Do you feel uncertain about what your life looks like on the other side of this pandemic?
We certainly do.
It’s now 55 days since we made the leap into on-line church. And 8 weeks in there’s still more questions than answers regarding our future.
Ok, I admit it.
It’s feeling out of control that’s a real biggie.
It feels like so much change has been forced on us.
Though it’s not as if we didn’t get some warning. It’s just that we didn’t understand what was waiting to be unwrapped in a God whisper from last year.
I am bringing you into a new act. The curtain is already raised. This is not just a new chapter, or even a new season. This is a whole New Act.
Prayer Journal. November 2019.
THRU A GLASS DARKLY
Allow us to share some reflections & early observations of what we sense God is doing in the early pages of this ‘New Act’.
We feel secure in saying (with the Apostle Paul) that there’s much we don’t understand, and we also feel confident in asking God to supply understanding as we keep walking this out.
For now we see but a faint reflection of riddles and mysteries as though reflected in a mirror, but one day we’ll see face to face. My understanding is incomplete now, but one day I will understand everything, just as everything about me has been fully understood.
1 Corinthians 13:12 TPT
THE ACTUAL IS BECOMING MORE VISIBLE
- The pandemic has resulted in a stripping away of the superficial and the temporal
- The unseen world (the Kingdom of Heaven) is becoming more visible than it was before
- In fact it’s even visible on-line; a format that once upon a time was considered less real than in person
- Thus the unseen has come upon the virtual
I am re-defining to My people what is REAL. I am repositioning My Kingdom on your view finder. I am inhabiting that which is virtual, and making My presence more visible.
Prayer Journal. May 2020.
GOD IS THE GOLD STANDARD FOR ACTUAL.
Thus a new ACT is about more of His ACT-ual. The book of Acts is called this for a reason. It’s about God ACTing and revealing more of Himself. Any ‘ACT‘ of God by definition is about His plan. In the early church Jesus ACT-ed through His servants the apostles.
I believe we can expect a greater tangibility of the unseen realm in coming days, however this will be prefaced upon allowing Holy Spirit to take the initiative.
In the previous act the general preference of the church was for ‘in person’ rather than ‘on-line’.
In the New Act, God is asking us to lay down our preferences and seek Him above all else; whether that be in person, on-line, in small groups, or in large gatherings.
HIS ACT-ual is becoming more visible.
God is neither limited by time or space.
He does not need an easing of restrictions or a 3 stage plan to reveal Himself more fully.
Nor does Almighty God need large gatherings.
Technology is His servant & we are yet to see the innovations and creative solutions that will be invented as a platform for the release of more of His glory across the earth.
THIS NEW ACT IS ABOUT A GREATER MEASURE OF ACTIVATION
How?
The church is becoming more visible in this new act.
The church is not a building, the church is people and the church of Jesus Christ is being released from the constraint of buildings.
Buildings are a tool, yet they are also superficial and temporal.
The church of Jesus Christ is eternal.
You are God-Enthroned, surrounded with songs, living among the shouts of praise of your princely people.
Psalm 22:3 TPT
The power of Jesus Christ resides in the people NOT in the building.
Does this mean Church buildings won’t exist in a post COVID 19 world?
I believe they will (as will on-line, homes and other spaces). However the absence of buildings (if only for a season) could very well create a new neccessity!
Ministry must take place beyond the walls of a building.
And could it be that this will lead to a greater release of spiritual gifts among the body to do the work of ministry?
In the new act there will be a greater measure of ACT-ivation.
Prayer Journal. May 2020.
Buildings are a tool; they are disposable, NOT essential; and they are NOT the church.
I am dismantling thinking & paradigms from the previous Act. More people in the room doesn’t necessarily mean more presence. Big is not necessarily better. I am re-activating the power of 2 & 3. I am re-activating the Body in this new Act.
Prayer Journal. May 2020.
NEW TOOLS AND NEW LEVELS OF DISCERNMENT
New tools for ministry are being released, some old tools are being re-tooled, and other tools from the past will become redundant in the new act.
Some of these new tools will be placed in unlikely hands.
I have slowed you that I might show you things to come; things concerning My Glory. I am re-directing your gaze. I have increased hunger in the hearts of My people. Whilst some isolate & shrink back, others: like Jacob, and his sons’ in a time of famine, are prepared to travel to distant & foreign lands – places of the unfamiliar – to find food.
Prayer Journal. May 2020.
ASK
SEEK
KNOCK
Stay slow.
Slow food is GOOD food.
THE PURE ESSENCE OF RELATIONSHIP IS BECOMING CLEARER IN THIS NEW ACT
I am closing the divide in My Body. The actual essence of relationship is sourced in the unseen realm from My heart. You thought that relationship was a function of physical closeness. I am manifesting the essence of relationship in the virtual. You can be in the same room and yet be far away. And you can be on-line, spatially distant, yet knitted.
Prayer Journal. May 2020.
Until then, there are three things that remain: faith, hope, and love – yet love surpasses them all. So above all else, let love be the beautiful prize for which you run.
1 Corinthians 13:13 TPT
A FINAL PRAYER
LORD: bring us through to the other side. We lay down to Your purposes. Bring your Church through to the other side. Direct our paths LORD.
All the hurting ones Lord: would you care for them? Everyone is getting stretched LORD. Grace for the weary. Help for the helpless. Strength for the weak. Stretch for the over-stretched.
Bring us to the other side of Your purposes LORD. Keep us together. Bind us with Your love by Your Spirit. Every culture. Every generation.
Holy Holy; God Almighty; Who was, and Is, and is to come.
