Monthly Archives: November 2009

Stewardship: a David Leigh take

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David Leigh (France and USA) is a good friend to a number of us who have journeyed within what was the ‘Target Europe’ framework. Some time back I wrote a few blogs about stewardship. He made some comments and so I asked him if he would be willing to write something on this. Here is a link to his first post on stewardship. Below are a few excerpts from his post:

Simply questioning patriotism in many circles is unheard of and indeed negatively provocative.

My thought is that for the follower of Jesus, living a full expression of stewardship would make patriotism a lot less energizing.

I titled this Stewardship – God’s original plan? because I believe this really begins back in Genesis 1:26,28 with God’s creation of the cosmos and man. I believe that God gave Adam (and then with Eve) a small (?) parcel of land to steward (Genesis 2:8,15). I tend to think that the Garden of Eden was a “partially tamed” land to teach mankind some essential truths about how this whole thing – life, creation, relationship with God, etc. – was supposed to work…with the idea that these experiential understandings were to be applied to the rest of God’s creation. What was it that they were to understand? Certainly a lot more than I can imagine, but here’s a short list oriented to what I’d like to discuss:

  • God’s creation is a living gift
  • The gift is given, with love, by our Heavenly Papa to
  • Like all life in the current created order, it needs investment to flourish – a lack of investment will either kill it or cause it to grow malignantly/incorrectly
  • God provides for us
  • One of the chief ways that He intends to provide for us is via the creation He gives us as a gift

To summarize, He set up Creation and Man in Creation to have a symbiotic relationship….

Travelling home

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We leave tonight from Brazil. It is so difficult to assess such a time. (I will in the next few days send out a newsletter giving a fuller report.) Healings, salvation (45 last night responded – when was the last time I was involved in something so directly evangelistic?), watches starting yet again, generosity, friendships, too many open doors, questions raised about the future – head spinning and body tired!! Off home, then to the UK for Alan’s funeral, looking for a new apartment, praying for the right rhythm for 2010… and so we go on.

Whenever one drives through a Brazilian city, the Pentecostal, charismatic church buildings (often shop fronts) are everywhere. The noise is also present as volume seems to have a relationship to anointing! Perhaps the nation is around 20+% born again / charismatic. (One state we were in claims to be 40%). This is from almost 0% a few decades ago. I am grateful for the shift, the breaking of hegemony, and in particular religious hegemony is so necessary. However, it is the symbol of yesterday’s breakthrough. And yesterday’s breakthrough can become today’s prison, and today’s new (improved?) hegemony.

I am sure that so much has shifted in this nation, there is a groundswell taking place of something new that will in this next phase begin to grow – please Lord, below the radar.

The biggest request for the future is ‘give us an alternative eschatology’. We are thinking about this – but the implications of being citizens of heaven? And the implications for the Pentecostal charismatic ubiquitous presence?

A friend

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Tonight someone who has been a good friend changed status… absent from the body but now present with the Lord he loved and served. Alan Moore was someone I first met in 1976, was there for his wedding to Jenny, our respective families had lives that have been interwined ever since. He will be missed, and in particular by a family that he loved and was proud of.

He was a man of integrity, hard work, faith and prayer. He was generous. With Jenny they gave sacrificially to Sue and I enabling us to buy a flat in Cobham, but his generous spirit did not stop at that.

Then one year ago they led Gayle and my wedding, then a few months later they did the same for Joe and Judith.

Steve Lowton earlier today wrote this:

This evening Alan Moore went to be with the Lord.
Many, if not most of you, won’t know this amazing man. A true father in the nation the length of his stride would leave many a younger person in his wake as he called upon the Lord he loved and walked the land into which his life was sown. He will be hugely missed by his amazing wife Jenny and family.
The call for fathers in the land who carry that same spirit is strong and urgent. I trust that I will be found amongst those who rise into the gap Alan leaves.

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of the saints”
Steve

There is always a call to respond in faith. I know Jenny and the family will. I know others will find faith as a result of this man’s life. His legacy is good and will last.

Apology

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I was intrigued by the question on the BBC web site yesterday: ‘Is it right to apologise for the past?’ It went on to say

Gordon Brown is planning to apologise for the British government’s role in sending thousands of children to former colonies in the 20th century, the BBC has learned. What difference can an apology make?

[Links to BBC site and articles:

BBC Discussion forum on repentance
BBC article on Australian repentance]

I remember these debates some 10 years ago and even sitting in a meeting chaired by the then theological advisor of an organisation where this was debated.

Now for those of us who are convinced of IR we have always suggested that true repentance will begin a movement where if necessary those who represent government will eventually come to make their apology. Of course the above scenario with PM Brown proves how right we are!!!! Well not ‘prove’ it.

Isn’t Scripture to disempowering. I cannot prove my point. So back to the walk of faith, and the tentative understanding of Scripture that seems to help us along the way.

The end of it all?

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So Zondervan has agreed to the publication of a new series by Tim LaHaye (co-author of Left Behind series). Three years after the last in the LB series, we will now have Edge of Apocalypse, the first book in a new series called The End.

What on earth causes such interest in those books. Surely not an interest in transformation. I am about as tempted to buy the book as I am to go get my daily horoscope!

João Neiva and signs

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João Neiva and signs
We are in João Neiva, coming to the end of a school here. Humility and hunger have marked it. I know of one person who travelled 3 days to get here, another one 3000 kilometres. The abuse of the prophetic, the hierarchical network expression is very visible in Brazil, so a touch of reality, and release of people is responded to with enthusiasm.
It has been wonderful to see people release prophetic words, people receive them and be impacted by them. If the release of the body can continue in the nation, the being impressed with those with the apostolic / prophetic tag might just diminish.
There were a number of instantaneous healings last night with most issues being healed being situations that went back years. I was also introduced to someone who had a watch in her bag that had stopped some time back. On the first night I had reflected on the issue of watches starting that had been stopped, and when she checked it out the watch had started. She shwoed it to us last night.
I know I have blogged on the issue of signs before, but one more time.
The opening night I believed the right thing to do was to declare the sign of rivers breaking their banks is over, the reality is now to be made visible. So we stood to declare the sign over, and then call for the manifestation of the reality. This will mean that in the next 18 months there has to be signficant mannifestation of a shift int eh political and religious structures in the land. With levels of corruption in both sectors being exposed.
So there is one new element I attached to the issue of signs:
signs point to the relaity
they draw the reality to themselves
they anchor something now for the future.
The first two elements I have blogged on before and they are self-evident, the latter aspect I take from the twinning of the episodes of the cursing of the fig tree and the destruction of the Temple (They are linked in Matthew and in Mark he pushes the connection even tighter by placing one episode within the other.)
Jesus came to the fig tree, curses it then moves to the Temple, there is the releasing of a judgement over that place that will outwork in 40 years time, then returns to the fig tree. It has died, not some 40 years later, but in the course of a few hours. It seems to me the narrative is suggesting that the cursing of the fig tree secures the future destruction of the Temple.
So signs are key. They are there to open our eyes (pionting), they are a bridge over which the reality travels (drwaing), and they anchor now the future event.
God give us signs and give us the realities they point to.

We are in João Neiva, coming to the end of a school here. Humility and hunger have marked it. I know of one person who travelled 3 days to get here, another one 3000 kilometres. The abuse of the prophetic, the hierarchical network expression is very visible in Brazil, so a touch of reality, and release of people is responded to with enthusiasm.

It has been wonderful to see people release prophetic words, people receive them and be impacted by them. If the release of the body can continue in the nation, the being impressed with those with the apostolic / prophetic tag might just diminish.

There were a number of instantaneous healings last night with most issues being healed being situations that went back years. I was also introduced to someone who had a watch in her bag that had stopped some time back. On the first night I had reflected on the issue of watches starting that had been stopped, and when she checked it out the watch had started. She shwoed it to us last night.

I know I have blogged on the issue of signs before, but one more time. The opening night I believed the right thing to do was to declare the sign of rivers breaking their banks is over, the reality is now to be made visible. So we stood to declare the sign over, and then call for the manifestation of the reality. This will mean that in the next 18 months there has to be signficant manifestation of a shift int eh political and religious structures in the land. With levels of corruption in both sectors being exposed. So there is one new element I attached to the issue of signs:

  • signs point to the reality
  • they draw the reality to themselves
  • they anchor something now for the future.

The first two elements I have blogged on before and they are self-evident, the latter aspect I take from the twinning of the episodes of the cursing of the fig tree and the destruction of the Temple (They are linked in Matthew and in Mark he pushes the connection even tighter by placing one episode within the other.) Jesus came to the fig tree, curses it then moves to the Temple, there is the releasing of a judgement over that place that will outwork in 40 years time, then returns to the fig tree. It has died, not some 40 years later, but in the course of a few hours. It seems to me the narrative is suggesting that the cursing of the fig tree secures the future destruction of the Temple.

So signs are key. They are there to open our eyes (pionting), they are a bridge over which the reality travels (drwaing), and they anchor now the future event.

God give us signs and give us the realities they point to.

Groundshifts and signs

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I was going to wait on this one but the article by Naomi Klein is so in line that I have decided to submit this today. There will be a link to the article at the end.

I have been praying about Copenhagen. It has been much on my mind. One reason is that while I came here to research the past (how humans manage scarce resources like water) I have found myself participating in a competition to redesign the city for the future. It has been an interesting experience. I am seen as the optimist in the group. I am passionate about addressing climate change and will make big vision proposals. Inevitably the group (all Italian and  residents of the city) explain patiently to me that for historical or political (mostly political) reasons my proposal is impossible. I counter that it is needful, that the time is here, this is it, and old political structures will be gone in 10 years anyway. They then normally spend about an hour discussing my proposal. Back and forth the conversation goes with much gesturing to the city plan. I follow about half of it. But in the end the big vision somehow gets incorporated into the competition submission. They believe this means they cannot win but it is the right thing to do. I have said that a big vision is what people are seeking right now and this might well mean that they win.

So Copenhagen and groundshifts. As I walked home from a competition meeting last night I was thinking about this strange moment. How the past/present/future have all met in a kind of Einsteinian (did I spell that right?) space/time continuum. I believe we are at a very important moment. No matter what agreements do or do not come out of Copenhagen I believe that life will never again be the same. There will be a major, tectonic shift. The ground under our feet will be changed and we will learn to walk differently.

Such moments are full of opportunity and peril. But I am trusting that God’s Spirit is actively involved with this. I believe we will see and hear the Kingdom proclaimed in December in ways many of us might not easily recognize. So we should keep our eyes and ears open.

When I taught environmental science last year I always asked a question of my college/university students when we got to the issue of climate change. I asked them, why they were not out marching in the streets since their futures were at stake here. Generally they explained that they had been uninformed about the issues.  And as many of my students came from all over the globe I could believe it. But I realized I faced the same challenge. I am a middle-aged, reasonably agreeable, generally law abiding, woman. Was I willing to step out and take a risk in terms of their futures, in terms of caring for God’s creation?  So far, that situation has not appeared in my life. But I was fascinated recently that former Vice President Al Gore endorsed civil disobedience as a response to climate change. And the last quote in Naomi’s article is interesting about the costs of obedience. Christians are called to be obedient to God alone, not political systems or governments. When did I become so timid in regards to such things?

Even if you don’t intend to march in Copenhagen (or bike ride or anything else), please pray. It is a most critical moment for all of us. Here’s the article:  (sorry I don’t have my mouse with me so I will have to do this the old fashion and less visually nice way. )

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/nov/12/seattle-coming-age-disobedient-copenhagen

Cheryl

Brazil and 5

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Brazil is the 5th largest country with the 5th largest population and will be the 5th largest economy in the world by 2026 (thanks Cecil for this, on your comment re ‘Lessons from afar’).

Now the power cuts – it shut down the dam that supplies 1/5th of the electricity to Brazil, it lasted over 5 hours, and affected 1/5th the population.

Are we messing with the power grid – I think God in his mercy is… The time in the nation has shifted.

Sign to reality?

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There was a massive power failure in Brazil these past few days – affecting Rio, Sao Paulo and 9 states. If it is in any measure a sign then it might connect to a sign that I felt God gave a few years ago. In New York there was a major power cut (Aug 13, 2003 if I remember correctly), I then porhesied that there would also be a power cut in London that affected transportation (I said this on Aug 23) and on Aug 28 that took place, then there was a major outage in Sweden and denmark, followed by a power cut in Rome Septemebr 28th that year that affected a huge part of the city and a city celebration.

That was a sign of ‘God shutting down the abuse of power, so that he might release his power in new measures’.

So here we are… maybe hte same sign.

We arrived in Espirito Santo last night. Rio airport was closed for flights due to the weather, and it looks as if we were the first plane out.

Last year the sign for the nation was rivers would break their banks across Brazil as a sign that the religious and political powers will no longer be able to hold back what God was doing. This state was also affected, and even last week, this city was under water – someone said to us ‘I have never seen it like this’. So now the issue is of moving from sign to reality. Tonight I expect to teach on signs, then to make the declaration that the political nor religious powers will hold back what God is doing. Hence we need to expect a major shift in the next 18 months in both those realms. Controversy, and also things coming to light at a level never before seen.

God’s timing is good – as we entered Brazil I had an email from the USA saying that a (bizarre) sign I gave in 1998 had come to pass. Confirmations are always to push us further – not simply to more signs but to the realities.

10 hours or a little longer

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So today we begin a 10 hour journey door to door from where we are in Florianopolis to João Neiva. I would not even begin to know how to work out how many hours / kilometres in these past 11 years I have covered in cars, buses, trains, and planes. I often reflect back when in Brazil about a journey that began for me in a car park in the little town of Cobham, Surrey. We travelled as a team to Leeds. I owe much to the people of that city.

Or maybe the journey began in prayer during the months prior to that when the Lord said to me ‘what you are doing at the beginning of 98 you will not be doing at the end of 98, so get ready’. Maybe it began when some 21 years prior on Jan 9th we took up residence among a people who were marked as those who were not under law but grace. Or, did it begin when I left Orkney at age 18, or when I kicked a football in the big outdoors almost every day of my life up until leaving for London?

When does a journey begin?

As always in Brazil we meet people on a journey. People from every economic background. Clever understandings of the Gospel or of church are not always so impressive in these contexts. It seems to me humility and deep appreciation of the landscape are two elements that help sustain us all.

I don’t enjoy long journeys (‘are we nearly there yet?’). I wont enjoy the 10 hours to come, and will want a good rest at the end of the flights and drives. I have loved though the journey of the past 11 years. The landscape today is so different to then. So to the journey of the next 10 hours… and the next 10 years. The first is easy – sit back, relax, be bored, read, sleep etc. The second is the challenge. We enter a new decade in a few weeks time. Awesome possibilities.

Lessons from a far off place

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We are off in a few minutes to catch our coach on the way north, back through Rio and on to Espiritu Santo. The area where we have been was settled by some core families, so has some deep roots.
It is always interesting when it is possible to spend a few days in a place, get a ‘feel’ for it and then with prayer to see the place in some fresh ways. I was able to prophesy over one of the family situations from a family with roots in this area… as I did so I began to speak of family jealousies that were locking up family inheritances.
However, it is not only in this situation but in others that this was the case.
Jealousy has been a theme I have carried for some time (had to / have to deal with it in my own life). It works strongly against us finding our own place, and releases a spirit that fights against others finding their place.
Wrath is cruel, but who can stand against jealousy? (Prov. 27:4).
I was also able to come against a spirit of jealousy last night, and without the laying on of hands there were some clear testimonies of physical healings, each one testifying that they had had the problem for many years (particularly in joints / arthritis).
One other lesson that stands out here is that we have to let go off those things / places / events that have past their sell by date. Otherwise they suck life from us in order to stay alive.
Loads to think about if we were to come back to Brazil again. There are changes, transition is here. Last year the sign I gave was that rivers would break their banks across the nation signifying that political nor religious power will now hold back what the Lord is doing. The sign has come, now we declare the reality is here… and I think when we get to Espiritu Santo that the sign ends. That state is currently flooded.
Lessons – not sure I learn them quick enough.

We are off in a few minutes to catch our coach on the way north, back through Rio and on to Espírito Santo (yes, Holy Spirit state!!). The area where we have been was settled by some core families, so has some deep roots.

It is always interesting when it is possible to spend a few days in a place, get a ‘feel’ for it and then with prayer to see the place in some fresh ways. I was able to prophesy over one of the family situations from a family with roots in this area… as I did so I began to speak of family jealousies that were locking up family inheritances.

However, it is not only in this situation but in others that this was the case.

Jealousy has been a theme I have carried for some time (had to / have to deal with it in my own life). It works strongly against us finding our own place, and releases a spirit that fights against others finding their place.

Wrath is cruel, but who can stand against jealousy? (Prov. 27:4).

I was also able to come against a spirit of jealousy last night, and without the laying on of hands there were some clear testimonies of physical healings, each one testifying that they had had the problem for many years (particularly in joints / arthritis).

One other lesson that stands out here is that we have to let go off those things / places / events that have past their sell by date. Otherwise they suck life from us in order to stay alive.

Loads to think about if we were to come back to Brazil again. There are changes, transition is here. Last year the sign I gave was that rivers would break their banks across the nation signifying that political nor religious power will now hold back what the Lord is doing. The sign has come, now we declare the reality is here… and I think when we get to Espírito Santo to declare that the sign ends. That state is currently flooded.

Lessons – not sure I learn them quick enough.

Quick post

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Just a short blog, as internet access is not too frequent. Have begun a few days here in Criciuma… awesome project this morning that Gayle will photo blog on soon… so keep checking her site: Photo Blog.

Also Roger Mitchell is beginning to blog – this will be worth following: Check it out: Roger Mitchell

Cheryl forwarded me a Guardian article on the interface of drug lords and evangelicals in Rio. Having been there and about to go back in a few days time, what a city, what potential, beauty, what challenges!!!

Guardian article.

Write more soon when I get space.