Baltimore Boy & Catching Fire

Dear readers, dear fellow revivalists, dear RADICAL lovers of Jesus...

Something that has been on my heart lately is the subject of personal revival. I believe that before the nations can be brought completely to Jesus, the Church has to undergo RE-vival - it has to be revived. But even before that, individuals that make up the Church must undergo their own personal revival, in the Secret Place of their hearts. They must have an identity shift as they realize who they were born to be,  Who they belong to, and how much love our Abba Father has lavished on each and every one of them. From this place of true identity and reawakened passion for God Himself comes the desire to take it to the world.

From www.etymonline.com:

revive

early 15c., from M.Fr. revivre (10c.), from L. revivere "to live again," from re- "again" + vivere "to live" (see vital).

I want you to take a look at my friend Jesse's blog and get an eye-opening, invigorating look into the soul and heart of a man who has been awakened to a whole new way of living.

On April 10, 2011, he walked into our church and straight into our hearts. He, Emily, and I have been inseparable ever since, and he has continue to grow in wisdom and knowledge and relationship with God....

His blog is called "Catching Fire", and I'm not sure of all the reasons behind the name he chose, but it makes me think of what happens when we walk around with our own personal torches for God absolutely lit and ABLAZE, and we come into contact with someone ripe for a personal revival. Read about his journey. It's beautiful.

Jesse's Blog: Catching Fire
 
I will be featuring him as a guest writer on here very soon!

Marked for Revival: A Call for A Generation of Burning Ones

GUEST WRITER: JESSICA (from the arts-and-crafts-centered blog Toujours C'est La Vie)

 

Short bio/intro: Jessica and I met freshman year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She lived in a room right across the hall from me. We became fast friends and I got to be there as she fell oh-so-in-love with Jesus during those four years (it was quite the adventure actually, and I'll have to have her share her testimony someday). She now lives and works in the Phoenix area, releasing the Kingdom wherever she goes. This woman is marked for revival.

Marked for Revival: A Call for A Generation of Burning Ones

Hello readers of Diary of a Revivalist! My name is Jessica from Toujours C’est La Vie. Over at my blog, I focus on crafts, fashion, photography, and books, but don’t be fooled… I am at heart a revivalist. Recently, I had the great privilege to travel to Chicago and attend the Jesus Culture Awakening Conference. My heart has been so full and my fingers have been itching for days with a desire to put into words what I feel that God has put on my heart.

           

One of the main tenants of the conference was honoring our spiritual mothers and fathers, as they have worked tirelessly so that we may now stand on their shoulders and reach new levels… that their ceilings would be our floors. Reinhard Bonnke, Sean Smith, Cindy Jacobs, and Bill Johnson joined us to share their experiences and hearts for a generation.  What an honor to hear what they had to say about how God worked in their lives, particularly through signs and wonders! The speaker that I enjoyed the most, however, was Banning Liebscher who spoke on the first night about the cost of being a follower of Jesus. It’s a message that many of us have probably heard before… that when we decide to follow Jesus, we have to be all in, regardless of what He asks us to give up. It really kicked me in the butt and made me think about all the little parts of myself that I tend to squirrel away from God. He also talked about the often-heard Scripture that “Many are called and few are chosen,” and that God may call us, but in order for us to be chosen we have to step up and say yes!

For me, this was one of the most pivotal points of my time in Chicago. Because the point of the conference was to speak to a gathering of those who, for the most part, already knew Jesus and felt a calling on their lives, there was not much of a formal Gospel presentation per se. Many of the other speakers spoke about miracles, seeing millions saved in Crusades, and what revival has historically meant, yet, it was in this simple presentation of the cost of following Christ, this little reminder from Scripture that struck me the most.

Are you still with me? I hope so, because would like to share with you something that God laid on my heart during worship one night. I heard the phrase The Holy Spirit stirs up revival, but the Word of God sustains it. I just felt that while this conference was a great stirring up by the Holy Spirit … that we were being built up by the prophetic words and wisdom of our spiritual fathers and mothers and that our heart were being whipped into a frenzy for the kingdom, that we must always remember to put God and His word at the center of revival. It was as if the Lord was quietly whispering to me…. Yes, you have a great place in my kingdom… yes, you will play a great role in your generation… yes, I have given you authority and power, but never forget who I am.  It made me recall a slogan from a missions conference I attended several years ago that said It’s not about me, but it is up to me. We are part of the revival but we are not what revival is about… the Holy Spirit stirring us should always point us to Christ!

Friends, this was so comforting to me because I had previously worried that many of us would go home from the conference on fire, but slowly fade when we weren’t singing along live to Hillsong or listening to the words of Sean Smith. I had wanted something tangible about how we were supposed to do this revival thing! I was deeply moved and convicted about my own need to know Scripture better and to spend more time alone with God, because at the end of the day… revival starts in the quiet stirrings of your heart in the quiet place (Yes, I did steal that from you Leslea!)

The title of this post is, Marked by Love: A Call for A Generation of Burning Ones. Reinhard Bonnke, in his message, said that as we were sitting in the stadium God was running His finger down the rows looking for who would stand for Him and be part of a generation that would change culture, media, and society. Regardless of whether His finger stopped on you, you would always bear the fingerprint. But for those that God stopped His finger on… they would forever be marked by love.  God is looking for burning ones…. Those who have an open heart willing to be stirred to a passion for a generation after God and those who don’t care about the cost and simply answer the call.

Have you ever stood in a spot, looked around and thought to yourself, “I am standing in a spot where history is being made?” Upon taking my seat for the first session, I looked around at the more than 15,000 students, young ones, and parents gathered for this historical event and thought about this pivotal moment in time. On the last day of the conference, spontaneous worship and praise broke out for over 20 minutes. My heart close to bursting, I looked around and thought, “This must be what heaven will be like.” I remember texting close friends after the session with the simple words, “I have been wreaked tonight.”

It is my simple prayer that God continue to work on my heart and yours as well, stirring up passion in the quiet place for revival. I choose to accept the cost of my personal time to spend time alone with Him, in His presence and in His word, so that revival not be just one amazing conference, but one amazing lifetime spent passionately pursuing the heart of God and allowing Him to change to world through me.


By Jessica from Toujours C'est La Vie

Coming Soon: Guest Revivalist Post

My dear friend Jessica was able to make it to this past week's Jesus Culture Awakening conference held at the Allstate Arena in Chicago, IL. She will be sharing with us about the incredible impartation and revelation she received while she was there, hanging out with 15,000+ revivalists from all over the nation, as well as drinking deep from the wisdom and experiences of Bill Johnson, Reinhard Bonnke, Sean Smith, Banning Liebscher, Kim Walker-Smith, Cindy Jacobs, and Lou Engle. Worship bands Jesus Culture, Hillsong United, and worship leaders Brian and Katie Torwalt, Jake Hamilton, and Kristene Mueller-DiMarco led songs of love and hope and freedom, and while I was only able to watch via webstream, I so strongly encountered the presence of God in my own room, worshiping and crying out for a fresh revelation of Jesus to my generation.
But for the grace of God, I think I would have died of sadness over not being able to make it to the conference. Jessica, however, was able to go, and is fairly bursting at the seams with all that she learned and gained from that life-changing experience. Wow!  God is GOOD!

Show Us Your Glory by Rick Pino

This song just has me undone...

ALSO - WATCH THE JESUS CULTURE AWAKENING LIVE WEB STREAM at www.awakening2011.com  !!! DO IT!!!

Jesus Culture Awakening Conference in Chicago

Folks - my heart is burning.

I just got done watching the Jesus Culture Awakening stream. You can watch it live for free at www.awakening2011.com, but I actually purchased the ability to play it back over the next two weeks (just 10 bucks), and I highly recommend that option, especially if you work a normal workday.

Banning Liebscher and Kim Walker-Smith just left me in pieces. Well, Kim had me sobbing and then Banning had me burning up with all sorts of desire for being in the secret place with Jesus. This is where revival is birthed - in the hearts of a generation that lives for and out of the secret place - out of building a personal history with God. Mmm, soo good.

More later.

The Three Chairs: Practicing the Prophetic

Several things I loved about today:

*We had fish for dinner. Ha! Good stuff...

*I was able to chat on the phone for 40 minutes with a revivalist girl from Michigan (who did 2 years of Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry) and recently moved to the valley.

• She just visited church on Sunday, and is coming back next Sunday. Her presence in Arizona and her interest in our church is SUCH an answer to prayer. One of the things Emily (my fellow revivalist buddy) and I pray for extremely often is for God to send us ready-made revivalists. And by "send us" I mean both to our church, as new members who want to get plugged in and help make things happen, OR as just part of the greater network of contacts and new friends we are building in the area. Whether this girl becomes part of our lives for the former reason, or for the latter reason (or both), it's going to be great having her around. I'm thrilled. I had a grin on my face the rest of the afternoon! I love answers to prayer. I love it that God hears our prayers, period. But then it's astounding to see just how specific he can get when he answers them. Such goodness. BTW - another thing Emily and I pray for is for God to send us those that are ready to be awakened to dreams of revival, destiny, and a supernatural move of God. So...not just the ready-made revivalists, ha! :) We want to help MAKE them, too!

*School of Supernatural Ministry started up again after we all had a bit of a summer break - and that was majorly fantastic. We had a group of around 30 students.  Kris Vallotton taught on the prophetic (not live, rather through a previously recorded DVD), and then we did an activity where we placed three chairs facing a wall, had three volunteers sit in them, and then the guy who runs it pointed at someone out of the rest of the students. The three volunteers in chairs, who couldn't see anything and didn't know who had been chosen, were to see if they got a prophetic word for that person. Two out of the three had a word, and once those had been shared, the lady who had been chosen explained to us how those words applied to her life. Pretty cool, huh?! I was glad that one of the brave volunteers didn't actually get something, or at least, didn't share it, only because hopefully that makes everyone realize that it is completely okay to not have anything! And practicing the prophetic is essential. It helps us identify how it is we hear the voice of God and feel his presence, and that way we can apply it out there in the "real world", where there's obviously not a contained, controlled environment for stepping out in the prophetic.

God is a rockstar!

Revival: Birthed From a Place of Prayer

Church today blew my mind. Justin preached on Identity, and how to often we taken the worst part of Calvinism (God is sovereign and has a perfect plan for my life) and the worst of Armenianism (I have free will and can make choices), constructing something like this...

Worst case scenario that we tend to come up with in our minds:

God has a specific plan for your life (Reformed/Calvinism); you have to make choices (Armenian); but God hides his plan from you and if you choose wrong you miss his "best" - then you are condemned to live out a second-rate life (consequences of sin); with God and you playing out a continual adjustment of your life plan (more movie than Bible). The result is a life of regret, longing for the life that was "meant to be".

Justin encouraged us to know that we are sons and daughters of God, and that even if we sin and he has to take us to the woodshed (i.e. discipline us), he does so because he loves us very, very much, and it doesn't change the fact that he has a wonderful plan for our lives. We are not destined to lead second-rate lives.

------------Understanding our identity, and also....deeply knowing and believing in who God says he is------is KEY to living a revivalist lifestyle. If we don't know the authority and power that God has granted us, if we don't know and believe that he is a raging romantic, head-over-heels in love with us, then we're not going to be able to operate in the fullness of a revivalist lifestyle. 

------------------Phoenix-area revival update-------------------------
Emily and I got together with three other ladies....Bev, Gloria, and Kim, to share ideas/strategies for this region, and to pray together. I was really encouraged...my faith was stirred. God wants to do something in this region. He is moving key players into place. It's coming! :)

I think we are going to continue to get together to pray, although I don't know how often.

I really think that revival is birthed from a place of prayer. More thoughts on this later....but or now, that's quite a bit to chew on.

And so, I've got my pray-for-revival cap on - and I'm going to contend for his power and his manifest presence. WOOT!

Growing Vision - What I Like to Call "Heart-Bursts"

So it's been growing.

This sense that I'm supposed to be here in Gilbert, Arizona, right now, in this city, in this state, in this church...for such a time of great awakening and revival that the city has never seen before!
I believe revival is birthed from a place of prayer...both individual/in-the-secret-place prayer, and corporate prayer. I believe it's birthed out of fasting and living a radical lifestyle of laying down worldly pursuits and going after the Kingdom.

One by one God has been stripping things off of my heart, things that have had their claws dug into me for far too long.  One of those things is arrogance. I never thought I was an arrogant person. But I'm realizing there's deep layers of pride, of ego, that I have so identified as being part of my confident persona, that I haven't realize they were there. It was not until they were offended recently, by unprecedented rejection from a few close people that I had really put my trust in, that I realized the presence of the layers of pride that have been coating my heart.

You know what...it takes a lot of vulnerability and courage to say that. It's a hard thing for me to admit to. Painful even. And now it's out there for the whole world to read. But it needs to be read, it needs to be confessed, and I need to repent from it, and I need to have my mind renewed. May my thoughts and actions and speech and mannerisms really reflect a genuine love for people and for the things of God, for no other reason, for  no other cause, than that I am in love with God my King, and I love the things he loves, and love the people he loves.

So strip it all away, God. Strip away the hurt, the pain, the pride, the rejection, the offense. May I worship you with an unoffended heart.  May my life be one of your favorite movies to put in and watch! If you even do such a thing. ;)

And so - this growing vision, this dream...this bursting going on in my heart...what is it?

Oh, yes, I burn for revival, I burn for transformation, for an awakening of hearts across America and this world, for the raw power of God to invade our lives with his goodness and beauty and lavish love. I want to see people freed of addictions, healed of cancer, healed of AIDS, healed of emotional and sexual abuse....to see lives radically restored, devils cast out, the lame walking, the blind seeing, and every child living free to dream big dreams, and every adult walking in the fullness of their calling and destiny, not believing for a second that youth has passed them by, and that they can't still have that mind-blowing adventure-filled life they have always envisioned. 


But truly, on a more practical level, my heart for my generation is growing. I used to be one very frustrated, legalistic, judgmental teenager. I was so annoyed and angry that people couldn't just LIVE FOR GOD, ALREADY! Now I have so much more compassion, realizing that people's behaviors don't just come out of nowhere - that there is a reason, a belief or value system, that they are holding onto. What they really need is not to curb their behaviors, but rather, they need to experience an identity shift that only comes form encountering the unbridled love of God.

And so, what I really want to see is a whole generation lit for Jesus. And to be honest, in the Scriptures, a generation was pretty much everybody alive. So my heart burns for everyone. Haha.  That's awesome. Love it.  Thank you Jesus for growing my heart, for filling me with compassion, for giving me your eyes to see all the beautiful treasures around me. There are no mere mortals - something C.S. Lewis said that really messes with my mind. THERE ARE NO MERE MORTALS. But more specifically, the age bracket that I feel called to in this season of life is 12 to early 30s.

I know that this is all over the place - it's like one big, excited thing going on inside of me...swirling at a million miles per hour. A tornado of vision and emotion and drive.

I'm asking Jesus - what else do you have for this time in my life? You've taken some things out...now what do you want to replace it with?

Emily and I recently attended an event where we were able meet with other 20 and 30 somethings of the Valley who are professionals and looking for local churches to plug into, or looking for ways to make more friends, meet more people in their stage of life, etc. The music was fantastic and the sermon really got to me with where I'm at in life now.

However, I do believe we need a network of 20-something revivalists - in the vein of seeing the supernatural power of God invade every part of this city and transform a generation. What this event/organization (the one we attended) is doing is incredible, and I support and believe in their work and efforts to unite hundreds and hundreds of 20 and 30 somethings across the city. However, I do think we need a place of prayer, worship, and the prophetic, where we aren't worried about saying something that would offended someone from a different denomination or approach.  My concern is that there is this whole piece of the Christian faith walk (the signs and wonders, and you-will-do-greater-things-than-ME-aka-Jesus stuff) that won't be addressed by the particular organization whose event we attended. We need a place where Burning Ones can get together, get all fired up, and go out and preach a gospel of love, healing, and radical transformation.

So how can we do that, while still supporting what our friends at at this organization for 20-30-something-year-olds is doing?

They said at the this event that they want to see revival. But what does that MEAN? What does that look like? Does that look like living under an open heaven where God moves in the miraculous? Again, don't misunderstand me. I so believe in what they are doing. I love their hearts. I love their passion. I love their hair (yes, the people there have super cool hair...not even kidding). But what about training and equipping and providing fellowship for a generation of miracle-working revivalists?! We need a place where this can happen, too.

Emily and I are praying, brainstorming, writing, reading, looking, getting downloads...

And we are excited. We are so excited to see what is going to happen.

On Sunday we are meeting with a lady named Beverly who goes to our School of Supernatural Ministry on Monday nights. She goes to a different church (which is awesome - I love it that we have people from different churches besides Two Rivers that are attending TRSSM), and has a real heart for prayer and revival amongst youth. She also knows two kids that are Bethel right now, and should be coming back soon, for the summer at least (I don't know if they are doing a second year or not). Anyway, I want to start a network of young revivalists in this city. I don't know WHAT it would look like.  Where and how would we meet? What would we do? How do we make sure the local church is strengthened by us hanging out, not plundered for its on-fire revivalists?

Again - we are thinking and praying and brainstorming. And praying. And praying some more.

Let me know if you have any thoughts on this! Eager to hear any wisdom!