Prophetic words are not just to be processed / weighed at the time. I review of the word and its accuracy needs be made a few years later to test its veracity. Here is a word given in London in 2007. It was given to a group of leaders about the next few years. I am astounded by its accuracy and how it has happened....
"God is linking hearts and hands across various streams all over the world. The way in which we operate as a team, of necessity, needs to adjust. It is a very exciting and strategic time for us as a team yet a critical time. We need to be so focused on God and His plans that we are like Amos 3:7 says “Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing this plan to His servants the prophets.”
I felt that we need to open our hearts and see what is really inside them because as God brings strategic people across our paths for cross-pollination, there must not be any pride or arrogance. God wants to pour His Love into our hearts so that we can truly embrace those of other flows.
I believe that the way in which we have been functioning has been shown to us by God but He is saying that season has now come to an end. He has entrusted us with bringing into being the Biblical model and He is now calling us to move into a way in which we have never been before. I sense that the team within teams and the various teams are going to change in nature, as 5-fold people go out together and compliment each others’ giftings and bring a wider and deeper equipping into the Body of Christ.
I also feel that some lead elders are going to be ‘freed up’ to pursue the translocal in a new way. Some may hand over and yet others may be able to pursue this in a way that has not as yet been done.
I also saw this time as the birthing of a second baby - That we are through the 3rd trimester and into the birth canal. Labour brings pain and there will be, and have been those pangs which have been sharp and sore. However, the waters have broken and I believe that as this “second wave” of God’s plans for NCMI is birthed there is a greater outpouring of His precious Holy Spirit on us. In a natural family when a second child is born, you don’t discard the first or ignore the first-born, but together, as a family you rejoice in the new life that God has given you. In NCMI I feel that we are so very blessed and grateful for what God has birthed through and in the “first-born” but the season of new life is taking place. We have felt the movement as God has fashioned and is fashioning, as He has formed and is forming the next part of this plan for us. There is the excitement of the unknown and yet the sense of “how will this take place?” I feel God is saying it is still a “little by little” but each “little” is going to be a massive step. Adjustments will need to take place in a family to cater for the second baby and in our team, lead elders, elders, deacons and saints hearts need to be wide open to the new thing that God is doing.
As a team, once again and yet again, we need to model this with humility, wisdom and love."
I. Leadership:
No change is possible without strong, focused, intentioned, humble, Jesus loving leadership. A precise of this call to lead, reveals Paul’s clear insight as to what is needed to Replant this community. It is not for the faint hearted. It will certainly not be achieved by being politically correct, not by trying to be the ‘nice guy’. It requires a loving, tender but robust form of leadership, whose focus is on the applause of heaven in laboring with an eternal mandate and not a temporal popularity contest that may offer a short term success but offer no long term, multi-generational transition.
Firstly Paul calls Titus to appoint elders. This is the highest level of biblical authority in a local church. There are no other levels or layers of authority over them – not denominational, organizational nor dictatorial by one person. In the plurality, they are men who are to lead the church clearly in government and direction, finding the heart of God together.
Secondly, Paul clearly lays out who qualifies for such a task. When one compares this list with that in 1 Timothy 3, they are remarkably similar. However, could it be that this is not some random checklist Titus is to use to matrix the next leadership team? May I suggest another reason? In Genesis 1, there is a clear divine intention that God sculpted in his created order. The text repeatedly says: “ Each will produce after their own kind” [vs 12, 21, 24, 25,]. I do wonder if this is less about a checklist for qualification and more about the kind of believer that this Replant will produce, so it does require this kind of leader to be in place. These ‘qualifications’ so called, are surely a bottom line reality for all believers. This will be achieved if the leaders exhude these qualities and disciple others into this lifestyle.
Thirdly, Paul empowers Titus to act boldly. With Holy Spirit wisdom, Titus is called to be courageous to turn a tough ship around. Using the Old Testament matrix of “Prophet, Priest and King”, the Replanter must surely have a high ‘king’ quotient [meaning government and leadership] in his make up. These are some of the commissioning verbs that Paul uses: “they must be silenced…show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works…in your teaching show integrity, dignity and sound speech…declare these things…rebuke with all authority…I want you to insist on these things…avoid foolish controversies…warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him…
The Glenridge Transition.
Feel extremely honored to be part of the Glenridge story.
We did not know that all this would have happened when the 40 of us started out back
in 1983. We simply had a dream in our hearts. I am not even sure that we knew the
width, depth and breadth of this dream.
All these years later, we stand on much a major weighty and pivotal moment in the
Glenridge story. My mandate today is to charge you, the wonderful Glenrdge
community. You have made this more than we ever dreamed. You believed in us when
we were young, wild and foolish. You saw something impossible being birthed beyond
our youthful excesses and leadership impediments. You bought into a God authored
dream that took us on a redemption journey that has covered the globe with Gods
grace, and engaged friends on a sacrificial journey together. You are the true heroes of
the story. We were in the ops rooms planning, startegizing, praying and believing but
you all have hit the beaches with the conviction that we have a job to complete... We will
change the world.
Genesis introduces us to 3 essential pieces of this shaping:
1. Time
2. Seasons
3. Redemption
Time.... Introduces us to the notion of life is a story made up of daily unfoldings like
pages turning as well as chapters, chunky God times in our lives...
Seasons... Whereby God gives us a new truth, a big idea and stakes it into out hearts
through all the tests that the 4 seasons bring
Redemption... Which was announced to Satan when the Father said: "he will bruise
your head and you will bruise his heel"... I suspect all the angelic hosts leaned forward
to see what would happen now... Something powerful was just announced but they did
not know what that was... The great pro to-evangelicum.
To this great community, I call you to the author of this great redemption story...
When Joshua was set up for the new chapter in the Israel story of redemption, we tend
to take Joshua chapter 1 and focus in on Joshua or the people, yet the true emphasis of
the chapter is God. These precious people were about to encounter the Father in ways
they never had. This is a chapter of discovering the Theology in Transition:
- the Lord said... He is the intimate, affectionate, immanent God who does not watch
from a distance... He speaks and needs to be listened to out of his love for us,
- the land I am giving you ... He is generous, exceedingly abundantly more that we can
ask or imagine,
- as I promised to Moses- he is a God on continuity, a Multi-generational God, who does
not lie, there is no shadow of turning in him!
- as I was with Moses - the promise of an ongoing adventure... This is not over yet, the
gospel still has to be preached, there will still be times of uncertainty, doubt,
vulnerability, questioning these leaders and wondering, but as I was with Chris and
Rory...
- the land I swore to their fathers - he is a God of blessing and inheritance, there'd are
many lands to confuse shores to reach, businesses to establish, schools to facilitate
churches to plant, homeless to house, great gospel stories to discover...
- have I not commanded you - we serve of God of the word! We drink the word, study
the word, chew / mediate on the word, obey the word and never get stuck on a one
season revelation of the word, but continuously humble ourselves to new
understandings and new calls to obedience,
- the Lord your God is with you - the great paracletos, the wondrous adventure of faith,
the sense of awe that God believes is us, has called us to live a life that is humanly
impossible, but with God all things are possible, this is an adventure of faith, and
onlyGod can make this happen if we obey... there's are new battles to fight and new
enemies to conquer
- the Lord your God is providing you a place - every person is essential, valuable,
strategic, a place where you can offer your divinely appointed contribution to let this
kingdom advance, his will be done, like heaven like earth
- the Lord gives you rest... Find his favor, grace and satisfying presence, find the
sabbatical God... This is not a time tone driven, productivity minded. Find rest in this
chapter, living in the sabbatical nature of our God.
1. Embrace this new chapter... Meryl, the great Glenridge team of the first 14 years
laid the foundation... A radical community of friends who be so inspired by the
wondrous gospel story that we would lay down our lives for that and do it with
friends.Lose that and we lose the essence that is Glenridge. We were born on the
streets of Durban preaching this glorious gospel.
2. Rory, Mel and the team in the next 14 years took that foundation and enlarged her,
adding to the stones that we put in place greater understanding and revelation, and
then put Glenridge in her rightful place as a church that was tender and sensitive,
strong and tenacious, intimate yet large, personal yet impacting
3. Now in this new chapter, whilst upholding the fundamental DNA, Ryan, Melissa and
this team will take you on an entrepreneurial adventure. It will be strong and bold. It
will be characterized by courage and zeal. There will be a strong Holy Spirit leading
matched with clear gifts of leadership and administration needed to catalyze this
growth. Once again you will hear the battle cry "we have never been this way
before." buy into this journey with graven humility , a sense of historical continuity yet
- new horizons, unchartered waters and a strong gospel centered energy that will
drive you, motivate you and captivate you.
