Revelation versus Repetition

I want us to look at the way we start or do new things. And I want us to focus on ministry.

How do we start new ministries and churches? How do we venture into new territories? How do we break away from abusive spiritual relationships? How do we do God’s work in new frontiers?

Is ours a protest movement or a pursuit for God? Are we fighting to prove that God is still using us or are we seeking greater revelation to enable us live more obedient lives? Are we looking for worldly approval and acknowledgement or does a nod from heaven satisfy us?

Over the years I have observed a common trait about break away churches, ministries and groups. They will start so different from their ‘parent’ group because they are rebelling from the authority it exerted on them. But eventually they slowly start taking the character of the ‘parent’ they had rebelled from and disown almost everything they had pursued in the protest.

A case in point is the charismatic movement.

In the 70s and 80s hymns and hymnals were treated as clear evidence of lack of spirituality. It was the same with an order of service. Priestly collars and vestments were anathema. And there were many other such things.

The other day I was in a function where there were hundreds of pastors and bishops of charismatic churches.

You would not be mistaken if you thought it was an assembly of mainstream clergy. From the robes to the bishopric colors to the staffs to the collars there was no difference at all with how mainstream clergy are robed.

It got me thinking. Why do protest movements end up becoming like the places they left? Why does a protester not create something completely different from what he left in disgust?

The reason is the difference between revelation and repetition or protest.

You see only revelation produces original things. This is because God will never duplicate anything people have done. He always starts things afresh. All His revelations are new. You see, the One who created everything we see and even can’t from nothing does not need any existing thing to do something new.

Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. (Isaiah 43:19)

Doing something because you are fed up with what is can never offer something new, only a pretense of it. And you can be certain that God is not the originator of it.

I once was called to start a ministry by a church. After some time the leadership realized that I was more conscious about God’s orders than I was about their self serving agenda. We disagreed again and again because they were more for the visibility of their church in the ministry than they were of its impact of the ministry. Worse still we disagreed on the direction God was giving me as it did not serve the self importance of the same leaders. The fact that it was transforming many was not enough to convince them of its importance or relevance.

They therefore killed the ministry, destroying everything I had spent years building. They did not even replace me as they ought to have done as they probably feared my influence on whoever would have replaced me.

It was a heartbreaking experience.

I therefore decided to start a similar ministry that would not be subject to a church structure. I wrote the constitution and laid down as much of its structure as I could before seeking registration.

But God stopped me from seeking registration, leading me instead to start Restore Hope Ministries, an empowerment ministry whose target is the disadvantaged. Even its registration went very smoothly.

Then He got me into the writing ministry that I enjoy as I see smiles from people who had been on the wilderness for so long finding the fulfillment of their vision after my helping them publish their book. And the greatest fulfillment comes from realizing that there is nobody doing the ministry I am doing, at least in the way I am doing it.

It was as God gave me this message that I got to understand why He did not allow me to start the ministry that church killed. Though it was a valid desire borne of a great (even urgent) need, it could have been impossible to operate that ministry without thinking about the disappointment and trying to show the church how ‘foolish’ they had been to kill it. It could have been an unconscious thing, but powerful all the same. I would gradually have started pursuing what I had fought against when I was doing ministry, visibility.

But revelation is different. In it God will give precise orders consistent with His purpose. They will also be tailored to His design and order for your creation, meaning that there will be no competition or ill feeling against people doing a similar thing. What is considered competition without revelation becomes partnership because God’s orders are the ones being sought and pursued.

Interesting enough God has been opening several doors on the ministry He had forbidden me to start. From consultation to helping set up to doing it the doors continue opening. But now I do not have any backward glance as I minister, something I know would have been impossible had I started it then.

Are you doing ministry because someone is enjoying immense support as he is doing it or because God is ordering you to do it? Are you pursuing a particular line of ministry because the person who first did it grew a mountain from a molehill of a congregation or is it an order God has given you?

A case in point is the way ‘praise and worship’ (whatever it is) is done. All distinctions have been demolished so that people enjoy it. First is a couple of fast paced danceable choruses that yield to very slow songs that lead to some semblance of reflective prayer. You will find the same whether you go to an extremely charismatic or dogmatically mainstream group.

The sad part in it is that there is no originality. All songs are copied from others who appear more worship conscious or seem to hit the musical notes better than we do. Authentic worship has disappeared; all because someone somewhere started something that was apparently too attractive to ignore.

Or look at some of the programs churches have been swallowed into like the purpose driven movement. They are popular simply because the originator is the pastor of a mega church, probably nothing else. The fact that he is shady on the gay agenda and has even invited homosexuals to hold an event in his church is not enough to challenge pastors to rethink that strategy they have adopted to the extent that some have changed church constitutions to fit in.

Look also at sermons. It appears as if all the preachers go through the same preaching school. A few times I am surprised by a blind beggar preaching so animatedly as a preparation for his begging mission. It appears very inspired until you realize that he is just a very good copy of the sermons he hears, needing no creativity at all. Most sermons have the same flow, end and expectation that you wonder how someone can talk about what God is saying yet you hear it from most pulpits and even radio and TV preachers in an almost identical way.

‘Thus says the Lord’ has been cheapened by the way ‘successful’ preachers are copied by aspiring preachers just because they have packed pews without caring to know where the inspiration is gotten from. Yet we know that some have bought that ‘anointing’ from the dark forces, some even having to consistently defile virgins and break marriages to maintain it. Yet we still copy them.

The absence of any preaching dealing with responsible Christian living and growth is the pointer that maybe all that preaching does not proceed from God, however inspiring it may appear. The lack of any preaching against sin even in the presence of rampant immorality clearly shows us that it can never proceed from heaven.

It appears as if worldly success is all one needs to be given leadership in church. A very rich thief has a greater chance at becoming a deacon than a poor man who has walked with God all his life. A prostitute has a higher chance of being the lead singer (called worship leader) than a housewife who decided that raising children was more obedient to God than remaining on Caesar’s payroll.

Why is that? I dare say that we are more interested in aping worldly success than in seeking heavenly revelation.

Let me talk as a writer of several books. I would be more attractive to churches if I have on my belt a million books sold than what I do; printing and giving books out for free. And that will not depend on the spiritual quality or relevance of what is written. A person who has sold a million copies of spiritual trash will find it easier to get an invitation to speak to a church gathering than one whose message is so deep that one has to go into adequate spiritual preparation before venturing to read or listen to it.

Why is that? The reason is simple. We are more inclined to the world and its standards than God and His revelation.

We forget that Jesus did not say that by their crowds, volumes and quantity we shall know them.

You see, according to spiritual standards, a person in a very remote village who has never travelled more than 50 km from where he was born but has through his words and deeds shared the Gospel to everyone who has passed through his village may be a better evangelist than the one who preaches to millions but has to water down the Gospel to get all those statistics (responses).

An office messenger who is the destination of anybody and everybody where he works and stays when they have a crisis for prayer and a word of encouragement is a more fruitful pastor than the mega church pastor who blocks problem characters from seeing him.

And a person or family that moves house to take the Gospel to a neighboring and hostile enemy tribe might be a more responsive missionary than the one who imports his first world conveniences to the mission field and even refuses to move from places electricity is guaranteed.

But it boils down to something I always say; it depends on the marking scheme you operate under. And that marking scheme will depend on whether you are pursuing a revelation or doing what everybody else is doing.

Doing things the way they have always been done can be a very easy indicator of a walk in the flesh, a walk without revelation.

But it is important to realize that it is been very difficult to break through the way things have always been done.

Why had Christ to call people who had been raised in gentile nations (Barnabas and Paul) to spearhead outreach to the gentiles? Why had He to shift the centre of the evangelization agenda from Jerusalem to Antioch?

You see the apostles, despite having walked with Christ as He ministered were bound to their Jewish upbringing and prejudices (the way things are always done). And we clearly see that when Peter is led to take the Gospel to the gentiles. We see how apologetic he becomes when confronted by the others. And even after Acts 15 we still find him having issues with gentiles in Galatians 2: 12.

But history tells us that they were finally able to deal with their bias as we are told most, probably all of the apostles died outside Israel. They were able to finally accept their calling to include gentiles.

Incidentally I think this is the problem Jonah also had.

Is there a solution? You may be wondering.

There certainly is. Only that it requires a greater commitment to our call. We must seek something greater than a politically friendly way of obedience. We must decide to delve farther than borderline obedience. We must seek to know beyond what is acceptable to most or even all. We must overlook convenience and popularity to pursue that call.

And we must pray for revelation before we pray open those doors.

Are you being abused and mistreated where you are ministering? Pray. Are you feeling strangled and drained by a minister who does nothing yet earns everything from your ministry? Pray. You might need to leave those abusive relationships but not to start your own thing.

Most of the pastors I know who ran off to start churches because they were being abused or exploited became worse abusers. That is why it is important to pray for the direction you should take.

Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest. (Luke 10:2)

God shows us the need so that we can pray for Him to provide a solution, not so that we can provide it. It is as we are praying that He can enjoin us to His strategy of offering that solution. And He reserves the right to the strategy and our place in it.

So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do. (Luke 17:10)

Finally

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. (Matthew 7:21 – 23)

It is what we do in obedience that is rewarded. Everything else is judged, even trashed (1 Corinthians 3: 15).