move out in faith. But if you really want these principles to work, soak them in oil from His presence and exercise them in the place of intimacy with Him.

One of the things that this new move of God has brought in is that emphasis on relationship and intimacy with God. And there seem to be more healings, manifestations and supernatural activities and break throughs in these movements than in the large well orchestrated Faith churches I see around today. Could it be that God is saying something?

Just a thought!

Miracles are easy in France

What would happen if instead of talking about God we actually went out with Jesus to do miracles in the street? The other day I had the chance to find out. We were at a meeting in Ales with a small group from the Bethel church in Redding, a guy called Chuck Parry and three of his team.

I kind of knew it would be good, but I wasn't expecting it to be as amazing as it turned out to be. That morning when I awoke the first thing in my head was "today I am going to see the hand of Jesus at work". I think that turned out to be a thought from above.

Anyway, we turned up at the meeting, there were not that many people there, and it was a very rainy wet day. There was not much of a warm up before they announced that we were going out to do some miracles on the street. I wasn't aware that this was going to be part of the day, so okay...lets go. They asked who wanted to do a "chasse au tresor" (treasure hunt), and I reluctantly lifted my hand, really regretting that once again I had put myself forward for one of these dreadful assignments that somehow never seemed to come off when I did them, but I hey, surely it would work one day, right?

However, that afternoon during the worship I also knew that I was going to pray for someone in the street and see them healed, something I had been wanting to do for a long time. So I had a sense of anticipation.

So a small handful started out with the "chasse au tresor" thing - where you ask God for clues as to where to go, someone's name, their appearance, their need and anything else that comes to mind. The theory is that God will give you clues and you'll find the treasure that you are looking for - a person that God wants to do good for. My only problem is that I couldn't get any words of knowledge. Whatever I came up with seemed ridiculous, and I had no confidence that it was from God.

Anyway, an American guy from the team called Kris joined us and took us out to go find our clue.  Kris was a lot more confident about my capacity to hear from God a word of knowledge than I was. I guess its not supposed to be that way around? Anyway, two of us had the word "fish" on our list of clues, so we headed to the super market with the clue, ridiculous as that sounds. On the way we passed a garage and Kris stopped us and asked one of us who spoke French to go into the garage and ask "where is the guy with the problem with the hip". Okay, I thought, so he has had a word of knowledge, great, so in we went and asked this small group of guys. Guess what happened? They looked really blank, and confused, and said no-one had a hip problem! Hmmm....

In fact they looked at us really weird and asked who had sent us. I evaded answering, thanked them very much and left. Kris didn't seem too put off by this, and told us:

"you know what, I'll tell you something about people - they don't always tell the truth."

Hmm, I thought, those guys didn't seem to be telling us any lies. This is sounding a bit like a scam so far...hmmm. But I decided to give it more time and keep an open mind. Unfortunately things didn't get any better! We found a place with blue and electric light, which was someone's clue and Kris went in to see the lady with a translator and came out five minutes later with no joy. Hmmmm.....maybe this stuff isn't all its meant to be?

Then we went to the fish counter and I saw a woman wearing a blue coat and boots which was on my list so Kris encouraged me to go speak to her, show her the list and ask if she had any particular health needs. He had asked me what came to mind, and nothing had, so he tried a health problem such as a bad leg or knee. Sounds suspiciously like guessing, hmmm. So, anyway, I approached, and she was very nice but had no health problem in her knee, and in fact assured me that she had no health problem at all, but was very nice about it.

Hmmmmmmm....some how this wasn't reassuring, and we wandered around wondering where to go next. It would have been easy to get discouraged or cynical at this point, but that wasn't in anyone's mind, and we walked around looking for someone we might pray for.

Then Kris saw a woman in the supermarket aisle who obviously had a problem with her foot, and he went over to her, so I followed and began to translate and speak to her with Kris. We made friends, asked her about her foot, and she confirmed that she had a problem with her left foot. We asked if we could pray for her and she said yes. Then Kris said "I can see that you love Jesus", and she agreed. She was a Catholic. Then he said "you have a problem with your hip" She said "yes, thats right, I have a prothesis". Then he said "you have a problem with your left shoulder as well, God wants to heal that" She looked surprised and said "yes, I do, I was born congenitally deformed on my left side". (It wasn't evident to me that she had a hip and shoulder problem, just that she walked oddly). Then Kris said you have a problem with your stomach here, and indicated just below the stomach. She said "il devine tout!" (literally "he devines everything!") and said she had had three caesarian sections and this had left her with problems there. So I explained this was God revealing this, that it was because God wanted to heal her and not to invade her privacy etc. She was very open. He then said " also the bladder" and I said "sorry I can't translate that" so he showed again where and she agreed again. In fact this woman seemed to be a walking health problem, and Kris had correctly seen four or five specific problems that she had.

We prayed for her, commanding health and healing into her body in Jesus name, and she went really quiet, and and Kris said "from today things will be different". Then Kris asked her to put her hand on her heart and pray for the Holy Spirit to fill her, which she did, and we asked if she could feel that. She said she did and she said she had these "frissons" go through her body when we'd prayed for her healing. You could see a peace on her. We asked her to test out her healing and she bent down and said yes that better now. She was really blessed and wow.

Thank you Jesus!

We caught up with the other guys and explained what had happened. As we stood there Kris told one of the guys to approach a woman nearby and ask her if she had a headache. So he did and they both walked off in a long discussion that went on for about ten fifteen minutes.

So we waited around, and, the other guy with us who was a young 24 year old American with YWAM asked Kris how did he see illnesses. Kris said that he sees them when he looks at people often, or it comes into his head. So he turned to me and said what do you see when you look at him?  Kris looked at me and said "nothing", and then he asked and what about me? And Kris looked at him and asked why, what do you have wrong? So the guy said I tore a ligament in my right knee three years ago whilst doing a marathon and I have have constant pain, constantly as a result and can't run. So Kris turned up his piece of paper and he had pain in right knee written down on it! So he asked me to pray for him. So I tapped his knee and said "pain jump off for good in Jesus name".

One second later, Kris asks - so how is the knee now, and the guy said "its gone, its completely gone". So we double checked whether he was usually in pain and he yes constantly, but it has completely gone.

Whoa! Thank you Jesus! We were really surprised for some reason.

So, we caught up with the other guy who had just finished speaking to the lady with the shopping trolley, and he said that yes she does have along standing really bad headaches, but she wouldn't let him pray for her. The American asked Kris how he knew to ask that, and Kris said, "word of knowledge". Kris advised the guy who had been speaking to her that if he saw her later he should just go and say "the headache is leaving in the name of Jesus" and just let her get healed.

By this time our time way up and we headed back. Not before we prayed for another woman who turned out to be in our meeting. At the meeting afterwards we had a feedback time from the various teams who had been out. The stories came in thick and fast. There was a non christian healed in a shop of metal in their body who was able to move following prayer. Another who was healed of some long standing problem who was so amazed that they asked someone to come and pray for their mother who was also very unwell. (I heard that someone did that several weeks later and the mother was also healed!). Someone who got healed asked where the church met so that they could come along.Others were touched and amazed. It seemed like everyone came back with a story to tell. Jesus had been out on the street that day with his people.

I thought we were finished,  and headed off for something to eat with the Bethel team. Unfortunately we found we had 30 minutes to kill before the restaurant opened, so we wandered back to the shopping centre.

Clearly Kris wasn't finished, and he saw a guy with his daughter buying a mobile phone in a kiosk. The guy had this huge leg brace on and Kris started to get enthused about what God was going to do. He said he could feel the power of God in his body. We waited for him to come out and then said hello and asked him about his leg. He said that his leg had been paralyzed in a car accident about seven years earlier. The guy was of Arab origin and probably a Muslim. Anyway I told him that we had seen miracles that day in the supermarket and we'd like to pray for him, would he mind if we prayed for him too? He was very amiable and agreed. So we prayed for his leg. Nothing seemed to happen, and he looked relatively nonplussed.  I felt I'd come to the end of what I could do, and said he needed to try it out when he got home. Kris told me to tell the guy that when he - Kris - put his foot on the guy's foot he would feel electricity going up his leg. So Kris gently put his foot on that of the guy, and he sort of went quiet and watched, then Kris said and God is healing your elbow as well, and the guy immediately began to stretch and twist out his right arm, clenching and unclenching his hand, looking surprised and taken aback.

Next to us Helen began translating for one of the women from the Bethel team who addressed the girl and said "I see that you like dancing" and the father confirmed that yes she does hip hop. Then the girl from Bethel said "you are going to teach dance" and various other things about God liking her dance etc. The girl was welling up and clearly touched. The dad was too.

Kris finished by telling the guy that Allah loved him, and wanted to show him His father heart. They left a bit kind of blown away.

Then we went to dinner. During the whole time I felt a sort of weightiness on me that I wasn't used to. Even during dinner I became aware of it, and it was so strong that I had a hard time concentrating and joining in the discussion. I knew it was God or from God, but even so it was slightly disconcerting. During dinner Kris prophesied over a couple of people, and they both went quiet and seemed moved - something I had now seen happen several times that day.

After dinner we had another meeting where Chuck Parry spoke. I strongly recommend people to check this out on the Ales church website: (in French and English)

http://beta.messages.ac-ac.fr/messages/193

Later we again prayed for people in the meeting and the guy in front of me with a problem of his leg was completely healed. I knew by now that this was easy, and was completely unsurprised when he was healed. Thank you Jesus! That's what is supposed to happen!

 This was the biggest activation I have had in walking in the miraculous. As the guy from the team said before we went out "I believe God is going to hit the 'easy' button". I found out that doing miracles is easy in France.

Who wants to go out and do some more?






  

 

French Etiquette

If you want to know how to hold your fork and avoid having the air of a "plouc", Marie de Tilly (right) can instruct you on French étiquette.

If you have been living in France for any length of time you naturally want to "dine" with your French friends and neighbours. That is "diner" or "déjeurner" with, not "manger" with. "Manger" is ugly, cela ne se dit pas. You "mange une pomme", but you dine with your friends. Ah yes thats how it is.

And if you want to dine with your friends you do need to know some of the basic rules of the table, so as not to offend or make faux pas and feel socially awkward, which is after all so easy in a country where the language is quasiment inprononçable before you even start.

So, I am intensely grateful that Marie de Tilly comes to the rescue on France Culture Radio, as you might expect on France's equivilent of Radio 4, and delightfully instructs fluent speaking foreigners in matters of taste and elegance at the French dinner table. And, "élégance" is what it is all about it apparently. What is elegant or isn't is the deciding factor in matters related to French étiquette.

So here are some basic rules:

1) Do not turn up on time. No, no, no! It is somewat rude to do so, and if you do you will probably find your host still getting dressed. Turn up between 15 - 30 minutes late. If they say come at 7.00 they mean come after 7.00.

2) Be clean and dress elegantly and smartly. Make a good first impression, have a firm handshake, not a bone crusher or a limp fish. Yes you can bring a gift also, sometimes even the day before apparently.

3) You don't say "enchanté" - you add a little phrase such as "je suis enchanté de vous faire connaissance", or something else in a sentence that makes a link with that person.

4) When introduced to a couple, always greet the woman first. You also stand up to meet a woman if you are a man, but a woman does not need to stand to greet a man.

5) At meals always wait for the maitresse, the woman of the house, decide where you sit, and when to start the meal. In fact she is your guide to almost everything.

6) The maitress will put the woman the most honoured to her right and the woman the most aged to her left. However these days it is indiscrete to identify the woman who is the oldest so this isn't really done except in very bourgeois households, or where there is an older woman who would expect this.

7) You do not say "bon appétit". No, no no, this is not élégant. You would only say that with very informal gatherings and maybe in the south. Don't say it in a soirée in Paris. It is said still in restaurants however.

8)Keep your hands on the table. French people never let their hands stray into their laps. Its not done.

9) You can talk about politics etc but obviously avoid doing so if you are seated with extremists.

10) Do not get up to go to the toilet during the meal. This doesn't happen. If you need to go, wait until the maitresse is changing courses and ask to go and "laver les mains", wash you hands.

11) The cheese is only served once, it does not come back round, so take what you want the first time around.

12) Do not help yourself to wine. Your host will take care of that for you generally.

13) When your host brings out fruit juices at the end of the repas you know that it is time to go. She is tired and wants you to finish up.

14) You can send a card to remercier your host afterwards.


If you want to hear more here is the podcast itself:

http://www.franceculture.fr/emission-les-bonnes-mani%C3%A8res-5-la-french-etiquette-2007-01-12.html

Empowering Leadership

If your stated aim is to build an apostolic church that transforms the world around it (see previous article on the Apostolic Reformation) then what would the leadership culture of such a church look like? And more to the point, what would it not look like?

Reading Kris Vallotan's book Heavy Rain recently a particular paragraph stood out to me and struck home. Its like when someone puts their finger on something that you had been experiencing but had never quite realised before, and you suddenly go "oh yeah! That's it".

He was talking about building a leadership culture in churches that helps people to become great. In other words, he encourages leaders to not just aim to make people "good" but great. By great he means fulfilling their potential for greatness that people have in God. Each of us are called to significance, to be great, to achieve something awesome with our lives in Him, and that brings Him glory. David had a hero culture - his mighty men, whose exploits were recorded.

So if your aim is to create a culture where people become great and do amazing things, then you would need a culture that releases this in people, that empowers people, and doesn't dis-empower them.

This is what he said:

"Empowering leaders make decisions with people, not just for people. When we withhold information from our people or tell them just what they need to know to get their job done, we produce slave camps in which one person does all the thinking. This is religion on steroids."

"If we are going to become a house of heros, we need fresh ideas, untried solutions, innovation and bold, courageous thoughts delivered by risk takers, not zoo keepers"

The aim of parenthood is to bring our kids to the point of being able to make good decisions for themselves and manage themselves without ongoing direction and control from you. If after 20 years your offspring still need you to run their lives for them then you have completely failed as a parent.

No child can grow up without being allowed some degree of autonomy, taking some risks and making their own mistakes, learning the hard way. Indeed child development psychologist Erickson tells us that at certain stages of a child's life, it is essential for healthy psychological development that children experience some degree of autonomy. If they are not allowed to do this then they will never come to maturity under your tutelage. Sometimes I think that's why God lets us make so many mistakes!

Last week I was in a meeting with a social worker and one of my team carrying out an exercise in consultation about a new Quality Assurance regime we were trying to bring into the Council where I work. I asked them to start by identifying the outcomes that they wanted to achieve in their work with children and the social worker said something that completely surprised me.

He said that he wanted social workers to have"autonomy".

My first reaction was that of hearing alarm bells ring. The thought of letting social workers loose with autonomy frankly scared me. I don't have enough confidence in the majority of our social workers to let them have "autonomy" in a publicly run service working with vulnerable children at significant risk, at times to the point of life or death. There is a legitimate need for management to control the work that is taking place.

On further discussion with him, where we got to was to re-frame what he meant. Whilst he used the word autonomy what he was saying was that as an intelligent, thoughtful, reflective professional what he wanted was his own professional judgement to be respected and listened to in supervision. He wanted to be given more responsibility and control over his case loads in the context of careful supervision.

To put it another way - he wanted managers to stop treating him and his colleagues like children who had to be directed and controlled all the time. And there he had a point. A very good point as well.

The last government in the UK had in its wisdom invented and imposed a tight strait jacket of rules, regulations, procedures and timescales to micro manage social workers. They have set timescales for their visits, a set IT template to complete that was invented by someone who has never had to do a social worker's job before, and is measured by performance indicators that skew the work towards fulfilling bureaucratic processes instead of concentrating on the outcomes for the children they are working for. It has been a recipe for disaster.

Social workers feel demoralised, disempowered and demotivated by this approach. They feel part of a machine more interested in meeting government targets than making a difference to children. And they know that meeting the demands of the bureaucracy is getting in the way of meeting the needs of the children.

These aren't just my impressions - they are also the findings of a government funded report into children's social care by Eileen Munro, published in May 2011.

So whats my point?

Well, its very simple - we can't build an empowering culture by operating a top down, directive, and controlling style of leadership. If we want to release the potential in people to achieve great things we have to empower them. We have to give them responsibility, to take some risks, and stop trying to do all the thinking for them.

I think that starts by taking decisions with people and not making decisions for people. Now, there is a thought.

The Apostolic Reform

Bob Jones (right) said several years ago that 2012 would be the year of the restoration of apostolic government.

"Apostolic government?" "Restoration?" Now, thats interesting, I have always been taught that we already had the restoration of apostolic government. We've had Terry Virgo, Keri Jones, his brother Bryn Jones, and then we have Gerald Coates, Alan Scotland, Arthur Wallis and Tony Morton, to name but a few. So what is he talking about?

And some of you may be wondering who is Bob Jones anyway?

Well, Bob Jones is a prophet. And no he isn't particularly recognised by any of these guys named above, at least I have never heard Terry Virgo or any of the others quoting Bob Jones.

Bob Jones was one of the Kansas City Prophets back in the eighties. He was also closely linked with Todd Bentley and reputedly has frequent visitations from angels and visions and various stuff. In fact to listen to him teach its really like nothing I have ever heard before.

A number of years ago his testimony was that he died and went to heaven where Jesus met him and sent him back down to "prepare the end time generation", and he has been a point of reference to the new generation that has been rising up ever since.

So, what on earth does he mean by the restoration of apostolic government? And why haven't we already got that if we have apostles, right?

Well let me start by saying we do not have authentic new testament apostolic government. We have men with apostolic gifting, but none of the aforementioned men are carrying the fullness of apostolic government or authority, or even building authentic apostolic churches.

Let me say that these men are forerunners who have built a foundation in their day. They are like John the Baptist clearing the way of the Lord, preparing the bride for the groom. But let me put it this way - if these guys represented the fullness of apostolic ministry I would be very disappointed. And I mean very.

So whats the problem?

Okay there are several:

1) These men were all focused on building the church. That has been their main ministry for the last 30 years and indeed it was their authentic call at that time. Just look at how well they have done - we have moved out of dead structures, replaced them with vibrant joyful communities of christians who serve others, love others and are built on godly character. Worship is lively, there are gifts of the spirit at work, and most of them are evangelising and growing, even if slowly at times.

Whats wrong with that? Nothing - its an amazing achievement in one generation, and we are all grateful for the race these guys have run. These men all deserve to be highly honoured. But it is not finished.

What is now missing is their focus on the kingdom of God. The kingdom is primordial, it was Jesus primary ministry. He went everywhere announcing the good news of the kingdom and demonstrating it. The kingdom is within us and our mission is to go and release the kingdom in the world around us. By its nature, the kingdom is a supernatural kingdom that does not consist primarily of teachings and word but of power. Our mission is not to go build churches that meet our doctrinal specifications but to transform society with the kingdom of God.

This doesn't mean that we should stop building good churches or throw out all the achievements of the past, but the type of church that apostles build is different to the type of church that these guys have so far built.

2) Kris Vallotan gives a great prophetic picture of the difference between apostolic churches and non apostolic churches, which he calls pastorate based churches. Its the difference between the Pool of Bathesda and Ezekiel's river.

The Pool of Bethesda was a pool where people gathered to wait for the water to stir and then the first one in got healed. That is exactly how our churches run today. If we want to meet God and receive a touch from Him, we have to come to a church meeting, and wait for a moment when something happens - a good outside speaker, a special prophetic moment, or an anointing. They we go forward and get prayer and if you are lucky you might get healed!

Ezekial's river is a picture of a church where the presence and sanctuary of God is seated. And flowing out of this place is a river of living water that runs into the world around it bringing life and healing of the nations. The further away from the temple building the deeper the water becomes. This equates to the church carrying revival out into the world around it, ordinary christians bringing healing into the streets, homes, marriages, businesses, etc.

A truely apostolic work will look more like Ezekial's river than the Pool of Bethsada. But it needs real apostolic government to establish this. It will make christians carriers of revival, not recipients of good meetings.

3) Most of these guys have not built a culture where the saints are equipped to do miracles and bring in the kingdom. Most of them have been quite successful in developing their own gifting and establishing their spiritual authority in the churches they run.

But the whole point of Ephesians Four ministry is to "prepare the saints for works of service". In other words one of their main jobs is to help people like you and me do the things that Jesus did and release the kingdom in the world and transform our world.

I give an example: a well known apostle from one of these movements came to our church in 2011 and spoke on the "supernatural church". He then demonstrated some miracles by praying for eight people or so who had spinal problems. His message was - the NT church is meant to have a supernatural dimension, so now watch me demonstrate some supernatural activity.

Thats all very good and I rejoice in every person healed of a back problem. But the central problem here is that this guy did not do fundamental Ephesians Four ministry which was to equip the saints to do those things, not to show them that he can do it.

This example typifies the approach of apostles I mentioned before. They have missed the fundamental point of their ministry. They have inadvertently sustained a clergy laity split in terms of spiritual gifting. I do the miracles, you come along for prayer or watch.

Now if you take the example of Bill Johnson, for one, he will demonstrate miracles and give testimonies - but with the sole intention of glorifying God and equipping you and me to do the same. And he is carrying enormous favour from heaven for doing so.

The fact is that in the last twenty five years in these churches we have been taught about godly character, serving, commitment, basic christian doctrine, but very, very little on what it is to bring in the kingdom.

4) The third area that troubles me about these "apostolic" ministries is that whilst they have not built denominations, they have built churches with a denominational spirit. Church leaders will often not work with other churches because they did not agree with their doctrines. They will usually only work with people "who shared their vision", and that usually means in almost 100% agreement with their doctrine, way of doing things, views about women, especially with apostolic structures etc. Even the different apostolic teams themselves don't work together.

People who are outside the stream are distrusted and prevented from influencing the flock where possible. The apostles decide who is okay or not and frankly - most of the time they are not okay. Sometimes its the personal style, sometimes its the package it comes in, or one or two doctrines which offend and causes them to throw it all out. As a result there is an entire panoply of new teachings and revelation that God is revealing to parts of His church that are simply not being embraced by these movements. They are at risk of drying up and becoming passé and demodé. There are whole boxes that other ministries get put into, and as such are rejected.

To give an example, Benny Hinn carries one of the greatest anointings in the world today, but these churches would never invite him in because they don't believe in his "one man band" ministry approach. He just doesn't fit. And they don't like his white suit either! Well, okay, personally I don't believe in one man ministries, and I don't like his white coat particularly. But if I could meet God through him and receive a powerful anointing, I would put that aside. If it is good enough for Randy Clark to receive impartation from Benny Hinn then it is surely good enough for you and me!?

The entire attitude of Todd Bentley's ministry up to and following the Florida out pouring and beyond has been to bring a new fresh corporate anointing to the church. Anyone who has spent time listening to Todd will have heard of amazing things that were happening. But his attitude was to give it away freely - there were no preconditions.

I can't help feeling that if God has selected some of these "apostolic" movements to receive the same anointing they would have used it to build their own denominations instead of giving it away freely to all. That's what a denominational spirit leads to.

BTW - all I have said earlier about the lack of focus on the kingdom or lack of teaching and equipping for bringing in the kingdom would actually not be an issue IF these "apostolic" ministries had been willing to receive from outside their streams. No-one has everything, that's okay. But the denominational spirit is blocking their willingness to receive from people who don't line up with their doctrine and style.

Thank God that He is bypassing these guys and doing it anyway - using some unusual candidates, characters. One person He has used is Heidi Baker - a woman - thus putting into doubt a whole lot of chauvinist theology about women in apostolic ministry.

So what does authentic apostolic government actually look like? Well, I have two more articles on the subject which go some way to address this question. I don't believe anyone has the final word on this yet, but some key things have emerged on this journey already, and have become much clearer since this article was originally published just three years ago.

God is indeed reforming His church, for those brave enough to go with Him.

2011 (up dated 2013)

The Drôme

The Drôme is east of the Gard, and part of Provence. It is a largely unspoilt by tourists in the summer, with authentic picturesque villages, beautiful hills, gorges and rivers, vineyards, large open blue skies and warm generous sunshine.

Sovereignty of God

This concept means simply that God is in control of everything. A simple message with massive recupercussions, and frankly the cause of a lot of problems too. If God is in control of everything then He must also be responsible for everything, but a God who does not control everything? How many christians can cope with that idea?

The Calvinists are so attached to this idea that anyone who says the simple words "God is not in control" are seized with indignation and call it heresy. But the simple fact is that God really isn't controlling everything. No, He isn't. He could but He has chosen not to. Just like we as parents could become hyper controlling of our children but choose NOT to, so God does not hyper control every detail of your life or the events of the world.

One of the reasons why God is not in control because He devolved authority and control of the world to us - man.

Adam was God's ruler and steward called to exercise dominion and "rule" if you recall. What happened in the book of Gensis - and read it how you will (literally or symbolically) - is that Adam stepped out of God's devolved authority and handed the keys over to another ruler whose intent was entirely different. That person was the devil.

There is no record of sickness, suffering, pain, evil or famine in the Garden of Eden. That came in when the keys were handed over. There is no record of it in heaven either.

So fast forward to the year 30 AD and Jesus teaches his disciples to pray as he did "our Father in heaven, Hallowed be your name, let your will be done on earth as it is done in heaven".

Stop there. That means that God's will in not being done on the earth right now. It isn't being done on earth yet. Clearly God isn't controlling everything. But God does have a plan. A plan to restore all things under Jesus' feet back to how they were and then some.

Jesus prayed that we should ask God that His kingdom - or rule - comes, and that His will is done on the earth as in heaven. Which means that we can bring in that rule. We can co-operate with God and bring in the rule of heaven on the earth.

Problem is God hasn't stopped devolving His power and authority down to mankind in His people. Remember His call and gifts are irrevokable. Jesus restored the relationship and the kingdom - rule of God on the earth. We just have to start working out how to actually exercise it. (Strangely I have only started to be taught how to do this in the last three years of my christian life...but thats another story.)

And that is where the Calvinists have gone horribly wrong. Most Calvinists have never considered that God wants to partner with them to bring in His kingdom rule on earth. They are too stuck in a rigid idea that God is literally controlling and manipulating everything around them in a deterministic way. Now of course God can and has intervened in His sovereignty in history, but it isn't His usual way of doing stuff.

He expects us to pick up our mantle and responsibility and partner with Him.

Second area that Calvinists have got it wrong is that they fixate on the fact that God sovereignly chooses who will be saved. They love teaching that it is God who decides and chooses, which is right and true, but I have never heard one teach that once saved - the rest of your life is not down to sovereign acts by God - it is down to your partnership with God and the exercise of your obedience and faith. (Sometimes I have even heard defeat and failure in christians has been put down to the mysterious sovereign will of God. No - you/we just didn't get it right)

When bad things happen in churches, relationships, marriages, personal failure etc, using the theology of a sovereign God who somehow controls every detail in your life in a deterministic way is just plain stupid. At what point do people mess up and at what point does God pre-ordain that to happen? I don't believe God pre-ordains His people to mess up.

Bill Johnson puts it well, he says God is in charge, not in control - there is a difference. Or another way - God is in authority, not in control.

Do you want a verse for all this? Christians like verses - well Paul says in Hebrews 2 v 8 that "all things have been put under Jesus' feet" and nothing is not subject to Him, "but now we do not see all things subjected to Him".

Thirdly - Calvinist churches also have a very bad understanding of prophetic promises. Most people with this idea of a sovereign all controlling God think when they get a prophecy from Him, that this is some sort of fixed thing that God is going to bring about in the future if you will just wait long enough and co-operate with Him.

Actually it is much more complicated than that. What God has done in a true prophetic word I believe is to create something in the spirit just for you. You have to then seize it and use that word to break into the reality of that thing. Paul talked about using the prophetic word in the good fight - or fighting with the prophecies - decreeing the prophetic over your circumstances. Those promises won't bear any fruit if you don't combine the word with faith, activate it with action and bring them back to God in prayer. As someone once put it - prophecy is the potential.

For example if God promises to give you a ministry like Katherine Kulman, then go read about her, find out how she sought God for her anointing and press in like she did to get it. If you don't actually start praying for people and believing that word it simply won't happen. What God has given is the potential for you to have such and such, but you get there by stewardship and obediance. It isn't automatic.

Do you see how important it is to understand the sovereignty of God properly?

I would dearly like to see this preached properly in churches, so people would seize their destiny, learn to partner with God, be taught who they are and what they have inside them, and not wait for the sovereign move of God to come "suddenly" out of the blue (as I have heard some senior leaders in Calvist movements teach!)

Last point - if God is not in control how can we have any reassurance for the future? Well, the bible indicates quite clearly that God has ultimate control - i.e. is in charge, in authority - and that He exercises His sovereignty to limit the extent of evil, to restrain it, usually for our protection. Even the devil has to go to God for permission to attack His people. Not even a bird can fall from the sky without His knowing it. It also teaches us that He extends His wings over us and us and knows every detail of our lives. But I come back to the fact that if we don't partner with Him we may miss His best for our lives and His will. It won't do you much good believing that God is in control of your life if He is waiting for you to get up and deal with the storms that come along. Come on, this is bad doctrine that holds you back and stops us growing - which is why I am kicking it so much.