"Predictions of Hope" by Garris Elkins

With the Mayan Calendar promising an end to life as we know it on December 21, and with the current condition of the world going through its normal cycles of life and death, it is easy for some to allow their hope in Christ to be hijacked by the doom-forecasters.  

I would like to assure you that God is the One directing the events of our world.  During this Christmas season make a choice to reaffirm your hope and trust in God while others continue to craft their response to life around hopeless and fearful predictions.  

I do have a prediction to make. I predict that on December 22 you and I will realize, once again, that Jesus is still Lord and He remains worthy of our praise and trust.

“2013 – The Joseph Anointing” by Garris Elkins

2013 will be a year the Church begins to experience the release of a Joseph Anointing. This Joseph Anointing will be like the story recorded in Genesis when God called Joseph from a pit to a palace to help Israel and the surrounding nations survive a coming season of famine. God is releasing this anointing upon his people so we can become a supernatural blessing of wisdom and resource for the nations of the world.

Joseph was a pivotal figure in the history of Israel.  God called Joseph to stand in the gap for Israel between desolation and their future destiny. Joseph came to this position bringing nothing with him.  He was thrown into a pit and left for dead. He was then taken out of the pit and sold into slavery by the very people who should have loved him – his brothers. After being falsely accused of a sexual assault, he was put in prison and stayed there until God raised him up to a place of prominence and authority as second in command to Pharaoh.  Through all the heartache and hardship he experienced, God never abandoned Joseph.

In the Book of Genesis, where the events of Joseph’s life are recorded, I noticed three components of his anointing – Dream Interpretation, Apostolic Administration and Reconciliation. These components can function through a single person or they can be released through a group of believers functioning with a common vision. 

The Strategic Placement of Dream Interpreters

Dream interpreters will rise in prominence in this anointing.  Both in prison and in the courts of Pharaoh, it was Joseph’s ability to interpret dreams that gave him audience with those in authority. Some of the people who will have these dreams hold positions of governmental authority and others work in the highest levels of the corporate world where normal routes of access to them are restricted.   The dreams of these individuals, and their need to understand them, will become the bridge that connects these dreamers with those gifted with God’s interpretation of dreams.

The Rise of Apostolic Administration

There will be a release and recognition of the supernatural aspect of the administrative gift.  Some see the gift of administration in a lesser light than God intends it to be seen. There will be a rising up of Administrative Apostles.

In Potiphar’s house, in prison, and before Pharaoh, the administrative gift in Joseph was the gift God used to release his blessing to the nations.  The detailed administrative plan Joseph shared with Pharaoh became God’s supernatural provision and solution to Pharaoh’s dream.  It provided the structure that the nation of Egypt and the surrounding nations needed to survive during a famine. 

Reconciliation of Nations through Families

After experiencing deep personal pain and rejection, Joseph was willing to make a way for his family to survive the famine. He did not allow his painful personal history to be a roadblock to what God desired to do in his family and as a result the nation of Israel was spared from starvation. 

The provision of physical needs was a vehicle God used to bring restoration and reconciliation to Joseph’s family and to Israel.  Joseph’s anointing was able to flow because he was willing to reconcile with those who had wronged him.

One of the greatest hindrances to the moving of God’s Spirit in the midst of God’s people is the unwillingness to release an offense.  Reconcilers take practical and tangible steps towards reconciliation no matter what the cost. Reconcilers initiate plans for healing and restoration.

Joseph wept as he reconciled with his family - this is the heart of a reconciler. Behind each act of familial reconciliation there stands a city or a nation waiting to be set free.  Israel and the surrounding nations endured a severe famine because one man was willing to reconcile with those who had wronged him.

As the Lord processed this word and the coming year with me, he went on to reveal how this anointing would function:

“As I chose to record the works of my servant Joseph in a book about new beginnings, so my Presence in you will become a place to birth a new beginning. This anointing will bring a Genesis experience to my Church.

I am forming in you a place of supernatural provision.  I have put my Presence in you to become a silo of abundance resembling a farmer’s silo that stores grain for a future planting.  Like Joseph, you will come to this place of provision bringing nothing with you, except my Presence. It will be from the depths of my Presence in you that I will draw out this blessing for the nations.

This anointing will not be a work of addition, but of supernatural multiplication. I will birth this in you like I did when I multiplied the loaves and fish that fed thousands. My provision will flow from what appears to the natural eye to be a place of nothingness. It will become a miraculous provision that will surprise not only those who receive it, but it will surprise my people. You will say, ‘Where did this come from? How did abundance come from nothing?’

I will draw the nations to you as I did to Joseph when I repositioned him in Egypt. They will come for a survival provision, but I have more planned than just their survival.  I will use you to bring them into their destiny. 

The Joseph Anointing will turn a famine into a feast; a lack into a gain and a set back into a leap forward.  The nations will see that I am in your midst.  Set the tables – a feast of provision is coming.”

Finally, the trials and issues you have faced in your life have been used by God to position you for the greatest impact.  As Joseph spoke to his brothers, the Lord will also speak through you to those who have stood against you in the past.  As you are anointed and released you will be able to say, like Joseph,  “God has sent me ahead of you to keep you and your families alive and to preserve many survivors. So it was God who sent me here, not you!” Genesis 45: 7-8

“Creating Apostolic Community” by Garris Elkins

Creating an apostolic community requires more than just reading good books on the subject or having discussion groups at the local Starbucks.  Creating this kind of community requires providing traction points that will actually initiate change. This kind of cultural shift will eventually touch every area of our lives and ministry, and if initiated and facilitated properly, will provide the traction needed to move us up the hill into the high ground of our preferred future.

Recently, in the church movement I call home – the Foursquare Church – our leadership took the bold step to revisit who we are historically as an apostolic movement birthed under the ministry of Aimee Semple McPherson. I am proud of our leadership for taking these first steps.  This decision required courage and vulnerability.

As church movements experience the passing of strong, apostolic leadership, like an Aimee Semple McPherson, those who follow and assume the role of leadership may or may not be apostles themselves.  Organizationally, this change of gifting is not a hindrance to developing an apostolic church structure. As long as an apostolic environment is affirmed and honored, and apostolic leaders are allowed to rise, God can accomplish his will in any group, association or denomination.

Initiating an apostolic community will test our existing thinking and challenge our current systems. There are typically three directions one can take at this juncture:

1.  We can PROTECT the past at the expense of the future.

Historically, movements have gathered around a common theology or shared experience.  This gathering has created ways of thinking and ministry that focus on protecting our theology and our experience against any future threat that challenges our historic reality. 

This mindset gathers people to its way of thinking and then builds defensive systems to protect against a challenge of the historic status quo.  Living inside this protective box begins to lock-up the potential and vision of an individual, a church or an organization.  An apostolic leader will push people and organizations beyond their current zone of comfort to experience what God has planned for each generation. All of this is done under apostolic leadership without violating the essential truth and doctrines of the faith. Apostles help the Church differentiate between the essentials and non-essentials of our calling.

2. We can IGNORE the issue and carry on with business-as-usual

What can make this organizational shift towards an apostolic environment so difficult is when we define how we “do church” as sacred and see any challenge to our self-defined sacredness as a threat.  These perceived threats are either marginalized or eliminated.  In some cases, the very message God wants to deliver was within a person or idea we considered threatening.   

Apostolic thinking gathers around mission instead of preferences.  They gather around the mission of bringing heaven to earth that is expressed in the fullness of the Gospel of the Kingdom.  This Gospel of the Kingdom is multi-faceted – it is a body, soul and spirit Gospel that ministers to all dimensions of the human experience.

Just as the natural body is constantly in a process of change and flux in order to stay alive, so it is with the Church.  Ignoring the signs of decline in any area of the health of our natural body will lead to sickness and disease and even death.  In the Church, ignoring the signs of sickness in any area of our spiritual Body will lead to dysfunction and disease. Apostolic leadership requires frequent Body-physicals to ensure that what we are doing is producing life and not assuming that continuing to do the same thing unexamined will bring the promise of life in our future.

3. We can ENGAGE a process of adjustment that aligns us with our future

The change required to align us with authentic apostolic community will hinge on how we choose to see ourselves.  This personal reassessment will require an adjustment in our thinking before we can see correctly.  Correct thinking will change the lens through which we see our assignment and calling. 

In my Foursquare church family we have functioned under the Godly influence of many strong pastoral gifts.  Some of these pastoral models have also been apostolic as they functioned within the Foursquare Church.  Names like Jack Hayford, Roy Hicks, Jr., Ralph Moore and Wayne Cordiero would fit this definition. These men saw something beyond a single view of the Church.  They saw a larger Kingdom image and some of what they saw has brought us to the very conversations we are having today.

In the Foursquare Church, where we are revisiting this conversation, I am not sure re-titling our pastors is necessarily the answer.  Maybe the answer is simply revisiting our history and validating it once again. Once that validation is made we can then take steps to make sure we have an environment that continues to release apostolic leaders to do what God has called them to do. Our investment in these leaders will be seen most clearly in how willing we are to remove any organizational barriers that would stand in their way.

One night almost 25 years ago, I was flying in a small plane with my pastor, Roy Hicks, Jr.  As I said before, Roy was an apostle in our midst.  It was about 2:00 a.m. and Roy and I were flying all night to get back to Los Angeles. 

We were somewhere over southern Mississippi when I asked Roy a question.  “Roy, if tomorrow you were leading the Foursquare church – what would you do?”  Roy answered as we both continued to peer straight ahead into the ink-black night sky.  He said, “I would do away with a lot of our structure, take our money and give it to 50 lighthouse churches in 50 states and let them do what God had called them to do.”  The phrase, “lighthouse church”, was Roy-speak for a church led by an apostolic leader. I think today, 25 years after that late night flight, we are in a better place to have this conversation. 

When I was a kid growing up in the 1950’s and 60’s California, the term, “A Planned Community”, was coined.  A planned community is created on a plot of undeveloped land. It is designed and built from scratch. Some of these communities were out in the desert where only jackrabbits and sagebrush grew.  The planners laid out the city streets.  Individual house plots were assigned. City office footprints were penciled in along with each individual house and their assigned address.  Everything was under the plan.

As some of us revisit the concept of an apostolic community, we will need to go back to the original God-planned community of faith Paul addressed in Ephesians 4.  In this original plan each of the five equipping gifts are in place and doing what God intended for them to do in a planned community.  Living in community is the healthiest when we know our own street address and how to find our way home again. It is the job of apostolic leadership to make sure each generation understands God’s original blueprint for our community of faith.

“Roy’s Three Questions” by Garris Elkins

Many years ago, when I was a student at Ministries Institute at Faith Center in Eugene, Oregon, I learned a valuable lesson about sermon preparation from my pastor, Roy Hicks, Jr.

Roy was a profound teacher of God’s Word.  He taught about God’s Kingdom. His focus on Kingdom preaching wrecked me for desiring anything less in my own ministry.

One day in one of our classes Roy said, “There are three questions you need to ask yourself as you prepare to teach God’s Word.  ‘What is God’s heart in the passage? What is the human response? What is the personal application?’”

I will never forget Roy’s words.  Over the years I have studied the disciplines of sermon preparation, like Hermeneutics and Homiletics, and have benefited from these studies, yet those three questions from Roy have had the strongest influence on my life.

Once, Roy gave each of us a copy of his sermon notes.  It was only one page in length.  I thought there would have been more. Embedded in that single page of notes where the answers to his three questions.  I still have those notes.

Today, almost 35 years later, I still teach those same three questions to the young men and women who attend our school of ministry in Medford, Oregon. Roy’s questions have been so impacting because they have caused me to dig deeper into the Word beyond just a commentary level of study. Roy’s questions made me press into the heart of God.  The questions have also made me apply the Word to my own life as I prepare a message each week.  This has been painful at times. I think this kind of sermon preparation is part of the continuing process of incarnation where the Word becomes flesh in the people of God. 

“A Missional Jesus” by Garris Elkins

I have been around the Church-world for many years. I have seen lots of buzzwords enter the vocabulary of the Church.  A current word in our ecclesiastical buzz-a-sphere is, “missional.”  It’s not a bad word – it’s a good word.  In using this word we are trying to get the Church to revisit her assignment and make sure she is tracking with God’s mission.  I have seen the health that has come from this conversation. As I look at our current definition, in some ways, it appears to be a three-legged stool trying to stand with a leg missing.

If you had a friend who had served God and who was about to die by execution, – a beheading to be precise, what would you tell them as they waited to die? What words would you use to assure them they had not served in vain or invested in the wrong things? In other words, what would you tell them so they could die in peace?

John the Baptist was in such a predicament.  He was arrested for telling a political figure that his lifestyle was perverted.  As he waited in prison he began to doubt.  He was sensing his days were numbered so he sent a delegation to Jesus to ask him if he was the One. 

Jesus sent back a profound answer,

“Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen - the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.”  (Matthew 11: 4-5)

Of all the information Jesus could have sent back to John, so John could die in peace – this was it.  He didn’t include in his message a statement of things that could be done in human power and strength – good things like painting houses, raking leaves in your neighborhood or doing oil changes for single moms in the church parking lot.  Jesus sent back a functioning definition of a Spirit-empowered Church living in culture.

As I look at the early disciples, and the Church birthed on the Day of Pentecost, I see a missional church that was a supernatural cohort embedded in culture making God known in any and every way possible – good works and the supernatural included.

If you are reading this and you serve in the Church, I don’t mean to step on your toes.  I write this to simply have each of us revisit our definition of what it means to be missional and make sure it includes something of the supernatural dimension that Jesus shared with John along with all the other wonderful works we do in his name.  These elements work together, not in exclusion of each other.

If we don’t revisit and expand our current definition of missional to include something supernatural, we will end up producing a ministry of good works that our local service club could do without Jesus and that would not be a message that would have brought John much peace as he waited in prison.

2015: A Coming Transition in Leadership – Living Waters Church, Medford, Oregon

(The following letter was given to the congregation of Living Waters Church in Medford, Oregon, on Sunday, November 11, 2012, announcing a coming change in pastoral leadership that will take place in 2015.)
_________________________________________________________________________________

In the fall of 1998 Jan and I were in Athens, Greece.  Early one morning the Lord awakened me and downloaded a word about our future, showing me a twenty-year timeline. The first five years of the timeline revealed that Jan and I would participate in building and rebuilding something. In the middle 10 years, we would see the reason why God had sent us to that assignment. During the last 5 years of the timeline, which will begin in 2015, we would enter a time of transition.

At that time, I thought the timeline was for our next assignment in Europe. In 1999, through a set of God-ordained steps, we found ourselves being offered the pastorate of this wonderful church.  From the very start we have felt God’s hand upon this assignment.

One of the first things the Lord said to me upon our arrival in Medford was, “Start giving this away.” From the start, I knew that in order to give away ministry we would need to function as a team. While I am responsible to lead the church, the pastoral team has always been released to function in their unique and individual callings. God’s plan has been for all of us to come alongside one another as a team, not to function in a top-down structure where the man on top calls all the shots all of the time.

Twelve years ago, I brought Ryan Rhoden on as a part-time Youth Pastor and a short while later he became full-time.  About eight years ago, Ryan came to me with a wonderful vision to develop a school of ministry for young men and women called Anthem. Since that time Anthem has become a vital part of the life of Living Waters.

As I watched Ryan’s leadership skills develop, and saw both Ryan and Kate’s integrity and passion for God, their love for this church and the community, it became obvious God was preparing and commissioning Ryan and Kate to someday lead Living Waters.  This year I released Ryan into a new and increased assignment as Lead Pastor where he functions in an executive role of leadership, handling the daily administrative tasks of the church.

Most church structures are built vertically.  In this kind of structure change only happens when the leader on top either dies or falls off. These situations can be crippling for the potential growth and life of a local church. As we look at church history, all five gifts of Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher, are needed to have a strong, healthy and functioning church. 

We have prayerfully desired to rely on God to direct us into the future, raising up and releasing a strong and gifted team who will “equip the saints” to do the same.  We are on a continuum of life expecting increase and change, a sign of transformation and good fruit.

Two years from now, in January of 2015, Ryan and Kate Rhoden will assume the Senior Pastor assignment at Living Waters. At that time we will enter the last 5-year phase of our ministry timeline. After Ryan assumes his new role, Jan and I will continue to function as part of the pastoral team, but we will be released to do other things that come at this stage of life and ministry.

Ryan and I have been talking about this transition for the last 2 years.  Ryan once said, “I don’t want to do this without you.”  I replied, “I don’t want to do this without you, either.” All of us are being invited to enter this season together as a church family, serving alongside each other with love and honor.

The end of the 20-year timeline will come during my 69^th year, 7 years from now. At that time God could give us a new assignment.  Whatever that new assignment may be, this valley is our home and this church is our family. It has been and will continue to be a joy and great honor to be part of what God is doing in the life of Living Waters.

“The Push of God has Begun” by Garris Elkins

Recently, I took part in a conference with people attending from all around the world. The worship was powerful.  During one of the morning worship sessions the Lord began revealing to me a developing image of a father’s heart. I saw a father gently pushing one of his children out onto a stage where the child was about to take part in a school play.  He had never been on this stage before. The child began to resist the Father’s gentle push. He was afraid of being abandoned and left alone in front of the audience.

As this image developed I realized this was a word for the Church.  It was a picture of God who was beginning to propel his people out onto the world stage by the breath of his Spirit. Some who are feeling his push are resisting.  They have been given promises in the past that have not yet been fulfilled and they are responding to God out of disappointment and fatigue. 

As this image was taking place, I heard the Lord say,

“I am beginning to push my people into a new season upon the world stage. This push will be a work of my Spirit needed to overcome a reluctance that has developed in your hearts. I will never call you to a new place where I would ever leave you alone and without power.  As I told my servant Joshua, I tell you today, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’ The stage upon which I am now positioning you is a place complete with everything you will need to accomplish my will.  My presence will be your single resource in this new place. Bring nothing with you. I want your trust to be placed in my presence alone, not in your performance or what has worked for you in the past. I will stand with you in this new place to help you experience the fullness of what I have called you to do in my name.  I have begun a good work in you and this push of my Spirit is to move you to a new place where you will stand confident until my good work is completed in you.”

This is a season of countdown for the drawing of a curtain where things God has promised are about to be seen.  Many have chosen to remain standing in the wings of God’s miraculous stage instead of stepping out onto this visible platform of faith.  It has been such a long time that some have forgotten why they are waiting. They have forgotten the words of their part in God’s play. They don’t remember their cue.  The push of God’s Spirit is coming to launch them out onto God’s stage for a demonstration of His love and power as the curtain of time is pulled back.