This is Chad & Matt from Fresno. I encourage you to watch this, because I’m telling leaders and pastors about what I’m seeing, but sometimes it’s best to see where it’s happening, how it’s happening, & who it’s happening with. This is not an anomaly.

Video is just over 10 mins total so I had to split:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4NJbgNbBN8

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ao4FeeFWA0

• Chad & Matt are both 18.
• Their gatherings started after a year of off and on fasting.
• In their opinion, church = revival. And if revival isn’t a reality then it should be the normal reality.
• In the beginning stages as Chad was pressing in, he met with pastors who he assumed wanted revival & were pressing in (because I guess that’s what pastor’s do? I don’t know) and they blew him off.
• He reached out for a relational covering with friends of ours in our larger community in SoCal.
• Healings are a regular occurrence.
• They study the Bible (they call them Glory Time) where the point is the encounter with God.
• They are out on the streets regularly feeding & clothing the poor and praying for the sick.
• Even though there is a larger impact of people (I personally know that they have a larger influence of 50 attenders) they seem to only be able to count fruit – what Chad calls “fully submitted.” And he’s almost embarrassed to talk or take credit for the 50 or so that they regularly are in contact with, much less the 100’s that they impact monthly in service.
• The organized church doesn’t know they exist and they are probably “not organized enough” to do anything with them.
• They are already fathering the next generation.

My takeaway:

Tell me what gathering to encounter God – as Chad put it: “When we hang out, what else is there?”; tell me what praying for the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, evangelism, discipleship, equipping, living in submission, etc is?

I dare to say it is Church.

The call is for a new wineskin. Some pastors might think they’d like to have these guys in their church because it would light up the rest. Truth is, these guys would blow up their churches. They would either ruin the old wineskin or they would be tamed or they would willingly leave their churches.

We’d have to admit that in the typical church there are very few that are truly hungry for Holy Spirit to move. We’re getting excited right now in some institutional churches where the Holy Spirit is making some appearances, but without a new wineskin, this can’t happen on a larger fuller scale.

It’s obvious that it’s God’s good pleasure to give these kids the Kingdom. If you want #’s, I can tell you of literally 100’s (dare I say 1000’s) of people in the San Diego area who have either gotten healed, delivered, saved or all of the above this year alone by people with no name, no face, and no budget. It’s so subversive that they organized church doesn’t even know it’s happening.

And the call for us now is to be spiritual fathers & mothers for this generation of the Church who are teaching us to be relentless, to be fearless, to accept nothing short of the full manifestation of the Kingdom of God. I’m fortunate enough to have my feet in both places – institutional & organic – and I have a hope & vision to reconcile the two (Malachi 4:6).

I’m also going to ask for a favor:

Don’t ask your churches to pray for revival. It’s already here. God can’t give you what He’s already answered. Instead, pray for hunger. Pray for alignment with what He’s already doing.

About a year or so ago, I told a 20 something that we were seeing the first fruits of revival. And he said, “What are you talking about, we’ve been living in revival for like 2 years.” I was thinking, “Yeah, but I haven’t heard about this.” But instead of doubting and questioning how a bunch of disorganized Holy Spirit seekers can call upon and live in revival without a single big name person attached to it, I said, “I’m all in.”

I hope you’re all in! You probably have a lot more seemingly to lose than I do. I still hope you’re all in.

I’m giving a relational covering to alot of these guys these days. This has become a large part of our community and I’d love to talk to you more about it if you’re curious.

Blessings. Fire fall on you & not just your churches, but on your community, on your cities.

As I walked I inhaled the odors of flowers, grass, leaves, and ocean.  It’s saddening  to think of all the times that I don’t stop and just sniff the air.  It’s a vast array of salty and sweet, strong and faint, perfumey and pungent.  You know, air really never smells as vanilla as I treat it most of the time.

I rubbed my fingers over leaves and flowers – cautiously looking at windows to make sure the neighbors weren’t peeking at me manhandling their foliage.  I felt the scratchy, abrasive trunk of countless palm trees.  It almost hurt at times.  And I could imagine that if I accidentally rubbed my shoulder against one while running that it would leave me pink and raw.

I walked with a cup of coffee in hand and washed the morning taste out of my mouth.  Where would I be without something as simple as taste?

I can actually make a perfect cup of coffee.  My tastebuds are accurate enough to detect the precise amount of sugar if my coffee is too bitter.

I can cook something that others can find appealing – actually bring joy to their faces.  And that same sense of taste can help me prepare people for the disaster their about to experience.  I’ve recommended restaurants.  Praised my wife.  Shared morsels of what I was experiencing.  Brushed my teeth from the internal alerts from my mouth.

Taste and see that the LORD is good; – Psalm 34:8

The Scripture crossed  my mind.  Taste is a metaphor here and there are many deep and fascinating places I could go with it.

But on a much simpler note (and not even a good hermeneutical one for those who are so inclined), I wonder if taste alone, as a sense, is a good enough indicator of the fact that God is good.  I mean, if you never ever got anything else you wanted in life in terms of material possessions or relationships, etc. – if you had only been given the sense of taste would it cause you to conclude that: “Wow, this Creator of mine is a really good to me.  He gave me the sense of taste.”

Think about the sense taste though: it is uniquely yours.  No one can convince you that something tastes good.  No amount of talking or reasoning, no famous named chef can cause you to like or dislike something.  In fact, chances are you like the taste of something that makes other people cringe.

The sense of taste seems to have no other use but to give us enjoyment. Now granted there’s gag reflex that sometimes can save your life and desiring the flavor of something is sometimes the indicator that your body has unmet nutritional needs.  But all in all, the sense of taste in most of its use is only to bring us pleasure.  We typically don’t eat things we don’t like the taste of. We eat things because we like them. And most of the time, eating isn’t a burden.

Taste.

Why would God create such a subjective thing?

Isn’t that a weird thing to come up with?

Who could have thought of such a thing?

If you created life out of nothing, would you be so concerned about its pleasure?  It’s joy?

Personally, I think I’d be more concerned about my own pleasure as a creator.

When I was a little kid, my grandmotther would cook these fabulous artery clogging Southern meals.  And after she’d cook, she’d just sit at the table with a smirk on my face and watch me eat.  I was 6 years old and I still vividly remember how weird (and a little uncomfortable) it was that she’d stare at me.  But she’d always say why: “Nanny just loves watching her baby eatin’ good.”

Even explaining the why she did it, doesn’t make it any less strange I guess.  But I think today she helps me understand God a little more.

What a weird thing it is for God to give us taste buds.  But He loves watching us.

I think God was paying attention to me 2 nights ago when I ate my wife’s meatloaf.  It was an insanely good meatloaf.  And I was really grateful.

But I think God’s much more enthralled with us than we give Him credit for.  In fact, I think we might be pretty uncomfortable with Him if we knew how much.  You’d probably be asking the similar question that I was asking: “Why are You staring at me while I eat?”

And He’d say, “Because I love you.  I love just watching you.  I like just seeing you happy and enjoying something.”

And we’d think that was weird.

And He’d be totally okay with that.

God’s always watching.  And not for the reasons we think.

He’s always trying to catch us….just like a Father.

It found it a little boring at first that Facebook was so simple and uncluttered, but rediscovered a lot of people that I assumed forgot about me by now.  Obviously, some of those people just wanted to add me as a friend so that they could compare wrinkles, but some of them have truly been worthwhile reconnections.

One of those has been a friend from high school named Josh Kennedy.  I was reminded of his wit from high school as I read some of his status updates and notes.  We chatted from time to time and realized that we’ve both migrated to the West Coast.

This past weekend, Josh made a road trip from Portland to San Diego, and we caught up for lunch at a Poma’s Deli – a place that I’ve passed in my many frequent trips to the beach but never stopped at because off street parking is such a pain.

I arrived at Poma’s a few minutes before Josh.  It’s a small place, and I stepped in to do a quick visual pass to make sure Josh wasn’t already there.  He wasn’t.  I was sending a quick text to Josh when a guy behind the counter asked me “Can I help you?”  in a very unhelpful manner with a taste of Jersey shore confrontation.

“Just waiting on someone” I replied.

A minute or so later, I saw a man in sunglasses across the street studying his phone as he walked down the sidewalk.  I pushed the door open and stepped outside and reunited with Josh.

“20 years? Are you serious?”  Josh said, replying to post I’d made on Facebook that morning.

And our hug felt like a greater sense of brotherhood, which was even more interesting, because in high school it’s not like we hung out all the time.  Sure, we talked every day because it was a small school, and his locker was 3 spaces down from mine, but we wouldn’t have called ourselves best friends or anything.  I just remember enjoying his wit & humor and I remember fondly the greatest trick first base play in the world was made by him.

For me, it was a fascinating conversation.  When you retrace the footsteps of nearly 20 years, most people have a pretty predictable path.  Josh not so much.

How many graduates of conservative John Brown University end up in L.A. working for Fox Films sandwiched between stints of working with at-risk kids in group homes?

Ultimately, Josh would find yet another gifting in music as a self-taught guitar player and keyboarding impersonator for a band.  The music scene admittedly is not that great in San Diego, so a couple of years ago, Josh headed north with his band to settle in Portland.

We talked a lot of life.  We honestly didn’t talk about high school.  Most people get together with high school friends to talk about the past.  For us, the journey that lead us to Poma’s was much more important.

I shared a lot of Josh’s experience (not the cool movie or music part but…). Following a significant chunk of my life in a little town called Caruthersville, Missouri, I attended 3 different high schools.  I remember moving to Louisiana and attending a small school in Covington where I met a lot of great people.  It was so cool being the new guy and being a great player on a horrible basketball team.  Everyone was so appreciative of what I did on the court.  It was like what I did was a silver lining as we racked up numbers in the L column.  I’ll never forget hitting a half court shot and everyone going nuts, despite the fact that we lost by 10.

After that great year, I ended up finishing school in Memphis.  Looking back, on a personal level, I lost a lot. The ensuing years of that followed that transition perpetuated more transition.  It still was cool being the new guy.  I loved that.  But it wasn’t until about 2 years ago that I looked back and realized that I grown up to be a person who had lived a life without community.  I think my personal and professional goals always became a weak substitute for relationship.

We talked a lot about community – it’s transformative process through the ups and downs and personal disagreements.

We talked about being observers of the every day in life and how both of us as people have been called as people to make people aware of that conversation going on every day.  People all see the same thing, but they don’t notice it.  We’re not so smart.  We’re just making you aware of what you’ve seen.

I was so filled from our conversation (and the pastrami sandwich).  To hear what Josh has to say, you know he’s full of wisdom, and, quite frankly, one look at his whispy beard and you know he’s smarter than you.

The cool thing about the journey is that I think both of us have grown a little wiser than our years.

Wish Josh lived around here though.  I can imagine a lot of late night stimulating conversations when he’d smoke from a pipe and pull something intriguing out of its puff of smoke.

There was a real transcendence in our hug bye. It was bigger than he or I. It’s just something that only God can do. When you walk away different and infused with the power of God…well, I don’t want to knock relationships that people might have with their friends. I can only say that this is what God meant for community. And I just think that I’ve settled for too long.

VIDEO: Kinda ironic how our yearbook was called, “The Path.” Josh noticed it.  I didn’t.

The first question: “Where does it hurt?”

And it’s amazing that after all this pain and the high degree of communicative ability that I have (at least that I’d like to think I have) that I struggled for several minutes to describe the pain and exactly where it was located in my knee.

Second question: “So it hurts when you walk?”

And I’m like, “not really.”

“When you run?”

“No.”

And at that point I’m thinking the physical therapist thinks I really don’t have a knee problem.   I actually felt a little alarmed internally because I didn’t think she was going to treat me.

I mean, my knee really did hurt, not when I walk…most of the time.  It hurts when I jump.  It hurts when I make a sudden move or climb the stairs…but not every time.  But when it hurts my leg totally goes limp.

“Is it getting worse?”

I don’t think so.  I don’t know.  It could be.

And after a long list of more questions, the physical therapist skeptically began her examination of my knee.  I walked, stepped, and resisted applied pressure and winced as visibly as I could because I actually wanted to get this thing taken care of.

Finally she looked at my quads and said, “How long have you been having this problem?”

Like 2 years.

“So why didn’t you get physical therapy?”

Because I’m a guy and I hate going to the doctor and I figure things will just work their way out.

“Yeah, I can tell you’ve been dealing with this for a while…your right leg is smaller than the other.  In fact, there’s a big difference.”  And she actually measures both of my quads to prove to me how much of a difference really existed.

And it dawned on me stupid it was for me to wait so long.  How I’ve stayed out of pain by walking and using that leg less and refraining from activities that I used to enjoy.  I’ve managed my pain, but I really haven’t gotten better.  I live around the pain.  I nervously walk up and down stairs.

It’s become normal.  I just didn’t realize how normal it’s become.

What happened yesterday sorta mirrors what’s been going on in my conversation with Jesus over the last year or so. I realize now that my times of bad attitude, my defensiveness, my guilt, my shame, my lack of trust, my greedy grasping, etc. – these things are all ways that I’ve compensated for pain and brokenness. I realize those things rear their head so that I don’t have to experience the pain that I’ve never dealt with.

Some of that pain is from religion, from relationship with people, circumstances, and often (and most times) it stems from a wrong belief about God.

Reactly wrongly to people, circumstances, and God feels like something that’s happening in the moment. Someone crosses us or something happens and we react in a way that maybe we wish we didn’t. But we believe ourselves to be fair people who would at least be reacting objectively.

Truth is, we’re broken people. We may feel at times like we’re more whole than we really are – and that’s just because we’ve compensated so long that we can’t even see the limp that we walk with while others may even be able to see it a mile away.

Some of the junk we really thought would just work it’s way out. But that’s not what happens. Not talking to people or not thinking about a situation or a hurt doesn’t mean that we’ve been healed. And that’s where God wants to bring us – to wholeness.

Right now, I’m staring at the beginning of some physical therapy that can strengthen and bring healing to my knee. I’m kinda not looking forward to it. But this problem has been 2 years in the making and it’s not going to resolve from one doctor’s visit.

I’m so reminded of the story of Jesus with the man at the pool of Bethesda (John 15:1-15).  He’d been an invalid for 38 years, and Jesus asked him a really startling question: “Do you want to get well?”

What Jesus asked was a really huge question on a lot of levels for this guy. For brevity I won’t go into the endless number of things that would have changed including the fact that he would have to actually get a job and support himself.

The initial encounter with Jesus was really the easy part. Yeah, Jesus could heal him physically. And that sounds so over the top, who couldn’t be happy and better off with that?

But I think Jesus was seeing ahead. This was going to change everything. This guy was going to have to be reintroduced to life, and honestly I think it was going to be pretty tough. I think he was going to have to go through a healing process of brokenness with himself, with brokenness with family who allowed him to be on the streets, with people who walked past him every day and thought he was trash…he was even going to have to sort through bitterness that he possibly held against God for 38 years of his life.

Jesus was more than willing to touch his physical body and heal it. But Jesus’ desire for his life was much greater than that guy could have ever known. Jesus wanted him to be whole.

And for us that’s His same desire.

It’s not okay to be sick.

It’s not normal.

It’s not acceptable.

We can’t live in a place of compensating for brokenness. We can’t enable environment that accepts people to continually walk around in their woundedness.

I was a little bummed today when I was looking up a new church plant in my community and found a community news item that they have a fundraiser this weekend.

Now I’ll admit that I have a personal opinion regarding a church fundraising from the community. And I’ll reserve that opinion.

But I’m greatly concerned about the message it sends when a new church springs up with zero credibility and relationship with a heavily unchurched community and organizes a fundraiser for missions to another part of the globe. Included in the article was that they’re hoping to sponge $2500 off the community.

A COUPLE OF FACTS ABOUT OUR COMMUNITY:

• 90% of the kids of our elementary school get free or reduce lunches.
• There are a ton of obvious community needs.  Walk down our street one time as a visitor and you can name about 10.
• It’s about 90% unchurched with many people frankly hostile to the Church.

Do I think this church is trying to be a sponge?  Of course not.  I’m sure they haven’t even considered the fact that the perception of the Church in our community is that the Church really doesn’t care about anything and only comes out of the 4 walls during the Christmas parade so that it can leap on an opportunity to convert someone.

What bugs me the most is that – by now – we should start considering these things.

A church plant is mostly likely not going to make $2500 off of themselves at a fundraiser.  Obviously, if they were that wealthy they wouldn’t be doing a fundraiser in the first place.

So the intention, like it or not, is sponging off of a bunch of already broke unchurched people who already think we don’t care.

Last time I checked, we’re supposed to be the people serving our community.  It just kills me when we get it wrong.

Whenever I think of the trips that we’ve taken as missionaries to other countries, there were a few things that were no-brainers:

• We went to that place financially solid enough so that we wouldn’t be a burden on the people there.
• We tried our best to bless the businesses by buying locally and gave to the needs of the community.
• We usually gave a financial gift to our hosts & the local churches as well.

So why don’t we treat out own communities with the same courtesy?

Hey, Fundraise.  But ask people who are following Jesus to make a sacrifice toward what you believe He’s calling you to do.

Go to every place on the planet with the Gospel.   But don’t have your introduction to your primary mission field be with your palm out – not in hospitality – but in asking them to serve your cause.

Here’s a clip from one of our giveaways in this same community.  The most we say is, “It’s just a small way to say Jesus loves you – no strings attached.”

At the end of the video (difficult to hear) a person had a keen insight: “Wow, That’s they way it should be!”

ME: What kind of issues?

VICTORIA: Anything we go through…like depression…puberty…

ME: Puberty? They have a crisis line for puberty? What kind of call would… that be? ‘Hello Teen Crisis Center, can I help you?’ ‘Help me! Hair has started growing in my pits!’

JADYN: Daddy, what do you want to be when you grow up?

ME: I don’t know yet.