What on earth is happening in the church?

What is God doing?
What is God saying?

These are age old questions, ones that have been asked, and will continue to be asked I am sure, throughout the ages until Jesus returns. The only challenge I have with these kinds of questions is that as I read the scriptures I find that God very rarely says one thing. For instance, in the opening pages of the book of Revelation, that book of the blessings, He speaks to 7 churches with 7 different words.

So it begs the question, does God say only one thing, or is it more important that we have ears to hear what He is saying overall?

So what is He saying today? I believe He is saying many things around the globe. Whatever way I look at it, whenever I hear the Word of the Lord I am convinced of these two facts:

1) He is not silent
2) He is moving powerfully by the Spirit in this hour in unprecedented ways!

I sense that at this moment I can cry out and believe for the Harvest of the Nations in our generation, a revival move of God that will bring about transformation in society and herald a coming King!

My wife Sandra and I were commissioned by God last August in San Diego, renewing a word of God that we had held for some 30 years quietly in our hearts, to go and call in a wave of God; a wave of Revival that would move by the Spirit around the world. Our first port of call was Cape Aghulas in South Africa during November 2007. It was there we saw this wave rise from the deeps of the ocean. Even the locals said they had not seen such waves before; it was a phenomenon that was unusual. Waves broke in like white horses half way between the horizon and the beach. When we left Cape Aghulas after 2 days of prayer the waves subsided.   

So what is God saying? I believe He is saying that a wave of the Spirit is coming in, and that we have to ‘call it into being’, through the spoken word, through hunger and passion, and we must maintain the calling until it circulates the globe.

We followed this up by going and digging wells in the heart of the wine district of Western Cape at Wellington, the very place where Andrew Murray first dug a well and affected the world. During our time there the move of God in the meetings was so strong that literal wells were dug in the natural earth to open up the spring of God spiritually; we dug with one spade and our hands while crying for God to come.

Although it is hard for the western mind especially to understand such unworldly things it is necessary that we do not allow our doubts and uncertainties to stop what God is doing at this time. To remove doubt from our hearts is a significant key in this day. There are so many works of faith happening around us, yet doubt often keeps us away from believing and receiving God for ourselves. Doubt is a subtle enemy.

I believe that at this moment God is bringing to the church three ‘I’s.

- Intimacy, where God is drawing close to us with an intimate, Father’s love.
- Immediacy, that we are all aware of the immediate presence of God, with no need for spiritual exercises, but the closeness of God comes with immediacy.
- Imagination, where we are seeing the redemption of our imagination where God can fill and speak to us in the realm of our imagination; so He can do above and beyond everything we think and imagine.

God wants, and has always wanted to teach us His ways not just His deeds, so we see His ways being the fountain of His deeds to the creative order.

In this hour we should take on heavens priorities, and join with Isaiah’s cry: “Because I love Zion, I will not keep still. Because my heart yearns for Jerusalem, I cannot remain silent. I will not stop praying for her until her righteousness shines like the dawn, and her salvation blazes like a burning torch. The nations will see your righteousness. World leaders will be blinded by your glory. And you will be given a new name by the LORD’s own mouth…Give the LORD no rest until he completes his work, until he makes Jerusalem the pride of the earth.” (Isaiah 61:1, 7)

Follow David’s declaration of what is important when he said: “May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I fail to remember you, if I don’t make Jerusalem my greatest joy.” (Psalm 137:6)

This restated in the language of today is 'I am ready to lose my gift if I do not put your priority at the centre of my life, as my highest goal, giving voice and life to what you have as the ‘apple of your eye’. God I want to line up with your burning zeal for your House.' 

This Jerusalem is not a long gone historic city or geographical place, but it is the Bride of Christ, the Body of Christ, the one that will come to be a Church proclaiming and living the Kingdom of God, the Church of God, and a people born of the Holy Spirit, with only one king!

He loves His church; it’s His answer to his creation in bringing the message of his Christ, the Kingdom of God. It will also be the way He brings rest and Kingdom order to a fallen creation!

What is important is not only what he is saying but also what He is doing.

- Where do we see His work? 
- Where do we see His will being done?     

Biblically the will of God is not something to look for, but is something we DO! It is to ‘do the will of God’ that we are called. 

Three Pronged Approach
I believe that there are three prongs of advance in the Kingdom being declared in this unprecedented hour. As a church we are finally returning to the only message Jesus had, the message of the Kingdom, this I believe is God’s heart and burden. You and I, from the youngest to the oldest, are to give voice to the message that Jesus came to declare - the message of His kingdom! We are seeing the ceasing of the proclamation of church, to the growth of the proclamation of the Kingdom of God by the church.

For 30 years we have heard proclaimed the message of Kingdom touching our lives in areas such as family life, personal character, finance, accountability, government, Ephesians 4:11 ministries being restored, bringing order to individuals and family to affect our daily world. Today a fresh voice is being declared and the message of the Kingdom is as alive as ever, yet with a fuller understanding of the Kingdom.

The next new prong, adding to the prong mentioned above is the coming of the Kingdom in signs, wonders, and miracles, with signs following. Not only single ministries but an Apostolic Church, a faceless people moved by the Father’s love. Such people as Bill Johnson from Redding, California and Todd Bentley in the Lakeland Outpouring, are heralding this focus but both encourage the empowering of the people of God to fill out who they are in Christ. The focus of these ministries is a burden to take it to the streets and into the societies we live in by the whole church imparting to everyone.

Thirdly, we see a message of the Kingdom that has a redemptive implication to society rather than an escapist mentality. A message that takes up stewardship for our creation, for our world educationally, socially and financially; discipling the people groups of the world.

As it says in Isaiah 58:12: “Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins; You will raise up the age-old foundations; And you will be called the repairer of the breach, The restorer of the streets in which to dwell” and echoed again in Zechariah 8:4, 5 (The Message) “Old men and old women will come back to Jerusalem, sit on benches on the streets and spin tales, move around safely with their canes—a good city to grow old in. And boys and girls will fill the public parks, laughing and playing—a good city to grow up in.”

What a challenge to put our hand to the plough to produce “…a good city to grow old in….a good city to grow up in…” This must be our challenge, not only to be personally okay or to have our spiritual experiences, but to have a city to grow up and grow old in that is good.

This move of God across the earth effecting society works largely in discipling. The people of God involved with this move are realising that they should go out and start communities of Christ where they live. The groups seeing this as first priority are known as ‘emerging church’, ‘organic church’ or ‘simple church’; however it should be the burden of the church as a whole. Brian McLaren has written that if all our theology and experience does not make us channels of God to a desperate world but just consumers, then it has no value. I shout ‘Amen’!

These expressions of emerging, organic, simple church are growing all across the world. They may have begun with a cry of ’there has to be more than this’, but now have moved into a clear move of the Holy Spirit in the earth. George Barna reports that in the USA alone 15 million believers have left established church structures during the last 5 years to become a part of this emergent move. While in the UK another research document has been recently presented that says some 40,000 simple churches have emerged in the last 18 months. I believe this is a move of the Spirit of God. God is doing something we cannot dismiss!

Men such as Brian McLaren cry out that if we do not change or transform society with the gospel then what is the point. Floyd McClung (YWAM, All Nations College, Cape Town) is establishing a Simple Church college in Cape Town right now!

What it all means is that for the first time we could have a broader Kingdom message, embracing the three advances of God to bring about transformation to see Jesus return to a Church that has overcome!

With this proclamation of the Kingdom message of Jesus, one cannot disregard the growth of a fresh hunger for His authentic presence and revival. A revival first in the people of God becoming so hungry for Him, then so filled with Him that they will go to every walk of life, school, office, factory and home, taking the fire of God with them in their hunger.

We have not yet fully realised the movement that is going on in the Spirit realm; in the movings of heaven. The world is catching up with the moving of God that has been happening in the supernatural realm since the turn of the century.

There is growing in church after church, a people of God who are hungry. It is a hunger which goes beyond where it has been for years, it is a tangible hunger. There is an intense fire burning in hearts for His presence, and it’s a growing hunger. It’s a hunger that we will need to persist with, not let it come and burn out quickly overnight, but one that we must sustain until the revival wave arrives at our shores. We have to learn to persevere in this hunger for God.

So what is God doing?

We have to realise that we are watching and dealing with things that we often do not understand today. It reminds me of the wisdom of Proverbs 14:4: “Without oxen a stable stays clean.” Today we have to realise that where God is working it gets messy. Just consider the Corinthian Church with God moving strongly - it was messy and disordered. What a challenge for those who want it done decently and in order. Whose order is the question!

Recently I came across a definition of wisdom from the business world as the ability to act with knowledge while doubting what you know' (Pfeffer & Sutten). That will challenge most who think of themselves as theologians. We must learn to live with ‘progressive revelation’. There are those who once preached against speaking in tongues and God's grace broke in on them and they spoke with other tongues. It is an hour to be flexible in our walk with God, knowing that He is so much bigger than our finite minds.

Things are so evidently different to days gone by. Have we not cried for new ways, new wine, new things? Can we believe what we see could be the ‘harvest of the nations’, or the new things that God has demanded in our day - a paradigm move?     

One thing I am convinced of is that this moving is of God. All we see and hear is creating a burning hunger which is a fundamental key for our hour. Fresh understanding, miracles, signs and wonders, people turning to Christ, Christ being the central focus. What other fruits do we need to see that this is a good thing and not a falsehood?

I was so saddened recently on reading a report outlining that the Welsh Revival of 1904 was not of God - a report following 5 years after 1904. The proof they said was that out of 100,000 souls that turned to Christ in the first 2 years, 5 years later only 80,000 remained. This indicated to the writer that it was a questionable move.

My wife and I did the unthinkable for some, and spent 7 days at the Lakeland Outpouring in early May, when the outpouring crossed its 50 day marker. I believe that it is an authentic move of the Spirit of God igniting many thousands of churches worldwide. Communities are being transformed with a hunger and passion for what God is doing. To stand amongst 9,000 people who are engaged, every last one, and passionately hungry for Him was amazing. To hear Christ proclaimed and to see the ‘stalls not clean’ so to speak was challenging and wonderful all at once.

Our time there only convinced us more that the world is facing an authentic move of the Spirit of God to put revival in our spirits, so that we walk in revival’s atmosphere within our own lives, so that whoever comes in contact with us will be revived and confronted by the Kingdom of God that makes all other kingdoms bow down!

I pray that your hunger is stirred for a wave of God to touch you and reach your world right NOW!

Whatever we see, experience and hear at this time we must see it as fruit bearing. We recognise fruit as:
 
- Lives transformed into the fullness of Christ
- The church becoming full of life
- Lives finding Jesus through people’s life stories
- Society being impacted on every level, politically, educationally and socially; that justice and righteousness will ring through the whole fabric of day to day life and become the way of life!

Further reading to stir you:

Bill Johnson
Face to face with God
When Heaven Invades Earth
The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind
Dreaming with God

Brian McLaren
Secret Message of Jesus
A Generous Orthodoxy
Adventures in Missing the Point
Everything Must Change

Todd Bentley 
See Lakeland Outpouring on www.freshfire.ca

© Gareth Duffty & Together 2008

Born in South Wales, Gareth Duffty serves as an Apostle and is part of a team of ministries who are covenanted together for purpose.

He ministers worldwide into countries such as the UK, USA, Sri Lanka, India, The Philippines and Africa.

Gareth’s heart is to see ordinary men and women fulfill their God-given destiny and be joined together in one common vision to establish God’s church and see His Kingdom extended.

Gareth has been married to Sandra for 28 years and has three children, Cerys, Hannah and Abigail who are all pursuing the purposes of God.