As you no doubt remember, it snowed and sleeted significantly last Tuesday, making travel treacherous and time consuming and keeping many people from joining us. For us, a 1.5 hour drive in good weather turned into almost a 4 hour drive. We pulled up at around 10:45 as the rest of the group was just getting started. We ended up having just under 20 people from 4 states after 3 folks from NH arrived at noon following a 5 hour drive! Many remarked afterwards about the special way that God met with us and spoke to us during the day.
Praying for RI: In spite of the delays, there was a deep sense of peace and also a sense that God had something very special for us that day. In the morning, we focused our prayers on Rhode Island. Steve DuPlessie had come representing the movement of RI pastors that has been hosting prayer summits the last several years. He shared about the sense of comraderie and mutual support that has come about through the prayer summits, and also about the "Love RI" statewide initiative to bring the church together in prayer, in caring for the community, and in sharing the gospel. It was encouraging to hear how about the birthing of Love RI last spring. Just before their first planning meeting, RI was inundated with floods. Seizing the opportunity, the Love RI team partnered with Samaritan's Purse and pulled together a team of 400 volunteers from churches around the state to shovel out basements and help the hardest-hit communities. All in all, there was a lot of good news.
However, Cheryl Russell, coordinator for the National Day of Prayer in RI had not heard about any of this. She was blessed to hear what was happening, but also shared her observations that many ministry leaders felt disconnected and discouraged and even had a sense of "it's us against them" in relation to the churches. At that point, I think all of us felt we were in the middle of a divine appointment between Cheryl and Steve, one representing intercessors and para-church networks and the other representing the statewide pastor's group. We had them join hands in the center as we prayed over them. It was great to see the two of them blessed through this encounter and let's pray for lasting fruit to come from this.
As a group we prayed that RI would experience awakening along with the rest of New Englan and also for strong relationships between RI leaders and leaders from around New England. And finally (put this into the "interesting coincidence" box) I thought it was cool that the day after we came down to pray, there was a major sting operation on the RI mob--(Thanks God!). As someone once said, significant coincidences just happen more often when we walk closely with Jesus, and especially when we pray!
Wrestling Prayer: Foundations
We had a sense coming into this meeting that it would be a significant time of hearing from the Lord regarding "next steps towards the unity of the Church in New England". I'll do my best to capture some of what we heard the Lord saying during this time, forgive me if my account is too personal.
It is Possible! Ron Stimers (VNE) did a great job leading us into a time of conversation with the Lord regarding "what are practical next steps for us to take for the unity of the Body of Christ in New England?" As we began to pray, I saw in my mind's eye a skyscraper that was under construction. I sensed the impossibility of building a sky-scraper--and yet, there are thousands of them that have been built. The Lord was encouraging me through this with a new sense of possibility--John 17 unity is possible in New England! I saw large, pre-formed pieces being put in their places and welded in. Once these pieces were in place in the greater structure, their ability for impact was greatly multiplied. Once incorporated in the superstructure through just a few points of connection, the entire pre-formed piece made sense and was able to share in the bearing of loads. I think this image spoke of entire groups and movements being joined into a larger structure superstructure. On the ground, the pieces had just been "in the way", lying useless in the yard--once connected to the whole, the reason for each part became evident.
Old Foundations As I was seeing this, Roberto Miranda began sharing about the importance of the foundation in construction. The foundation is underground, out-of-sight, and not directly used by people. However, the foundation is the most painstakingly important part of the building--if it is done wrong, it undermines the entire building. In their construction project at Congregation Leon de Juda, they discovered multiple old foundations in the ground where they had begun to build the new sanctuary. The already difficult task of laying a good foundation was delayed by 6 months as these old foundations were removed at great cost to the church.
"Begin to build" As Roberto shared this, I sensed the Lord say to me, "Begin to build on the foundation". I honestly had no idea what this meant, but felt it was connected to the Skyscraper/church that God had shown me earlier. A little later, Victor Khokhlan read from Ephesians 2:20 about the building God is constructing which is "built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone." As Victor read this, I had an "aha" moment--the things God and others were saying finally made sense to me.
God is building in the Spirit. The building is composed of redeemed people who are joined together by relationships of love in the Spirit. Not every part touches every other directly--but every part connects indirectly. However, every part is built upon the foundation--a foundation made up of people. At the bottom of this building is a foundation made of people who have received a gift from God to be "apostles and prophets", with Jesus Christ "the apostle of our faith" as the chief cornerstone. Obviously, this applies to the historic foundations of the church. However, it also applies to us today. If we want to build towards John 17 unity, we need these gifts at the foundation.
"The ''A" Word: Charismatic and liturgical streams speak openly of apostolic gifts. Evangelicals have traditionally not spoken of apostles, but then again, we have John Wesley, D.L. Moody, and Billy Graham. When you compare these men to the "5 fold" ministry in Ephesians 4, it's hard to classify them as anything but apostles. Has anyone else ever noticed that when Billy Graham came to town, the Church would unite? Was that just because of a common set of activities and the simplicity of his message, or could it also have been because he had a foundational gift, a gift you could build unity on?
There is still a lot of confusion among us regarding these gifts. Some people get nervous when people talk about modern day "apostles and prophets". I think the chief reason for this is that we rightly want to avoid controlling leadership. After all, the Reformation was a reaction to controlling apostolic leadership in the form of the Pope. However, it is possible to react out of fear of control and end up in a situation where "everyone does what is right in their own eyes." Controlling leadership is bad, but so is lack of leadership. What we need is mature servant leadership at every level in the church and especially at the foundations. Whatever language we use, the bottom line is this: If we want to build towards Unity (Eph 4:13, Eph 2:22), it is going to involve these functions at the foundation.
Laying Down Lives When you hear the word "apostle" spoken, people often speak of a them as providing a "covering". However, a foundation is at the bottom, bearing the greatest load. It is out of sight, buried underground. Apostles and prophets have authority, but are defined as those whose humble lives, built upon Jesus Christ, support the entire church. This skyscraper that God wants to build can only be built on top of lives laid down on behalf of others. These lives at the bottom must have complete integrity. As the psalm says, "righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne." The church is God's throne, God's place of rest and power. These foundations must be full of righteousness and justice just like Jesus Christ.
Originating in God's Call: Finally, these gifts are only given by God. They're recognized, not bestowed. It's silly for a hand to want to be a foot; it's silly to force a foot to be a hand. God has "given gifts to men (Eph 4)". Our job is to discern what these are and to help build up each part until we're all positioned perfectly, until we're all relating to one another in love, each part performing it's function.
I know that God spoke many things to people personally which we discussed on the way home. However, this was the biggest takeaway for me from our time of asking God "what are the next steps towards Unity in New England." Real Unity is possible. It's all about relationships in the Holy Spirit. There's multiplication of power in unity--the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Finally, we need to get the foundations right and remove the false foundations. As I have been wrestling with this over the last week and talking it over with others, I've been collecting more questions. Please take a look at them below.
Blessings,
Jonathan Friz
Further Questions:
What are the old foundations that have been removed and still need to be removed in new england to prepare the way for God's Sanctuary?
How can we distinguish these things that need to go from the inheritance from our past that we need to keep?
What does it mean practically for the New England Church to "build on the foundation of the apostles and prophets" (with Jesus Christ always as the cornerstone)? Is this already happening in certain places? What would it look like at a regional level?
What theological or practical problems do you have with the words "apostle" and "prophet" applied in a modern setting? Is this problem a matter of words, or do you disagree that we need foundational leadership in the church that is sent from God with a word from Him?
