Elevated

What do you see when you see the pastor elevated on the platform? Do you wonder if he is up there for his own self-glorification? Do you wonder if he’s gotten there through self-promotion? Do you wonder if he’s only there to feed the insatiable needs of his own ego?

Perhaps.

What I wish you could see is all the things you can’t see. It only looks like he is elevated on a platform. He’s actually standing on the shoulders of his grandmothers who spent countless hours on their aching knees praying for their grandson. He’s standing on the prayers and praises of his parents who hold him up still. He’s standing on the pastors who have gone before him, mentored him, poured into him, and shared their wisdom with him. He’s standing on the prophetic words given to him by a few saints so many years ago that are just now starting to blossom. His elevation is more about all of their faithfulness than it is about his own.

But that’s not all. Can you see what’s behind him?

If it seems like there is a kind of confidence about him, don’t mistake that for self-confidence. What you are seeing is the wind at his back created by friends who would take a bullet for him. That wind at his back is his sister and brother-in-law’s unwavering support, encouragement, and prayer. That wind is the many members of his last church who still cheer him on today. That wind is his wife, willing to sacrifice so much, so often.

But don’t blink or you’ll miss what’s right beside him.

Can you see them? The ones to his right and left. He has angels assigned to him, without which he couldn’t do half of what he does. He also has incredible co-ministers of the gospel who have partnered with him. They watch his flank so that he can take the lead. Their friendship and partnership in ministry are what allows him to focus on his own assignment.

And those in front of him? Can you see them?

They are why he was elevated in the first place. The Lord didn’t elevate him to that platform for his own ego. The Lord has people who need healed, people who need freedom, people who need salvation, all laid out before this pastor. Jesus needed someone to partner with. The pastor’s elevation is more about them than it is about him. He’s simply someone God could trust to do what it takes to serve them. Up is down in the Kingdom of God.

And the One you really want to see, the One that really counts, is the One that stands above the pastor, the One who resides within him.

Can you see Him? He is the source of this pastor’s everything — his strength, his wisdom, his hope, his gifts, his love, his ministry. They all come from the One who stands above him, the One who will never leave him nor forsake him, the One who lives within him. His name is Jesus, the Name that is above all names. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of why the pastor is up there in the first place.

So, what do you see when you see the pastor elevated on the platform? I wish you could see all of those who stand under him, behind him, beside him, and in front of him. If you could see all of them (and maybe one day you will) it would be hard to see him. He would rightly disappear into the cloud of witnesses, and all that would be left to see is the only One worthy to be seen.

Your Breath in Our Lungs

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.
Ezekiel 37:9-10

The worship group All Sons & Daughters has a song called Great Are You Lord. It was released in 2013 and I’ve always really loved this song. There is a line in the song that says, “It’s your breath in our lungs, so we pour out our praise.” This specific line, and the whole song in general, took on new meaning in 2016 after I had a profound encounter with the Lord in a worship service.

It was March, 4, 2016 and I was at a Cultivate Revival conference put on by Global Awakening. It was hosted by a Methodist church in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania. Bill Johnson, Dr. Randy Clark and Dr. Tom Jones were the main speakers. I drove up and stayed at an AirBnB by myself for the first few days of the conference. By Friday, some other friends had joined me.

Friday night Randy Clark did his impartation service. This is when he invites the Holy Spirit to come and radically touch everyone in the room. After some worship and teaching, Randy invited the Holy Spirit to move. We were instructed to wait on the Lord as worship played and, if we felt anything, we were to come to the front for someone to lay hands on us and pray for us.

As I waited, I asked the Spirit to fill me to overflow. Nothing much happened…at first. But then I noticed that my right hand started to shake involuntarily. This had never happened to me before so I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t think it was significant enough to go down front so I stayed in my seat near the back of the sanctuary.

After a while, the prayer team that was down front started to move out into the congregation and pray for people standing at their seats. A number of other things happened to me in that service as the prayer team began to come out to the people in the congregation. I started trembling and shaking involuntarily. I felt tingling in my hands. I felt the heavy weight of the glory of God resting on me. It felt like someone put a 20 lb. lead vest on me, like the kind you wear before getting X-rays on your teeth at the dentist.

One by one a prayer team member would come and pray for me and as they did God continued to do more. As one man began praying, something different began to happen to my breathing.

I was standing with my hands by my side and suddenly my lungs didn’t seem to work. They weren’t getting enough oxygen and I felt like I had to heave just to get any air. It was like my trachea had closed and very little air was getting in my lungs. It was so hard to breath that I asked the Lord what was happening to me. I heard him speak to my heart and say, “You’re okay. It’s going to be okay.” Then I got the distinct impression that I was breathing in the Holy Spirit.

Fast forward nearly 8 years to today. I have seen many times now that when someone is getting free from a demonic spirit, they sometimes experience this phenomenon where they can’t breathe. This happened to one lady in my church when a spirit of death left her. This happened to another person when a spirit of fear left. I am now convinced this same thing was happening to me.

After a few moments of trying to trust God in the midst of struggling to breathe (it probably lasted only a minute but felt much longer), a man on the prayer team came and gave me this huge bear hug. Now I really couldn’t breathe. I have no idea why he did that except that he felt compelled by the Lord to do it. After he let go, I slumped down into my seat, and I could breathe again without issue.

I don’t know what left, but I believe some demonic spirit that had been attached to my life couldn’t stay while the Holy Spirit was getting poured out on me. And as it was on the way out, I couldn’t breathe. But after it left, the Father breathed His breath into me. He filled my lungs with His Spirit.

And this is why, from that moment on, I could never again sing that line in the worship song the same way.

“It’s your breath in our lungs

So we pour out our praise,

we pour out our praise”

Great Are You Lord, All Sons & Daughters

While I’m sure All Sons & Daughters meant this line to be metaphorical, I experienced this in a very literal, physical way. When I sing this song, I remember that God literally put His breath in my lungs, set me free from whatever was holding me back, and filled me with His Spirit.

Why We Ask For Healing

“…whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”
1 Corinthians 10:31

It’s been about nine years since I started really praying for physical healing for people. By this I don’t mean the kind of cursory prayer that just assumes God is going to do what God is going to do, basically nullifying the necessity of prayer. No, I mean it’s been nine years since I started stepping into the delegated authority of Christ and praying for healing in a way that expects God to heal the person right then and right there as we pray.

This is the kind of praying that believes in the gifts of healing listed in 1 Corinthians 12 and believes that God wants to use His people as conduits of His power bringing about His Kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)

In those nine plus years, I have seen a number of reactions to praying for physical healing. Some people are hesitant to receive healing prayer because of bad previous experiences. They are concerned that if they are not healed, they will get blamed for not having enough faith. Or, they are concerned that they’ll somehow disappoint the person praying for them if they aren’t healed. Or, they’d rather not get their hopes up one more time if they are just going to be let down again. All of these reasons for being hesitant about healing prayer are understandable.

One of the most common unhealthy reactions to receiving healing prayer that I’ve encountered is to downplay the importance of receiving prayer for physical healing. There’s a kind of Platonic dualism that still exists in western Christianity that exalts things labeled “spiritual,” like the soul, and reduces things labeled “material,” like the body.

This most often shows up in the evangelical world when people exalt “winning souls” and downplay care for the poor. But the other place this dualism shows up is when people believe the God cares deeply about their emotional and spiritual health but that their physical health is not that important to God.

The fruit of this dualism is that people believe God will heal their heart but likely not their body. This belief leads people to come forward easily for prayer when it involves their emotional or spiritual health. Yet, it is more difficult for people to come forward for prayer for their bodies. They wonder if their physical ailment is even worth praying for. After all, our bodies are destined for death anyway. Why pursue or persist in healing prayer?

But the same could be said for feeding the poor. Why care? Why do it at all if we’re all just going to die anyway? (You can see how unhealthy this dualism can get.)

Orthodox Christian theology rejected this kind of dualism centuries ago, but it still lingers on in the hearts and minds of many modern Christians. The incarnation of Jesus forever put to rest whether God cares about the body. He didn’t show up as a spirit. Jesus came in a body. This same body was crucified and buried. Then in His resurrection, again He was not resurrected as just a spirit. No, He came to life again in a resurrected body, as will all those who believe in Him. In other words, bodies matter to God. We are a whole person – spirit, soul, and body – and God doesn’t appreciate it when we diminish one aspect of ourselves that He created.

This unhealthy dualism which diminishes the importance of the body often leads whole denominations not to prioritize praying for the sick in a way that truly believes God will heal today. It not only reduces the faith and prayer life of the church, but it also leads people to say something like this, “Oh, I don’t want to receive prayer for this sickness. God can heal me if He wants, but there are bigger, more important things to pray about.” This way of thinking reflects a kind of Christian fatalism.

This “God will do what God will do” kind of thinking is deterministic and assumes we have no part to play in God’s Kingdom coming to earth. But this isn’t how God designed things to work. Our cooperation and obedience matter. God chose to use us as vessels to bring about His Kingdom on earth. It matters if we pray. It matters if we act. It matters if we cooperate with Him in obedience.

Another misconception of healing prayer is that it is all about the person and their ailment. People sometimes have a weird feeling like it is somehow selfish to receive healing prayer. But praying for someone’s healing isn’t primarily about them or their sickness. We pray for healing for a number of reasons and only one of those reasons is to see them get well.

Let me give you three reasons we pray for healing and receive prayer for healing that all come before the motivation to see someone get well.

We pray for healing for God’s glory. As shocking as this may sound, praying for healing is not primarily about the sick person getting well. It is primarily about the glory of God (Ephesians 6:7; 1 Cor 10:31). Jesus paid a high price on the cross for our healing. And if anyone ever gets healed, it is because of that price that He paid. By His wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24). So whether we pray for someone’s healing or we receive prayer for healing, in both cases we are primarily doing it for God’s glory. In both cases, it is so Jesus can receive His reward for the great price that He paid. The act of faith of both praying and receiving prayer, regardless of the outcome, brings glory to God.
We pray for healing out of obedience. Praying for healing and receiving prayer for healing are both things we are commanded to do in the New Testament. Jesus told His disciples to “heal the sick” on multiple occasions (Matthew 10:8; Luke 10:9) and then told His disciples to teach the next generation of disciples to do the same (Matthew 28:20). Receiving prayer for healing was something that was expected in the early church (James 5:14-15).
We pray for healing to see God’s Kingdom come to earth. Praying for healing and receiving prayer for healing become evidence (a sign) that God’s Kingdom is breaking into our world right now. We’re not waiting for the Kingdom to start invading this world; it’s already happening. That was Jesus’s message. The Kingdom has come. When we pray for the sick and when we receive prayer for healing, we are declaring that we believe God’s Kingdom has already started to invade this broken world.

And, of course, we pray for healing and receive prayer for healing in order to see the sick get well. There is so much suffering that comes with sickness. Part of our job as followers of Jesus is to push back against the brokenness of this world. We’re also called to join Jesus’s mission to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). For both of these reasons, we want to see the sick recover. To not care about seeing the sick get well would show an egregious lack of compassion and love for people.

Yet, we also must keep in mind that there are other important reasons that we pray for the sick and receive prayer for healing. If we are the one who needs prayer, we need to cast off that feeling that receiving prayer is somehow selfish. It’s not. Receiving prayer (and praying for the sick) is primarily about Jesus and His Kingdom. Receiving prayer and praying for the sick are acts of worship; they are acts of obedience. In doing so we bring glory to God and to His Kingdom.

The western church needs to shake free from the shackles of a gnostic dualism that keeps us from prioritizing healing prayer. Whether a person gets healed or not, we pray for healing and receive prayer for healing for God’s glory. And when someone gets miraculously healed, we exalt the name of Jesus for the high price He paid, and we share the testimony of healing as a sign of the in-breaking of God’s Kingdom on earth.

If you need physical healing (or any other kind of healing) go get prayer. Join a church that believes in healing and prioritizes healing prayer. More of God’s Kingdom is waiting to break in to our world. We just need to be bold enough to ask for it.

The Next Unbeliever

For you, Lord, are the Most High over all the earth;
you are exalted far above all gods.
Psalm 97:9

They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee. When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?
Luke 8:26-28

As we start the new year, January 1st is not only a time to reflect on the past but to look to the future. As a pastor, we often pray about and look to the future of our church. Questions arise like, “How will we reach the next generation?” and “What will we do this year to impact those who are unbelievers?” But before we answer those questions, we have to dig a little deeper and examine what we mean by “unbeliever” in the first place. Typically, in the past, “unbeliever” has meant someone who didn’t believe in God or didn’t believe in Jesus. But all of that is changing.

The unbeliever in the next generation is not the atheist but the polytheist or pantheist. Atheism was a blip on the radar screen of history that’s really only existed for the last few hundred years. Atheism is going away and a kind of spiritual buffet is replacing it.

The question is no longer “Do you believe in God?” The question for our future will be more similar to the question Israel faced in the Old Testament when it was surrounded by polytheistic cultures. It’s the question the early Christians faced in the polytheistic Roman world. The question for our future is, “Among all the gods, is your God the Most High god?” In other words, “Among all the spiritualities, is Jesus the one with real authority? Is He the answer? Is Jesus the Way, the Truth, and the Life as He claims to be?”

These questions are not primarily answered with apologetics, though being able to articulate orthodoxy is important. People mired in the dark soup of New Age, occult spirituality, tarot cards, chakra balancing, energy healing, and crystals already believe in the supernatural. Many of them would say they believe in God and even in Jesus. And a surprising number of them go to church. But they also dabble in Buddhism and esoteric meditation. It’s the Golden Corral approach to spirituality. Apologetics won’t help. At least, not at first.

What they really need is an encounter with the One who has real authority. They need to experience the authentic power of God as a contrast to the counterfeit spiritual experiences they’ve had before. Orthodoxy won’t matter until they have an encounter with the living God. Only after they say, “What just happened?” can we talk to them about Jesus in any meaningful way.

The problem is that too many of our churches are designed to answer questions people aren’t asking anymore. In other words, they are designed either to 1) answer the atheist, 2) entertain the consumerist, or 3) give community to the isolationist. But the polytheist and pantheist are having a different conversation.

If our church is only offering talk, or a big show of smoke and lights, or “community”, then the next generation will continue to be disinterested. They have plenty of talk on TikTok. They have plenty smoke and lights on YouTube. They have plenty of community at the climbing gym or playing Fortnite on Xbox. Or, at least, they think they do. Instead, our churches must be re-designed to host the Presence of God. They must be set up to help people have an authentic encounter with His Presence. Jesus must be the primary One that we go out of our way to make welcome among us. He must be the most treasured guest in the room.

An authentic and tangible encounter with the living Jesus is life-changing and can’t be faked. And this is the only thing that can combat a smorgasbord spirituality. Once you taste the goodness and the realness of Jesus, you lose a taste for all the other false spiritualities that are being offered by the world. You hunger for more of Him.

Jesus is the Most High God, but each local church we must be equipped to demonstrate this truth. We must be well practiced at hosting His Presence, flowing with the Spirit, and demonstrating His authority and power. Much of New Age spirituality and witchcraft is simply a counterfeit of the real thing. The next generation doesn’t need psychics; they need a church well equipped with accurate and healthy prophetic gifts and words of knowledge. They don’t need energy healing or Reiki or chakra balancing; they need a church equipped with the power of the Spirit who pray for the sick and see them recover. They don’t need sage smoke, seances, and psychedelics; they need the Body of Christ equipped with the authority of Christ and able to cast out unclean spirits in Jesus’s name!

The culture is shifting, and has already shifted, into a pantheism. Is your church ready to reach this new kind of “unbeliever?” May we be ready to declare in 2024 these words from the book of Daniel:

It is my pleasure to tell you about the miraculous signs and wonders that the Most High God has performed for me.

How great are his signs,
how mighty his wonders!
His kingdom is an eternal kingdom;
his dominion endures from generation to generation.
Daniel 4:2-3

The Evil Eye

You may have heard of “giving someone the evil eye.” It’s a saying that sometimes get thrown around in our culture and usually refers to looking at someone with disdain or disgust. It is often associated with another common phrase about giving someone “side-eye.” This is when someone looks at another person out of the corners of their eyes with an expression of contempt.

However, the idea of the “evil eye” is much more than just looking at someone with disdain. The evil eye is an idea that goes all the way back to ancient cultures and was believed to bring real harm into a person’s life.

We even see the idea of the evil eye being addressed in the New Testament by Jesus. The evil eye was a daily part of First Century culture, and although most translators have scrubbed this language from English translations of the Bible so as to not lend credibility to this superstition, Jesus addresses the notion of the evil eye directly on more than one occasion.

For instance, the cultural belief in the evil eye shows up a couple times in how Jesus heals a blind person. In John 9:6, Jesus spits on the ground, makes mud with his saliva, and puts it on a man’s eyes. After the man washes, his blindness is healed. In Mark 8:22-23 Jesus spits directly on a blind man’s eyes in Bethsaida, places his hands on him, and the man’s blindness is healed.

These stories don’t make any sense unless you understand a bit about their culture. Ancient cultures believed that the eyes were the windows to the soul. If you were blind, it must mean that there was darkness in your soul. They didn’t believe light came into your eyes so that you could see as medical science tells us today. They actually believed you were able to see because light was coming out of your eyes.

They also believed other things could come out of your eyes from your soul. If you were envious of someone and you stared at a person or if you were angry at that person, they believed that envy or anger could come up out of your soul, through your eyes, and end up cursing the person you were looking at. This became known as giving someone the “evil eye.”

This is what Jesus was referring to when he says this:

Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be just as full of light as when a lamp shines its light on you.”
Luke 11:34-36

The Gospel of Matthew has Jesus saying it almost identically:

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
Matthew 6:22-23

The word in the Greek translated here as “healthy” is actually the word that means “undivided” or “singular.” In other words, “without a double agenda.” It’s the antonym for the Greek word for double. And the word here translated as “unhealthy” is the word “evil.” It could literally be translated, “…if you have the evil eye, your whole body will be darkness.”

Jesus is using their cultural understanding of the “evil eye” to tell them that if they are duplicitous in the way they look at things, they’ll end up filling their life with darkness. But if their heart is pure, their soul is full of light, then they won’t look at things with envy and jealousy. In other words, if your insides (your heart, your motivations, your thinking) is full of light, then that light will shine out and impact everything around you.

The context of the Matthew 6 passage is Jesus’s conversation in the Sermon on the Mount about storing up treasure in heaven. Just as He finishes talking about not storing up treasure on earth, He talks about the need for the eye being “undivided” or “singular” in order to have a life full of light.

Then Jesus concludes by saying you can’t serve two masters; you’ll hate the one and love the other. Therefore, you can’t serve both God and money. An “unhealthy” or “divided” or “evil” eye in this case is one that is greedy and covetous about material wealth and possessions. It’s an eye that is divided between serving God and serving money.

But what about Jesus using saliva and spit to heal?

In that culture, one of the main ways to ward off the “evil eye” was to spit or use saliva in some way. This belief that saliva wards off the evil eye still exists today in some of the older cultures like the Mexican and Greek cultures.

If an old Mexican grandma or an old Greek grandma finds herself staring at you too long, she may come up and start making spitting noises around you. This is so that she doesn’t accidentally give you the evil eye. This happened to our nephews when they lived in McAllen, Texas right on the border between Mexico and Texas. They were the only blond-haired, blue-eyed kids walking through the grocery store down there. So, they’d have these grandmas staring at them and then coming up and making spitting noises toward them in the store. The grandmas were actually trying to care for them by protecting them from the evil eye.

Jesus knew all about his own culture’s view of the evil eye as well as the belief that saliva could combat it. Knowing this, Jesus spits on the ground, or spits on the man’s eyes, and uses his saliva to cure the evil eye. And curing the evil eye cured the blindness.

All of this might beg the question: “Is Jesus suggesting, with his words and actions, that the evil eye is real?”

I don’t think Jesus is saying that the superstition of the evil eye is real. I don’t think He was confirming that you could curse someone by looking at them sideways. There is no physical substance coming out of our eyes and impacting someone else negatively.

However, I do think Jesus is confirming that, in many ways, the eyes are the windows to our soul. We already know this intuitively. We can see so many emotions express themselves through a person’s eyes. Sadness, anger, joy, confusion, and so many more emotions show up in our eyes whether we like it or not. Our heart often does speak through our eyes.

And there is a different way that the eyes are a window to our soul. My friends and I who do deliverance ministry can often tell if a person is demonized by their eyes. The more heavily demonized a person is, the more it shows up in their eyes. The eyes of a demonized person tend to be darker than normal or more empty than they should be. This is hard to explain because you see darkened eyes as much with the “eyes of your heart” as you can with your physical eyes. It’s not as much a physical reality as it is a spiritual one.

I’ve also had occasions in prayer sessions where demons have manifested in a person’s eyes or in their facial expression. What I mean by “manifested” is that a demon can sometimes take over part of a person’s body who is heavily demonized. I’ve had demons take over arms that will start flailing or swinging at me. I’ve had demons take over legs that then move spontaneously on their own. I’ve even had demons take over the person’s whole body as they tried to get up and leave the room.

All of this to say, sometimes demons can pop up in a person’s eyes to “look around” or to make an expression. The most common demonic expressions I’ve seen are either mocking me, angry at me, or completely terrified of Christ in me. The eyes end up being, in a very literally way, the windows to the person’s soul.

Jesus, of course, has authority over all of this. Our desire, ultimately, is that people look through the windows to our own souls and see Jesus there. Christ in us the hope of glory. Or better yet, that when they look at our eyes, they would see the eyes of Jesus.

Jesus had eyes of compassion and love. He saw people that no one else saw. He loved people no one else loved. He also had eyes of fire. After all, when John had a vision of Jesus on the Island of Patmos, he described Jesus as having eyes that “were like blazing fire”(Revelation 1:14; 2:18; 19:12). So when John looked through the windows to Jesus’s soul, what John saw there was a blazing fire! Jesus is a consuming fire, even down to His very soul!

How about your eyes? Are they “healthy?” What’s coming out of them these days?

What is a Vineyard Church?

I am currently serving as a pastor of a Vineyard Church, and we have been in the process of hiring a new youth pastor. I’ve looked at over 130 resumes that have been submitted to us, and I have interviewed over 30 people so far for this position. One thing I keep running into is that very few people know what a Vineyard Church is. I end up having to give a little elevator speech about who we are. The following is usually how I answer the question, “What is a Vineyard Church?”

Vineyard, as a network of churches, was born out of the Jesus People movement of the 1960s and 70s where thousands of hippies surrendered their life to the Lord. It got started in the mid-70s with a few churches but really didn’t become a movement of churches until John Wimber began to lead it in the early 1980s. There are now about 2500 Vineyard churches around the globe with roughly 500 of those existing in the U.S.

Originally, Vineyard churches were the result of trying to combine the evangelical and charismatic streams of the church. We emphasize experiential worship, sound biblical teaching, the priesthood of believers (“everyone gets to do the stuff of ministry”), and the operation of the supernatural gifts of the Spirit.

Although we engage in the supernatural gifts of the Spirit (like healing prayer, prophetic words, praying in tongues, words of knowledge, signs and wonders, etc) we do so with a Kingdom theology rather than a Pentecostal theology. (We’re huge fans of George Ladd and Dallas Willard). We stress that seeing the miraculous is one aspect of the Kingdom “already” being inaugurated on the earth. Yet, we should also expect moments of not seeing the miraculous because the Kingdom is “not yet” in its fullness. And it won’t be in its fullness until Jesus returns.

After spreading east from southern California, over time Vineyard began to add two more streams of the Christian tradition: the social justice and contemplative streams. The social justice stream emphasizes care for the poor and recognition of those who have been marginalized by various societal structures. The contemplative stream emphasizes spiritual formation and discipleship by way of Ignatian practices. The hope is to walk with Jesus daily in a way that creates space for a deep interior life with God. Vineyard practices spiritual formation from an evangelical perspective rather than a Catholic perspective.

Each local Vineyard Church tries to hold these four streams together in tension:
Evangelical Stream, Charismatic Stream, Social Justice Stream, and Contemplative Stream. Each local Vineyard Church expresses this convergence of streams in different ways. Each church tends to choose one or two of these streams to emphasize over the other ones while still believing in the importance of all four of them. That’s why Vineyard Churches can feel a little different from one another.

As far as hot button issues: Vineyard affirms women in all roles of ministry but does not affirm the LGBTQ lifestyles. Vineyard believes that the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the supernatural gifts of the Spirit are alive and well and should be used in the church, but does so by empowering every believer rather than creating an unnecessary hierarchy of gifts. Vineyard believes that spiritual formation is key in helping people to deepen their walk with the Lord and provides opportunities for people to experiment with spiritual practices to that end.

I am biased, but I believe the convergence of these four streams within one church community makes Vineyard one of the most holistic expressions of the Kingdom of God that I’ve ever experienced in a church setting. If you want a community that cares about a deep, interior life with God while also expressing the powerful manifestations of the Spirit, a place that teaches from the authoritative word of God while also reaching out to the marginalized in our society, then Vineyard is the place for you.

We often say that people don’t “become” Vineyard, they simply realize one day that they already are Vineyard.

Saying Goodbye

Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
John 19:25-27

The following was not written by me but by the great Max Lucado in his book No Wonder They Call Him the Savior. Chapter 5 in that book is called “Leaving is Loving.” It was given to me half a lifetime ago when I was in college. I can’t remember who gave it to me, but I’ve kept a copy of it ever since. It’s one of the most powerful things I’ve ever read in regards to leaving.

As my family and I pack up our house and prepare leave a life we’ve loved for nearly two decades, setting out for a new adventure with God in Kansas City, these words resonate deeply with me. Many people have recently asked me how I’m doing or how I’m feeling. In this beautifully written chapter from Lucado are the word that most closely represent my best answer to those questions.

The gospel is full of rhetorical challenges that test our faith and buck against human nature.

“It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.”

“Only in his home town and in his own house is a prophet without honor.”

But no statement is as confusing or frightening as the one in Matthew 19:29. “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.”

The part about leaving land and fields I can understand. It is the other part that causes me to cringe. It’s the part about leaving mom and dad, saying good-bye to brothers and sisters, placing a farewell kiss on a son or daughter. It is easy to parallel discipleship with poverty or public disgrace, but leaving my family? Why do I have to be willing to leave those I love? Can sacrifice get any more sacrificial than that?

“Woman, behold your son.”

Mary is older now. The hair at her temples is gray. Wrinkles have replaced her youthful skin. Her hands are callused. She has raised a houseful of children. And now she beholds the crucifixion of her firstborn.

One wonders what memories she conjures up as she witnesses his torture. The long ride to Bethlehem, perhaps. A baby’s bed made from cow’s hay. Fugitives in Egypt. At home in Nazareth. Panic in Jerusalem. “I thought he was with you!” Carpentry lessons. Dinner table laughter.

And then the morning Jesus came in from the shop early, his eyes firmer, his voice more direct. He had heard the news. “John is preaching in the desert.” Her son took off his nail apron, dusted off his hands, and with one last look said good-bye to his mother. They both knew it would never be the same again. In that last look they shared a secret, the full extent of which was too painful to say aloud.

Mary learned that day the heartache that comes from saying good-bye. From then on she was to love her son from a distance; on the edge of the crowd, outside of a packed house, on the shore of the sea. Maybe she was even there when the enigmatic promise was made, “Anyone who has left . . . mother . . . for my sake.”

Mary wasn’t the first one to be called to say good-bye to loved ones for sake of the kingdom. Joseph was called to be an orphan in Egypt. Jonah was called to be a foreigner in Nineveh. Hannah sent her firstborn son away to serve in the temple. Daniel was sent from Jerusalem to Babylon. Nehemiah was sent from Susa to Jerusalem. Abraham was sent to sacrifice his own son. Paul had to say good-bye to his heritage. The Bible is bound together with good-bye trails and stained with farewell tears.

In fact, it seems that good-bye is a word all too prevalent in the Christian’s vocabulary. Missionaries know it well. Those who send them know it too. The doctor who leaves the city to work in the jungle hospital has said it. So has the Bible translator who lives far from home. Those who feed the hungry, those who teach the lost, those who help the poor all know the word good-bye.

Airports. Luggage. Embraces. Taillights. “Wave to grandma.” Tears. Bus terminals. Ship docks. “Good-bye, Daddy.” Tight throats. Ticket counters. Misty eyes. “Write me!”

Question: What kind of God would put people through such agony? What kind of God would give you families and then ask you to leave them? What kind of God would give you friends and then ask you to say good-bye?

Answer: A God who knows that the deepest love is built not on passion and romance but on a common mission and sacrifice.

Answer: A God who knows that we are only pilgrims and that eternity is so close that any “Good-bye” is in reality a “See you tomorrow.”

Answer: A God who did it himself.

“Woman, behold your son.”

John fastened his arm around Mary a little tighter. Jesus was asking him to be the son that a mother needs and that in some ways he never was.

Jesus looked at Mary. His ache was from a pain far greater than that of the nails and thorns. In their silent glance they again shared a secret. And he said good-bye.
No Wonder They Call Him the Savior, Chapter 5, Max Lucado

I’m not under some illusion that I am making some great sacrifice for the Lord. I’m moving to the Overland Park area of Kansas which is consistently rated as one of the top 5 places in the country to raise a family. I’ve had good friends pick up everything, leave the comfort of the familiar, and go to Belize (The Zittles) and to Zambia (The Morreaus). I know there are Christians around the world who are persecuted and risking their very lives for the sake of the gospel.

Even with all that in mind, leaving is still hard. We’ve invested here for 19 years, so the roots run deep. Pulling up those roots in order to transplant them is very painful, even though the place we’re going is really good soil. We have so many blessings, promises, and prophetic words waiting to be fulfilled on the other side of this move. But right now we’re grieving the loss of so much. Yet, we’re choosing to see each loss not as something taken from us, but as something surrendered, something sacrificed to the only One who is worthy of such sacrifice.

Jesus, you left everything, the perfection of heaven, for our sake. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, you left your hometown, your good friends, your family, your mom, to do ministry and usher in the Kingdom of God among us. And, finally, you even said goodbye to life itself as you surrendered yourself fully to the Father on the cross. You’ve left more than I will ever comprehend, and you did it for my sake. You’ve said painful goodbyes at a level I will never fully understand. Thank you that you never ask us to do anything you haven’t already done in greater measure. Thank you that you understand painful goodbyes. Thank you for the gift of roots even though it hurts to transplant them. Amen.

Competitive Nature

If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else…
Galatians 6:3-4

In our culture, being competitive is celebrated. Famous athletes are lauded for their competitive drive. Kids at a young age are taught to compete and win in youth sports. You even see competition when it comes to grades and academic performance. This tendency to be competitive runs through our culture and is embedded in the DNA of the business world. Evolutionary scientists tell us it’s the survival of the fittest.

As natural as being competitive seems, is it something that should exist in the church? Is being competitive something we should see in a growing life with Christ, or is it something that should get discarded along the way?

Having a competitive nature comes with serious pitfalls. Competitive people tend to frame everything as a win/loss scenario. If I win, you lose. But if you win, I lose. That kind of thinking is toxic to teamwork, conflict resolution, and community.

The other thing that can happen with a highly competitive person is that they begin to tie their worth and value to winning. They believe the lie early in life that, “I am valuable when I win.” Unfortunately, this is always packaged with its counterpart, “I am worthless when I lose.” Many kids pick up these lies along the way from undeveloped, immature parents and coaches.

Competition, by nature, is a comparative activity. It necessitates comparing yourself to someone else. But scripture is clear in Galatians 6 (see above) that we shouldn’t compare ourselves to others. We are to test our own actions against who God has created us to be, not against others. This perpetual tendency to be looking to the right or left, rather than in the mirror, makes a competitive person especially difficult in Christian community.

I’ve seen competitive personalities on display in church community and it’s not pretty. I’ve seen pastors try to “out do” other pastors in order to prove their worth and value. I’ve seen people jockey in conversation for who can be more spiritual, which is really just a competition for who can “sound” more spiritual. I’ve seen leaders compete for who has more influence in decision-making in the church. A competitive personality, in Christian community, reveals itself for what it really is…an unfinished immaturity that has yet to be surrendered to Christ.

The one time the apostle Paul celebrates a competitive spirit is when he’s challenging the Corinthians toward greater self-discipline and hard work. In other words, he celebrates competition’s tendency to cause a person to be tenacious.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.
1 Corinthians 9:24-25

Even here Paul makes the distinction between competing for earthly prizes and the kind of training that results in an eternal crown. He’s celebrating the discipline and tenacity that spiritual training brings about. But I don’t hear in this a celebration of a competitive nature. Instead, he’s celebrating perseverance and grit.

I grew up playing basketball, soccer, baseball and swimming. I was most competitive in swimming as it was my best sport. But what I loved about it was that we were competing mostly against our own times. Yes, the people in the water with us pushed us to give our best. But even when I was way ahead or way behind in relation to other swimmers, I was still pushing myself hard. My greatest competition was myself and my old time that I wanted to beat, not the person in the lane next to me.

I think this is what Paul had in mind when he wrote Galatians 6 and 1 Corinthians 9. It’s fine to allow the example of others to challenge us or inspire us. But our ultimate goal is not to beat other people. We can’t live a healthy spiritual life with a win/loss attitude, especially in ministry and Christian community. Our greatest competition is ourselves and our own potential. Our ultimate goal is to be formed into the image of Christ, to become who we were created to be, not to be better than someone else. Our value and worth is not tied to “winning” or being better than someone else. Our value and worth is rooted in God’s unconditional love for us, our unmerited adoption into the family of God.

The competitive nature in a follower of Christ must be nailed to the cross. It must be surrendered to Jesus so that He can transform it into something fit for the Kingdom. It must die a bloody death so that it can be resurrected into newness of life.

Over and over again Jesus taught us that the Kingdom works differently than the world. In the Kingdom, the first will be last and the last will be first. In the Kingdom, the humble are exalted. In the Kingdom, the servant is the greatest of all, the one who washes the most feet is the best leader. Jesus went to the cross, for the joy set before Him, knowing that, in the Kingdom, the one who gladly loses for the sake of others is the real winner.

Receiving More

The Lord said to Moses: “Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the tent of meeting, that they may stand there with you. I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them.
Numbers 11:16-17

A few months ago, during a Sunday worship service, I felt like the Lord asked me to do an impartation service before I left for Kansas. I had never really created a service like this, so I recruited some help from my sister, Jenn, and brother-in-law, Luke. The idea was to ask the Lord to release to others what He had so generously poured out on me over the last few years (gifts, power, authority, anointing, etc).

Two Sunday nights ago, we met at Luke’s giant, Amish barn where his family hosts auctions for pottery. About 35ish people showed up. We started the night with worship. Leroy and Jenn led us wonderfully into the Presence of God. By the third song it was clear that the place was being filled with God’s tangible presence. It was palpable. Luke then led us in a time of collective prayer of gratitude.

Then, I got up and did a short teaching on impartation. Impartation is basically a “transference of anointing.” Practically, it’s when you lay hands on someone and pray that the Holy Spirit fill them, empower them with new gifts, and fan into flame the gifts they already have. As He did with Moses, God takes some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and pours it out on someone else. It’s often the case that the Spirit will download some prophetic words for the person while we pray for them (in line with what Timothy experienced).

“Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you.”
1 Timothy 4:14

So after my time of teaching, I invited the Holy Spirit to be poured out on each person there. I invited God’s Presence to overwhelm each person and for the Spirit to release new gifts to people. I invited anyone who felt God’s tangible presence on them in that moment to come to the front and we would pray for them first.

When you pray a prayer like that, you’re never quite sure what is going to happen. Maybe nothing will happen. But God is faithful. The Spirit started to move immediately and powerfully. A few people made their way to the front and I prayed for them. God touched them powerfully. Strong physical manifestations of the Spirit were present (people weeping, shaking, dropping to the ground, etc).

Then, with the help of my friend Cam, we went around the room praying for each person, and the Holy Spirit continued to move powerfully. God gave me and Cam prophetic words for each person. There was a lot of shaking, trembling, and weeping as people experienced a powerful outpouring of the Spirit.

It was incredible!

This went on for more than an hour as we worked our way around to each person. As we finished praying, I went to the front to close out the night. We lifted up praise to God for moving so powerfully among us.

As I was trying to conclude the night in prayer, people in the room started to spontaneously pray for me. Unexpectedly, they started thanking God for my ministry over the years and praying for my move and future ministry. Then, more people joined in praying for me and my family.

I definitely wasn’t expecting this. As people popcorned around praying for me, I could feel the Spirit, like a mighty wind, hit me. It intensified the more people kept praying. It’s hard to describe but it felt like a blast of wind, not physical wind, but like a force that was blasting me in the spirit. It got to the point where I couldn’t stand anymore and had to go down to my knees.

It was such a blessing not only to pray for everyone but to have them pray for me and my family. I thought I was there to give to others, and I was, but the Lord also had me there to receive. What I thought was a night for everyone else was also a night for me.

It’s a night I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. A week later and I’m still processing all that happened there. It was truly a beautiful night. I was so encouraged by how God used me to bless others. I was also so encouraged by how God used others to bless me.

A double blessing.

May this be just the beginning of more impartation nights in the future. Lord, as I hand to you my meager fish and loaves, may you multiply it to others and set them ablaze with your Presence and power. Amen.

Beautiful One

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.”
Matthew 23:27

While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table. When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. Aware of this, Jesus said to them, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me.
Matthew 26:6-8, 10

I’ve noticed a trend where some churches who are trying to appeal to younger generations are emphasizing “beauty” in their worship gatherings. They’ll tap into ancient liturgies of the church. They’ll use lots of poetic language. Their songs will sound like folksy, indie rock. Even their language is very artsy, bordering on pretentious.

All of this is an attempt to have a service that feels trendy and leans into “beauty.” It’s also an attempt to get away from the more conservative evangelical focuses on numbers, baptisms, and salvations. But what these churches don’t realize is that they are making the same mistake as the evangelicals just in a different direction. In both cases, these churches are chasing the fruit rather than the source.

Now, to be clear, I believe that creativity and the arts can be used powerfully in worship. We were created in the image of the Creator God, so we were made to be creative. The arts are powerful tools to bring beauty into the world that points us back to our Creator. So, don’t hear me say that I’m against the arts or creativity.

What I’m critiquing is the church that claims to be all about beauty, justice, and love. But they’ve prioritized the pursuit of beauty over the pursuit of the Beautiful One. They’ve prioritized seeking justice over seeking the God who is just. They shout from the rooftops that “God is love,” but what they demonstrate with their lives is their true slogan, “love is god.” The shift is subtle but recognizable.

In trying so hard to be beautiful on the outside, these churches often become just like the Pharisees who were called white-washed tombs by Jesus. Beautiful on the outside, full of dead bones and unclean things on the inside.

What Jesus called beautiful was the extravagant worship of the woman who broke open the alabaster jar. This over-the-top display of public affection for Jesus was embarrassing to the disciples. But for Jesus, this was beautiful. Real beauty is produced not just with meticulously crafted, poetic liturgy. Real beauty is produced with surrendered hearts who are completely abandoned to the Beautiful One.

King David showed us the right heart posture when he wrote:

One thing I ask from the Lord,
    this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
    all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
    and to seek him in his temple.
Psalm 27:4

When we focus on creating a “beautiful” church service or liturgy, people will leave saying, “Wow, that service was beautiful.” But when we focus on an all-out pursuit of worshiping Jesus with abandon, a singular focus on the Beautiful One, then people will leave saying, “Wow, God is so beautiful,” or “What God did here was so beautiful!”

Can you see the difference? Is our goal to have people think our services are beautiful? Or is our goal to connect people to the beauty of the Lord?

He is the Beautiful One. And what He calls beautiful is extravagant, messy, surrendered worship that will often have onlookers a little embarrassed and a little offended. When the Holy Spirit moves, you will find a room full of people ugly crying, falling on their knees, trembling in God’s Presence, crying out to the Lord. It’s not pretty, but Jesus calls it beautiful. Or you may find a room full of people completely silent, reverently still as the fear of the Lord floods the room. No fanfare. Completely in awe as Jesus enters the room. He’s not impressed with white-washed tombs. He’s looking for those who, with totally abandonment, are willing to let go of their pride and dignity and give themselves fully to the beauty of the Lord.