FORERUNNERS + SCOUTS + BARDS

Just some stuff that is around at present which i thought i would download in light of comments which have been exhilarating.
Some of the comments are around grace / need of the spirit / hearing God and running / running as many hear but do not run.

When i began this present journey of coming out of congregational leadership and going to ground, i wanted to ensure that i wasnt adding to dysfunction, creating something i or another generation woudl be repenting for, so really had to check my spirit - and seek counsel.
So i shared my heart with a few seasoned folks and this came back:
"What your talkign about seems to be what prophetic folks and others are hearing. The trouble is, very few are responding to what they are hearing but have become observers of others, waitng for something to happen or afraid to risk. Its important that someone seeks to establish what they are seeing in this new landscape, there will come a time when the churhc as a whole will ask such questions and they need to be able to see ' a parable in the land'.

I think there is an element of scouts, in that some are certainly hearing this stuff ahead of others - and have a duty to God to come in line with what they are hearing (if one know what he must do but does not do it - then for him this is sin). In part they are forerunners, They Are Not Experimenting, int he sense that they have gone to a new land as day trippers, They Have Cut The Bungee And Jumped, They Have Burned Their Bridges In Conviction To Go Into The New - There Is No Old To Return To If It Doesnt Work Out.
But We Need Relationship To The Old Skins (as ive said before - we arent told to shove old wine in new skins - so the old has a use for the old in one respect - both skins - both are wine((( having said that - i dont think the existing contexts of church should have EVER occurred and at one level are just simply unbiblical - extrabibilical - scripture through constantionian eyes)) ...)
Great to run with the new - someone needs to - it needs relationship to the rest of the body in a scouting way to say HEY GOD WAS HERE ALL THE TIME - HE IS IN US AND THROUGH ALL THINGS so COME - "what? Is It Safe? Heck NO ITS NOT SAFE - BUT ITS GOOD" (aslan)

Sorry - waffling a bit - need my first coffee of the day and some shreddies (wheaty bites).

So what am i saying....... You can observe Developments, to see if its safe, but A) your in deep trouble if you were asked to run but your just watching / observing and as some i have met....being 'commentators on something that at one level needs objectivity but to really BE THE CHURCH as Christ intended - Is Utterly Subjective...so you 'CANT' watch.
B) .............. What the heck is B? dunno - fill the space yourself.

Oh - I did say Bards................ We need to know where we have come from, we need to take responsibility for where we have been - every mistake has a face - heaven weeps over lost saints etc........... to ever be able to Go where we need to Go and not just repeat it all over again.
Bards - Oral Tradition........................... we need people to tell us who we are? i think many of us have fogotten. I think when we see ourselves and out various contexts within the fulness of history - the diversity of the saints - how the FRINGE always seems to become the mainstream.... i think we will be less judging . more gracious. more willing to do more that Adjust and Try Experiments with limited risk - and limited outcome.
Thank you Wesley that when you were outcast - you preached from your fathers grave.
Thank You Evan Roberts for working with teams of Women to reach the hearts of Broken men
Thank You Elijah for your honesty, willingness to be weak even in the shadow of breakthrough, to work with a generation - and when it was time - to pass on your mantel.
Thank you old ladies in the Hebridies - Who just prayed and saw 75% of that revival come to Christ - not having known his name - not having entered a church - but through the conviction of the Spririt.
Thank You Father that You Have No Box - Except The Limitation Of Our Minds And Fears.

Some of us need to Die For Christs Gain all over again. Some of us are eating off a Pizza Hut Plate - Where Weve Eaten Some Juicy Bits - The Crust Is Adding Up And There Is No Space For Fresh Bits.... When All We Need To Do Is Ask For Another Plate.


Why is it when someone 'often' says ' Here Guys - Here's a blank sheet of paper - how would you do it differently - we think its just a game - and dont think we can do that - or at least work towards that?

Ok - Im off my horse now in this comment............ If we are unable to steer a big ship of histories construction, which some darned fool said - here, your steering this now - and for the rest of your life (as you dream of retirement or a second call). We need to be willing to let people use the life boats...whatever those life boats 'are' for them........ let them discover some islands in search of life and peoples. Let us help them cast off, untie the rope and wish them well. IF we cannot walk differently or fully ourselves - lets at least help some folks to do so - so that they might become those parables to the rest of us - lets bless them with as much provision as their little boats will carry. And if they screw up? we can either send more boats or say - SEE, I TOLD YOU IT WASNT SAFE and it wasnt good - come back to the new temple where God is? (or at least feels obliged to visit between the hours of 10 and 12 on a sunday)

Dang It - being aware of old lenses in our glasses - i need to point out that for some reading this - i have just re enforced the centre - by making them think we are meant to have a ship. Heck - scuttle the ship - get everyone to the lifeboats. Follow the fella walking on the water.

I like this qoute
"Lets fish - but stuff whos boat is who's - just get them to the shore"
G Man

Do It MY Way - Build Up What I'M In

I liked this question from a e mail is sent someone today - who is a wonderful woman of God by the way.

Hows it going with the rising - and probably either lost or present (by now) generation? It used to be 40 years - but it seems more like 5 these days, where a whole new wave of potential world changers comes and goes, and weve grabbed them - given them life and let them run, grabbed them assimilated them in and taken their lives and tied their feet together, or we just went and missed them all together.

mmmmh in addition to that e comment, i found this old qoute from Martin Scott - father to a generation of forerunners: Its from a recording of his speaking at the church of Evan Roberts the great revivalist in Wales.
"Thats why - when anybody prophecies "There Is A Youth Movement Coming ", when i hear older people saying..... 'thats great, but what about a word for us?' This is the word for them, ' There Is A Youth Movement Coming' - no no martin, what about a word for us, and the word for them is "THERE IS A YOUTH MOVEMENT COMING" -why? because this isnt a word for youth...........its a word for me, its a signal 'Martin - will you pour yourself into that which is coming or will you not. Or will you squeeze the life out of it and say - '''' your gonna have to do it MY way, and you going to have to build up what I'M in.''''' Thats why i will take any stick whatsoever to see this thing get birthed for the sake of that which is coming....... that is going to shake this nation!

Martin Scott is the kind of bloke youd carry a sheildn and wield a sword for, because the world is a better place with him in it, and will continue to be effected long after he is not in it.

new qoute

People want to build with bricks - all the same, straight edges that make straight walls and its all tidy. God calls us to build with stones, which is much harder. Heck - he asks us to build the kingdom of God with LIVING stones - fancy a try at that? Not only are they living - they are constantly in the process of change and movement. (heidi plympton - southwest emerge)

It works wonders for your control issues, always looks like a mess to you and glorious to God.

"Resistance Is Futile" borg

A friend of mine (an absolute reformer through and through) said to me last week, "ive been in resistance now for 12 years - resistant to this and that - but ive found that resistance only gets you so far, resistance creates space, that someone has to occupy" (something like that - you can shape it a bit and make it your own like i have)

So....... in resisting stuff that is increasing dead to us, in resisting flesh, in resisting empire, in resisting repetition.................we creat a space to do something, be something better, hopefully purer, hopefully real and capable of being a tranfroming force.

Forgive me if im repeating myself, but i dont believe this next bit:
"where yor feet tread - that ground is yours to take" yes, but not if we are just passing through, cause it will belong equally to whoever comes next. Thats why hit and miss evangelism or projects or those 'service' and community works things are really not going to cut it.
God calls us to Go - to enter in - and to establish..... Plant a Church? NO - ESTABLISH KINGDOM realities.

What are we entering into? anywhere the kingdom of God is not established and fruit needing to be the evidence of a tide that is turning at the hands of Gods people.

Finally - and this is splitting hairs as i dont believe in church planting ( 'construct imposition' )- but i heard recently ......... "there is also no biblical context for church planting, especilly where church already is."
In my town centre, there are 6 churches over 100 years old, all with tall spires and all in close proximity to the other, in some cases, less than a 100 metres bewteen them. It dawned on me - that 100 years ago my town was in its infancy, very few buildings, mostly residential, and here were these 6 huge buildings causing a very real offence to God - for all to see. Planting what we used to see as 'taking ground' by owning something in the flesh, and planting church buildings - but simply planting division and restraint to unity. And The Ground Bleeds.

Sheepyness

Why Do Church Leaders Expend So Much Energy On Creating A Strong Well Defined SHEEP FOLD with Inhouse Entertainments Systems - When Sheep Live Out Most Of Their Lives IN A FIELD??

Being Post Cat Food - Im Risking Here

Ok - im now post cat food crisis, and am now driven yet again by where i am going, and so, i have remembered what i was gonna say.
Ok... THIS IS VERY CONTROVERSIAL....i am by nature, generally a 'mediating' person, i am a bridge between where we have been and where we are going, i am for the whole church, the church in transition and the church transitioning through.

So..... this is something God has provoked me with BECAUSE AN ADJUSTMENT IS REQUIRED IN THIS SEASON.

I was in a setting where two people really shocked me (and i needed shocking). They said, No - The Church As We Have Know It Is Utter Poison - Something that gives life in part - is not life at all, something that gives promises of helpign you to run then holds you in is utterly utterly evil and ungodly - there IS NO MIDDLE GROUND, You Cannot Be Both And Be Called Church.

Another said, No, its not ok to leave people in that, we need to see it for what it is, ITS A PUSHER, ITS A DEALER OF DEATH, You would not allow someone you love who is going through rehab for heroin addiction to go back to their dealer.

I do feel, however controversial - that there is something truly prophetic in this, i think its a cry of desperation and clarity from Gods heart more than it is a black and white statement. I have wrestled with this a lot, i can tell you - it has not sat well with me at all, but that doesnt mean its not God.

So here is what has come out of that for me, as a lover of all things the body:

I have spent a long time finding 'mediating' language for the mainstream church to understannd that we are 'for' the body, and fully alive in christ - believign the same things and having transitioned into another way of being churhc for FULLNESS OF LIFE and for MISSION.

I have sought to justify - i have sought to gain approval and acceptance so we can continue to have open doors of communication. Whilst i still value that and operate like that to some degree, THERE IS A TIME COMING WHEN WE CEASE TO SAY - "HEY WE ARE CHURCH JUST LIKE YOU - PLEASE ACCEPT US", and instead begin to make declarations with apostolic unction and authority WE ARE CHURCH, BUT WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU, because we find a place of honesty and an ability to say.....much of what you are doing is counter productive and a constraint to the saints comign to fullness in all of life............ some of it is counter kingdom folks, and as such is ANTI CHRISTIAN.

Now, im sure you will appreciate, i have said that to no-one as yet, but it has taken me off the back foot where there has been seeking of acceptance in a wrong way. You know what - thats just bowing to Empire, end of story, if there is a percieved someone 'above us' with 'more rights and more rightness' than us - its just empire and control by another name.......... and that means comign under witchcraft. Wherever we seek to craft the future of others to our own will - thats witchcraft.

See - so hot it burns your hands and causes terrible discomfort - but search your hearts. I know it sounds spooky - but are my hands clean of dealing death and crafting peoples future with send agenda - or even to maintain our organisats personnel and gift needs. how many businessmen have i valued on the basis of tithe and being able to do the pa desk, and not invested intot heir life setting calling as a ministry gift enbaling them to come to fullness in works of service, not works in my sunday service....or cell....or anythign else centred in need of hands.

Dang It

My wife asked me if i fed the cats last night, and if i wouldnt mind not putting the wet meat and the dry biscuits on the same plate as its a pain in the butt to clean the next day.

and........ now ive forgotten what i was gonna write. Isnt that just real life, so please, in the absense of divine wisdom about how not to repeat the past, please consider your wife or even your mother, and ask yourself if you have any areas of apathy which make things difficult to bear on a sunday morning. And Repent and be conformed more fully into His likeness.
God, help me to honour my wife by showing more consideration for how i feed the cats - who are tuppence and 'mr' molly (mr molly as the kids had gotten used to the name molly, then we discovered she owned a body part little girls arent meant to have - yes we have the worlds first trans gender cat)
sorry - will ask god to remind me what it was.

POST REBELLION

Thanks Jim Thwaites for the line' we have to get post rebellion - where we are driven by what we are moving towards - not what we are moving away from'. I have to say this is an incredibly important issue if we are to avoid repetition and pocess filters and discernment which enable us not to ressurrect the dead which God wants to stay dead.
Post Rebellion? sounds a bit harsh............. but what moves us on into new things is often a sense of discontent, inner or external crisis, all of which we need not have guilt over as many times these are God permissioned crisis - intended to move us on. BUT it does mean we move away at times like its a divorce, and in divorce what helps us cope with the trauma and complicated feelings is an over emphasis on what was wrong / dysfunctional / the other / or guilt around self.
Most of these feelings mean we spend a considerable amount of time / years even, looking over our shoulder.

What happens next is very simple, we birth something which is seasoned by all of those things, and often in the very early stages of our 'where to next' with self and often with those new builder types - we define ourselves by 'WHAT WE ARE NOT ANY LONGER' - not what we desire in Christ to become. In this is the seeds of Separatism, the stain of Elistism and superiority (for context - look at how we brits birthed church in america, and ask yourselves if this has any effect on the condition and dna of the church there today?
When we sit and define ourselves, our frame of reference is what we have been in, thats ok and necessary, but it can condition us to spent too much time on developing THE NEW 'WE', and before long there is a 'THEY' and we repeat the cycle of being a detached limb, a self invoked curse, and we struggle to ever stand as a biblical body in a place. In where we are going as church, some of what is rising up from the ground, we have to see this nailed, or we will remain microcosm church where there is no biblical reference point (Family cannot thrive asside from living tranference with tribe, tribe cannot truly embody...body... asside from its dual identity as Isreal - for an ot metaphor - then we can at least draw from that context.....we can only enter the land together, which sounds nice).
Oh, now ive said family cannot live without connectivity with tribe, some reading this will have seen that as meaning, new things cannot have life without the permission or covering of the hierachy in the construct - thats not what i mean, that stuff needs to die, its just control by another name....HEY, MANY TIMES WHEN I HEAR THE WORD SUBMISSION, THEY SPELL IT ....S - L - A -V -E -R - Y. submit to one another out of right relationship, if there is no genuine mutual life laying down loving relationship, where we prefer other over self, there is no context for biblical submission..... as unto christ /as christ loved the church....so being for others, even unto death.

It takes five minutes to one week, to sow the seeds of the next institution into a new move of God. usually in our first team meeting and that frightening oh so obligatory mission statement we feel we have to produce...... often to recruit transfer growth (albeit unconsciously - at the end of the day, non believers dont really give a rats arse about many of the defining things you spend time over - heck, they walk past a hundred of your buildings every week without so much as a sideways glance.)

GOOD HEALTH?
The body is the body, we cannot disregard or dishonour old wineskins from our new wine skin standpoint, we have to get deep inside us that whatever the skin is, WE ARE ALL WINE.

see next blog for a provoking paradigm shift for new landscape folks.

COMMENT

To Anyone in my mini me fan base !!! Anything you want me to comment on, unpack further. Do this on site in comments or to chat - gaz.drum@ntlworld.com. If its a moan, can you do that in comments, if its to productively walk u can e mail. If you e mail me and rant - i will will post it on site and say rude things about your ugly wife and yo mamma.
G

Qoute of the Moment

I will plagerise this to protect the innocent (not drop them in the crap as this was very contextual and deeply personal)

For Gods Sake........................... Deal with this spirit of Comparison............... It Is Not A Godly Measuring Rod AT ALLLLLL

" Some of the guys in town would have a real problem with what we do in our church"
" We have dealt with so much old tradition and have really moved on"
" We are so much less legalistic and religious than most of the guys out there"

Thank you Baz Gascoine in Sheffield for your willingness to get in a prophetic guy who's been drunk in the spirit for many years (literally - has a doctors letter so he can fly on planes) come into your community every year, to make people feel really really uncomfortable and to take the temperature of how Religious youve become.

Its not how religious or legalistic you were, its how much you still are. Comparision to others is a wall of our own self defeat to hide behind

, a wall which seals our end. What is it that we need to do to say to God, How religious are we STILL? Is there really any point of arrival in any of this stuff that God is seeking to work through with us so he can effectively wrok through us.

I shall now go and have lunch feeling ive had a good bloggin moment. Thank you readers for spurring me on to keep downloading and goign through my own DETOX.

MORE ON JOHHNY B SYNDROME

As i was saying - a john the baptist mentality. I think good fella Martin Scott embodies it well in this reference to present and past generations of the body, in respect of the present and rising younger generation: "MAKE OUR CIELING... YOUR FLOOR". We need somewhere te be embodying a spirit of willingness to see others take this thing called kingdom..further. Its important to state to state firmly to all generations - 'dont you bloody well dare give up', this is not a handover - we are not looking for a decapitation, thats not where the analogy goes in my opinion, we are lookign to partner into the future together, perhaps in ways that will frighten us very much. Oh.... On Decapitation ...... Jesus is the Head, He Will Build The Church - so all other heads MUST roll if they have gotten int he way of this. One prophetic lass said regards a recent moon eclipse of the sun, that it was rather like the Church (in dysfucntion and wrong emphasis) having eclipsed the Son.
We are in need of embracing Gods death, where something stinks and needs it, but also where somethings actually work, thats part of the key issue here, we are used to either seeing somethign through to death, we are used to laying down something that looks like death is innevitable, but we are not good at PUTTING DO DEATH something that appears to be good and healthy, but needs Gods death................. Cause this leads to a resurrection life. So HEY CHURCH - get your molars aroudn that fatboy and chew............ Some of what you think is good and works needs to die, needs to decrease lest it become in the way of What God Is Trying To Do in these days, and indeed risks eclipsing the Son. (thanks bruce mounsey ywam kiwi for those death reference points delivered brutally in one of my old church setttings - god bless you you ginger fella)

CUMMON, yeah, lets eat that one, lets put it on a spit and roast it in our heads, FATHER GOD - HAVE WE SOMETHING THAT APPEARS ALIVE BUT NEEDS TO BE PUT TO DEATH LEST IT BE IN THE WAY - OH HEAVEN HELP US

Prepare the bride for the groom - build a highway constanlty so something Huge of God can land, build a path in the wastelands of our own making. So sorry God - forgive us, give us another chance and the older generation a second breath to push again.

We Have Never Seen What Is Coming

The church in my view needs to step into a John The Baptist season, where what it has known or feels it has achieved as church, finds a willingness to decrease because of what is coming.
More on that later. But - Weve Never Seen What Is Coming.

CHURCHLESS IN SEATTLE

Ok, so, here goes:
Just came back from spending some time with emerging friends in Washington State, Casey and Andrea Cerratani in Seattle and Eric And LeeElla Blauer over in Spokane 6 hours east.I say emerging friends as they are fully immersed in Gods emerging church stuff but we have really only met for an hour hear or there and mostly had an e mail church relationship, which has been really valid and useful to us.

Casey moved from a fat salaried job into seattle cause its such a high non christian population, opposite of the bible belt really and not unlikle the UK ratio climate, and the climate - poured most days. Heres my fave qoute from there...., or a variation on a theme: "80% of the people in Seattle are unchurched, it is my profound hope that in 10 years time, 80% of them will still be unchurched"
So - I liked that immensely because what Casey was saying was he wants to see a harvest of people who find Jesus and participate fully in his kingdom, but not become removed into the sub culture of the church. I would add to that, i would like to see some of the 18 to 20 % of churched people in seattle becoming unchurched as well.
Seattle is full of hope, cause anything goes, which means the church does not have a monopoly or stranglehold on people trying to work out new skin for the church there. Excellllllllllant!.
I got to share that story when in Spokane at a Youth Church conference called blaze, but added another little bit from a ywam guy called steve sullivan who i admire greatly. He once sat with me and said with real facial expression(the bits not obscured by the beard of doom) and said, "Gaz, i was with some guys recently who have seen a hundred youth saved in just a few months.....pauses........... but after only a year, almost all of them are back in the world.......... long pause......... Hallelujah, thats where they are meant to be.
Are you catching my drift here? I am really not praying for revival, i i think the people around me in the prayer movement stuff could prehaps think i should be, but i am probably not alone in thinking we are not At All READY For REVIVAL. What is the point of hurling a whole bunch of people into centralised safe till heaven church to only save them into new bondages, and a version of freedom?
We have lost revival fruit b4, its old stuff now but still relevant to point out that if 2000, made a response to the Billy crusades in England in the 50's, a year later less than 200 could be found still in a church, and heck, what does that mean, is that ,meant to say we succeeded with 200 or have held them in a pen away from life?
Gerald Coates once said, "If you can live without revival - you probably will" - so there is a tension there, but im not ready to see dysfunction reproduced or heck - definately not about to see the church in general think its no longer in need of reformation cause new people have come through the door........... I just think we need to know the seasons, and perhaps even an order to things -im my small mind anyways.
So.......Lets pray that Seattle see's an incredible breakthrough of people saved into the kingdom and remaining unchurched in terms of those negatives, and perhaps even pray for a breakout to occur so we see an increase in the churched becoming less churched and more kingdom.I met many there who are becoming exactly that - wonderful people seeing a second light in a second darkness.

OooErrr Missus

COMING SOON to a blog near you

Ok, people are getting on my case and i am in fear of blog rejection if i dont write somethign worth visting for soon.
So..... Coming later this week.
Keeping the Unchurched (and how not to ever have those two words in the same sentence)
Also - some stuff from a recent trip to hang with some guys in Seattle and Spokane Washington.
over and not out
gaz