I have had horses my entire life. As many as 12 at a time. Injuries happen, especially with competition horses. If a horse has a wound on the leg, it can be more difficult to treat. There is a tendency for larger wounds to start to heal from the outside, covering over the wound itself. This is a condition known as proud flesh. Kind of ironic, isn’t it? Proud flesh interferes with the normal healing process.
When a church or ministry has to deal with sin in leadership, it is hard to treat. It often leads to “proud flesh.” This happens when the primary goal is to save the ministry, instead of dealing with all the sins and taking care of all the victims. It produces an initial coverup, disguised as the need to get all the facts. It covers the wound. It clouds the judgement. It causes unforced errors. It makes it difficult for all involved to get the healing they need to be made whole.
The normal wound healing process includes four stages:
- Stop the bleeding. For IHOPKC, I do not believe this has happened. It turns out that neither Eric Volz nor General Fuller are outside help. They both had an involvement with IHOPKC prior to Bickle’s sins being exposed. They both believed that saving the mission was of utmost importance. It clouds the judgement. Not bringing in an outside, unbiased third party to investigate all the sin in the camp kept the wound bleeding. It prevented the healing process from starting. It gave false hope to those looking for hope that IHOPKC could be saved.
- Inflammatory (localized swelling). The body’s natural response to an irritant. The outside criticism of IHOPKC leadership regarding their response to and handling of the crisis worked as an irritant in all the wrong ways for leadership. They saw or perceived criticism as inflammatory, so gave back inflammatory responses. They became irritated and defensive, instead of seeing an opportunity for full disclosure, for transparency. They listened to the voices of their attorneys, to disclose as little as possible, so as to mitigate potential damages. They probably justified this to themselves by believing, if given enough time, they could make everything right. The problem was, they lost trust. They tried to sell what was happening as an attack from Satan, when it was actually God’s judgement. “For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?”
- Proliferative (rebuilding). The rebuilding has to start with individuals, especially those in past and present leadership, then, if necessary, corporately. I do not believe this can be accomplished without outside, unbiased, help. That means Rick Joyner, Bill Johnson, Stephen Strange and others need not apply. If those in leadership are just now realizing they missed it, they need more help than taking leadership training from General Fuller. Unless you know who has been called to leadership by the Lord, leadership training does not help the body of Christ.
- Maturation (remodeling). Without creating a Biblical model for the church there is no way to produce the fruit and results that Scripture says we need. IHOPKC and Forerunner church are not built on this model. Without the right model, they will just keep doing the same things over and over hoping for a different result. The Lord’s blueprint creates a church that doesn’t prevent sin, but can effectively deal with sin. It allows for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
Everyone involved in Bickle’s churches and ministries now has an opportunity to grow in Christ and obtain their full potential. This should be a time of celebration, for the Lord is working in our midst. We should grieve with those that grieve, but let’s be a part of the solution.
“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as we see the Day approaching.”
Are you skilled or unskilled in the word of God? Do you know the 6 elementary doctrines or principles of Christ? Can you teach them? Does your church teach fundamental doctrinal principles?
@DanielL86751946 @followffoz
In my last post, I shared that my primary teaching theme for church leaders these past 50 years has been restoring the church to the original blueprint and original intent. I usually start with the message, 99.9% of pastors don’t get this…That the Pastor form of church government is unscriptural and that the vast majority of those with the “pastor” title do not have the “pastor” calling of Ephesians 4:11. The pastor ministry of 4:11 has nothing to do with being an elder, as described in the New Testament. In fact, most aren’t.
I then ask for volunteers to define the job description and traits of each of the five main ministries, plus the elders and deacons. Then how do they, from a governmental perspective, interact and function in the local church? After all these years, I’m still stunned by the answers.
Another question I get around to asking is, can you tell me the 6 elementary doctrines or principles of Christ? Have you taught them to your church?
So my question to you, dear reader, is do you know them and can you teach them? If the answer is no, what do we think that means regarding the churches you have attended?
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. Hebrews 5:12-13.
“Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. Hebrews 6:1-3
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15
Six of the most terrifying words in all of Scripture are, “have you considered my servant Job?”
One of Satan’s favorite tactics is to counter a move of the Lord by finding men that can pervert it and men and women whose own moral failings will discredit it. An obvious question then is why does the Lord allow this to happen? Why doesn’t the Lord protect what he calls into being?
For Job says, “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”
Why do moves of God rarely make it to the next generation? And if they do, lack the power and resolve that was at the start? Moses to Joshua to Judges. Peter, Paul and John, to who? The church in the Book of Acts and the apostolic writings to the slow separation of Jewish and Gentile believers in Yeshua to what we see today.
It takes wisdom and discernment to know what is from the Lord and what is not. To know what to pour our life into and what to walk away from. Do we really think we can save anything?
In the 1970s on the way to the first troubled, Christian owned, business that Derek Prince sent me to “save,” the Lord spoke to me and said, “Rick I don’t save businesses I save men, if I get a man right with me the business will take care of itself.” I naively thought that meant this business was going to be saved. Instead, I knew in the first couple of days that it could not, no matter how hard people would work to save it. And work hard they did until forced into bankruptcy by creditors. I had to learn what the Lord meant by “if I get a man right with me, the business will take care of itself.”
I did an earlier post on, Can IHOPKC be saved? Should IHOPKC be saved? IHOPKC being a 24/7/365 prayer movement through one ministry. My no answer was based on more that the sins of the founder. Their entire model was based on exploitation and abuse, without which there would have been no one manning the prayer room. I questioned the Scriptural basis for such a ministry.
The bigger question is not, should IHOPKC have never been started, but is 24/7/365 prayer by one church ministry, a movement called forth by the Lord?
The problem with much of Christianity, especially its leaders, is that it makes things up. And once someone makes something up that has pizazz, or sounds really spiritual, and draws a crowd, then down the road it will be made into a tradition that other ministries follow. Jesus said something about this in Matthew 15 and Mark 7, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, ‘you would rather keep the traditions of men than honor the commandments of God.’” Many of these traditions go back thousands of years, some to the start of Gentile Christianity.
24/7/365 prayer is one of these things. So is picking an impressive number of days to fast to save something or to bring something in. I’m not saying these things are not started with the best of intentions. What I am saying is that they are not proven out in Scripture or historical fact.