Restoration for a Cinci. Church

I am praying for the church I left over 2 years ago. Right before I left this church they were in the process of changing the leadership structure and whole church structure to a more "business" or population sensative mode.The Lord woke me up many nights before this decision was to be made. He impressed on me that it was the wrong "gate" to go through. that only His gate- this intricately made scroll work gate- was the only one that was right for them to take- because it was hand made BY HIM (not man). I was an awful mess back then. I had no idea what was going on because i was not in leadership there. I only knew that the Lord was not happy and I was holding it all in.I first went through the women's ministry leader- since I knew her. Pleaded with her to say something to someone. she assured me she would try but...nothing.So i finally did get an audience with the Pastor. I said that the Lord wanted to restore His people back to Him. "Had he been praying for restoration?" I really didn't even know what it was at the time. I was naive and all I knew was to try to get this message to him before it was too late. He kind of laughed and acted as if he did not know what i was talking about. Said something about having to "love everybody" and I left feeling like a heel.The Lord gave me so much vision into the people there and the leadership- that i left that church disgusted and feeling sorry for the sheep who had no idea what was coming.There has been a mass exodus of leadership there now. And now the pastors wife has left him and the Pastor resigned last night.I am not praising God for the breakup of the Pastor and his wife, but I am praising God for this oportunity for the Lord to reach in there and do a wonderful work. He can take this brokenness and use it for His glory.This church was not originally a seeker church, it just grew and grew and, well, you know how the world gets in there and numbers, etc.. get in the way.Many people have honestly prayed for revival there. I am hoping that this is a chance for the Lord to do a work. May the sheep be rescued. May they have the opportunity to see the Lord's hand at work.In Him, Chanin

Sis Chanin had you not posted this ...--- The Lord gave me so much vision into the people there and the leadership- that i left that church disgusted and feeling sorry for the sheep who had no idea what was coming ---i wouldn't post my experience at my own place of assembly ... So you pray for my Christian City group, i'll pray for yours, and anyone else wanting to throw up some timber in this regard please do so ...Our Lord has been sending me to my pastor for some 20 years, this last time a few months ago, admonishing Joel chapters 1 & 2, His wanting to make our assembly a provision, instead of having to be provided for, well as usual rejection, then shunning, then our Lord said to me to cease and desist because He would handle it Himself, and so i did, and have, from then on ...The church i attend is a very influential church, prosperous by worldly standards, but it's changing, and it's changing fast ... Although Pentecostal, prophets are not tolerated for long if our message does not coincide with where the leadership in our church wants to take us, and so the few other prophets other than myself, and an older prophetess whose been completely marginilized as just a crazy old woman, have all left, but we both agree we're still there because God has not given us leave ... So we pray up a storm!Anyway last week sexual scandal came to fore in our ministerial staff, a building that was to be completed and dedicated this April is still a hole in the ground, in our long history last month was the first time we weren't able to meet expenses, we've lost quite a few of our wealthy tithers, many of our everyday folk are struggling with layoffs from the economic down turn, then lo and behold, last Sunday in my abscence, a saint who knows of my history with our church called and told me that at the 11 o'clock service a member got caught up in the Holy Spirit, and the message that came forth was, "I love you, I love you, I Am all that you need, REPENT! ... REPENT! ... REPENT"! ... This message came thru over, and over again, until the sister prophesying was thru being utilized of the Holy Ghost, then the program went on as usual ... Of course the member wanted to go even further into discussion of the onset of chastisement finally coming to pass, but as you posted ...--- I am not praising God for the breakup ......., but I am praising God for this oportunity for the Lord to reach in there and do a wonderful work. He can take this brokenness and use it for His glory ---The whole thing is all about prayer ... Prayer when you're bringing a word of repentance ... Prayer of thanksgiving if that word is heeded ... Prayer of forgive us Father for we know not what we do when we ignore ... Prayer of mercy when He finally has to shatter our pot, grind us down to powder, and put us again on the wheel to reshaping us to a new vessel of honour ... And Prayer of Praise and Worship when we're finally able to hold His Spirit and Truth, no longer cracked, so that He can use us to pour out of us Himself to a lost and dying world ...God has not chosen us to "i told you so", He's chosen us to, "ok now lets go on from here" ... He's better to us than we could ever possibly be to ourselves ... Amen

Rahman,The whole thing is all about prayer I believe this is what the Lord is showing me. I had a dream not too long ago (i think i told Greg about it) it was about an older pastor of mine when i was younger. (he was on fire and reminds me of Wilkerson. anyway this pastor has resigned after ahwile, he got so discouraged because revival never came and he didn't see much change in the people so he felt he was not the man for the job.) In the dream this pastor was in my last church, the one that is falling apart, and he was saying that revival was coming. I said "no, that can't be" because he had prayed for revival at his church all those years and i knew that people had been praying for revival at this last church I went to; and nothing ever happened. I even said this to him in the dream. To which he replied "but IT IS going to happen HERE!"What amazed me about the whole thing was that he was attending this lukewarm church under a lukewarm pastor, yet he was an awsome pastor himself. he stayed and prayed and he was waiting. He KNEW it was coming and was humble enough to sit there under another pastor who he knew was not the real deal. All i could think of was the humilty that he had to do that. the patience.Then i was walking in through the sunday school rooms getting something and all the people in the rooms were asleep on the floor.Now again, I have had the dream where I give this same old pastor's wife the Surrender book.---------------When I left that church, I was such a babe in all of this. I was new to the whole prophetic thing and i knew that i didn't agree with all of what was going on in the prophetic movement. I didn't know how to handle the burden. I thought i would die from misery.This time in the wilderness for me has been my training school time. I have learned so much, especially how not to take offense, how to have humility, how to really love people even though they don't listen and still sin. I can't imagine doing what you've been doing at your church for 20 yrs. I had no experience in all of this.But now I see from this dream and what you are confirming to me that it takes much maturity and much humility to wait it out and stay and pray- even if you don't see many results. Even if you don't know how long it's going ot take. Something I was not ready for 2 years ago.I still don't know exactly what i am to do, but I may pay a visit to this church on Sunday (unless the Lord tells me otherwise). My hat is off to you for hanging in there all of this time and not giving up on them. What a burden. My zeal was so great and my burden so heavy that many times i was afraid that in the morning service, I might burst out saying things that i couldn't control- or that the holy Spirit might cause me to do rise above my seat. I just kept praying that the Lord wouldn't let me look too stupid. But I guess we are going to look like fools many times, as Paul says.Praying that the Lord leads me- and you.In Him, Chanin

Sister Chanin,In regards your dream, and in light of what our Lord has been saying to me these past 20 years, REVIVAL is nigh! ... And while i can't say i know exactly when for sure there is an anticipation in my spirit that says it's just over the horizon, just around the bend ... God has wrestled with me to His dawn, and has crippled me to preparedness for His use ... There is that hand shaped cloud on the horizon, and i can detect the smell of rain in the air ... Quote;When I left that church, I was such a babe in all of this. I was new to the whole prophetic thing and i knew that i didn't agree with all of what was going on in the prophetic movement. I didn't know how to handle the burden. I thought i would die from misery. ---When our Lord started me i didn't even know there was a prophetic thing, or movement, or burden ... it was like i got saved and wham!, the next thing i know i was in some kind of hyper-drive spiritually ... i went from believing the Holy Ghost to be just some non thinking, non feeling, force of God, , to intimate knowledge of Him as God, and when He began speaking to me i was in heaven, and because i was surrounded by all these other folk who'd talked like they knew the Spirit of God, i initially had no qualms of sharing with them all that He was saying to me, that's when i got introduced to the misery ... That's when i learned that they had comfortable limits on the Holy Ghost, and if you passed those limits you became a fruit cake in need of much prayer ... i look back on it now and i think yo myself, "i could see them thinking that if i was coming to them saying something totally off the wall, but my message was revival, repentance, unity, holiness and purity, but i think my fervor in that message scared the daylights out of them ... Then when i started getting "The Called", my family and pastor really began to pray for me, they were afraid of the material being researched, and feared my going off the deep end ... i had a small prayer room, with a low table, prayer pillow, and a menorah, and i'd get in there for days at a time, fasting, and praying, fasting and praying, and the more i did, the more the Spirit would commune with me ... Sometimes He'd be so thick in that room i'd felt like some type of dimensional door would open and i'd be caught away, and often in my writings i'd be steady talking to Him. "Yes Holy Spirit, yes Lord God, yes", so much so that it would scare my then 10 year old step daughter ... She was afraid of the Holy Spirit for a long time because of that, but thank God she is no longer fearful ...Quote;This time in the wilderness for me has been my training school time. I have learned so much, especially how not to take offense, how to have humility, how to really love people even though they don't listen and still sin. I can't imagine doing what you've been doing at your church for 20 yrs. I had no experience in all of this ---i have to be real careful about that wilderness time, for there are times when i'll really miss it and want to go back ... It's amazing how so many people who don't really know me think i'm an extrovert, but i'm not really ... i'm much more an introvert, primarily a melancholy, artistic, analytical, empathetic, sympathetic, contemplative, sensitive to the spirit realm as the true unseen catalyst of all that transpires in the visible, but it's my secondary choleric personality that saves me, that side of me that's fiery, tenacious and driven to get a job done ... God knows that once i get His play, and the ball, i'll break every tackle from hell to find the hole for His touchdown ... i read a book some while back that said the aforementioned personality traits were found in most of the prophets, Elijah most natably, so i'd dare say you're probably the same way ... But as i was saying about the wilderness, there's just something about the quality of sustenance brought to you by God's ravens in His preparing you to no longer judge, or take offense, to become humble, and to learn to love in spite of their spite, that just makes one want to be continually fed by the ravens, but i realize that's selfish ... What He wants from us is to pass on what we've been fed, until such a time that not only ourselves, but our other brothers and sisters can get that same meat of His word from His called and designated preachers/pastors ... i didn't imagine it would take 20 years back then for Him to bring me to this point ... So i've been where you've been, and know where you are ... Just keep trusting our Master, and as He's said in my spirit so often, "Don't be concerned with time".Quote;But now I see from this dream and what you are confirming to me that it takes much maturity and much humility to wait it out and stay and pray- even if you don't see many results. Even if you don't know how long it's going ot take. Something I was not ready for 2 years ago.Ha! ... Ha... in all honesty the muturity and humility is something i've just recently got ... What it really took for me to get to and past these last 20 years was His long suffering, patience and mercy to me because of His determination to use me in this office/ministry ... Same with you, and every other saint He has determined, chosen, that there His specific job/purpose for us ... Remember i did a Jonah, and it was in that whale belly experience that i clearly heard Him say, "I have something for you to do, and there's no escaping it" ... That's when i cried uncle and got spit out to go on back and deal with my pastor and church again in 1999 ... God's OT dealings with saints let us know that He ain't real big on giving us the map, time frame of the journey, and sometimes not even our destination when He says go, but when we hear Him say it, then we need to be about "going", that's what i learned from Nee's writing on Abraham, to be obediently re-active to His instruction ... Thank God you're at that Abrahamic understanding now, for now when He drives you out of your wilderness it will be totally under His power alone! ... no longer like Jacob.Quote;I still don't know exactly what i am to do, but I may pay a visit to this church on Sunday (unless the Lord tells me otherwise).Just keep your ears open, for at the point you are now, emptied at the Jabbok, past face to face with Him at Peniel, now at rest in Shalem, when you hear His unmistakable call back to Bethel the second time ... You'll know my sister ... You will know!Quote;My hat is off to you for hanging in there all of this time and not giving up on them. What a burden. My zeal was so great and my burden so heavy that many times i was afraid that in the morning service, I might burst out saying things that i couldn't control- or that the holy Spirit might cause me to do rise above my seat. I just kept praying that the Lord wouldn't let me look too stupid. But I guess we are going to look like fools many times, as Paul says.Praying that the Lord leads me- and you.i can take no credit ... It's our hats off to Him for hanging in there with us, and not giving up on us, or "them" ... As you've so aptly stated before it's required of us to be the message, prior to our being His instrument of it's delivery... i thought about it last night how and what lessons He's used to make me His message ... First Jesus, then Jonah, then Joseph, then Jeremiah, then Jacob and now back to Jesus ... full circle ... Ha! ... Ha! ... i've done the burst out before, and many have thought me out of control, and there we're times when i'd loved to had been able to literally levitate (just for effect) ... But when i look back now from a place of more maturity in Christ i can see where my flesh was in it, but now it's Dove like calm, kept peace in Jesus, and being called a fool for Christ counted joy ...So amen in praying that the Lord leads me- and you - and all the other remnant voices He has just waiting to crying out from the wilderness, "Make straight the pathway of our Lord! ... He's coming again ... the times are ripe for harvest ... Amen