Friday, January 23, 2015

Changing the Culture of Your Church.. Senior Pastors Only

I was in Orlando a few weeks ago.  I heard Apostle Eckhardt talk about this. I asked if he would elaborate.  He did. 

As a leader you are responsible for the spiritual culture of the church you lead.  Don't be a chameleon and try to fit in, be a change agent.

Apostle talked about how to go about doing this.  If you want to give people release in healing, the prophetic, deliverance, miracles, faith, wisdom, discernment of the Spiritual, words of knowledge or any of the gifts that are called on as ministry in the Word of God there is a way to bring that into your church, make it part of your culture, get your people to buy into it, get them activated in it and turn your church into the kind of Holy Spirit led church that will revolutionize your region.

Let's suppose you want to get a release of the Prophetic in your church.  Here's the pattern.  You control it.

  • Begin to teach on the prophetic.
  • Read books on the Prophetic.
  • Learn all you can on the Prophetic.
  • Give books and publications to people on the Prophetic.
  • Bring in outside people as speakers to preach on the Prophetic and Model it.
  • Begin to develop some people in the Prophetic. Use activation to get them there.  Practice.
  • Teach that all people should prophesy, not just called prophets.
  • Impart to those people who want it to operate in the gift.  
  • Give time for those people in your church to prophesy to others.
  • You prophesy less and less. They need to increase.
  • Make prophetic activity a normative part of what happens before, during and after church.  

Your house will become prophetic.

Same with healing.
  • Teach on it.
  • Preach on it.
  • Use Biblical Evidence.  Have books.  Christ the Healer is a great one.
  • Bring in outside people who are developed in the gift to model it.
  • Begin to release people to act in the gift of healing.
  • Make healing a ministry that is normative for your church.
  • Impart Healing Anointing to build faith.
  • Activate your people to become walking healing vessels. Lay hands on anyone who is not well.
  • Be bold.  Be strong.  You will have a healing center very soon.

ALL of the gifts of the spirit and ministry activities can be developed using this pattern.  Just imagine someone walking into your church was exposed to faith for miracles, healing, the prophetic, Supernatural Wisdom, Knowledge that only God could know about them (the movie Holy Ghost is good in this area),  Discernment of situations and spiritual strongholds, People being delivered of demons.  SOON you will need a bigger parking lot.

This is what Jesus had in mind; and that is the most prophetic thing I will say all day.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm surprised at you Gene. This is one of the very big problems in the church today. People thinking they can replicate the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit by formula. The whole concept of humans imparting or activating these gifts in others is rubbish. These methods are the blame for so much of the false prophetic gibberish that gets churned out today. Very generic, vague, lots of words with all the right sounding phrases but false, because it is from the flesh of one of these self-anointed types that had some big name "star" impart a gift of healing or prophecy to them.

Gene said...

I have seen this take place with my own eyes. It's not a program. It's a tapestry that forms the fabric of a church culture.

It's what Pastor Dan did. It's what Pastor Schmidgal did. It's what Apostle Eckhardt does. It works.

If you see it as a program, it's not. It's various units of a plan. Not in order. Yet elements.

Activation as I have seen it practiced (well) is nothing more than helping people exercise the gift. You don't become fluent in tongues unless you practice speaking in tongues. Same with ministering healing. Or word of knowledge. That's what activation is.

As far as impartation is concerned, there is a reason why it works. It's not the imparter, it is stirring up the gift of God that is already present. As Paul told Timothy to stir up the gift from the Laying on of Hands by the elders. Impartation.

So, I know if you have been around you might find this to be conforming to something you have seen that was abused, yet it's not. I hope you will reconsider your opinion. I too at one time thought all this was over the top.. it's not.

So I stand by this post. I believe it not in theory, but in practice. People need a track to run on, an example, a model, one to "Follow me as I follow Christ" type. We have far to little of this in the church today.

David L. Smith said...

Good post! So true! We replicate what we focus on and teach! If our heart is "the false prophetic gibberish", then that is what manifests in the church! Because THAT is what we teach! If our heart is accusatory, prideful, and controlling, then THAT is what we get, in our church, because that is what we teach - and practice! If our heart, and our focus, is on loving God, seeking the presence, and serving others before ourselves - then THAT is what we get, because THAT is what we teach and practice. In every instance, we draw both like-minded people to us AND those that want to destroy, or counter that which we are attempting to replicate. The results we get determine how committed we are to that which is in our heart!

Denise Mikkelsen said...

Gene, I get what you are saying. We can't let the abuses and "gibberish" stop us from moving on truly in the gifts. Impartation as such really is not, it is an activation of the gifts already given to each member of the body of Christ. Actually, anonymous, the big problem in the church today is the lack of the supernatural, not necessarily the weird stuff. I don't believe there should be a "healing center" - the healing ministry should be part of the local expression of the body of Christ. Years ago, this was practiced in a Scriptural manner under the leadership of the late Pastor Bob Schmidgall.

Anonymous said...

loved the post gene.
Would you listen to this if you get time.
I have a question concerning what you wrote. The minister addresses this.
It is by
David Du Plessis
http://www.brothermel.org/audio-video/112


Stirring up the Gifts of God
He quotes scripture defining the gift Paul talked about.
Also the website is
http://www.brothermel.org/

click on rare and see some ministers recording long past. if you carefully and prayerfully dig thru them maintaining balance in scripture. their are some gems there :)