Hooking up with God

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Those of you who have been following the Lord's work in my life and those who labor with me know that we have been prophesying of a transforming work in the heart of the New England church.  There is an underground movement in the church, a remnant of Christians who hide in metaphorical closets because they are ashamed to admit that they are waiting upon the Holy Spirit to change the sinfully mediocre status quo of New England religious traditionalism and superficial evangelical experiences.

After years of serving in ministry, I had learned that there is nothing one can do to "usher in a move of the Holy Spirit."  I was told by "charismatic" groups that we can "strike revival" in the hearts of men, that we can "lead a movement of the Spirit" into a "time of healing and change."  Yet when I never actually saw the revival, the movement or the time of healing and change happen, I grew disenfranchised with these forceful groups who seem to believe they have an "in" with the Holy Spirit.  It was almost as if they were saying that they knew the mayor, that he would get our budget plans approved, but the plans always stayed on his desk.  I was no longer impressed, no longer captivated by the waves of emotion and idolization of the Holy Spirit, leaving Jesus and the Father as the seemingly inactive persons of the Trinity.  I am not judging the hearts of these believers nor am I claiming they do not love the Lord with their entirety of their beings.  Rather, I am judging their fruit and testing the spirits as the Scripture instructs us to do.  No fruit.  I was promised a tropical paradise of delicious fruits unknown to men.  I found a cactus.  I moved on.

In the winter of 2009, a group of unlikely men were to led to serve the Lord together. Two black men from two different independent Pentecostal churches, one white hippie guy from a Presbyterian church, and one white guy who was raised Roman Catholic, attended a Baptist church, then attended a Pentecostal church and then grew tired of them all (I am this guy) recognized that the Holy Spirit had been speaking to each of them that something unique in this history of the Church was about to occur, particularly in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states.  In our separate walks with God, He has told all of us the same thing: "I want to move, I want to heal the hearts of people, I want to offer them the fullness of who I AM, I want to do radical things in the life of the Church.  I want to use you in this process."  And through a strange course of events, including a trip to a casino and winter walks in a college quad, the Lord brought the four of us together.

Our initial thought was that we ought to begin with events, start preaching in the public square, start going to churches to teach, start hosting prayer nights, etc.  We longed to plan, wanted to hit the ground running and propel the movement of the Holy Spirit.  We began talking to each other about the movement of the Holy Spirit night and day.  We would meet for hours, meet long into the night, shirking our other responsibilities, to discuss how the Lord could move.  We would pray, plan, pray about planning, plan about praying.  We started talking to others in the church about the movement of the Holy Spirit.  Eventually, I had moments of frustration.  The movement was never enough.  We even dubbed our group of men, "The Movement."  During that time, the Lord really did some awesome things in us and through us.  We traveled throughout New England, we preached, we saw tens of people saved.  The Movement was happening!  Then the anvil from heaven dropped...

I was becoming the movement of the charismatic church for which I had developed such a distaste.  Promises of future change, overly "Christian-ese" sounding predictions of times to come when things would be better for the Christian church.  I would call for fasting and prayer because it is what I thought we should do if we wanted the Holy Spirit to move.  I would do anything to get the Holy Spirit to move, short of renounce the Holy Spirit.  I was obsessed with the movement of God.  A year into our ministry, the Lord disbanded our team through "natural life events" (relocation, new jobs, graduating college, new relationships, etc.) and redirected our lives.

I realized the great sin of my heart during the times of "The Movement" was that I was so focused on the movement of God that I had forgotten about God Himself.  I was so excited about seeing Him in action, that I only prayed for the action.  My walk with God became about the walk and not about my God.  I enjoyed the passion and not the relationship itself.  It is almost as if I were "hooking up" with God, really interested in the pleasure but not necessarily interested in spending time together and developing a deep and meaningful relationship.

I was sitting in Starbucks last week and the Lord spoke to my heart through some readings I was going over for my small group.  He inspired me to write this in my journal:

"I am overwhelmed by the presence of God.  I feel an overwhelming prompting, an urge, that a movement of God is stirring in the restlessness of His people.  The urge to 'do something' must be assuaged with obedience to the Godhead.  An intimate fellowship with the Trinity will result in a marked change of the few ordained to walk the narrow path.  We must not focus on the movement of God, but God Himself.  In an our humanity, we believe that God moves in certain times, but that He remains static in others.  Our God is dynamic, always moving, yet His movement cannot be read by a gauge or thermometer.  Surely we must recognize that we have not discovered a coming revival, but have had the blindness to His movement removed.  Our excitement for 'what God is doing next' ought to be replaced by a passion for God because God is always doing.  Yes, a mighty thing is to come, but more dynamic and mighty than the thing to come is the God who initiates the thing.  Therefore, be still and know that He is God; wait upon the Lord Himself, not the signs of His coming."


I have learned that we cannot lead a movement of God.  Only God can lead a movement of God.  Only God is qualified to determine which of His servants He chooses to place in positions of earthly leadership.  Yet note that the earthly leaders' lives are marked by intimacy with God and His Spirit.  If you hear a speaker say, "We can lead the charge of God's army" or "we have the power to lead a movement of the Holy Spirit," approach that movement with scrutiny and apprehension.  Despite the blessings we have as adopted children of God, we are not God.  I hope we never get so zealous for God that we stray from the God for whom we believer we are so passionate.

As an aside, the members of "The Movement" team are still in connection with one another and have added two more to our roster.  We are still a team, though inactive.  We have learned that it is not so much about our ministry, but about our God.  One member just got engaged, another is actively working on his own record label, another is leading a campus ministry movement and is about to graduate college, another is a college student about to inherit the last person's position of leadership in campus ministry, another just became a deputy sheriff and the other is a leader in his local church and just started a new job working for the fire department.  And we will minister together again soon, should the Lord lead us to serve together again.

Oh how I am in need of constant reminders from God that ministry is not about the ministry, but about the God who commissioned us to minister.  There is a danger in hooking up with God.  On judgment day, He might say He never knew us.  I mean, how well did you know someone that you just "hooked up with?"  God supports intimacy in commitment (marriage).  He regards our relationship and ministry with Him the same way.  No hook ups.  True story.