Don’t Underestimate the Power of Presence and Encouragement

I’m in 1 Samuel 23 this morning as I sit down to have coffee, and meet with the Lord in His word and prayer. In verses 13ff we have the story of David and his men hiding in the wilderness, Saul hot on their trail. David receives word Saul is searching for him in order to kill him.

Then, as I read verses 16 and 17, Holy Spirit caught my attention. These verses tell us something that on the surface might not seem all that important or exciting. It is the simple story of Jonathan coming to be with David. It is a short story of the power of presence and encouragement.

In this technological age, when we can’t physically be with someone, a phone call, email, or skype contact may be better than nothing. However, being personally present is still the most effective means of bringing a needed word of encouragement; and a word of encouragement does just that – it gives and imparts courage at times and in situations where courage is needed.

David is in a place where he needs courage; and Jonathan comes to be present with him and to give him that word. In verse 17 we read Jonathan’s words of encouragement to David: “’Don’t be afraid,’ Jonathan reassured him, ‘My father will never find you! You are going to be the king of Israel, and I will be next to you, as my father, Saul, is well aware’” (1 Sam 23:17, NLT).

Jonathan is not flattering David. He is reminding David of God’s word to him. He is reminding him of a word that is the most true thing; and this is what God’s word, God’s promises are – the most true thing. God’s word and promises are more true and real than the present circumstances we may find ourselves in. And the power of presence is still the best way to deliver those reminders to those in need.

If you can’t physically be present with someone who needs you this month, this Fall, then call them, email them, skype them. But if you can, make the time, take the time to go be present with them. Who do you know who needs you to be their Jonathan?

P.S.: The picture posted above is a good cup of Kenyan coffee and my Bible at the foot of Mt. Kiliminjaro. I recently returned from a trip there with ARC leaders Bob Mabry, his wife Tara, Dawn Lundgren, and my wife and son, Debi and Ben. It was a special blessing to get up each morning for that "coffeetime with Jesus" and look up at such a magnificent portion of God's creation. And this trip was full of the power of presence and encouragement, both for me, and through me. God bless you this Fall as you practice the power of presence and encouragement.

Let's Pray Before We Get There

I am in Huntington Beach, hosting a class being taught by Dave Householder for The Master's Institute Seminary at Robinwood Church. It's good to be here with Dave, with my good friend, Tom Brashears and his family (I'm staying with them), and with so many other friends out this way.

This morning I'm meeting with the Lord in the Gospel of Mark, reflecting on the story in Mark 9 of the father who comes to Jesus to ask healing for his son; the father who famously states, "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief." Another friend, Vineyard pastor, Jack Moraine has written a good and helpful book on Christian healing and in his book as he examines this story he notes some interesting things.

First, that Jesus expected his disciples to be able to minister healing and deliverance; expected them to be able to naturally move in God's supernatural power.

Second, that it does not seem to take perfect faith to lay hold of the healing power of Jesus. The father comes, as many of us often do (I sure do) with a mixture of faith and doubt. However, the father does not let the doubt keep him from acting on his faith in coming to Jesus in the first place, believing Jesus has the power to heal his son ("Lord, I believe"). And Jesus responds to this mixture of faith and doubt by healing the son! An imperfect mixture does not keep Jesus from responding. Thank Your, Lord of mercy and grace. Jack notes that faith is not the absence of doubt, but the presence of belief. And the father acts on his belief in Jesus.

What really catches my attention this morning, however, is what Jack notes about Jesus' interesting statement that these demonic forces only come out by prayer. He reminds me in his book that the time to be praying for the sick (and the demonized) is before we come to minister to them. Our moving naturally in the supernatural power of Jesus flows out of an ongoing relationship of intimacy in prayer. The time to pray is before we get there.

So, with that in mind I'd like to ask you to be praying now for the ARC Southwest Gathering on July 13-15 in San Diego, CA. Please join me in praying now, before we get there. Let's be praying now for keynote speakers Pete Greig and Kristi Graner that God would be speaking to them and working in their lives, preparing them for the time they'll be with us. Let's pray now for Danny Mullins who will be our primary worship leader that God be speaking to him and working in his life to prepare him for this time.

And let's be praying now for all who the Lord will draw to be there those days. Let's be praying now that God work in our hearts in such a way that we will be open and receptive to the God breakthroughs He wants to encounter us with, and for the ongoing fruit of these encounters He wants to mark our lives.

Thanks for joining me in praying now, before we get there.

In God's Unshakable and Extravagant Love,

Mike

Father God Wants Us to Know the Joy of Answered Prayer

A dear friend of mine says that faith believes that what God says is the most true thing. Working with this definition might mean other things are true as well but what God says is truer then even them. For instance, if we apply this to the practice of prayer, it is often true that many of our prayers seem to go unanswered or are answered in ways other than we had hoped they’d be. However, approaching the practice of prayer in faith would then mean that what God says is truer than my experience of prayer at times.

Beloved, what God says of prayer in His Word is most certainly truer than our experience and our feelings in prayer at times; perhaps many times, but truer, nonetheless. Let us not dare to settle for anything less than all God longs for us to experience as we re-practice the spiritual habit of prayer because it is true according to God’s Word that or Father God wants us to know the joy of answered prayer.

Jesus came to represent the Father to humanity and as He did He taught on and practiced prayer. In fact, Jesus’ teaching on prayer was one of the most positive areas of His teaching ministry. He tells us things that are truer than our experience sometimes, things such as:

“I tell you, ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or, if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give goods gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” (Luke 11:9-13, ESV).”

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it (John 14:12-14, ESV).”

Does your experience of prayer measure up to these verses? Are you receiving, finding, having doors opened, and receiving whatever you ask for in the name of Jesus? To some degree perhaps but not to the degree you’d like to see be your experience? I know that I am not. I want to see more answered prayer in my life, my family’s life, and in the life of the Alliance of Renewal churches network.

In acknowledging my practice of prayer not measuring up to the most true thing God’s Word says about prayer, I refuse to let my lack of experience be the last word on the subject. I refuse to settle for less than all God wants for me, for my family, and for all you in the ARC. I refuse to settle for less than the most true thing God says about prayer. I want His Word, not my experience to be the last word on the subject!

So I am going to re-practice prayer by continuing to preach, teach, and practice God’s Word, not my experience. I am going to continue to pray until there is a breakthrough in my prayer life, in the prayer life of my family, and in the prayer life of the Alliance of Renewal Churches. Will you join me? Will you join me in choosing this year not to settle for less than all God has in store for us as we pray? Will you join me this year in not allowing our experience of prayer, but rather God’s Word concerning prayer to have the last word in our lives, and in the lives of those we pray for?

If we will practice prayer more consistently and intentionally this year, if we will allow ourselves to wrestle with the mystery of prayer more this year and not give up, we will see more God breakthroughs; more God breakthroughs in our lives and in the lives of others.

We cannot experience and live fully into the vision God has given us in the ARC unless we are committed to being a people of prayer and our churches being houses of prayer. That vision, lest we forget is this: To see churches and leaders on the radical edge with God, kicking at the darkness until it bleeds daylight so the people of God live into their destiny as world changers, and the least, the last and the lost are touched by the love of God.

God did not give this sense of vision to us just so we could have a nice sounding vision statement on a piece of paper or on a website. He gave it to us to live into. He gave it to us to grow us and stretch us in our experience of what He can do through the power of the Holy Spirit at work in and through us. Let’s go for it. Let’s not settle for anything less.

Let us ask God to stir us pray more consistently and intentionally this year than ever before, even when our experience may not be resulting in as much answered prayer or prayers answered in the ways we thought they should be. Let us trust that as we make the effort to pray, God will meet us there, teach us there, transform us there, and enable our experience to grow through faith in matching what is most certainly true: Father God wants us to know the joy of answered prayer.

Mike

Leaders Help Others Believe in Themselves

Leaders participate in God’s mission of declaring and demonstrating His Kingdom purposes when they intentionally look around to see others who need someone to believe in them before they even believe in themselves. One of the books I’ve been reading for fun these days (do you read for fun as well as for work?) is the latest book on the life of one of my boyhood heroes, Mickey Mantle. Growing up in Nebraska in the 1950s there was no professional baseball team to root for (there still isn’t today), so you had to look around the country and pick a team. For some reason, I had become spellbound with Mickey Mantle, so I chose the New York Yankees. Playing center field, number 7, Mickey Mantle.

To this day, even though I know of his sin-filled living style, part of me still loves the Mickey Mantle I knew growing up; the one who only played baseball (not the drinker and womanizer I later discovered him to be), the one who played center field with the best combination of speed and power the game has ever witnessed – all on one good leg due to a knee injury suffered during the 1952 World Series and hindered him the rest of his career. Mickey Mantle, number 7. My first and last names have seven letters each, I was born on October 7th, and I’ve always worn number 7 in my sports career (baseball and basketball) whenever I could. Mickey Mantle. Maybe it was ordained that as a young boy I was to fall in love with Mickey Mantle as my boyhood hero.

Having read most other books on Mantle, I naturally ordered the latest treatment on his life, The Last Boy. The first third of the book is a sad story of Mantle’s trying so hard to live up to the expectations of his dad and his first manger, Casey Stengel. Neither man ever encouraged him or affirmed him to his face; they simply reminded him of his greater potential and how he was not fulfilling it. Then at that 1/3 point in the book comes the story of the new manger for the Yankees in 1961, Ralph Houk. Houk had been a coach for the Yankees so he knew Mantle. And what he did in spring training of 1961 not only changed Mantle, but leaves one wondering what could have been if Houk had been his manager from the start of his career.

Houk saw something in Mantle that Mickey did not see in himself. Mickey had only and ever thought of himself as no one special and as a follower, not a leader. Houk though, saw that the other players would follow Mantle and he believed in Mickey. He called Mickey into his office that spring of 1961 and told number seven he was going to make him the team captain. Houk told Mickey, “You should be the leader of our club because everybody respects you and you don’t like to lose. You just go lead in your own way” (The Last Boy, Kindle edition, 2010). Mantle agreed; and then went out and had the greatest start to any year of his career, even better than his triple-crown winning season of 1956.

The author notes that the biggest difference between the regimes of Stengel and Houk was Houk’s selection of Mantle as team captain because it caused Mickey to rethink himself. Mantle said in an interview, “Ralph is the best thing that ever happened to me in my life.” Imagine, said one teammate who was close to Mantle, what kind of career this one-legged Hall of Famer would have had with two good knees and confidence.

A leader who is intentional about looking around to see who needs someone to believe in them before they believe in themselves can cause someone to rethink him or herself. This in turn, can cause the course of someone’s life to take a turn for the better and lead them further into the purposes of God for their lives.

I had just such a person do that for me. Ralph Houk came into Mickey Mantle’s life; Charles Miller came into mine. Charles is a Lutheran pastor (now retired) who had been commissioned by the LCA to travel and facilitate charismatic renewal in the Church. By God’s grace he became my dear friend and mentor in the early 1990’s. I was privileged to travel nationally and internationally with Charles while I served as a youth pastor in Rapid City, South Dakota. At some point something began to stir in me and I became frustrated with being a youth pastor, which confused me because I had seen myself as a career youth pastor; one who was going to finish strong in what I considered a critically important function of ministry. I was frustrated and confused. Charles wasn’t. He saw something in me that I did not see in myself – that I was being called out of youth ministry into a different function of ministry, which would included equipping and encouraging adults in God’s call on their lives.

So, Charles and I are in Alberta, Canada one year where he was speaking to pastors and seminary students at an event called the Leadership Training Institute (LTI). I was along to play guitar, lead worship and just spend time with Charles. One day during the LTI, the one o’clock afternoon session was to be a workshop on the topic of “Vision.” Charles knew I had been doing quite a bit of reading and writing on this topic, and though the senior pastor of my own church had not initially noticed it nor been willing to make a way for me to put it to use once he did become aware of it, Charles saw something he believed needed to be given a platform. When we came back after lunch for the afternoon session he looked at the gathering and said, “I’m supposed to speak on the topic of vision this afternoon, but there’s someone here who can speak to the issue better than I can. Mike, come up here and speak to us about vision.” I thought Charles was joking and so did everyone else, evidenced by their laughing at Charles’ “joke.” But Charles wasn’t joking. In fact, he was walking toward where I was sitting. He leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Just go share some of the things you’ve been telling me about, with them.” I stood up on shaking knees, walked to the front of the room, stood behind the podium, sheepishly looked out at the startled faces and said, “We’d better pray.” We did, and four hours later, after some sharing from me, some time for discussion, and much prayer ministry between class participants, we were done.

This was my first step out of youth ministry (a ministry I still love and have high regard for) to what I am doing now – serving as the president of a seminary and the director of a church network. All because a leader was intentional about looking around for someone he could believe in before that person even believed in himself.

Who is it around you that God wants you to be intentional about believing in? Who is it you can help “rethink” their own self-talk and sense of identity? Who is it you can create a platform for and help launch into the further purposes of God for their lives? As God shows you who that person is in your sphere of influence already, or who it is as He brings them into your life, please take the time and make the effort Charles did for me. What Ralph Houk did for Mickey Mantle changed his life. What Charles did for me changed mine. What you do for someone who needs you to believe in them will change theirs too.

Grace for a Season of Waiting

For some time now I have been seeking to hear and know God's will regarding something specific in my life; something which I've been talking with Him about in prayer. So far, no answer. Prayer, but no clear response. Maybe some of you, like me, are in a season of waiting to hear from God, or, you know someone who is. This morning (yes, over some good Sumatra coffee with Jesus), I read the following quote from a particular commentator regarding the testing of Abraham's faith in Genesis 22. Perhaps we can apply what he writes to our season of waiting for God's wisdom and will to be revealed to us.

"Abraham was suddenly confronted with that most awesome of problems - a self-contradictory God. Unbelief stumbles over such problems while mature faith waits to see how the distant recesses of the wisdom of God hidden form human reason and understanding will be made known. But the waiting can be excruciating and many people, rather than bear the pain, simply abandon the faith."

God bless with more of His grace for our season of waiting. He will answer. He will reveal His will and wisdom to us. Let's not settle for anything less than this. God bless you and your families this Advent and Christmas!

In God's Unshakable Love,

Mike

A Vision and Deepening Conviction

As we move into this season of Advent, truly a season of God-breakthrough in this world, I believe I am receiving and experiencing a deepening conviction and vision from God; something not merely for me and my family, but for the ARC, and beyond the ARC, for the body of Christ. It is related to the theme for the 2011 ARC Gatherings - Prayer - Ushering in a Kingdom Uprising.

Here it is: I believe the Lord longs to see an increase in the number of ARC members (and other followers of Jesus in the larger body of Christ) praying consistently and intentionally that we might experience an increase of God breakthroughs and answers, which will pull us, our families and churches, and not-yet Christians further out into the flow of God's purposes for our lives.

The very fact that prayer is the thing we so easily skip over, or limit in some way in our own lives and in our meetings of all sorts, may be a clue to its power; and why the enemy is so afraid of a praying church. For so many of us here in the West, though our words may not say it, our practice does: Prayer is not productive.

Programs, however, are productive - that's what our practice says we truly believe. I am not trying to dump on any of us, of come with some heavy, condemning, critical word. Don't abandon the programs God has called you to implement. But don't abandon prayer either. In fact, let's ratchet up our prayer a few notches. Let's ask God, as the disciples did, "Lord, teach us to pray," and then let's listen to what He says to us - and then let's obey what He says to us.

Prayer, not programs, is going to be the key in the coming years to our being an alliance of like-minded leaders and churches through whom God can think, speak, and act in the world for His Kingdom purposes. God is at work in the world. God is carrying out His mission. Prayer will position us to hear, cooperate, and participate with the Lord in what it is He is doing. Lord, teach us to pray! Lord, teach us to know and exercise in prayer the authority You have given us in the name of Christ!

Growing in Health and Wholeness is Not an Option in the ARC

During our ARC Midwest Gathering, speaker Lee Grady asked us, “Have you ever moved after twenty years or more, and in the process, pulled your refrigerator out? When you did, were you shocked when you saw all the gunk that was back there?” I have, and yes, there was a lot of gunk back there. And yes, I agree with Lee’s point that our lives can be like the gunk behind that refrigerator.

There can be old emotional pus wounds from the past that are influencing our present in unhelpful ways. There can be old defense mechanisms that once may have helped us survive but now need to be released. There may be strongholds, patterns of acting and reacting, that we run to when life gets stressful rather than running to Jesus. There may be unhelpful beliefs, even lies, which we have rationalized and justified with spiritual sounding language. Whatever it is, we need God’s transforming power to clean it out of our lives.

“Prayer will keep changing your life.” So said the words I read during my coffeetime with Jesus. Words penned by R.T. Kendall in his book, Did You Think to Pray?

“The Christian faith is the beginning not only of a relationship with God but also of an ongoing changing of your life. Paul calls it being changed from “glory to glory” (2 Cor 3:18, KJV) which means being transformed into Christ’s image “from one degree of glory to another” (ESV). I am seventy-two years old as I write, and I would blush to tell you how much changing I am still having to do. It is embarrassingly wonderful. My first reaction is, ‘Lord, why didn’t You show me this before?’ or ‘Lord, how could You keep loving me so much when You knew all the time what horrible faults I have?’

When I retired from Westminster Chapel in 2002 at the age of sixty-six, I was not prepared for how much I would learn about God and myself in what is supposed to be my ‘retirement’ years. We never stop learning, and we never stop growing” (Kendall, pg. 31).

I want to be like R.T. Kendall when I grow up. I want to be that humble, that vulnerable, that teachable, that mold-able before the Lord. If R.T. Kendall realizes he still has changing to do, how much more do I? How much more do you? However, will we be as courageous as R.T.? Will we dare to admit that we still have changing to do, seek out safe place relationships, and with those friends, intentionally cooperate with the Lord so He can heal us, free us, and transform us by the power of Holy Spirit?

In the ARC, growing in relational, emotional and spiritual health and wholeness is not an option, Beloved; it is a must. It is a must because the people we have been called to lead and serve will catch more from who we are than what we have to say or teach.

Keep growing in health and wholeness. Don’t stop, don’t settle for less. The more healthy and whole we become the more we will speak, think, act, and lead like Jesus.

God bless you as you invite the Lord to work in your hearts; and as you cooperate with Him that we might be transformed more and more into the image of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen!