Concerning where we are in our training

Between our last training session and our next, I thought it best to recap and comment on our discussion on Acts 16.

As we have been focusing on the ministry of the Spirit, as well as the Word, we have been endeavoring to lay a foundation of practice in these 2 core building blocks of ministry, without which, we would tend to be ministering according to our flesh without lasting spiritual fruit. But what is often missed is the fact that just as in swimming, pulling and kicking are essential basic components to racing, the point is that they must be put together into winning ministry to the lost. Without that, these 2 activities are like 2 disembodied organs that were never meant to be activities unto themselves. God’s heart is burdened that none should perish, and it is when the love of God reaches to the world and to those who come to church in search of His reality that the combining Spirit and Word thrust forward in ministry!

Gearing up for the harvest – what to expect

In our last session we looked at Acts 16 as a model that portrays God’s building of a move of the Spirit in a place – a city, an organization, a neighborhood, a network of relationships, or a people-group. All of us are pregnant with the transformed souls of people in our places of witness – our Philippi! We are definitely engaged in a massive spiritual battle whether we’ve signed up for it or not! Here are some of the key components in the move of God:

1. “No” as “not this” (vs.6-10) – God often begins by guiding us into the field that He is calling us to. This happens often by closed doors, and what seem like No’s. These are not meant to discourage us, but to redirect and singularize us in the direction of the harvest field that He has us minister in. The result of taking No as guidance is a conviction that activates us in the right direction. Here, God is identifying the field and focusing us on it.

And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

2. Going to where God has evidenced His work of creating openness –
As a rule of thumb, it’s better to follow the path of His opening of doors to people’s hearts, than to go where people are not yet open, or to be directed by some objectified, formulated or systematic criterion for where to spend your time reaching out to people. The river was a place of prayer where people were seeking God. We need a nose and a feel for this. This can be developed, and often, openness is quite observable. As we pray more and more in the spirit, our senses are made more aware of this openness.

3. Recognizing Lydia – The opening of a person’s life and home to us is a very precious thing, and is often an indication of someone whom God has his hand on in relation to you and the mission. I’ve found that in the preparation for a move of God, there would always be a Lydia kind of person whom God uses greatly to advance the kingdom of His love. These key people often show a desire to learn, to be used by God, and a willingness to open their homes to others. Expect Lydia’s to show up. Dwell with them, and spend time with them.

4. Confronting the powers – Because the activation of a move of God is the result of a breach in the ranks of principalities and powers in the spiritual realm, spiritual battles are a necessary part of the process. In this case, the powers were manifesting themselves in the maid, and rulers and the mob.
There will inevitably be a resistance that can touch a variety of forms. This is because you are going in prayer “behind enemy lines.” There will invariably be attacks from the Enemy, but this only serves to confirm that you are connecting with real spiritual things, and the Enemy is feeling it.

The important thing to note here is that when things seem to go wrong, it is not a sign that God is not with you, or that you are in the wrong field. Quite the opposite may be in play. It’s almost as if the Enemy has shot at you, but he will not be able to take away anything essential from you. There may be a shaking off of things, relationships and freedoms that are not essential, but that is usually used by God to focus us.

5. The Tipping point – The persecution, imprisonment and restriction imposed upon Paul and Silas did not dampen their spirits, but called forth the irrepressible in them! God shakes off everything in us that can be pressed down, until only the irrepressible remains. And it is this that shakes the spiritual atmosphere.  Definitely stay for this.  This is the tipping point!

6. Now it’s your turn! – Now is the time to really go forth with boldness. The devil has had his turn; now it’s yours. Stay interceding in the spirit. For now, everything is in the spirit. The whole way in which you are moving transforms into a way conditioned by the now emboldened, sensitized and freed-up soul that has been set free by the warfare. Most people merely go by their senses, and give up when the things they have depended upon are removed. You may be reduced to sickness, unpopularity, and stuttering, with few who would give you any credibility. You may be marginalized, categorized and dismissed. But in the little space that you have left, make sure that your spirit has been growing in faith and in the apprehension of God in a way not dependent of circumstances and externals. That is the time to praise God and sing. That’s because the singing, praising, and speaking will be of a wholly different quality.

Harvest Time

I believe, anyone who desires to see a move of God (harvest) will experience points 4-6 in some way. Many of us are, perhaps without realizing it, already at point 4. Do not be afraid. God will bring you through, and the reward is like no other. Points 1-3 are important as a foundation, and are good as we develop as witnesses. But the Harvest as a spiritually significant phenomenon involves the prayer in the spirit that confronts the powers. Fruitfulness requires at least 1-4. To see Harvest corporately, 4-6 is what we want to track with as we continue to meet corporately.

Foundations: the 4 Core Areas of Training

1. Spirit

This involves gaining greater intimacy with God in terms of facility of moving with Him in a level commensurate with that intimacy – not presumptuously, but soberly and increasing in accuracy. Prior to engaging in more formal aspects of ministry, we are aiming to lay a solid foundation of prayer in the spirit, sensing His movements, following a trajectory in prayer and overcoming the Enemy in personal and corporate prayer. Having a good feel of these basics would be important to have insinuated into our blood, so that we can function well even when we are in non-ideal conditions. The strengthening of the inner person of the spirit is an important core process underlying the ministry we will engage in. Some of the ministries under the category of Spirit are: leading in worship, leading prayer meetings, prayer and deliverance ministry, moving in the gifts of the Spirit, and corporate prayer unto a move of God.

The most basic exercise of “praying up” in the spirit will be something we will practice as a staple.

2. Word

What we mean by Word is not just scriptures, but the dynamic living word mediated by the Spirit and springing from the scripture. When the Word of God comes through the scriptures, we experience the opening up of the texts, and the opening up of ourselves in a strange and total way. The first effect of the word is not necessarily on our cognition, but on our spirits.

So receiving a word from God, listening to the word, opening the word in a revelatory way, ministering the word, in prophecy, teaching and preaching are included here.

3. Winning (Harvesting)

I am sure many of us became part of VCF, not just to bless people in a generic way. And when we discovered Dan. 11:32, I’m sure we knew that God had more in mind than doing what we already could do.

Beyond being a blessing to people, there is a way in which Christ the Evangelist moves towards the real goal of winning people unto Himself, in all His awesome Lordship. The actuality of harvest involves separating the life of a person from everything that he or she has been possessed of before. Unfortunately, so much of ministry lacks the cutting edge needed to really save a person such that he/she is no longer functioning from the pseudo life of the old identity and source of life. The convert no longer lives for self or any of those “good” things that has been the orientation. The authentic life in him/her makes for a different zeal. That’s why when people are genuinely converted, the first thing that happens is a new passion for people to experience what they have experiences. So we will focus on the dimension of winning; not just blessing, or edifying in and of themselves.

4. Discipling

The 4th core ingredient of ministry that we want to focus on is raising people – not just maintaining a certain level of well-being, but catching a vision of what God is raising them up to be. This involves knowing what spiritual ingredients a new Christian needs to be a person who can be used by God. God is preparing a people who will know how to take action. Only disciples will by ready and on time. Our 4th concentration will have to do with wrestling with what to disciple people in at each stage of growth. As leaders, we are tasked with a call to raise people with spiritual ingredients that are needed. Like Paul, we are conscious about how we build – what ingredients are involved, and what God is doing in real time.

The Call – Type 2 Harvesting

I believe that God has more for us as ministers when He calls us to be in VCF. The call to be the subjects of Dan. 11:32 – a people who know God, display strength and do exploits is much more akin to Type 2 harvesting than to doing things that don’t really require the supernatural, wholly other power of God’s love. As ministers, we are here not to do what we could already do before we joined the church. VCF has a purpose for existence that entails being raised to do His mighty works based on a process of formation in intimacy, love and holiness.

Although there are many leaders in the Christian church, there are not many harvesters who are able to have eyes and strength to harvest on time. Most ministers go by what their eyes observe, rather than by revelation, so they miss the harvest, even when they are standing right in the midst of it. That’s why Jesus asked the disciples to pray for a certain kind of laborer who could with lifted eyes, penetrate past the surface to discern the harvest. These ones would often confound those who experience no harvest, and find ripeness right where others have labored fruitlessly for years and have said that it could not be done. Again and again, I see God moving in people whom others have written off and effectively pronounced, “They’re not ready.” It’s a certain kind of person whom Jesus is praying for. Unfortunately the Church is filled with a multitude of people who want “to do ministry”, but are not seeing the harvest. It has to be that God has better for us!

The Training

For many years, there have been some basic core areas of ministry empowerment that I’ve come to see as a staple for the minister of God, the Servant of Yahweh. I’ve discovered that when people were trained even in the most basic levels, God would use them in remarkable ways, always marked by the supernatural – both providential as well as miraculous (note the distinction). Over the years, I have found that people that I have discipled and trained have been used by God greatly when they faithfully practiced in these areas.

4 Core Areas

I propose that we focus on these areas. Only a ministry that is empowered greatly in these areas will be compelling. Here are the 4 areas I propose to focus our training on. They are also the same areas that we want to pass on to the next generation.

1. Spirit
2. Word
3. Winning (people to the Lord)
4. Discipling

In the next blog post, I will go more in depth into these 4 core areas.  You will see that 3 and 4 are built on the basic building blocks of 1 and 2.

What’s different about Harvesters?

It looks like Jesus was not just keen to bless people, nor to merely alleviate suffering, nor to elevate people’s standards of living. He was going for something that would be far greater than the short-lived elevation of an earth-bound existence. His incarnation, death and resurrection stretched forth unto eternity. So He looked forward to drinking the cup again in His Father’s kingdom. His harvest was not one of short-lived, temporary blessings, but one of eternal transformation that came from people being grafted into the vine, the body of Christ for all Eternity. His was not a goal of “meaningful conversations”, but of harvesting souls that would be separated from the stem of worldly allegiance and identity.

I believe that that is what God has for us when He sends us into His ministry. For that, we fain would remain satisfied with seeing movements in people’s hearts, without seeing them won for God and taking their place in His body and His mission. The lack of fruit often comes from being satisfied without a vision of people being won for God all the way! That is what Paul meant when he spoke about being in travail (again!) until Christ be formed in the Galatians. Obviously, the Galatians had tasted the fruit of heaven, but they were now in danger of fading out of communion, and into bondage. As a spiritual parent, Paul was not going to accept that outcome, because of the love of God in him.

A vision of more – searching for answers

If we carry a mentality that contains no vision of God’s desire for men and women to be won over and separated out to his purposes, we will probably see little complete fruition, maybe even be self-satisfied to see the stirrings of God. But if we have a vision of more, then we will begin searching for answers to how we can minister with the cutting edges of a harvesting instrument. The Servant of Yahweh is told in Isaiah that he will be made into a sharp threshing instrument with teeth. What manner of ministry does that entail? What does it mean to be a harvester – that kind that Jesus prays for?

2 Types of Harvesting

There are 2 types of harvesting:

1. The easy harvesting involves merely placing your hand where the fruit is about to drop. Nothing much is needed here. The fruit will easily drop on your hand. This is the harvest that we are all able to recognize and participate in. Often though, in such cases, by the time the fruit drops, it’s past the optimum harvesting time.
2. This kind of harvest is where the vast majority of the fruit lies, but it involves having elevated eyes to actually discern ripeness and separate the fruit from the tree by means of a cutting edge, before it drops off.

The key to harvest is not 1 but 2. What we want is to be good at 2. We can already do 1 because it doesn’t take that much to do it. Put another way, the key to fruitfulness has much to do with becoming a Type 2 harvester.

Questions for you

1. Take a step back to ask, “What is my vision for people I am ministering to?”
2. What questions arise in your heart as you seek a vision of more?

Say not ye, There are yet 4 months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields: for they are white already unto harvest.  John 4:35

An analogy from soccer

One of the things that I found heartbreaking as a supporter of the West Ham United soccer club was that in spite of the fact that they were known to play the most fluid, creative and attractive brand of soccer in the English League (now the Premier League), they never won the championship. Never even came close.

They could make openings, set up great scoring opportunities, and rip open the defenses of their opponents, but somehow not win games enough to really WIN. They would often be beaten by the less fashionable, less skilled Yorkshire and Lancashire clubs, who somehow were able to not merely create chances, but convert them into goals. They could harvest the strategic plays and actually come out a match with something to show for it. Not so much my beloved team.

Winning

As you can probably guess where I’m going with this, I won’t need to spend too much time belaboring the point. Of course this is a parable bespeaking spiritual ministry.

I’m sure those of us who desire to minister the transforming power of the Spirit of God, and not just human fleshly good, are searching for answers. Not really winning is disappointing, even if along the way to not winning, a lot of good things happen. The problem in all this is that we may be sitting in the middle of a white harvest field, and experiencing no harvest.

I think that is why Jesus implores us to lift up our eyes to see the white harvest, and to pray to the Lord of the harvest for harvesters.

The first key to spiritual harvest

Spiritual harvest involves one radical thing that is absent in all other process that take place from seedtime on.  It is the element of separation. When a fruit is harvested, it needs be separated from the plant that it has hitherto been a part of. The use of a harvesting knife involves cutting or separating the fruit from its original connections. In the old covenant, it was circumcision that signified the separation unto God from every other life source and identity. The lack of this radical separation from the past, the flesh and allegiance in many Christians is a root cause for so many not experiencing an authentic spiritual life that is not of this world. Many are still not radically and spiritually separated from their former life, self-identities, affections, allegiances and orientations.

If the fields are ripe unto harvest, it must mean that there are more people who are ready for this life of extraordinary power than we currently see naturally. But there’s something about our ministry that lacks that fruit. Many of us subsume our ministries under the category of the helping or caregiving professions, not realizing that God has more for His people. What Jesus asks us to pray for is for Harvesters – laborers for the harvest.