Is the church a cafe? Did you go to be served or to serve?

I had a dream this morning where I saw that I was working in a cafe. It was busy, there were people coming and going and we didn’t have everything we needed, we still needed a barista, some customers were helping cook the steak for the hamburgers that Jim was cooking as Jim was rushed off his feet. We needed people to serve the people coming in as I was dealing with all the different ones coming and going. I saw that people were sitting down in a seat but actually weren’t there to get food, they were just using the seats even though they were not using the cafe. I saw a council officer come in to inspect things and she saw we still needed a barista and she knew people and was going to help us to find one. There was an older man there who was smoking a cigar and I was keen to have a drag off his cigar. People were wandering through our private home at the back of the cafe. The cafe remained open because people kept coming. But I was shown that if I didn’t put time limits on the cafe on I would slip over (being rushed off my feet) and the watermelon juice I was carrying would slip down the drain spilling over people.

I pondered this as I asked the Lord a question if running a church was like a business and He said ‘No’ but, “he was about the Fathers business.” And that business he was about was teaching in the synagogues (churches of that day - Mark 14:49) and preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every sickness and disease. Mark 4:23

I believe many people are treating churches like a cafe where they come in and get served and when they don’t get want what they want they leave the cafe never to return, leaving a bad smell like that of the cigar I saw. But in actual fact Jesus said in Matt 20:25 “the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many”.

So no, we are not in a business but there are aspects of the church that can be seen like a business and there are warnings we can heed in which we will see the things in which the Lord has called us to do, to remain. We have come to do the Fathers business which is to serve, teach and preach the good news, to heal sickness and disease.

There were many warnings in this dream for me and I share this because I believe there is relevance for others here as well.

To put boundaries on your time and not to be ‘open’ day and night. We need to be a people that take time for ourselves to be refreshed in the Lord. Even Jesus went off from the crowds to be alone. To not be so rushed off our feet as to not be aware of things that may slip into our lives through being so busy.
That God is the one who makes divine appointments (council lady) who will give us what we need. Expect the unexpected in areas of provision.
When someone takes offence, be careful not to come alongside that offence and join in. (The man smoking the cigar that I wanted to take a drag off.)
Don’t go into churches with an attitude of being served but rather what can I do to help? Eph 6:7 “Serve wholeheartedly as if you were serving the Lord not man, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever he does, whether he is slave or free.”

For me, part of my job if you like, is to ‘prepare God’s people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.’ (Eph 4:12)

A call and a passion on my life is to see the unity of the brethren and that is about seeing a body of believers growing up into maturity where we are all serving one another in love, ‘submitting to one another of our reverence for Christ’ Eph 5:21 and in that place we will attain the ‘whole measure of the fullness of Christ’ and that excites me as to what that would look like. People healed, delivered, set free, the kingdom of heaven on earth as it is in heaven. That is what I live for.

The baby's been handed over

Several weeks ago the Lord shifted us out of the 'home office' into the 'market place' and in the process a spiritual shift happened - one of letting the 'baby' go, a releasing and handing over the batten, so to speak to others. In this process the nests that WE ALL have been in have been stirred up, shaken about, and pushed out, to fly in ways that perhaps we were too afraid to do previously. The amazing thing with God is that He knows the timing of all of this and where each one of us is at and what we can handle. Yes there has been a fluttering of wings in panic. Yes, we have had a few weeks of challenge as authority and structures get changed and challenged, frustrations coming to the fore, but love helps us overcome, love helps us to forgive, love helps us to see the good and not the dirt, love helps us remember our own failings and yet forgiveness and grace that the Lord has for me, that I can give to others, remembering it's the glory of G...

The lie of a lack of spiritual fathers and mothers

My ponderings this morning. I believe we have a generation (of which I am a part of) at the moment who believe that there were not the spiritual mothers and fathers who taught them in the things of the spirit; of the way they should go etc. I believe to some extent there is truth, we don’t seem to have seen the ‘spiritual hero’s’ that we want to follow in our daily worlds around us. But I also believe that our generation or those who don’t believe there have been the spiritual parents, actually need to repent for not honouring the ones that the Lord has put in their lives and in which we have not received them as such and honoured what they inputted into our lives. There have always been people around us sowing into our lives, sowing truth, sowing help and hope, but because it has not come the way we expect it, we have not honoured what those people have brought. Sometimes too those people sow into our lives with truth that we don’t want to hear and so we walk away from those ...

"And now these three remain: faith. hope and love." 1 Cor 13:13

Two pictures things the Lord has given me over the last 10 days. Firstly; Prior to going to Christchurch I had this vision where I saw this massive tree falling to the ground and taking out people around them as it fell. Then this morning I was reading in Matt 3:10 and it reminded me of that vision I saw. Matt 3:10 says “The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” It’s a powerful word of warning that if we are living supposedly Godly lives and yet are not living lives that produce fruit in keeping with repentance, the fruit of love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, etc, the fruit of the spirit that is found in Gal 6, then I believe we will see people who are big people to those around them, people who are leaders etc. fall and cause damage. Secondly; Something that startled me yesterday as I was sleeping, I woke up to the sound of a clanging symbol....

Things to ponder from the book of Luke

Some powerful stuff out of the book of Luke this morning that spoke to me 17:10 " So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty'" This really spoke to me how we expect and want the praise from man for what we do and yet we have only done what we were asked to do when we freely gave ourselves as bondslaves/servants to christ so why should we expect praise from man or from God? The other thing - actually there was heaps this morning out of Luke so take a look, but 18:8 "However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" The one question about will Jesus find people of faith who believe in what they have not yet seen? It is only faith that pleases God and so to be a people of faith.... A challenge. One more thing that I have to share is Luke19:11-27 the parable of the Ten Minas and about being faithful with what you have, but v24 "Then he said...

If you cause some damage, take responsibility and fix it.

How many of you have gone into the supermarket and come out and found your car damaged due to somebody else and they have just driven off and not left a message or anything? How did that make you feel? Last night I had a dream and I saw a parked car and someone had damaged it and walked off without leaving a note or anything and so when the owner went to get the car, they found it had damage done to it, that someone had to pay for. It wasn’t a big deal as the bulk of it would be covered by insurance but there was still the excess that someone had to pay for. And that somebody was now the owner and yet it wasn’t the owners fault. The person who had caused it wasn’t owning up to what they had done or taken their responsibility to repair the damage. How many of us damage other peoples ministries/churches/individuals (as cars often represent those things in dreams) and walk off without so much as a note of apology that you ha...

Has a giant moved back into your place? Does your bathroom need repainting?

The other day I had a couple of dreams that I believe the Lord is speaking in and they actually are speaking about the same thing. The first one I saw the inside of a bathroom being repainted. The walls, ceilings, everything was being painted and the colour changed. The bathroom is a place of cleansing and by it being repainted I believe that God is wanting us to do some internal work in our lives, things that need changing. The second one was I saw Giants coming from another place and moving into houses and they were like giant trees and they blended into the walls and you couldn't tell they were they as they moulded into the walls but they were there. There was a sense of familiarity about them and so I believe there are some things that have moved back into places that shouldn't be there but because we are familiar with them we don't even notice them. And I know for myself this past week things like 'perfectionism' is something that is familiar with me th...

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