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When we look at the present landscape of America, combined also with the mighty transformations of individuals like Kanye West and Justin Bieber, we can see that God’s Spirit is on the move. When we look at what God has shown others about this next move of God, we can begin to see that it will be unlike anything we have ever seen. Rick Joyner has said ‘1,000 a week joining your fellowship’. Bob Jones has said this will be ‘a billion-soul harvest’. Charles Simpson, one of the leaders in the Charismatic Renewal Movement recently sat down with VFNtv and talked about this soon coming great move of God.
If we can see that this harvest will be of such unimaginable magnitude, we can see the need for pastors to be raised up and taught in the things of the Lord. Recounting a prophetic night vision with the Lord, Greg Lancaster shares what the Lord showed him about the need to raise up pastors. “I’m asking this question, and everybody is in their 20’s or 30’s, and I said, does anybody here feel that they’re called to be a pastor. Some raised their hands high. Some raised their hands a little bit, but there was just a diversity of those who raised their hands.” In this encounter he was shown all these people, pastors, in a bunkhouse made of ice. “They were pastors on ice”, so to speak. As this encounter continues, Greg took one step, and the Lord broke his heart for all of the pastors. “God just broke my heart and I began to talk about what it’s really like to be a pastor, and that, the brokenness, the pain, and that you need what it’s going to require of you.” As Greg highlights the awareness that the harvest is huge, he expresses the urgency for pastors, and he asks Simpson’s wisdom.
As Simpson responds, he describes a visualization that some people might not consider when they hear the word ‘pastor’. “I don’t think you’re going to have professional pastors. I think you’re gonna have lay pastors or people who are bi-vocational, and I think that is going to happen more and more.” With these words in mind, he describes the grim realities many pastors are facing today. “I don’t think that young people want to be pastors, the smart ones. It’s one of the hardest jobs in the world, and thousands are bailing out of it because of the expectation, and the culture is going in a different direction.” Simpson expresses how the present model of Church isn’t realistic and what he believes will take place. “You can’t pastor 1,000 people. No way! You can pastor pastors who pastor pastors, but that becomes very remote. And so, I think you’re going to see small groups and you’re going to see leaders emerge and they’ll be Biblically oriented people, Spirit oriented people.”
Knowing this coming move of God requires relationship, Greg recounts the recent actions from Mike Bickle, one of the leaders at the International House of Prayer-Kansas City, who recently realized “I’ve been fathering a vision, but not fathering a family”. At the 2018 One Thing Conference, Mike Bickle, and his leadership hosted the Church from China, who understood the need to be family, stepped down from hosting the Conference and learn how to be family. There is a global shift to family taking place in the Body of Christ. Family is not an institution. It can be very messy, but it is God’s design that we be family.
In light of what Greg talks about, Simpson describes the fruit that comes forth from families. “Families become tribes and tribes become nations.” Jesus called us to love one another as family and He called us to be His disciple and to make disciples. Simpson describes the hallmark characteristic of a genuine disciple. “To me, the test of a true disciple is that they make disciples, and a lot of our quote ‘discipleship programs’ don’t produce disciple makers, they produce education Christians.” Looking at the spiritual fathers China, Simpson explains how one lives their life that results in becoming a spiritual father. “I think that what you’ll see is, those who produce disciples that produce disciples will be spiritual fathers like there are in China, and they might be the patriarch of a million people, and that will happen because they replicate.” As Simpson points out, this is essentially what we are not seeing in the Western Church. “The Western Church does not replicate. It gets people to join the church, but the members are not replicating.” It’s important to know that God has called us to relate as spiritual families. Family is His idea. It is relational. It is organic. It is Biblical.
These truths are so helpful to us moving forward in the days ahead and how to better navigate our individual circumstances, than trying to make decisions without this wisdom. See the full conversation with Charles Simpson, the need for us to be rightly related to one another as family in Christ, and so much more. Also shared in this segment: Kanye West, Justin Bieber, rightly related, pastors on ice, Holy Spirit, prophetic encounters, Rick Joyner, Bob Jones, End Time Harvest, pastors, brokenness, One Thing Conference, International House of Prayer Kansas City, spiritual fathers, disciples, the vine growing naturally, relational, organic, spiritual families, and missionaries.
Image courtesy of Storyblocks.com
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