On October 23rd 2003, I attended a meeting of mainly young Christian artists and performers. The thrust of the meeting was about providing an outreach platform into the non-Christian community in our city. During the meeting I sensed God was laying an important foundation for his future kingdom work in Perth. Driving home, and early next morning, I believe that the Holy Spirit impressed upon me the following.
There will be a major turning of young people to Jesus in the days ahead. Thousands of youth will turn to the Lord; the scale of what I was seeing in the Spirit frightened me. This will not happen in traditional Christian contexts, like “church buildings”. Likewise, it will be free from many of the traditional cultural trappings of the church e.g. collections, altar calls etc. It will occur in arenas like rock concerts, schools, pubs and a host of new forms of church that cannot be controlled by human strategies. “Your people will offer themselves willingly on the day you lead your forces on the holy mountains. From the womb of the morning, like dew, your youth will come to you.” (Ps 110:3).
To older Christians, God is saying, “Care for my children.” Those who respond to this call will possess the apostolic spirit, “My little children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.” (Gal 4:19). These ministers of Christ prove their authority no by outward appearance but willingness to bear pain. The long term nature of this coming move of God will depend very much on the availability of mature believers to assist new leaders that God will raise up quickly.
With this I saw a picture of a seed pod releasing a large numbers of seeds in an almost explosive manner that were scattered by the wind. This represents the rapid planting of many new churches across the city in the power of the Holy Spirit.
This will happen sovereignly and not by human technique, planning or invention. God is declaring, “Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be delivered in one moment? Yet as soon as Zion was in labour she delivered her children. Shall I open the womb and not deliver, says the LORD; shall I, the one who delivers, shut the womb? Says your God.” (Isa 66:9). Much of this will seem to come easily, however it will be a case of “I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour, others have laboured and you have entered into their labour.” (John 4:38). Many unseen intercessors have agonised for such a miraculous move of God. (Those who do not recognise this principle will flourish and grow in the heady days of revival, but their lack of grounding in Christ will later be exposed when the hot winds of persecution blow (Mark 4:5 – 6). )
This work of God will be so massive that the number of believers in new or non –institutional forms of the church will come to exceed those in traditional Christianity. “Rejoice, you childless one, you who bear no children, burst into songs and shout, you who endure no birth pangs; for the children of the desolate woman are more numerous than the children of the one who is married.” (Gal 4:27). These new forms of church will be supernaturally birthed from heaven, “for the Jerusalem above is our mother.” (Gal 4:26).
Wise mothers and fathers in the natural sense recognise that you do not parent your children in a mature way by trying to make them clones of yourself. The individuality, personality and creativity of each child means that they need to be parented in a distinctive way that is crafted to who God has made them to be. This same principle applies to the spiritual parenting of churches. The existing forms of the church must not be draped over those who will turn to Christ from a variety of backgrounds and cultures. This means that the church is called to become increasingly polymorphic (many formed).
This is at the same time both exciting and frightening. It is awesome in the genuine sense of something that cannot be humanly controlled (Heb 12:28 – 29). If we continue to hold this fear of the Lord the church will not only blaze but continue to burn without being consumed (Acts 9:31; Ex 3:3). God will not judge a movement, as so many revival movements have been, where we maintain our reverence towards him.
Finally, it must be remarked that all of the above is founded on Christ. The wonderful promise of the multitude of children to the powerless woman in Isaiah 54:1 depends on the suffering of the Servant of the LORD (Jesus) in Isaiah 53. “When you (God) make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring and shall prolong his days.” (Isaiah 53:10). The offspring are the children of the barren woman. Those many young children that the Father shall certainly bring into his kingdom are the fruit of Christ’s agony on the cross. May we walk in his way and so grow in his authority.