-by William Booth

[Founder of the Salvation Army]

On one of my recent journeys, as I gazed from the coach window,
I was led into a train of thought concerning the condition of the
multitudes around me. They were living carelessly in the most
open and shameless rebellion against God, without a thought for
their eternal welfare. As I looked out of the window, I seemed to
see them all… millions of people all around me given up to their
drink and their pleasure, their dancing and their music, their
business and their anxieties, their politics and their troubles.
Ignorant- willfully ignorant in many cases- and in other instances
knowing all about the truth and not caring at all. But all of them, the
whole mass of them, sweeping on and up in their blasphemies and
devilries to the Throne of God. While my mind was thus engaged,
I had a vision.

-Worldly Money Principles in God's House

by Brett Jacobsen

Money has and probably always will be a hot topic in and out of the Church. It is no wonder that this is the case when the world is so caught up in the money game and the world seems to leek, and sometimes pour into God’s House. Jesus said “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” Matt 6:21, which takes the money topic to a high level of priority.

As money is a part of every day life we do need to spend time regularly examining our financial dealings and mindsets in the light of God’s Word and His holy presence. Although there has been considerable dishonour and distractions with money in the church we should not avoid the subject but rather come back to a place of honour and biblical obedience.

-Its Spirit & Structure

by David Orton

Part 2 of 2

“…until a time of reformation”

Heb 9:10

In Part 1, we saw that the new reformation demands a heart-rectification.

Before we can attempt any reformation of structures our spirit must be clean. Only by turning from dead works – from every humanly derived activity – from our innate rebellion and independence – will we be released by God into the reformation of structures.

Without this deep work of the Spirit we will only replicate the past. The rivers of reformation only ever flow from the deep wells of regeneration. For this reason Jesus refers to the final rectification and revolution of His kingdom as “the regeneration” (see Mtt 19:28 ).

by Jeff Gilbertson

When Paul went to Corinth in 50 A.D., he said: “I am determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” Please notice: into a Greek culture, which worshipped “knowledge”, Paul sought only to know Jesus! By divine direction, he preached a message void of “persuasive words of wisdom” but instead clearly demonstrated the Holy Spirit and the power of God. (I Cor. 2)
Paul prevailed in Corinth by coming in the opposite spirit: instead of preaching wisdom with clever words, he preached the “foolishness of the cross”- convinced that the foolishness of God is wiser than men!

From Jerusalem to Athens

by John White

Dear Church,

A good friend who is in the construction industry mentioned to me the other day about a church construction project that he is working on. This particular one was going to cost $10,000,000. This made me think more about the "paradigm shift" that we will need to undergo as God restores New Testament church values.

From the beginning, churches met in homes. Graydon Snyder in his book ANTE PACEM: Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine says, "The New Testament Church began as a small group house church (Col. 4:15) and it remained so until the middle or end of the third century." (p. 166) The idea of "the church building" really didn't get going until the early 300's with Constantine. (This is when government began to get involved with church.)

by Brett Jacobsen

In order to get our heads around this topic we will have to remove our Greek style, tradition infected mindsets and flow with the Spirit of truth and revelation.

Please pray (Eph 1:17-18, 2 Cor 10:5-6) and proceed.

Because most Christians have been a part of the contemporary church for some time now it is quite natural to kick, at least a little, against truth that challenges where we’ve been and what we’ve done as the church.

In the same way as the children of Israel demanded a worldly leadership structure, when they cried out for a king (1 Sam 8:1-20), so to does the humanness of the church crave an institution as its identity rather than flowing organically in Christ. Due to Israel’s history repeating itself in the church it didn’t take very long for worldly institutionalism to arise, dominate and set in.

by Andrew Strom

by John White

Dear Church,

The following is my contribution to the New Testament Church Planters discussion group that I am a part of. (Anyone can join - see the address below). The current thread concerns the definition and ministry of apostles. I am making the argument that in the early church there was great diversity in the ministry of apostles and that we should expect the same today.

This is important because if we are going to see a million house churches planted there will need to be thousand of these apostles (church planters). I think we will be surprised at some of the people God will call to function in this way. (Might even be some of you!)

by David Orton

“…until a time of reformation”

Heb 9:10

Part 1 of this teaching will explore the spirit of the New Reformation and Part 2 the structure.

Christ’s coming triggered a ‘reformation’, inaugurating a new order.

The letter to the Hebrews is a transitional and therefore reformational book. Using both comparison and contrast, it shows the superiority of the new over the old, calling the believing Hebrews into complete transition. With a foot in both camps, they were caught in the external requirements of the old, despite having put their faith in Christ in the new.

The Greek word ‘reformation’ in our text (Hebrews 9:10) is ‘diorthosis’, meaning ‘a making straight, a rectification, correction’. But what was the nature of this ‘reformation’ – what was it rectifying or correcting?

by Andrew Strom

I just spent the last week or so in Minnesota, ministering mainly
amongst Christian youth and also some leaders - on the subject
of 'Street Revival'.  A number of young people were baptized and
filled with the Holy Spirit - and others were fired up to hit the
streets. You can feel the excitement building in that place for
what God is about to do.

But what blessed me most was a phonecall that I received today.
I was told that a couple of the young men had brought a homeless
person to one of the meetings, and continued to minister to him
afterwards. Apparently, not only did he REPENT the next day, but
these young men then went and BAPTIZED him themselves and
also saw him FILLED with the SPIRIT!

By Brett Jacobsen

This 4 part audio teaching series by Brett Jacobsen presents an overview of the current reformation of the Church.

(All audio files are mp3 files and are around 20 mb. Just click on link to download.)

Part 1 : The Early Church in its New Skin - How it all Began 

Part 2 : Journey Into the Dark Ages - What Went Wrong  

Part 3 : Gods Process of Reformation - Brokenness in Heart 

Part 4 : Much Needed Change - Fruit of Man Made Structure  

By Brett Jacobsen

The following are a few key Biblical points on how to see the life of God continue to flow in our midst after He as revived us.

Intro
I would like to start by saying that I, and probably God for that matter, don’t want a flash in the pan revival. In fact I’d rather have no revival at all than to have God so wonderfully move and then we gravitate back to our current state. I tend to agree with Smith Wigglesworth when he said "To live two days in succession on the same spiritual plane is a tragedy". How much worse is it then to go backwards in the things of God? I am not saying that everything has to be going good all the time. That would be a result based Christian perspective, which I think is one of our greatest enemies in the modern day church. I am however, talking about continually flowing in the eternal purpose and the life of God on a daily basis for the rest of our lives. Remember, it’s more about flowing in harmony with the Spirit of God, therefore being eternally fruitful, than it is about having a nice life.