I once was arrested and put in jail!

Yes, it is true, I have been to jail. I don't remember the date or exactly the year but say about 1985. I was protesting an abortion clinic by participating in a sit-in. I was handcuffed and taken to jail. My friend, Tom, came and bailed me out. The Ohio Franklin County Assistant District Attorney dropped my case but some of the other 100+ lawbreakers were not so blessed.

At the time I truly believed the Lord spoke to me about going and participating in the civil disobedience act. It seemed like an honorable act but today I am not so sure it was. The Christian community gave me accolades on how brave I was. Was it really an act bravery or was I just to chicken to take a risk and get involved with helping with an unwed mothers ministry? Did it honor the Lord to basically have no affect on the life of an unborn child? No matter how evil you think an abortion doctor is, he truly thinks he is helping those children or adults that have become pregnant. A Christians believes no matter what mistake was made, no matter how inconvenient, abortion is the taking of a human life. So what do we do? The answer has to do with honor.

To give honor to someone or a group does not require that we agree with everything they do. We can abhor the acts of the abortion doctor but still give honor to the medical profession. I am not suggesting that a doctor that has chosen the abortion profession is worthy of honor for what he is doing but many times I have heard Christian speak poorly of our local hospital. Maybe it is time for us to give honor and speak Kingdom words over our local businesses and governments.

I am wondering how many Christians would open their extra bedroom to the expecting mother? How many would lend some of their savings account to help the unwed mother in distress? What would happen if all of us began to give honor and love to the point that it would cost us something? I am using an unwed mother for an example but there are many more ways we can bring honor to our community. Just get together and ask the question... what can we do for our community to bring honor?

What about your Pastor, do you honor him/her? I know your Pastor receives a salary but have you every given him an envelope with some money in it just to honor him/her with an extra blessing? Here at Bethel Church and in the school of ministry whenever someone steps up to the pulpit we all stand to our feet and applaud, whistle, and make a lot of noise in appreciation. We give honor because we are honorable. This is one of our core values. The speaker does not insist on this response but receives it as an honorable person would. As I am learning to honor something is happening in my spirit. I believe I am becoming more honorable. This gives honor to the Lord. Matthew 25 says that when you have done it to the least of these you have done it to me. This is a Kingdom principle that when we bless His people it blesses Him.

Do you give honor to the rich of your community? How about the successful businessman or businesswoman? They provide jobs. They build really big homes that cost millions of dollars. Does that seem wasteful? What does it take to build that home? Does it not employee carpenters, plumbers, electricians, painters, etc.? I guess we could tax the rich so they are not able to provide these jobs to the community. They can give their money to the government abyss instead of you. I wonder who came up with that idea? It does not seem to honor them very well for their hard work that has lead to their success.

I would like to suggest that we begin to speak words of honor over others. Tell them how awesome they are. Instead of expressing your needs like a child began to use understanding words to express your need and understand the needs of others. You do not need to preach to win souls. They will begin to hang around you just to hear those loving words one more time then you will be able to sow the Word of Life into the seed of their heart.

Arm Wrestling match: Calvinism vs Arminianism

I would like to start to share about giving honor to each other. Does anyone see the scriptural problem with the title of this blog entry? If you call yourself in one of these camps then you may have a problem. If you are a baby Christian then don't worry, all is well. You are where the Lord expects you to be as he knows you will be growing. For the rest of us that think we are a mature Christian let me say that may not be as true as you think. Can a divided body function as it should? Can we be a mature Christian if we are divided?

Well maybe you have not figured out yet where I am going with this. The Apostle Paul said,
"1 Cor. 1:12 Now this I say, that every one of you said, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. 13Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were you baptized in the name of Paul? ". (emphasis added)
Now, if you call yourself after some group or denomination you just may be classified as a divided Christian or a Christian still walking by the flesh.

I believe it is time to drop the labels and take up the cross and follow Christ. Of course the cross alone is not our call. What? Blaspheme! Actual the opposite could be blaspheme. Some quote Paul when he said that he preaches nothing but the cross and say something like, "In my ministry I only preach the cross". They have missed Paul's point. He preached on many more topics than the cross as the New Testament is filled with his teachings. The point is that all teaching must have its foundation at the cross. Our call is to start at the cross to begin our walk in the resurrection life of Jesus Christ. The cross is the price to walk out of the empty tomb. If we do not preach and live out of the resurrection power of Christ then there is no point in salvation. We would just be serving another dead prophet.

It is not about labels it is only about Jesus Christ. He is our everything and the source of every twitch of our life muscle. I am not a Calvinist, an Armenian nor anything inbetween. I am a born-again follower of Jesus Christ known as a Christian. Let us take a risk and begin to live a mature life of walking in the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus according to Romans 8.

Here at "Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry" we are learning to walk in love and give honor to all Christian faiths even if they do not agree with us. Honor is one of our core values. We give honor because we are honorable. Even if we call ourselves by some name we have the same foundation of the forgiveness of sin by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I do not think being part of a denomination with common core beliefs is bad in any way I just think we should, as they say, reach across the aisle and work together to bring God's love to this world.

fake apology, I'm a drug addict

During orientation this week at "Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry" they were talking about drinking and cigarette use. They ask people to be very careful with drinking so that one would not even start to be tipsy and to be sure not to offend someone that may have a problem with alcohol abuse. This may be surprising to some or even shocking to others as the prevalent Christian doctrine is that drinking alcohol is a sin. The issue is that the bible does not teach this doctrine. It teaches not to drink if it offends your brother but then again it teaches the same about meat and most Christians are not vegetarians. BSSM has a different opinion on cigarettes as it is an addiction. Their point is if you are praying for someone for release from an addiction and they smell cigarettes on you then the other person may wonder how you can have power to pray for them when you have an obvious addition. Does that mean God can not use someone that smokes? It does not mean that but we are learning a culture with very different core values which includes practicing what we preach. This can be summed up in the core value of honesty.

Well, I have been for a long time drug addict. My drug of choice is caffeine. Not that caffeine is bad just the abuse of it is wrong. At one point I had a 30 cup per day habit. I had cut back to a mere 10-15 cups. I know this is a socially acceptable addition and welcomed among the Christian community. Some people can drink a cup or two a day and be fine. More power to them but 2 cups per day... what would be the point? I started Friday going cold-turkey off of caffeine. OK, I know, that does not sound very wise but I have tried the cut back method and it did not work for me. I had no idea how bad it would be! By mid-afternoon I had such a bad migraine that I was nauseated. I tried to make it to the bathroom but only manged a trashcan halfway there. This was in the middle of our first small group meeting so I left a slightly bad impression. Saturday was most miserable. Sunday was a little better, and today is a lot better.

I sent an email to our revival group leader with an apology. I explained in great detail. I learned something though from his response. His response was only "Apology accepted". That was it. Nothing like, hey no problem, we understand, no need for an apology, you are really something because after all of that you came back to class, and came to the required night meeting to boot. I thought, "Apology accepted?". I realized that my apology was nothing more than trying to excuse my poor performance. I also realized that my revival group leader knew that I wanted the other response. My main goal was to make myself look better and my revival group leader was not fooled. My fake apology is contrary to our core value of honesty. I do not take this lightly and seek no respect for recognizing the issue.

This lesson is of great value to me. It is starting to shape a need in me. I do not need to perform nor be self-justified. In the culture of love I am empowered to be who God made me without trying to be what others want me to be. If I truly did offend then I need to deal with it from a heart of humility with a true apology motivated by love. There was nothing wrong with my apology, it needed to be done, but with the correction motivation of really being sorry for the disruption in class and the mess I made at the hall trashcan.

no shoes, no shirt, no service, no sinners

We share "I am just a sinner saved by grace." with those we are witnessing to or affirmation of our humility among our Christian friends. The Bible says that the prideful shall be humbled and the humble shall be lifted up. We want to be humble and certainly don't want to make the same mistake that Lucifer did to be banned forever from heaven.

I find the phrase "I am just a sinner saved by grace" curious considering how often we allow sinners in the church just long enough for them to be saved and then if they should sin as a saint we take them to the altar to repent and if they continue then we lead them to the back door. Does anyone else think this is a double standard? I'm just a sinner saved by grace but if you sin there is no more grace. There is something else that really confuses me. If once saved always saved then should we not always be very welcome in the church?

In the Bible some 630 times sinners are called sinners, some 230 times sinners are called saints but exactly 0 times saints are called sinners. So if the bible does not call the redeemed sinners then why do we? Oh yes, Romans 7, seems like we should read Romans 8 to interpret Romans 7.

I do not see calling myself a sinner as an indication of my humility. A missionary friend once explained to me what humility is. Humility is not a person that looks at the building that he built and says how bad it is but humility is the person that looks at a building another person built and says how great it is.

Our instructor here at "Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry", Chris Vallotton, shared how he was teaching a seminar and sharing how awesome we are and how much God thinks we are awesome and how much that brings honor and glory to God. One leader challenged him and said he believes that kind of teaching only leads to pride. Chris pointed at a painting and started to criticize the art work. This leaders asked him what the point was. Chris asked, "Have I brought honor and glory to the artist of the painting?". The leader said, "No!". Chris then said, "God painted you!".

Is it possible that the church may have been deceived into believing a lie about itself? It seems better said that we were sinners but now we are saved by grace. Should we continue to make the blood of Christ a cheap sacrifice? Should we continue to call ourselves something that God does not call us? If we want to walk in humility then maybe we should begin to say what God says about us. We are saved, righteous, full of Him, full of grace, and full of love! Yes we sin but not because we are subject to the nature of sin but because of disobedience. We repent of disobedience as we continue to walk in righteousness.

The bible says in Galatians 2:20 "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: ..." If I call myself a sinner then I would be calling Christ a sinner. Not good, as in really bad! I do not call myself a sinner but an awesome new creation in Christ. My humility is based on knowing the source of my salvation not on my performance. Is this not the message of the Kingdom of God?

I once stayed overnight on a rock ledge

One of my hobbies as a teenager was rock climbing. We even had rock climbing instruction in biology class. No kidding! Our biology teacher took the class rock climbing as part of our exploration of the world.

One time two of my friends and I did a two day climb. We were scaling a vertical cliff in Washington State. We had brought our sleeping bags and just before dark we found a ledge about 3 foot wide to sleep on. We used some pitons or hex-nuts and secured ourselves to the ledge and climbed into our sleeping bags. I actually don't remember sleeping much as I forgot my pillow.

Does this sound like a risk you would like to take? Maybe for a few crazy people the answer is sure but for the rest you may be asking; Why would anyone do that? Well some people thrive on risk. This is probably not healthy but without some risk you will not change.

Think about Peter as he foolishly asked Jesus if he could walk on the water to meet up with him. (1) Most of us, seeing Jesus on the water, would either hide in fear or cheer on our hero to do what we could never do. Not Peter, he took a risk. Everyone talks about how Peter sank and Jesus held him up. Yes, this is a great visual for us to learn to lean on Jesus during the storm of life but I like to remember that he was walking on the water before and after he began to sink. I tried to walk on water on one occasions. Even though there were no distracting storms I sank like a rock not even a slow decent but just like the song, splash, splash I'm taken a bath. You might prefer learning from others mistakes but if Peter did not take a risk he would not have felt the hand of Jesus grab him and pull him up. It does not say Peter climbed on the back of Jesus for the trip back to the boat. Hand in hand he strolled back to the boat maybe with a little swagger in his step. I doubt that the other disciples dared to say anything about the sinking part of the experience. I can hear them saying, "Hey, that Peter, he rocks!"

If you are living a Christian life without risk then I dare say you are living well below your potential. But what if I fail? Here at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry we have an actual documented requirement that we must fail at least 3 times before we can graduate. Of course this is not moral failures but failure trying to step out but coming short. When we take risk we learn from failure but if we keep trying we will succeed. It took Thomas Edison approximately 10,000 experiments and 700 apparent failures before he succeeded at inventing the light bulb. That is 700 failures in the eyes of his peers before he changed the world (2). If we want to be a world changer then we must first embrace failure as a stepping stone to success and celebrate the failures and successes of those in a sphere of influence.

References:
(1) Matthew 14:28
(2) http://www.wilywalnut.com/Fail-Fast-Success-Failure-Wonderful-Edison.html

Don't throw the fish back.

Have you every watched one of those fishing shows on TV where they catch a big Bass and proudly release it back into the lake? I grew up in a fishing family and we went fishing because we enjoyed eating fish. As I grew up fish were a big part of our diet.

One of the requirements this year at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry is to read through the Bible. We have daily reading and then answer questions about the text. This morning I was reading out of Luke 5 where Jesus is preaching and then asks Simon to push his boat out a bit so he could teach from the boat. At the end of His message he tells Simon to go out and let the nets down. Simon, apparently not wanting Jesus to be disappointed, responds by saying they had been fishing all night and caught nothing. Well you know the story, Peter takes a risk by obeying Jesus and this time the nets were so full he needed help. Simon calls for his fishing partners to come and help with the catch. Apparently they had no intention of throwing the fish back and he could not get all the catch in the boat without help.

Jesus used this to show Simon that he was his supplier and that from that time forward he would be helping Jesus catch the hearts of men. I imagine that they also ate those nutritious fish.

Saundi and I are in a short season of rebuilding. I am attending school and she is attending the many meetings here at Bethel. We are preparing for a great catch of men but right now we need more nutrition so we can be strong for the journey ahead. We can not bring the catch in without our friends to help us. God calls some of us to actually fish and others to help pull in the harvest. Without each other our nets would be lost.

From this lesson I learn the value of our friends. These are very exciting times with the sound of hope ringing through the church. We have seen how the church has failed to fulfill the great commission due to depending on the arm of man but there is a sound of hope ringing throughout the church. The Lord is teaching us that he never intended on spreading His Kingdom through the efforts of man but through total dependence on Jesus the Christ as the Holy Spirit teaches and leads us. None of us can do this alone. Our Lord Jesus forms a team of friends to pull in the net within our area of influence.

First day at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry

I just experienced my first day of school. I find it hard to put into words. You will probably think I am just be over-enthusiastic. Let met set the scene for you.

Last year there were 400 some students. This year there are around 740. This fills up the entire church main floor. The students range from 18 to 60+ with about 85% under 30 and maybe 70% under 25. They are all, everyone of them, absolutely in love with Jesus and hungry for more of the Presence of God.

We started out with about 90 minutes of intense worship. Believe me this was not clapping our hands to "This is the day the Lord has made". This was deep worship and intense praise ringing throughout the heavens. The 2nd and 3rd year students were walking on the seats behind us praying for us. The presence of God was so strong as they prayed that I tried to figure out if I could avoid them because I did not think I could stand any more. There was no avoiding them. It seemed like all 100 or so 3rd years students prayed for me.

There was a lot of orientation then Bill Johnson shared for about an hour and then Chris Vallotton shared for about 90 minutes. It was just incredible.

The core values we are learning are from the following, love, empowerment in contrary to control, ownership, accountability, risk, honor, confrontation, supernatural power, royalty, honesty, and the mind of Christ. The goal is to produce revivalist. Here is the definition: Revivalist - a believer who is focused and passionate, willing to pay any price to live in purity and power because they are loved by God and love Him, whose manifest presence transforms lives and cultures.

I went to sleep very tired but with worship songs playing in my mind.

first week in Redding

This has been a very exciting week. We have begun to learn the town of Redding. We located the important stores like Best Buy and Michaels craft store. Of course we also found the grocery store. Our house is about 7 miles from all the stores. Gas is 45 cents higher per gallon than in Ohio.

Church at Bethel is an amazing experience. The church looks to hold about 1000 people. It is full every service with Sunday overflowing into an overflow room. One must arrive about 30 minutes before service to get a good seat. The worship team looks to have been practicing for at least an hour before service. There are about 10 singers, guitar, sax, drums, keyboards, bass, violin, and at times other instruments. There are a group of people on the right side of the stage painting pictures as the Holy Spirit gives them inspiration. The dancers switch off about every 10 minutes. The arts are in full manifistation as we worship God.

Worship last at least an hour. The front is full of young people worshiping with all their heart. There is great freedom in worship. The glory of God is present right from the beginning. I have never experienced anything as awesome as this worship.

The speakers have been just amazing. It is very hard to explain how good it is. You can experience some of the teachings with a free download or Podcast at http://www.ibethel.org . On the right there is a link for "Tape of the week" or you can get the teaching from the ITunes store for free.

I am in wonder at how these men and women of God have been able to receive such anointed revelation of our Lord. It is SO good.

Some of the highlights from this week were.
Bill Johnson teaching on grace.
Faith is the result of surrender or yielding.
The requirements of grace is much greater than the law but the difference is that grace has the built in ability to accomplish the requirement. When we yield to grace then sin is no longer appealing to us.
Chris Vallotton teaching on becoming an apostolic people.

• People do not need a hand-out they need the Kingdom of God to come to them.
  
• Chris no longer believes in a 5 fold ministry but in 6 fold ministry because the 5 fold ministry gifts are meant to teach believers to do the work of the ministry.
  
• We need people in the work place doing the works of the Kingdom.
  
• The word Apostle came from the Romans. It was a general who conquered a land and brought the culture of Roman to the citizens. This is the context in which the 12 understood what Jesus was saying about them when he called them Apostles. They were to bring the culture of the Kingdom to the people under their influence.
• When resolving a conflict the other party must leave feeling empowered.

Jason the first year Pastor of the BSSM students taught on love.

• He taught about how we must love ourselves before we are able to love others. He talked about how love is everthing.
  
• We can not do any ministry until we learn to love our own self and see our self the way God sees us.

Dan taught an awesome message on church government.

• God's justice is very different than the world's idea of justice.
• God's justice seek to reconcile relationships.

All of this and school has not even started yet. We are blessed to be here.

Arrival to Redding

Our trip across country has gone without incident. We journed from Granville, Ohio to Redding in 5 days. It turns out that 4 days would have been enough and we will probably be able to return quicker than we arrived.

Our house turns out to be the blessing we expected. It is located on several acres and almost under a covering of trees.

The owner of the house came about 1/2 hour after we arrived. He gave us the tour of the house and explained how to manage the heat and night cooling. The house has central air but likely will not be needed. It is heated by the sun during the day and is cooled during the night. The first week temperature was about 105 during the day and 65 during the night. The air is very dry at about 15% humidity. This is a great contrast between the 90 degree and 85% humidity of Honduras.

We are very excited about going to church at Bethel and I am very excited about starting school.