Not for the Faint of Heart

Lately I've been reconsidering how I present our ministry to Believers who are considering membership. I have decided that I'm not going to soft peddle our mission and vision just to gain members. I have had to settle it. Our church mission isn't for everybody.

In fact; What if our Church presented itself the same way the Marines do? What if we stopped using the promise of wealth, material blessings and miraculous healing as our way to draw people into our fellowship? What if we just told it like it really is? You're signing up for something that's greater than yourself. You're signing up for Spiritual Warfare. 

Do you have the heart for this?

The Art of STEALTH

We have always been advocates of the wisdom of God that commands that we must prepare for the future. We must be faithful with a little before we are given more. We must be prepared like the wise virgins in the parable of Jesus, so that we don’t miss our once in a lifetime moment. Like an expectant mother, we must get ready for the new life that is about to enter and change our world.

For the next nine months we are going to reset, retool, restructure, review, readjust, repair and revive our mission and vision for this community. We will continue to meet on the First and Third Sunday of each month but our meetings will not be church services. They will become ministry training sessions. The FIRST Sundays will be all about training us to help people through the ministries of lay-counseling and compassion. On THIRD Sundays we will focus on the practical logistics of how to start, maintain and flow with God in the building and expansion of a church and its intricate ministries.

The next nine months will be all about us getting trained for a new ministry launch. Therefore  you don’t need to invite anyone to attend during this period. If someone happens to visit , that’s okay. When they arrive they will step into our season of  preparing for a new move of God.

Urban Life is to be a church for people who want to do more than just attend a weekly service to get their needs met. This is to be a place for people who are seeking God. This is to be a place for  people who are ready to be properly trained for ministry. We are taking the next nine months to prepare our hearts to be that type of church.

The last 50+ years have seen church leaders training people to perform on a stage, behind a podium, or in front of a crowd. We have trained people to believe that worship is the same thing as a music concert and the goals of our young people have been reduced to aspiring to win Christian talent shows.

The Lord told us that we are to train a new team in the art of STEALTH. By definition this word means the act or characteristic of moving with extreme care and quietness, so as to avoid detection. As an acronym it means Spiritual Training for the Equipping, Anointing, Liberation and Transformation of Hearts and Homes.

God has spoken to us to train our church to be effective out of the spotlight, behind the scenes, and under the radar. We must be able to obey the voice of God and follow Him as He leads us behind enemy lines and into the heart of territory that has always been under the control of demonic strongholds. This requires a specially trained Believer.

We cannot desire notoriety and fame in the true mission of this church. That's why we're calling it STEALTH ministry training and Undercover Missions training. God has a great work for us, but it's like the task of Marines, Navy SEALS and Special Force Units who have top secret missions that no one knows anything about except their commanders.

Over thirty years ago our overseer, Bishop Raphael Green, wrote a song that described the heart of many Believers even back in that era and how many view the ministry today. The lyrics were:

Notoriety and fame!
I want the world to know my name;
I'm living and breathing for fame;
Notoriety insane!

The strategy the Lord gave us during our 40 days of prayer and consecration was to reset the ministry, and this time, to start with a new team of people by training them how to serve in obscurity.

You could summarize the strategy with the words of Philippians 2:1-8 (NASB)
Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Time to Push the RESET Button

Nine years ago we started meeting with a small group of people in our first efforts to establish a Church Launch Team that could help us minister to this community. When we say minister to this community, we're talking about becoming a part of the true legacy of the Church.

The Church built the first hospitals. The Church is still the largest single provider of health care in history. The Church was the first to fight for children and establish orphanages. Most of the first higher education institutions in America were Christian institutions. Every day, the Church provides food and water to millions of people all over the world. Even though it never makes the news, the Church has been on the scene or been first responders in every major disaster that has hit our nation.

The reason we want to train a new launch team is because we desire to be a part of that legacy. We want to get back to our effort to help the hungry students in Harrisburg schools. We want to provide assistance for single parent families. We want to to be a strong support to people like John and Kerry Shuey who are touching other nations for Jesus Christ.

We believe that the Lord has told us that it's time to push the RESET button. In September of 2004, we made our initial start. In September of 2013, we will make a new start. 

We realize that ever since most of our original plans fell apart, we have been trying to move forward anyway. Over the last nine years, the Lord has slowly and carefully brought together another group of people who are not only called, but they have been chosen. It's time to begin again, with a new team so, this Sunday, we will reset the ministry.

The first part of the reset involves taking on the mind of Christ as a church family. This is one of the scriptures the Lord has given us in order to reset the ministry. 

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. ---Philippians 2:5-8

The second part of the reset involves accepting our role and assignments in this community. This is a brief portion of a letter that our sister DeVata Davis wrote to us while we were in our month of prayer and consecration. It clearly gives us God's perspective of our ministry in Harrisburg.

DeVata writes: I work with the military. I see this picture of you continuing the undercover mission right under the enemy's nose.  You are still 'overcomers under orders' so even when you are crawling through mud into the enemy's territory, with missiles and bullets flying over your heads, you don't turn back. You keep your head down and keep quiet so that the enemy doesn't hear you gaining ground.  You keep crawling, commando style, through terrain that is not pleasant because you have to get into position to wreck havoc on the enemy.  

Because you are under orders from the commander in chief, you understand that this mission is far greater than you even understand. The commander in chief never gives you the whole battle plan and to not follow His orders could mean death to you (and a mission failure) that will impact the lives of many others as well. 

So, keep pressing forward with the vision God gave you until He sends you into another battle with a new set of orders.  

This Sunday will mark our official request for a new team. Only this time, we will be able to communicate, right from the start, that we are an undercover, special force unit. We aren't going to be in the spotlight. We will work behind the scenes.

Preparing for a Very Dark Time in America

You may recall that just a week ago we told you about an African country that closed nearly 100 churches. The president of Cameroon used some negative incidents and a few bad pastors as his leverage to close them. You may also recall that we said that we should expect this same strategy to be used in America to close churches.

We thought it might happen in a few years. We were wrong. It only took two weeks.

We just saw another alarming BREAKING NEWS posting. A measles outbreak in Texas is being blamed on Pastor Kenneth Copeland, his mega-church, and his teachings about faith and healing. Since some of the people who attend his church failed to get measles vaccinations, the media is blaming him and his ministry for the outbreak.

We can now expect the next step. Somebody, perhaps a State Representative, a Senator, or someone with great influence, will make a proposal to close the church and any other ministries that are viewed in the same way.

More and more, God is showing us that HE has been preparing Urban Life Church for a very dark time that is coming upon America. A lot more pastors had better start getting their congregations ready for home church gatherings and internet ministry.

The Best Thing I Can Do

Last month, we gathered for a couple of Sundays in the home of the Whitlocks. Now I believe that it is time to nudge everyone back into their individual home group gatherings. That's the reason we have resumed following our bi-weekly Home Church Group Calendar and the downloading of material from the church website at http://www.urbanlife-church.org/family_friends.html.

Just last week, in a country in Africa (Cameroon), the president of that nation ordered the closing of nearly 100 Pentecostal churches. He cited the wrong doings of a few bad ministers in that nation. He used their inappropriate actions as the basis to close down churches. Since he used the military to do it, nearly 100 pastors and congregations had no choice. This past Sunday, hundreds of church goers suddenly found themselves forced to do what we are already accustomed to doing in Urban Life Church. They had to meet in their homes.

We should not be so naive and ignorant that we ignore the real possibility of this same strategy being used to close churches in America. With all of the uncertainty in our nation we have been seeking God about the right strategy for our church. I don't know how many pastors, in America, are preparing their congregations for this possibility. 

Right now, the best thing I can do is to teach, train and encourage our church family to seek God and stand up as leaders in their own homes. I want them to know that no matter what the future holds, they can keep moving forward. They have what they need. They can do this. They can rebuild, renew and restore their families. I pray that God blesses their home group gatherings in a very special way!