3 Visions received in 3 Churches

This summer (Philippine summer), my wife Amy and I have been travelling in the USA for several purposes. Illinois, Wisconson, Texas, Louisiana, Washington, Oregon, Nevada and California. The first is that we are getting Amy her green card. This is her first time to come to America. Secondly, my 14 year old son Ethan is seeing family in Chicago. Third, we are visiting my eldest son, Chad in Las Vegas. Fourth, we are preaching and meeting with Pastors and others who we might partner with. We have also tried to get to as many services as possible even when we aren't ministering, to receive from the Lord and also to experience other Church services.

Interestingly, in most of the Churches that we visited, the Lord sent visions my way during worship which gave me a pulse of what was going on in each Church, usually with each Pastor. If the Lord opened the door to share these, then I did. If not, or if I sensed that the Pastor was not open, then I did not unless the Lord strongly prompted me to anyway.

Though these visions were about those other Churches/Pastors, I have found that they either in part or in full also apply to me and to the Church which I pastor in the Philippines. I want to share three of them with you because I believe that they might apply to you or to your Church as well.

Church #1

I saw the Pastor, a humble yet confident man who is open to the Spirit but is more about the Word, holding 2 spouts with handles and buttons on them like the soda dispensers that a bartender would have. The spout in his left hand was carbonated water and the spout in his right hand was syrup. Standing behind him was Jesus and He was speaking into the ear of the Pastor, giving him directions. "Now more Word. Now more Spirit." As Jesus directed him, he would pour either more soda or more syrup or both at the same time. The syrup represented the Word of God and the Soda represented the Spirit of God. This was a really interesting vision analogy that I had never thought of or heard about before. And frankly, the more I have considered it, the more it has challenged me. It has challenged the way I have been operating as a Pastor.

I have been very open to the Holy Spirit and have been very careful not to quench the Spirit. But when I say I'm open that means that I usually just wait to see if He is going to pour some soda into the mix. Now that I have carefully considered this vision and the scriptures that go with it, I realize that I have been holding back. I need to turn on the soda whenever Jesus prompts me to. God has given us the authority to move in the Spirit. This is why some of the greatest men of faith have said some things that many people misunderstand as arrogant. For instance, Smith Wigglesworth often said,

"If the Spirit does not move me, I move the Spirit." To better understand what he meant, first consider another thing Wigglesworth often said: "As I start out in the natural, in faith, the Spirit of God always meets me and anoints me, so that although I start in the natural I continue in the Spirit." Smith was not saying that he would or could force the Holy Spirit to do anything, but he was expressing the fact that faith moves God and that the Holy Spirit expects us to stir things up and operate in faith. It is not enough to just be open, we also have to be willing to start so that He will meet us. Think of how often a miracle happens unless someone by faith begins to pray, making declarations first. Not very often. Faith is the spark that welcomes the fire of God.

The main point is to be led by Jesus in the mixing of the Word and the Spirit. It is not normally going to be a constant 50/50 mix. There are times when it will be more Word and other times when it will be more Spirit. If we are led by Jesus, then we will become better at knowing when to focus more on one over the other while always making sure to bring the overall balance of the Word and of the Spirit according to Jesus' directions.

What I saw at the end of the vision is that when the mix was right (according to Jesus' instructions), the beverage became very refreshing and healing and many people were blessed and the Church grew in a way they had not previously experienced.

We could apply this principle in other areas as well. For instance, there are times to focus more on love & grace and less on judgment & consequences. But there are also times to speak about consequences & judgment. Again, we must be led by Jesus in this. Overall, there must be a balance to it because if we do not present the whole gospel, we become heretical in our teachings.  Jesus is the One who spoke about hell more than anyone else in the Bible and in the most vivid terms in order to warn people so that they would not fall short of the grace of God.  He is also the One who in many instances did not mention peoples sins to them and focused on the positive, not beating them up since their guilt was already huge.  He knows the appropriate times.

Church #2

This vision was of a Pastor and his Wife who in this Church is the Co-Pastor. I saw them flying through the air but they were a part of a large flying tree. Their heads were poking out of the tree and they're faces and hair were blowing in the wind just like skydivers. But they were not diving down, they were shooting up. Moving very fast. The tree represented the Church and the limbs, the bark, leaves and fruit were all people. The thing is that as they were moving, the speed at which they were moving was too fast for some of the people and there was a pruning going on. Limbs, leaves, bark and fruit were being ripped off and falling to the ground as the tree continued to rocket along. Simply put, people were leaving or had left the Church. The Pastor and his Wife began to worry and began to wonder if they were moving too fast. They looked back at the tree and saw the large number of people falling off. But then Jesus pointed at the bark, leaves, limbs and fruit that fell off and they were able to see that the majority of the fall-off, not all of it, but most of it, fell into pots of soil and they began to grow and thrive where they landed. Even though much of the fruit left their tree, it was still fruit that remained and God credited them for it (John 15:16). Not only did the fruit last, but it multiplied!  Jesus said, "Keep going fast. You are moving according to the vision that I have given you. Don't worry. You are in My will. Unless there is a pruning, you will not reach the highest place that I have destined for you."

I have found in ministry that God often calls the leaders to move faster or in a different direction than what many in the congregation are willing. Some of them don't want to move at all. But the point is, that if it is Jesus telling us to move fast, even when many don't come with us, we will end up doing more for Him and the ones who fall off are safely in His care. After all, we aren't building our own kingdom! We are building His Kingdom even if that means some of those who were with us end up in a different Church!

Church #3

This Church is very similar to ours in the Philippines and this vision spoke to me the most out of the 3 visions I'm sharing today. It is even the same age as ours. I'm going to share this one with my congregation.

I saw the Leaders (husband and wife Pastors and a team of other Pastors and Leaders) as being a pregnant woman. Then I saw in the womb that the Baby was a New Wineskin. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Jesus' teaching about not putting New Wine in Old Wine Skins, you are probably going to need to do some research to understand this :-) (go to Matthew 9 and find some sermons about it on-line)

The woman ended up in the delivery room of the hospital and Jesus was the Doctor who was going to perform the delivery. But he told the woman, "Don't push. You cannot give birth yet. The Wineskin is not ready." And so they waited. Everyone had to wait because Jesus would not allow the delivery to happen unless the Wineskin was ready. The impression I had is that if the Wineskin was not ready by a certain time, then Jesus would call the delivery off entirely. There was an urgency for the Wineskin to be prepared. In the vision, I saw that the woman was in the third trimester which gave me a time frame of about 3 months until it would be too late. But I don't know if it was a literal time or just reflective of a season that only Jesus knows the timing of.

I asked the Lord at that point, what is it that needs to be done for the Wineskin to be prepared? He showed me in the womb again and I saw that stitching was going on. Threads were being sown into the wineskin and each thread represented a person from the Church. A unified group of people who were all on the same page with one another in the Spirit according to His vision for this particular Church would make up the Wineskin. Another way of looking at it is that there is a certain environment or atmosphere that needs to be nurtured and protected for this Church to be what God wants. I know this is a controversial thought to many. I used to serve with a Senior Pastor who basically thought that developing a certain atmosphere was wrong. But I have found it to be true and every Church has a particular atmosphere or flavor whether they want to admit it or not. The Pastor who didn't like the term "atmosphere," ended up developing a very dry and limited one.

I had a sense that there was a very good chance that it would happen, but it wasn't going to happen by osmosis. There needed to be an urgency, an alarm sounded, an intentional move to get it done or else it would not happen. I'll share more on that in a moment...

The most interesting thing about this vision to me is that God said to me, "If they deliver this one, the next one will be much bigger." God was already looking to the next pregnancy! And just as with physical pregnancies where usually, the babies get bigger with each, this is what usually happens with spiritual pregnancies as well! The impression that I had is that after delivering this one, they would have one more intense pregnancy and then they would experience a move of God in a way that many dream of but never experience. Obviously, it takes time and faithfulness in a process to get there.

The Pastor then got up and preached a message right on the same page. He even preached about Wineskins. The best part of what he preached is his understanding that for this congregation, God wants them to move from being a Community to a Movement. Wow! And that is exactly what I have in my spirit for the Church I am currently pastoring. That we would go from being a normal type of Church to a movement!  His message was for me!

After service, the Worship Pastor prophesied to me during lunch that I am "Fathering a Movement." That is true to an extent, but I feel that I have been falling short. I ended up re-committing myself to the process of Fathering a Movement. That prophecy helped me to begin to re-focus.