Tag: Lakeland Revival

BE A BOTH/AND CHURCH – Dave Smith (Kingsgate)

Face the challenge – and seize the opportunity. How? Hold together attractional and missional Both/and Come and see and Go and share church From the outside in AND Equip to go from the inside out. Because we want to see the multitudes around us saved! COME AND SEE This isn’t new and invented by Willow Creek! It’s in the OT. Isaiah 2. The mountain of the Lord that many peoples come to it! Direction there = outside in. Temple, tabernacle. Jesus, the Word became flesh – tabernacle among us. So – ‘Come and see’ is there in the gospel. Jesus is the living temple. Acts 2, and 11. Multitudes converted to the new temple – US! Living stones. We have to rediscover the wonder of gathering as God’s people and increase our expectation of what can happen when people ‘come and see’ a church alive! Full of the presence of the living God in the gathering. This needs INVITATION. Someone bold enough to say ‘Come and see.’ We want to be part of God building something that people come and see. […]

Nameless and Faceless

I’m sometimes concerned by the quoting or naming of names like e.g. Benny Hinn & Kathryn Kulhman etc. some involved can fall into, perhaps in a bid to seek to authenticate or bolster credibility for it (actually it’s a dangerous way to do it, as whoever you mention, someone will have a problem with them!). There’s also a great deal we Brits are unhappy about when it starts to look like promotion of people rather than God, and that’s a hostage to fortune.

GODISNOWHERE

Yesterday morning, as part of our “40 Days of Community,” our L1FEgroup (what we call our midweek groups) went out around the village, picking up litter. The parish council here provide the bags and the grabbers, and the faithful few from the village who usually do it were, I think, encouraged to have the extra hands. So much so they gave gloves to put on those hands. I ended up outside Cranmore, my designated patch being a lay-by just set off Epsom Rd to clear up. I’d passed a few places on the way that were fabulously litter free already, so I was looking forward to having little to do but feeling good about civic duty done. But when I arrived, this spot really was a mess. I was with Zoë and our friend Clare, they had their yellow jackets on and my ‘grabber’ didn’t work so I stood there watching for a bit – in supervisory capacity – until they realised passersby may have thought the ladies were on day release from nearby HMP Send, and sent me off […]

When God comes to church

When we were in Lakeland they kept talking about how you could ask for and receive a burning coal, to take back with you to where you’re from. Of course that’s coming from Isaiah 6. It was the year King Uzziah died. That king had a long and (mostly) distinguished rule of 52 years. He became king at the age of 16 following his father’s assassination. He started out really well and was faithful to the LORD for a long time – that is the measure of a governmental success in scripture – and during that time he and his nation prospered. Unfortunately one day he made a terrible mistake, when he entered the temple to burn incense, a duty reserved by the LORD for the priests only. Pride comes before a fall. It says, But when he was strong his heart was lifted up, to his destruction, for he transgressed against the Lord his God by entering the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. (2 Chronicles 26:16) He was confronted about his sin, […]

THE WRONG QUESTION

Well there’s been interesting responses to yesterday’s post – to say the least. First off, the traffic to the blog has taken off exponentially, with hundreds of new readers and subscribers (if that’s you – welcome, if you’d like to, click over there on the right!). I suppose it’s not my skilful prose but the subject matter that’s drawing attention from all over the world, it’s the question I posed yesterday which still stands about Lakeland – is it revival? Some people say yes. They look at people being healed, recognise that were there’s a lot of Spirit there’s also going to be a lot of ‘flesh’ and can come to terms with that – no, rejoice in it. It’s been wonderful that there have been so many people who have known about Hannah’s back problems, and are rejoicing with those who rejoice over its healing, and thanking God (by the way the girls went to pray for people at the Leatherhead theatre last night and I’m told it was amazing time!). I’ve also had one or two e-mails via […]