As we approach our 2 year anniversary here in Carolinas, we've been reflecting back over the blogosphere and reminiscing. Sometimes with a smile and sometimes a grimace! So in honor of what God has done at 614 Charlotte, we'll be featuring excerpts from the online journals of our missioners, celebrating the events from our inception right up to the present, for your enjoyment, intercession and sometimes, amazement.

grace,
Heather & Rob

Love Capital

I was thinking about capital, not money, but virtual capital. Politicians gather political capital, religious leaders gather moral capital, and all to spend in the marketplace of influence. I would like to dedicate myself to gathering love capital all to spend in revealing a faithful loving Father to a lost world. How rich we would all be.

This past weekend, we were at a Jason Upton concert. As usual, between the music, he was edifying the body of Christ with words of instruction, revelation and exhortation. And as usual, I was doing my best to scribble them down so that not one of them would fall to the ground in front of me and be wasted - or forgotten....

This is one of them.

"God didn't create for human approval, He created for human discovery."

The Saffron Army

If you have been following the situation in BURMA, you will note that a revolution has begun. Under some of the worlds toughest regime machines justice has been twisted for years. One of Burma's leaders, Sue Chin Ye, has been the recipient of a Nobel peace prize yet has never been allowed to leave the country to receive it. Burma, or Myanmar as the fascists call it, has abundant natural resources yet your average "JOE" lives in miserable poverty. The thing that looks different about this revolution is that it is being led by " Buddha's Saffron Army," yep the monks and nuns of the nation. I believe that the Jesus Church should take notice. Seriously, when the Buddhist Monks rise up and take to the streets for justice we should really ask ourselves what we have done lately. The protests are all non-violent and peaceable, however the people of the nation could not help but rise up and follow when they saw those with great moral authority leading the way. Imagine a mobilized Church leading the way; with our very lives there would be no option but to follow! We constantly sing and say that we want a revolution, an uprising, but how long O'LORD till our prayers meet our muscle ? Am I sugesting that the Church actually take to the streets and march ? Yes, Yes, Yes I am. There are 160 Million Christians in America, just vision that all of them or even half of them took Friday off of work and showed up at their local state capital demanding action in regards to a justice issue. Then imagine if they showed up on Monday too, and Tuesday ...

Faithful cords of love

Sometimes God just amazes me with how faithful he truly is. His promise to go after the one lost sheep continually shatters my fleshly expectations. If you read our blog you may remember us sharing one of the toughest days ever, when CPS came and removed 2 brothers and 1 sister from their mom's custody. The blessing is that we are still in contact with the children and one of our friends still gets to come to her J-Pod (small group) every week now. The greater blessing is that today after school we are picking her up and taking her out, unfortunately to a cold government building, but one where her 2 Brothers will be waiting to visit with her. It is extremely hard in so many ways, but still so amazing how God can be so faithful to keep a family connected even through brutal brokenness.

The LORD places the lonely in families but even moreso he fights to keep them there. Amen!

P.s. We now have a community web site to share more of what is happening, check it out at www.lifetogether614.com , Its growing and will soon be a place for our small groups to connect in cyberspace. Also soon we will be able to highlight some of the justice issues in our community and what God is doing about it.

Risky Missions

Risk taker of the day - Boniface, 721 a.d.

"Boniface resorted to reckless challenges to prove the superiority of the Christian God over the pagan god's. For instance he decided to "lay the axe at the root of the tree of superstition."

At Geismar, in eastern Germany, he learned about a huge ancient oak that had been dedicated to Thor, the god of thunder. A tradition had developed that anyone who touched the tree with an axe would be treated as a desecrator by Thor. This involved a curse that would entail either extreme physical illness or death.

In the presence of a large number of pagans, Boniface boldly buried the cutting edge of the axe into the sacred tree. He continued to chop, while the onlookers reviled him and warned him of his impending fate. Before the task was finished, a strong gust of wind toppled the tree. As it crashed to the ground, the tree split into four parts. The pagans expected evil spirits to leap from the shattered tree and swarm Boniface.

Since no misfortune plagued him, Boniface made a cross from the wood. Then assisted by some onlookers who changed over to his side, Boniface hewed timbers from the tree and erected a chapel to honor St Peter. This convinced the pagans that Boniface was the messenger of the true God, and many embraced the new faith."

From Exploring Evangelism (Pg. 102)

God grant us fresh boldness like this!

Update

Hey everyone !

Just an update. We have been transitioning from summer to back to school schedule, we will re-open our after school ministry this Monday. We are looking forward to cell groups kicking back up, we have renamed them J-Pods. Some exciting news, you may have caught that we live next door to a crack house. The owners contacted us and would be willing to renovate it if we would be willing to rent it. Six months ago we were cleaning it out and praying that God would give it to us, I forgot about that prayer apparently God did not !

Be blessed.

Recycleship?

'Round here we pour a lot of our focus into spending time with our neighbors. Especially the kids and teenagers. Naturally, as a result, many of them are in discipleship relationships with our missioners. It's a beautiful thing - combining McDonalds Double Cheeseburgers, Hi-C and one another's lives and it's working, we're seeing our young people grow in Christ.

Well...not too long ago I had a couple of my cell group boys show up at my door - they're both 6. They came to have a 'meeting' with me.

"How come you don't take us to McDonalds once a week like Travis takes Fred?" they asked...very seriously of course, because this was a matter of supreme justice...

"Well..." I responded, "Travis and Fred are in discipleship and that's what they do...it's like cell group but with just one or two people and you talk about more stuff."

"And you eat double cheeseburgers?"

"Yes, sometimes."

"Well we want to have recycleship! Will you recycle us?"

Whats in a name ?

I was thinking about names today, probably because I was at a baby dedication.

God Bless Justice Andrew Mikles, you are cool !

But also during our students debrief this week they had to share highlights of their year at The War College. One student in sharing pulled out a paper with everyones name on it that she got to minister to this year, wow. Now our big thing here in Charlotte when we invite people here to minister is, get to know your neighbors name. We believe that if you can know everybodies name then God can open the door to the hard work and let love flow through, it may seem too simple but it works for us. So she shared this page with us and it had almost 200 names on it, and not just random names but names of people that she got to love, weep with, share her food and most of all share Jesus with. That's cool that one girl in a 'hood could change what it looks like both in the physical and spiritual all by introducing herself. That's community and that's Jesus.

Who are the people in your neighborhood ?

Whats their name ?

The Army Spirit is hovering over at Jesse Green's blog these days... check it out!

"But who is to go (today)? You!
You who read this; who else is there to go?...
You are saved.

You say your sins are forgiven, and that you belong to the family of God. You say the promises apply to you; why not the commands?

Have one and shirk the other?
Never, never, never!
They are united. Do not say you are a child and not a servant.

You must go yourself. This is a personal call which comes down through the centuries to you! You cannot evade it and remain true to your self and your God."
General William Booth

This is an amazing picture to me, why, because a month ago this house was filled with dead bodies after a shoot out. Today little girls are playing out front celebrating life. The Psalms say that a cry from a baby will send the enemy running, just imagine sidewalk art from children drawing God's love as they see it. I do not think that the enemy could run from that, I think Jesus would make him watch.

They will rebuild the ruined cities.

24/7 TYI

Wow, we've just returned from Camp Keystone, Florida and the Territorial Youth Institute and it was truly amazing. Our responsibilities were to be counsellors, lead three seminars and to oversee the 24/7 prayer hut. Overall, Jesus was lifted high, Amen!

We started praying on Sunday at noon and the prayer room had someone continually lifting up Jesus until the next Sunday at noon. How can we measure the increase of God's power and presence because of intentionally choosing to abide with Him all day and all night? I could look at stats and try to figure out a difference from years past, but then I would miss the entire point, so we will just have to measure it by love, and man, there was love.

It was amazing to watch as God made a tangible deposit of His glory in these young people - lives were won for the Kingdom; bought back from hell and written in the Lamb's book of Life.

The part that bears witness to this increase of God's presence is this: if all of us adults had just left the building it wouldn't have mattered. The young people as they were led, just began to minister to one other, and they were leading one another to Jesus for Salvation, deliverance, healing and holiness; it was rich. They were led by Holy Spirit and we could not have stopped them from running closer to Jesus with all our might.

Now there were several elements that fueled this increase and all of them were essential, but the 24/7 prayer and worship, I believe, tipped the scales. It is God's promise that if we call He will answer and that when we pray in fullness He can then come in with fullness. Let it be.

Young people, from every nation, gathered and got dirty in prayer. They truly were an army advancing on its knees. God grant victory and favor to this generation of warriors.

There was some serious revival seedin' preachin' goin on too, as Captain M. Platt brought fire from above with his sword and shield. Captain Marion also brought testimony and truth of the Lord's second blessing of perfect love, and I believe many delegates received this blessing as a result of his testimony, teaching and the cry that was in their hearts for holiness.
God, please command your angels in concerning this man of God.

To top it all off though, the best quote of the week was this ...

"I know it now, God is real!"

Crazy Times ...

Someone requested a top craziest list ... Here goes.


1. Jonathan E finding a special B-day present in an alley. (A Corpse)

2. On street combat, someone throwing a glass bottle at Danielle and Zion; they were offended that there was a baby in the DTES.

3. Watching people wash themselves in the toilets at Crosswalk cause there were no showers to be found.

4. Watching people inject each other in the jugular vein.

5. Wheel Chair Roger jumping out of his chair and running after someone with his knife, or when he cast his fishing rod with hook into females bottoms for fun.

6. The Washington hotel giving out glasses of Lysol to residents for "cleaning purposes."

7. Waking up in my hotel room with a strange man eating out of my garbage can.

8. The Police allowing people to convulse in the road.

9. A body landing at my feet from a forth floor window.

10. A demon possessed man crashing a Robert Marshall homiletics class, we held him down and cast out the evil spirit(s). Our teacher was not really aware of this part of the curriculum and had quite a strange look on his face when asking some students, "What is going on in the next room." and with screams and howls chilling the room, some students responding " Oh they are just casting out some demons in there."

There are just a few.

Incendiary Session

614 Charlotte is currently accepting applications for the Incendiary Session of The War College, starting this September.

The dictionary defines ‘incendiary’ as follows:
1. used or adapted for setting property on fire;
2. of arson;
3. tending to arouse strife, sedition;
4. a person who commits arson;
5. a device that burns with an intense heat;
6. a person who stirs up strife.

That defines what we want to train students to be, fairly well.

We want them to be used to set territory on fire (1), to start and spread fires (2,4).
We want them to arouse sedition, or, rebellion against the government of satan (3,6).
We want them to burn with an intense heat (5).

Any takers?

http://www.thewarcollege.com/

No peace ...

I believe that one of Satan's plans is to give us no peace, especially when he has a stronghold in our lives. I can remember being homeless and just yearning for a bit of solitude, just a moment in my day that was not filled with 150 other peoples stuff too. I remember having nowhere to just be, and it was suffocating.

This morning a crack addict came to my door asking to use the phone, I said "of course," cause I am the christian guy so I have to. I made sure that I gave her the home phone, not my cell (cause she could run off with that,) and then I proceeded to position myself just close enough to hear what was going on but not too close to give the impression that I was listening.

Eventually, I had to let this one go, so what if we lose our phone? So I returned to my desk and let her be...in peace.

I wish that I had had some joy in this good deed, but I did not. I didn't even offer her a glass of juice or something to eat, I just wanted her to leave.

It is interesting how our failures show us the perfect beauty of Jesus. I'm not all broken up about it, but it did spur me into prayer for more joy in serving others.


Matthew 25

'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'

Reflections

For another couple of weeks, we have a missioner from the Vancouver campus of The War College, here for his summer placement. Matt and I were talking yesterday about his upcoming graduation and his overall experience at The War College. The conversation got me thinking of some of the highlights from my year at TWC, and I have created a top-ten list of my War College and 614 Vancouver experiences.

1. Meeting my wife and clearly hearing the voice of God say "Isn't she beautiful and lovely." Then me responding "YES!" and then The LORD saying "She's the perfect one." Amen.

2. My leaders, who not only brought me back from the dead but who also taught me why life was worth living abundantly.

3. Early prayer meetings in The Empress. They were kicking.

4. Street ministry with Commissioner Wesley Harris - He got us invited into a private drug party where he shared Christ with the owner of an Amsterdam style pot bar. The owner was so offended that we tried to get in, that after we were bounced out he came out following us down the street angrily exclaiming " What does the Sally Ann want with my place?!"
He thought we were coming to protest or to report him, The Commissioner simply replied " We heard the coffee was great and thought we would try a cup." The owner was stunned, "What !" " You want to come in for coffee, at my place?" The commissioner said "Certainly." So the owner invited us into his private booth, and insisted on buying our coffee, while he took hits off his bong. I have never seen spiritual evangelical authority like that before and I have not since. We turned down the brownies though.

5. Invading the same pot cafe with prayer and a Booth Tucker Institute love assault. Major Doug Burr, now area commander of Rhode Island, led this one and less than a week after, the place was burnt to the ground. Shut down. Praise God, and by the way no one was hurt in the mysterious fire.

6. Elaine's Chai Tea and all the love that came with every cup.

7. General Eva Burrows visit, especially at the opening of a new shelter. As we all heartily sang "Storm the forts of darkness," She wielded a hefty sledge hammer and rammed it right through a solid wall. Amen.

8. Club intercession with Jenn Ivany, Man she can dance with the worldliest of 'em.

9. Shopping cart open-airs. Enough said.

10. Watching Jesus save people from Hell.


I have so many more, but I'll save them for my memoirs in 30 years.

I WILL ...

In preparing for some upcoming seminars I was going over my/our Soldiers Covenant. We can focus on the whole do not get loaded stuff and read your bible everyday ETC, but we rarely get motivated about the meat in the meal.

I WILL be faithful to the purposes for which GOD raised up The Salvation Army, sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, endeavouring to win others to Him, and in his name caring for the needy and disadvantaged.

I WILL be true to the principles and practices of The Salvation Army, loyal to its leaders, and I will show the spirit of Salvationism whether in times of popularity or persecution.

Now that surely is a cause to die for !

I'm going to go out on a limb for a minute, this is the War Cry of God's Army! Lately a lot of people state that anyone can be in Gods army; I don't buy it. Look above, what did God raise up The Salvation Army for ... for covenanted warfare. In any army in the world it is a punishable offence to desert your post. In war time, it is punishable by death !

Did you know that F.B.I. agents are covenanted to serve, including a no drinking clause, because they are considered always on duty.

My friend says that one issue within Post-modern, Jesus wants me to meet him at the bar for a beer, Christmasanity is that it is "easy to get in," and "hard to get out." In Jesus time it was "hard to get in," and "easy to get out." Chew on that for a minute.

I do not see Jesus anywhere in scripture, or my spirit, saying, "Hey lets go get tipsy and giggly on some booze and then go worship." NO, I see and hear him saying lets move, lets get something done, let the dead bury the dead and lets go ! I'm not saying that we should negate intimacy or personal devotion, I'm just saying that it is meaningless if the poor do not know your name.

Listen ... the whole half measure, lukewarm, when I feel like it deal is not evil or anything like that, I believe that you can get into heaven by the skin of your teeth. But if you are not fighting for a cause that you could die for, than what are you living for ?

Love Actually ...

In my rations today I was reading Colossians, this challenged my heart ...

Colossians 2
1For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, 2that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, 3in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

The part in Verse 2, their hearts being "knit together in love."

What would Gods Church look like with our hearts knit together ? What blessings would be poured out ?

God knit our hearts together.

Moving Mountains

I have thought much on the subject of moving mountains since my birth into full life, it has always been an amazing concept to me. One of my favorite places to chill is in urban concrete jungles, post modern mountain scapes scraping the skies.

The concept of mountains moving excites my spirit, it uplifts my heart . In the physical usually mountains or cities only shift by an act of God. In the spiritual realm God is definitely about moving mountains and shifting city scapes. We can tend to be too narrow minded in the Church at times, we can look to see how we are changing the church, the congregation, but rarely do we look to see how we are effecting/infecting the broader community in which God has placed us. A more accurate measure of success would be how we have touched our neighborhood, our city, our nation ! Recently God has been showing me this in action. Recently our youth group has taken up the task of doing justice. Two months ago there were 29 abandoned crack houses in our neighborhood and through a seriers of events, the youth of the community went before the City of Charlotte asking some questions.

1. Why is the city allowing this issue to continue ?

2. Does the city want us to grow up among crack houses ?

3. What will be done ?








Well, God has begun to move some mountains ... or crack houses, there more like mole hills in the scheme of things but that's a good starting place. The city came out to the neighborhood within three days of the kids petition and began inspecting all the abandoned houses, then issued an order that every home had to be brought up to living condition by July 12th or it would be demolished. If the owner did not comply then a $500.00 a day fine would be issued for every house. The renovations started quickly and the old crack houses are being transformed into the nicest apartments on the block. Soon families will be moving in and within a city that has a goal to demolish all the "poor neighborhoods" there is one that is being restored. This is actually happening but still every time I walk through the courtyards of these apartments I can not believe it, it is beyond my belief. It is only 16 homes right now, but if God can do this for 16 homes then he can do 32 the next time and then hundreds and then whole communities and then entire cities. I'm learning as I go but I think that this is the whole ... Matthew 25:21

"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!

I know this can seem arrogant but let me testify that I can take no credit for this, other than just being here. Also I want to believe that God can use us to change whole nations, that a simple Jr. Soldier brigade and a couple of War College students can shift the spiritual make-up of a community, I am witnessing it and I long to see more.

Pray that God would make a way for us to serve and love our new coming neighbors, and that he would hedge this jewel of justice with his fire.

Our God is an Awesome God !

Jesus

We spend a lot of time, as followers of The Way, trying to do everything that Jesus did.

I wonder what paradigms would shift if we spent all our time trying to NOT do all the things that Jesus did not do ?

Seriously, Jesus did not ...

get a job, get a car, get a house, get a life, get a retirement portfolio, get settled, safe or sane. Jesus did not spend his energy on pleasing people or plotting on how to gain reputation or position. Jesus did not turn back, he did not give in, he did not hesitate to stop and serve the one that Holy Spirit placed in his daily path. Jesus did not believe any lies that Satan spoke and as the Son of God and a man, Jesus did not sin.


Lets try to not do all the things that Jesus did not do !

Amen