CELL CHURCH IN IVORY COAST IN GRAVE DANGER!

The reporter is acting as witness and also as a contracted partner of this church on a huge social and community program in progress for the church.

The Eglise Protestante Oeuvres et Missions Internationales located in Yopougon Kouté was attacked from all sides yesterday [May 2] evening around 9PM [local] by the FRCI [troops officially and directly under the command of Ouattara]. The pastor officially appointed by the church to be in charge of the crisis testifies to the following facts at the scene at this time (we have created some 2500 dossiers of those who have taken refuge in the church):

Preamble: Several times I have reported the distressing situation (sanitary, medical, security…) of the Eglise Protestante Oeuvres et Missions Internationales [www. epbomi.org] located at Yopougon Koute between Nankoko pharmacy and Hotel Assonvon. Direct contact has been made with French Licorne military forces, the United Nations Mission to Cote d’Ivoire, the UN Refugee High Commission, UNICEF, by email and on a benevolent and mutual aid channel on Facebook. (Unfortunately I no longer have access to the recent Facebook files which disappeared today. I sent a request to this service to know who has done this and why it was done.)

Facts of May 2nd, 2011 around 8:30PM – 9:00PM reported around 9:10PM. 54 PEOPLE WERE TAKEN AWAY - YOUNG PEOPLE OF 19 to 30 YEARS TOWARDS the SHELL STATION NOT FAR FROM THE INSTITUTE FOR the BLIND IN YOPOUGON (reported by witnesses trying to determine the facts with the pastors and members of the church in charge of security) The list of these people is in the possession of the pastor in charge.

The Church has been attacked with heavy weapons (a report is being compiled on property damages) Offices were plundered with major damage and theft (cell phones, portable computers, cameras,…) The church health clinic center was ransacked. Emergency medications provided by the UN were stolen.

Two Nissan vehicles, green and gray, were taken as well as one small Peugeot bus. I contacted the UN Human Rights Commission [UNCI HRC] reps in Cote d’Ivoire in the neighborhood of 9:30PM. (I reported the exact hour on the [now lost] Facebook mutual aid channel). I also directly contacted the French Licorne military force. The agent on duty transferred me right back to the UNCI HRC agent on duty who said he had informed the UN Security Council. I gave him the phone number of the pastor in charge for more details. We have had NO return calls from them as yet. The church is being intimidated because the attackers promised to return. We think that this is a deliberate act. I posted this odious act on Facebook. However I do not know if officials have contacted the interested parties for information as the page disappeared this morning. I am trying to find out if it is government officials themselves who have removed this from Facebook or if it was Facebook who did so and for what reason.

Pasteur Dion, President and founder of this Church, has experienced attempted threats of kidnapping. However, he was put in a place protected by pastors and friends. We fear for his life.

We ask everything possible be done to safeguard the physical integrity of those “taken away” as well as present and future protection of displaced members of this church and also with all of the Churches affiliated with the activities of Pasteur Dion [www.epbomi.org]

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[This is the message sent to unicef]

MEDICAL AND SOCIAL URGENCY

WE ARE ALERTING YOU TO THE EMERGENCY SITUATION AT YOPOUGON AT THE BAPTIST CHURCH IN YOPOUGON KOUTE IN THE “RED ZONE” [Red Zones are areas not yet secured by the government]:

WE HAVE RECORDS ON THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE

2500 REFUGEES - -800 WOMEN OF WHOM 57 ARE PREGNANT WITH 7 IN LABOR INCLUDING 1 MISCARRIAGE THIS MORNING. - 1000 CHILDREN - 700 MEN

WE ARE IN A COMBAT ZONE WITH ROCKET FIRE WHICH HAS NOT YET REACHED THE MAIN SITE BUT IS HITTING ALL AROUND US WITH COMBAT TAKING PLACE ON THE GROUND NEARBY

WE NEED : 1) FOOD AND DRINKING WATER 2) BASIC DRUGS AND MEDICAL EVACUATIONS 3) MEANS OF COMMUNICATION BECAUSE THE ZONE IS OUTSIDE OF WIRED NETWORKS WITH INTERNET EXCEPT FOR CELL COMPANIES GSM, MTN, AND KOZ. 4) NIGHTIME SECURITY

AND WE HAVE NOT HAD A REPONSE FROM YOU TO EMAIL SENT AT THE BEGINNING OF WEEK TO UNCHR

Everyone An Equipper, Everyone Equipped

There are a few principles that are crucial to discipleship. I have carefully crafted our TOUCH equipping track to apply them:

THERE ARE THREE LEVELS OF SPIRITUAL MATURITY

In 1 John 2:12-13 we are given the three stages of spiritual growth:
* The "Little Child" knows two things: "I have a Papa and my sins are forgiven."
* The "Young Person" knows one more thing: "I know the enemy and how to overcome his power."
* The "Father" knows two more things: "I have an intimate knowledge of God and how He works and I have sired a child."

This makes clear there is a path for each person to be equipped while equipping someone else. Who is better suited to mentor the "Little Child" than someone who knows how to "overcome the evil one?"
Who is better suited to care for the "Little Child" and the "Young Person" than the "Father" who led them to Christ? The discipling of all believers is the task of all believers! By forming "'Basic Communities" of these three persons, you have automatic discipling.

The most important issue in discipling is to help each Christian to become a discipler. I have just visited Santarem, Brazil where the PAZ cell church has over 53,000 people in cell groups. Every cell group is formed from disciplers discipling disciples.

Abe Huber calls these "MDA's." He writes,
"Model of Discipleship means 'Apostolic Microcell of Discipleship.' Thus, MDA, in terms of its appearance, is a "microcell" referring to the individual care that all members receive in the Body of Christ, the church. It is personalized, individual, where every Christian has someone who accompanies him as a mentor, helping him grow in Christian life and service to God. As a "model," the MDA includes the entire structure: pastoral, evangelistic, missionary, apostolic, prophetic and teaching of the church. It is how the church exists and operates." - O PURÊ DE BATATAS

I have pressed Abe to get his materials translated into English from Portuguese. The world needs the truths God has given him! I believe the MDA concept is anointed and must be expounded by him for use beyond the PAZ ministry.

Meanwhile, while we wait, I have taught this form of mentoring for 30 years! I have built this into all of my equipping track materials. www.touchusa.org
Leaders are developed at this grass roots level. When the "Young Person" mentors the "Little Child" a leader is being formed. As Abe said to me, "Who is better to supervise this than the "Father" who won the "Child" and mentored the "Young Person?"

Your thoughts?

My friend Dan Boone has moved upstairs...

Most of the world knew Dan Boone as a car dealer and a sportsman. I knew, at least for a brief time, a man who was captured by a higher claim on his life.

Following the surrender of his family to the Lordship of Christ, Dan began to attend our worship services with them. Through this we began to develop a personal relationship. This led to transparent discussions about his lifestyle as we met at the country club for luncheons. He was willing to share his deep struggles and finally, over two spinach salads, he made a simple confession of faith in Christ.

There followed many weeks of our meeting daily at his home in the mornings. For 11 weeks, I prepared a daily devotional for an hour discussion with him about the core values of a Christ follower. These were moments when I could sense the deep struggles of a man torn between inner conflicts and a desire to break loose from a well entrenched pattern of activities.

Eventually I published the material I originally wrote to mentor him as A Survival Kit for New Christians. It became widely used with over two million copies now distributed in many languages, used around the world. As a result, Dan and I flew to Nashville where he was given a plaque by Broadman Press for inspiring the book to be written for him as a new Christian.

We drifted apart when my own journey took our family to serve as missionaries in Viet Nam and Singapore. The years went by.

Dan and Pat moved away; upon return to Houston, we found Pat was active in a fine church, growing in the Lord. But no one invested much in helping Dan continue his walk into Christ’s Lordship. As a result, the seed sown into the soil of his life was crowded out by the thorns of old lifestyles.

I was then contacted by Dan when Pat was found dead with an open Bible in her lap as she was called home by her King. At the funeral, several key men spoke to me about their concern for Dan. The lack of solid Christian community had left him drift.

My attempts to keep in touch after that were minimal because of my own travel and the schedules we both kept. I deeply regret I did not continue my friendship with him.

While his life was not a dramatic testimony of personal faith, my friend is in the care of the Christ who died to redeem him. He chose to be owned by the saviour of the world.

Did his life reveal a deep walk with Christ? It did not. Yet his and our salvation does not depend on our lifestyle but the integrity of a loving God who has made it very plain in this inspired verse:

“By grace are you saved through faith; not through your own works, lest any man should boast.”

Is Dan with the Lord he never fully yielded to? We can be sure he is.

Was Dan never fully drawn into a servant lifestyle? We know he was not.

But in eternity, he will find there is no other lifestyle available. With the destruction of the human flesh his spirit is finally released to be all it was meant to be.

C.S. Lewis wrote of a waiting room where recently deceased people were waiting to enter heaven. The complaints, the angry comments of those present, reflected all the personality traits of these unhappy earth people. The main character in the story is horrified and says to himself, “Shall I enter heaven to put up with these people for all eternity? How can there be anything but more hell in what is called 'heaven'?”

Then, one by one, the waiting room is emptied and people pass into heaven. To his astonishment, he sees amazing transformations in each of the people in the waiting room! They are all totally transformed when the weight of earthly transgressions are stripped away.

I am waiting to greet my friend Dan Boone when I join him in the next life. It will be amazing to see him divested of his humanity and to see him as God has always seen him: a blood-bought son of God, pure and unhindered by the habits of the flesh.

I often wonder what I will be like at that time? The weight of sin drags all of us down. It is so sad that in this life we fight so hard against what we could experience here and now: the eternal peace that comes into the dimension of time when we stop struggling and enter into His rest.

Seminary Commencement Address

Delivered 12/11/10 at Houston Graduate School of Theology

Nicodemus was not seeking for truth when he sneaked over, unnoticed, to interrogate Jesus at night. He was looking for some religious heresy he could use to indict him.

Jesus had become not only a nuisance to the religious establishment but also a threat. His healings and miracles sidetracked those who attended temple services. That was offensive to the Pharisees, but he crossed over the limits when he overturned the moneychangers in the temple. Now He was interfering with their cash flow! This newcomer had to be stopped!

Jesus knew full well what the man’s motives were. He must have been amused by the false flattery in Nicodemus’ trick question: “Jesus, how do you do these miraculous signs?” One blasphemous comment was all he needed to have Jesus arrested.

Jesus’ answers competed with Nicodemus’ religious system. His mental prison cells limited what he could see. So, Jesus talked about his eyes: “Nicodemus, unless you are born again you cannot even see the Kingdom of Heaven.” By that comment, Jesus defined “upstairs” and “downstairs,” revealing his blindside.

Don’t you imagine Jesus was chuckling to himself as the Pharisee gave him a blank look? His first words were not blasphemous; they were ridiculous!

Nicodemus was a “downstairs” man. He was like many professionals in traditional religion today. He had been fully trained in a religious system but had no comprehension of how his own life should duplicate in the lives of others. Totally missing was any comprehension that he should serve God by equipping others in the “upstairs” supernatural Kingdom.

Missing was any awareness that as a religious leader he should equip all Temple worshippers to serve as Priests. He was a religious professional. He was a “downstairs” man. He saw the priesthood as the exclusive property of the Pharisees, not for the common people.

Jesus had just opened his awareness that he lived in a downstairs world and even as a worshipper of God he knew absolutely nothing about the upstairs world where God ruled over an invisible Kingdom.

To make the point about the invisibility of the Upstairs environment, Jesus adds another conundrum: “You see the trees bend and you know there is an unseen wind causing this. In the Upstairs Kingdom, there is also an observable Power, the activity of God’s Spirit. If you had upstairs eyes, you would see the results of the Spirit’s activity. It’s far more powerful than the invisible wind you observe.”

Still trying to gain evidence, Nicodemus says, “How can these things be?” In his mind, he is still thinking, “I have to trap him. Let’s see how he explains this rubbish.”

Jesus replies, “You are a learned scholar and you still do not understand these things? I tell you downstairs things and you do not understand them; how can you understand if I tell you heavenly things?”

One more time Jesus compares Upstairs with Downstairs. He now reminds the Pharisee of how Moses placed the serpent on the pole and people who looked on it lived. He likened it with His own Upstairs death on the cross.

Thus the story ends. Nicodemus retains nothing blasphemous to take away. What we know about him is his upstairs eyes began to see. Later, he became a follower of Jesus and shared in his burial rites.

One of the greatest dangers facing the work of the Eternal Christ in today’s world is that we have unwittingly created a downstairs religious system that seldom experiences the centrality of Christ and the purpose of His present ministry to proclaim the Kingdom of God. Ritual, tradition, and litanies have created Downstairs religious systems that blind both clergy and laity to the Upstairs world of the reign of Christ.

A part of our downstairs system is the danger that a seminary diploma can become a status symbol to decorate a wall in a pastor’s office. It is often a discipline completed with one’s personal career in mind, a stepping-stone to opportunities to pastor a larger congregation, where a doctor’s degree is a prerequisite to candidate for the office. Those that secure it for that purpose compose the career-minded clergy of our present age. The danger is mixing a love for God and a desire to attain significance and power among men. A pastor’s career focus can steer the ministry rather than the Upstairs calling to equip the priesthood for the Kingdom work.

This is the difference between an “Upstairs” pastor and a “Downstairs” pastor. One seeks an office, a career, status, possibly power. The other serves in the Kingdom of God and seeks to equip others. Scripture explains that Christ has given to the church the apostle, prophet, pastor, teacher and evangelist for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry. A seminary degree should be cherished not for a paper hanging on the wall, but for the skills that make us more valuable in equipping the saints.

Downstairs pastors create downstairs congregations who assemble to get their needs met. The sermons exhort the membership to develop their best talents to gain happiness and success. The promotion of consumerism in American church life has separated us from most of the rest of the people of God in other nations, but its deadly effect has leaked into every third world country where prosperity is taught by preachers with pointed-toe shoes exhorting the barefoot congregants. Downstairs religious systems are propagated by pastors who are building castles instead of the Kingdom.

I recently had a man serving in North Africa fly in to attend one of my seminars, required to earn his D.Min. degree. I asked him how he lives and works in one of the most restricted Islamic nations on earth. He said, “I have been there for 12 years. I have yet to see my first true convert.” I asked, “How does that make you feel?” He answered by referring to a scripture we often overlook in 2 Corinthians 10. Let me quote the passage:

“For we would not dare to classify ourselves or compare ourselves with some of those who recommend themselves. But when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding. But we will not boast beyond certain limits, but we will confine our boasting according to the limits of the field to which God has appointed us, that reaches even as far as you. For we were not overextending ourselves, as though we did not reach as far as you, because we were the first to reach as far as you with the gospel about Christ. Nor do we boast beyond certain limits in the work done by others, but we hope that as your faith continues to grow, our work may be greatly expanded among you according to our limits…”

He said, “I never compare my ministry with those seeing great harvests in other fields of Africa. I went to the field my Lord assigned to me. I evaluate my ministry by how faithful I have been serving in my field. Sowing Christ’s seeds of redeeming love is crucial if there is ever to be a future harvest. God sent me to sow, not to reap. I am at peace with my Master. I do not have to be successful, but I must be faithful.”

Mother Theresa said, “Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus.”

The flaw in the Downstairs pastor’s value system is the same as the flaw in Nicodemus: not seeing the Kingdom as the focal point of all we do and not focusing on equipping the saints, not recognizing our priority is to equip all the priests of God and to treat no person as a church member to be used to keep an organization operating. God gives each of us “limits” for our Kingdom assignment and it has nothing to do with what others are doing. Looking over our shoulders to compare our success with that of others guarantees a sure burnout for a Christian worker.

In my book Christ’s Basic Bodies, I refer to the dropouts of American pastors being at an all-time high. Sunscape Re-Creation Ministries, serving ministers in crisis, reports that in all denominations, 1,600 ministers per month are terminated or forced to resign. That represents 19,200 clergymen a year! Comparing ourselves with ourselves produces this dropout.

The stairway to be an Upstairs servant must take us to the cross, to die daily. I still recall a pastor who boasted to me in 1977 that he had a two year strategy he had developed to grow a church. He unpacked it every time he went to a new pastorate. His career was very much programmed like a corporate executive, moving locations with each promotion. He said, “I do not really have a pastor’s heart like you do, Ralph, but I am an expert in churchianity.”

I did not connect Revelation 1 through 3 with Revelation 4 for many years. In the first segment the seven churches are being evaluated by Christ in their midst. Most are warned about how far they have strayed from the Upstairs objectives. The “white stone” refers to the Bema judgment where Christian workers face the shekinah of God in 1 Corinthians 3. The focus was not on the eyes, as with Nicodemus. Instead, it was on the ear: “Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what He is saying to the churches.”

Then we see the 24 elders before a throne in chapter 4. But this is not a throne of grace: it is a throne with flashes of lightning and the roll of thunder. It is the Bema. The elders will be separated into the downstairs group who produced wood, hay and stubble, to be consumed by the shekinah fire, and the upstairs ones who produced gold, silver and precious stones. I recall the motto that hung on my parent’s breakfast room as I grew up: “Only one life, t’will soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.”

I shall never forget sitting in the coffee shop during my seminary years with our New Testament professor and some fellow students. The white haired professor said, “Men, if your church turned into a locomotive, what part of it would you desire to be?” One of the men smiled and said, “I would want to be the whistle that blows loudly to let everyone know the train is coming.” Another mused and said, “I would like to be the throttle to make it move faster.” Finally, the professor was asked, “What about you?” Softly he said, “I would like to be the coal that must be consumed to make it operate.”

Before you frame your diploma, consider what it means to you. If it witnesses to your qualifications to be a more effective equipper, hang it in your office to remind viewers it made you a better servant. Otherwise, stick it in a file and make copies to send to pulpit committees as you seek larger churches.

Prayer: “Lord, make us saltier that others may become thirstier. Amen.”

Spirit, Soul, Body

Seldom have I found such a clear word as what I am posting below. It is written by Mary Ellen Reber, a former student of mine when I taught at Columbia Seminary. She and Chris have spent their entire ministry in Bangladesh, slugging it out among the hardest to harvest:

Christ abides in your human spirit if you are His property. She understands this:

"People of Antioch, I call your spirit to attention. Listen to the Word of God for you - "Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and godliness. Through these He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith, goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 1:2-8).

"People of Antioch, your Father God designed your spirit, your soul, and your body, and He ordains and oversees their alignment. I call your spirit to the highest position in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

"I speak to your slumbering spirit to wake up, and I say to you that it is safe, it is time, it is right for your spirit to look outward and upward into the face of your Father God. Holy Spirit, come and speak to Your child's spirit the truth that he is accepted, affirmed, capable, and beloved in You, that he has no lack that detracts from who he is in Your eyes. Nothing can separate him from Your love. Holy Spirit speak to his spirit in a language he can understand and receive. Your promise to him is that he has grace and peace in abundance in You, that as he pursues Jesus and knows Him more deeply, Your divine power gives him everything he needs for living a godly life and receiving his own glory and goodness.

"I call your soul to attention, People of Antioch, saying "Come under God's order. Soul, be healed, restored and whole, submitted to your spirit. Be free from the spirit of fear that would paralyze you - fear of the future, fear of failure, fear of meaninglessness, fear of man, etc." I speak to your soul that it will discern the voice of your Father and your Savior, who will never leave you, and receive His love that casts out fear. Father, cut through the assaults of lies, soulishness, performance, religious spirits, all contrary words spoken or contrary prayers prayed, and everything that keeps your child's soul from being joyful, at peace, effective, and productive.

"People of Antioch, I call your body to attention and command it to come into alignment with your spirit. Hormones, metabolic systems, immune system, brain chemistry and every physical system listen to your Creator God who said, "This is very good," and gave His blessing when He made you. In Jesus' name, come into divine order and alignment with the awesome and wonderful way that God intend you to function - whole, healthy, strong, resilient, and alert. Come into alignment with the ordained order where God has placed you, because He determined the appointed times set for you and the exact places where you should live. Come into alignment with your Father God, the Creator of all things. His covenant of life, peace, and joy precedes and stands above all devices and snares of the enemy. I bless you, people of Antioch, with full participation with the divine nature Father placed in you, His covenants and His blessings, by His great and precious promises that He ratified in Jesus' death on the cross and sealed with the Holy Spirit. I bless you in the name of Jesus of Nazareth."

5,000 Cell Groups Set Off Fireworks Simultaneously!

Last night I stood with the TV camera crew and Pastor Abe Huber on the rooftop of a tall building in Santarem, Brazil. The PAZ congregation has just passed the 50,000 count of cell group members. The PAZ IGREJA owns a TV station, used to direct all 5,000 cells to set off fireworks at the same identical moment across the city.

Wow! All around us to the horizon there were fireworks set off by each cell group. It went on for a full five minutes: crackles and flashes of light everywhere we looked, 360 degrees from that rooftop's view.

Santarem's 250,000 population experiences this public proclamation via fireworks twice each year as the cells give notice of their presence in all of the city's neighborhoods.

In the distance, all lit up, was the huge soccer stadium we will fill Friday and Saturday nights for a gathering of the cells. The seating is a bit smaller than the 60,000 expected, so screens are being set up to project the events to the overflow crowd! I will be preaching on "Psychikos, Sarkikos, Pneumatikos" on Saturday night ("Rejecting God, Rejecting Christ's Lordship, Placing Christ on the Throne). Hundreds of Cell Leaders will be prepared to pray with those who come for salvation or with believers repenting of carnal lifestyles.

I always knew that before the Lord takes me home I would experience a city totally impacted by Christ's Sacred Bodies, the cell groups. I will be smiling in my coffin!

SANTAREM'S CELL CHURCH: AN AMAZING EXPERIENCE

We are in Santarem, Brazil on the Amazon River. This community of 250,000 is about halfway between the mouth and end of the longest river in the world, surrounded by jungles. The cell church here has at present 50,000 in cell groups and conducts dozens of worship services back to back all day Sunday in several locations. We were invited to attend the 5 p.m. service. Arriving at 4:30, we slipped into a packed auditorium of 1,500 and watched with amazement as a total changeover took place at the end of the service, with another 1,500 packing in during a 14 minute break! At the end of the 5 p.m. service, about 350 members returned from their Encounter Retreat at their center a few miles out of town and packed into the area in front of the stage, singing and dancing as they shared reports of deliverances and spiritual victories experienced there. Upon leaving the auditorium we found the next worship service was so overpacked that projector screens and chairs seating hundreds were in the back field and the street in front of the building. They have over 100 pastors planting new cell churches in the villages up and down the Amazon, living on house boats with their families.

I was invited here to bless the church and delegates from all over South America for their annual conference, but will receive tenfold what I will give out! I will post pictures later for you to share in this awesome experience.