Our church, The Mission, has just completed the first week of prayer and fasting. We are in the midst of three weeks of prayer and fasting for personal breakthrough, corporate breakthrough, and clarity for the future decisions I have to make regarding The Mission.
I don’t know if it was just me but the first week seemed to be a breeze. If you read my blog, you know that was not because of the dietary choices. There was a supernatural grace on the fast. If you don’t know what that means, God is in it. I have received so many testimonies about what God is doing in the lives of the people of The Mission.
But as I have entered this week, it seems that it is not as easy. For the first time I am really beginning to crave coffee, and sweets, and jelly, and … well you get the idea.
The key to remember is that it is not really a fast if you are not giving up something you desire. And sometimes it takes longer to desire something. When you work out, it is the reps that are hard that cause growth. In school, it is the words you have to look up that bring understanding.
It’s the same in the Kingdom. You have to get to the end of yourself to really find God’s grace.
I had a meeting last night with a woman that recently started coming to The Mission. She was not really confident of her English so she brought a translator. This translator has been to The Mission but attends the local giga church.
It was a great meeting. I mean a really great meeting. But here was the best part for me.
The girl who came to translate said about The Mission, “I did not know that there were American churches that you could feel the presence of God in.”
At The Mission Delray, we are in a new series titled Order out of Chaos.
Most of the folks at The Mission did not come from other churches. They came from the world. The world causes a life of chaos. One of the effects of Christian living is that order will come to our lives.
This month we are going to study some of the ancient Christian disciplines in an effort to form a framework of Christian life. We are doing this in conjunction with our 21 days of prayer and fasting.
Whether you got right with this God this year or have been saved for 50 years this series will be sure to enrich your faith and send you deeper in your walk with Jesus.
If you are reading this in RSS you are missing the video.
I have been provoked by a friend to do my own list of highlights from 2008 for The Mission. I knew that Jesus wanted to do a work in Delray Beach and without any financial support we started a work with 11 people in my living room.
I have no training in church planting, am not in a denomination or church planting network, have not been to a conference or anything else. Fortunately the Holy Ghost was in our midst and we were smart enough to yield to Him. The above video is our year in review.
Since I am going to do this with absolutely no forethought this list is neither complete or in any order.
2. My family, marriage, and relationship with Jesus has flourished this year.
3. Worship. I talked to Sergio about a year and a half ago about a new sound of worship. It was just a vision. God was leading Sergio in the same direction. Check this out. This is live, not a studio, not mastered. We did not even have monitors. It is just raw worship. Who said you can’t lead worship with an MPC 1000? YouTube.com
4. People are joined to the vision God has given me.
8. The Hatian church we had our first preview service in . Wish it would have worked out there. We have never met anywhere more hood than that.
9. Found our permanent location in August. No longer nomads.
10. Announced we are moving to Sunday last week. Time for a new location.
In the end, this year was great because I saw Jesus do His thing in Delray Beach. I have gotten lots of testimonies this year. This is a sample of one.
Just wanted you to see how the Mission has changed lives… as if you didn’t already know.
The day after I met the living God, Jesus Christ, I went and wrote a 7 page journal entry about what I experienced that night. That was in June of 2oo8. With this new year just beginning, I went back and started to read that same journal, noticing the difference between the entries before I got saved and after. This is just a small part of that 7 page entry
“Even though I can try and fight it, for some reason, something changed last night. I felt something leave me… something lift off my skin, off my shoulders… off my heart and this tingling sensation came over my arms and my head, and my insides started to jump… then my hands and arms started shaking and the whole time, I was so confused as to what I was supposed to do. I wanted so badly to let go of myself, let go of my mind and be touched, but I was inhibited… by fear of what was happening and what I might see…
The power that God forced into me, it made me feel like I was going to fly. Like any second, I was going to rise up into the air and feel His grace upon my entire body… like nothing on this earth could hold me down and I was free to fly to Him and be in His arms…
From the moment we began worship, I felt my body tingling and I didn’t know what was going on with me. I didn’t know if it was my nerves. It felt like the blood in my body wasn’t reaching my brain and my arms were going numb… I remember stretching out my fingers, trying to regain feeling…
I want to go back, only this time, really let go and if my feet rise off the earth, I won’t care where I am going to land as long as I land with You and You are there to catch me… I started with you and I will end with you…
I went into that house expecting to cry and beg for forgiveness… expecting to ball and have the pastor put his hands on me and make me feel like I was forgiven. But I didn’t cry and he didn’t make me feel forgiven. Instead, I felt you. I felt you in my veins… I knew you were with me..
This is the reason why we do what we do. This is why Missionaries invite their friends and family. This is why we show up early to set up and stay late to tear down. Lives changed for the Glory of God.
2009 is going to be increadible. I just can’t wait! We are scheduling our first baptism now and we are just going to keep reaping the harvest Jesus paid for with His blood!
I just got back from our final planning meeting for our first Christmas Service and I am really excited!
For hundreds of years the promise of a Messiah was just that, a promise. Yet generation after generation waited for the Chosen One to come and restore the Kingdom. That Messiah did not come the way people thought He would but He came.
He did not set up an earthly Kingdom but instead a heavenly Kingdom on earth and now every person who believes in Jesus is a member of that Kingdom.
For most of the world Christmas ends on the 25th, but we keep the party going by celebrating all the way through to the 26th.
Other churches have a Christmas Eve service, we have a day after Christmas service. Anyone can celebrate before the event. We like to do it a little different.
So this Friday, bring a friend and celebrate the miracle of Jesus’ birth at The Mission.
Looking Ahead to 2009
These are exciting times we are in, and God is not caught off guard. January 2nd, I am going to be sharing the direction the Lord is taking The Mission.
We know that God has us here to affect Delray Beach and all of South Florida.
On this first service of the year, I am going to recap where God has brought us from, what He has done, and where He is taking us.
Among other things I am going to talk about our 21 days of prayer and fasting we are going to begin in the middle of January. Every person who calls The Mission home will not want to miss this night.
You can find directions to our meeting, held Fridays at 7:30 p.m. right here. You can also forward this email to everyone you know by clicking here.
And as always, if you have any questions, hit me up!
If we continue to do what God said to do yesterday at the expense of what He is telling us to do today we have fallen into the trap of religion. And religion is just a form of the law which brings death.
God has been talking to me about some significant changes to me and my ministry and as an extension of that, The Mission.
As a beginning, I had to lay down my blog, The Revival Blog, which I have had for over three years. I have met people from all over the world though that site and had some things in the works that I was excited about, but I knew in my spirit that it was time to move on from it and I did.
Ask the Holy Ghost to search your heart and see what you are holding on to from yesterday that should have been left in yesterday. Chances are that it is keeping you from tomorrow.
In the next month or so, we as a people are gonig to be shaking things up in a significant way in an effort to reach South Florida for Jesus!
Christmas Service. Lots of folks
there is anything more fun then being a Pentecostal preacher I don’t know what it is
