The Coming Kingdom Belongs to Risk-Takers

Many Voices in the Body of Christ today consider the next, great season of change is already begun. Here's a quick note to alert KingdomScribes to keep their heads up to these transformations in the Church.

Let's look at yesterday's world and today's world. In yesterday's world, mainstream churches (Evangelicals, Pentecostals, etc.) dominated the overall ministry of the church. Then, in the '60s, the true "ministry" of the Church increasingly came from what (for lack of any better term) were called, "para-church ministries". These were organizations that were more-or-less tied to mainstream churches, but were run mostly by laity -- not professional clergy.

Back then, many professional clergy warned that allowing effective ministry to be "divorced" from local church control could result in ministries having no accountability. What para-church ministries actually did (apart from some notably bad examples) was set up oversight organizations (financial and otherwise) and thus became accountable to their peers.

In the '70s, the Charismatic movement and Jesus People revival drew tens of thousands of people out of mainstream churches. Many began to fellowship primarily in para-church organizations while others made their ways into newly started independent fellowships.

In a sense -- if you likened the mainstream churches to wineskins -- one could say these "skins" were leaking badly. But today, the spiritual situation isn't becoming easier on mainstream churches; the Spirit of God is initiating Change in the Church faster than old "skins" can adapt. The transformations sweeping through multiple thousands of Believers today are leading individual Christians into lifestyles of intimacy with God and unity with other Believers that leave traditional boundaries and barriers in the dust. God is "networking" the lives of hundreds of thousands of independent Believers in the Spirit -- and electronically as well -- in the blogs, websites and e-mails of millions of interconnected Believers. Their Passion is a spirit-empowered torrent, flooding out past traditional boundaries of denomination, ethnicity, culture and region.

There's a Move of the Spirit that's emerging -- like a progressively rendered image that will soon "snap into focus". As we begin to commune with Brothers and Sisters across all boundaries, we'll increasinly hear the Voice of God as He speaks out of Uganda, out of New York, out of Bad Ridge (KY), out of China -- one nation and tribe in Christ, a Kingdom rising as does the Sun from dawn till noon day.

This Move of the Spirit will not appear in its mature form from any mainstream venue. The large church organizations will continue to struggle with how to direct, control or even capitalize on this next generation of ministry. But the current Move of the Holy Spirit -- as Jesus warned two millennia ago -- is unavoidably disruptive. It will not fit within existing religious systems (whether systems of organization, doctrine or methodology.) This growing Kingdom will belong to young Believers who have nothing to lose -- no "skins" to protect. And this Kingdom will belong to risk-takers, drawn from amongst the mainstream churches, a new generation of youth who are more willing to live for the future than for the past.

Emil & Michele Swift
Em&M Ministries
www.KingdomScribes.InJesus.com