"Helen Keller was once asked if there was anything worse than losing one's sight. She responded, "Yes, losing one's vision."."
How powerful is that quote? It’s from a woman who was born deaf and dump (couldn’t speak) and blind, she learned how to speak without ever hearing her voice.
We have all seen people in this horrible state, (loss of vision) and it’s almost as if, this is the place they want to live and stay. We’ve noticed something else also, that when they walk into a room of people, all the life seems to be sucked out of the room. We call these type, energy swippers not energy givers. It’s hard to be around them for very long, because it becomes all about them.
Please don’t get us wrong, we all go through this (loss of vision) from time to time, but we just don’t choose to stay there, and that’s the difference. We’re not victims, we are victors.
The challenge seems to be, we become circumstantially possessed.
The enemy will throw all kinds of things and strategies our way to get us off track, (from doing what God has called us to do). These will be seemingly good things, and maybe even, important things that need to be accomplished, but there not the best thing that God had in mind for us to be doing, at this time.
What happens is that these small projects, that weren’t going to take very long, take over our time, resources, energy and soon cloud our vision, for what God has called us really to be doing.
We have to learn gracefully how to say no, which is really hard for those of us with a servant’s heart, but something we need to learn how to do, or the enemy will abuse us with good things to do.
Get back on track and watch your vision come roaring back, then commit to really hearing the Lord, for those seemingly good opportunities that come your way. Pray about them and come into agreement about even the smallest of things.
God has much for us to be doing for marriages and families in these days to come. Revisit the call (vision) that God has put on your life and “Just Do It” as Nike says, (and by the way so does God).
U2R1 4 a reason
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
"Common People attain Uncommon Results"
"Teamwork is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results."
TEAMWORK is the fresh and powerful way the Lord seems to want to accomplish things on the earth in these last days.
As we traveled around the USA for 13 weeks in 2009, trying to gain insight by being on-sight, we have seen something that is under the radar, if you will.
The Church is alive and well and growing in America.
Now we don’t hear that from the media, do we?
We believe the God has reviled a truth to us and confirmed it by others, as we have travel around this nation.
The lie the media paints is that the Church is dead or dying in the US. (How do our kids say this?) NOT
Here is what we mean. Their measuring stick is the problem. They are talking about the traditional church…and it is true, most of them are dying. (There are exceptions)
But here is the truth, they don’t measure the non-traditional churches, like the Pentecostals,(Assemblies, 4 Square etc) the Non-Denominational and the Community Churches that are having such growth they can’t keep up with it. We saw this all over our country.
We know of a 4 Square in Anaheim Ca that started about 6 years ago with a few families, today they have over 6,000 people. Another in Lake Charles LA that has over 3,500, and started 3 years ago, with 300. Another in Kansas City Kansas meeting in a very large warehouse they moved into in the last year or so, and now they have to expand to handle the growth. Their growth is coming mainly from new converts, and a few looking for an alive place to fellowship.
Here is something else that is under the radar, and George Barnas group has picked up on this.
The traditional churches are about 33% of the Christians in America; the other 66% are in the non-traditional, IE: Marketplace and the House Church movement and almost 33%. The rest are in non-traditional settings.
A side note here; George Barna says that the House Churches are 80 to 85 % Spirit Filled. WOW!!!!!! we think the Lord is up to something.
We believe that God is preparing His Church for the end time’s dispersion and that church, in maybe 20 years, is not going to look like it does today.
In a fashion, we have been prepared in 2=1, without even recognizing it.
Just give us this liberty as we explain…
2=1 has had the model of home groups for 27 years, and now we see a move to the house church that most of us have never heard of, or if we have we might have judged it because, it doesn’t look like the model we are use too.
Every one of these examples above, started with a team of common people, and now God is helping them attain un-common results. In every case here, it’s not about the leader that is leading them, it’s about the team they have surrounding them, and they give the team credit, which includes God. The fuel here is, TEAMWORK.
We believe that the season that is upon us, in this ministry of 2=1, has an unbelievable future, if we will team up with each other and the Lord, cover each others backs, lift each other up, support each other, no matter where we are on the planet, get connected via the web, and prepare for the soon coming King…this could be our finest hour.
You see this is all about relationships, this is how God has chosen to accomplish what He wants to accomplish here on earth.
So stay close to your team, support and encourage one another, and work as a team to get a corporate idea of how He wants you to accomplish things for Him.
U2R1 4 a reason
TEAMWORK is the fresh and powerful way the Lord seems to want to accomplish things on the earth in these last days.
As we traveled around the USA for 13 weeks in 2009, trying to gain insight by being on-sight, we have seen something that is under the radar, if you will.
The Church is alive and well and growing in America.
Now we don’t hear that from the media, do we?
We believe the God has reviled a truth to us and confirmed it by others, as we have travel around this nation.
The lie the media paints is that the Church is dead or dying in the US. (How do our kids say this?) NOT
Here is what we mean. Their measuring stick is the problem. They are talking about the traditional church…and it is true, most of them are dying. (There are exceptions)
But here is the truth, they don’t measure the non-traditional churches, like the Pentecostals,(Assemblies, 4 Square etc) the Non-Denominational and the Community Churches that are having such growth they can’t keep up with it. We saw this all over our country.
We know of a 4 Square in Anaheim Ca that started about 6 years ago with a few families, today they have over 6,000 people. Another in Lake Charles LA that has over 3,500, and started 3 years ago, with 300. Another in Kansas City Kansas meeting in a very large warehouse they moved into in the last year or so, and now they have to expand to handle the growth. Their growth is coming mainly from new converts, and a few looking for an alive place to fellowship.
Here is something else that is under the radar, and George Barnas group has picked up on this.
The traditional churches are about 33% of the Christians in America; the other 66% are in the non-traditional, IE: Marketplace and the House Church movement and almost 33%. The rest are in non-traditional settings.
A side note here; George Barna says that the House Churches are 80 to 85 % Spirit Filled. WOW!!!!!! we think the Lord is up to something.
We believe that God is preparing His Church for the end time’s dispersion and that church, in maybe 20 years, is not going to look like it does today.
In a fashion, we have been prepared in 2=1, without even recognizing it.
Just give us this liberty as we explain…
2=1 has had the model of home groups for 27 years, and now we see a move to the house church that most of us have never heard of, or if we have we might have judged it because, it doesn’t look like the model we are use too.
Every one of these examples above, started with a team of common people, and now God is helping them attain un-common results. In every case here, it’s not about the leader that is leading them, it’s about the team they have surrounding them, and they give the team credit, which includes God. The fuel here is, TEAMWORK.
We believe that the season that is upon us, in this ministry of 2=1, has an unbelievable future, if we will team up with each other and the Lord, cover each others backs, lift each other up, support each other, no matter where we are on the planet, get connected via the web, and prepare for the soon coming King…this could be our finest hour.
You see this is all about relationships, this is how God has chosen to accomplish what He wants to accomplish here on earth.
So stay close to your team, support and encourage one another, and work as a team to get a corporate idea of how He wants you to accomplish things for Him.
U2R1 4 a reason
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
"I am a member of a team"
"I am a member of a team", and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion."
For those of us that have had the opportunity to be on some kind of team, we know that this is true. It doesn’t matter if it is a sports team, school debate team, work force team, or even a ministry team like 2=1.
It’s not about the individual any more, and that is something we have been seeing in the ministry world. It seems to us that, God has sovereignly moved us as a body of believers, from it being about a person that leads, to a team concept.
The last of the Mohicans if you will, and we say this with great respect, is Billy Graham, who really has been one of the humblest leaders in the body of Christ, his entire ministry. We know there are others, but not many these days.
It seems like many of the others have gone down in flames, or died and gone on to be with the Lord, and then some, have left a legacy that is spoiled at best.
We sense that the Lord is doing a new thing, and that is why we as a board at 2=1, have moved in this direction. (TEAM) We are sensing that God is saying, what I want to accomplish here on earth, I want to do through relationships. We think that has always been the case, but now has a different ring to it, if you will.
Another word we keep hearing is community. (Another idea of team) We’ve asked the Lord in prayer to; please show us what you’re doing. Here is what we are sensing.
Now we ask here, that you eat the meat and spit out the bones.
In Gods kingdom there are no boundaries or borders, (for where He wants us to minister to marriages) and we also see that with time zones and oceans, there not limiting us any longer.
Something else we’ve seen is, some churches are hindering the advance of what God is calling us to do; and that is to build His Church. Please understand this, we are not into empire building, we’re a kingdom building ministry. Don’t get us wrong, there have been many churches that have helped us to accomplish what God has called us to do…but we’d submit to you many more have not and because of that, have seen many gifted leadership couples not join the team, who wanted to go on with us but their pastor said no.
We have been trying for years to team up with congregations, around the world, and in some places it has worked magnificently, most as we have stated seem to be threatened by us. We’ve heard things like; you’re stealing our people. (If God has put a call on their lives to minister to marriages, and they can’t, because a pastor won’t let them, they will go wherever they have to go to answer that call, which means, they will lose them anyway.) Or here’s another we have heard; if you expect to work in my city you have to go through me. (We feel sorry for that pastor, because he is going to have to answer to God on that one.) But this is the kind of stuff we are running into.
All we want to do is come along side the church, on a parallel track, not be over them or under, but along side, working to strengthen the marriages and families of their congregation, cities, and build up Gods Church, as a team, member with them.
This is just another thought we’d like to throw in for free.
Many congregational pastors and others, call us a para-church organization. We have come to dislike that term; it’s said with disdain many times. Their idea is that we are outside the church, (congregation) and therefore not the church. Our come back to them is, that we are all the Church (notice the capital “C”), and no we are not a congregation (notice the small “c”) but we are the Church, the same as they are. So let’s work together, to heal and restore marriages, and build HIS CHURCH, and not let the enemy get in the middle of the work, which the Lord has for us both to accomplish.
U2R1 4 a reason
For those of us that have had the opportunity to be on some kind of team, we know that this is true. It doesn’t matter if it is a sports team, school debate team, work force team, or even a ministry team like 2=1.
It’s not about the individual any more, and that is something we have been seeing in the ministry world. It seems to us that, God has sovereignly moved us as a body of believers, from it being about a person that leads, to a team concept.
The last of the Mohicans if you will, and we say this with great respect, is Billy Graham, who really has been one of the humblest leaders in the body of Christ, his entire ministry. We know there are others, but not many these days.
It seems like many of the others have gone down in flames, or died and gone on to be with the Lord, and then some, have left a legacy that is spoiled at best.
We sense that the Lord is doing a new thing, and that is why we as a board at 2=1, have moved in this direction. (TEAM) We are sensing that God is saying, what I want to accomplish here on earth, I want to do through relationships. We think that has always been the case, but now has a different ring to it, if you will.
Another word we keep hearing is community. (Another idea of team) We’ve asked the Lord in prayer to; please show us what you’re doing. Here is what we are sensing.
Now we ask here, that you eat the meat and spit out the bones.
In Gods kingdom there are no boundaries or borders, (for where He wants us to minister to marriages) and we also see that with time zones and oceans, there not limiting us any longer.
Something else we’ve seen is, some churches are hindering the advance of what God is calling us to do; and that is to build His Church. Please understand this, we are not into empire building, we’re a kingdom building ministry. Don’t get us wrong, there have been many churches that have helped us to accomplish what God has called us to do…but we’d submit to you many more have not and because of that, have seen many gifted leadership couples not join the team, who wanted to go on with us but their pastor said no.
We have been trying for years to team up with congregations, around the world, and in some places it has worked magnificently, most as we have stated seem to be threatened by us. We’ve heard things like; you’re stealing our people. (If God has put a call on their lives to minister to marriages, and they can’t, because a pastor won’t let them, they will go wherever they have to go to answer that call, which means, they will lose them anyway.) Or here’s another we have heard; if you expect to work in my city you have to go through me. (We feel sorry for that pastor, because he is going to have to answer to God on that one.) But this is the kind of stuff we are running into.
All we want to do is come along side the church, on a parallel track, not be over them or under, but along side, working to strengthen the marriages and families of their congregation, cities, and build up Gods Church, as a team, member with them.
This is just another thought we’d like to throw in for free.
Many congregational pastors and others, call us a para-church organization. We have come to dislike that term; it’s said with disdain many times. Their idea is that we are outside the church, (congregation) and therefore not the church. Our come back to them is, that we are all the Church (notice the capital “C”), and no we are not a congregation (notice the small “c”) but we are the Church, the same as they are. So let’s work together, to heal and restore marriages, and build HIS CHURCH, and not let the enemy get in the middle of the work, which the Lord has for us both to accomplish.
U2R1 4 a reason
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
"Wrestling with God"
"Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed on an equal or greater benefit."
This statement is only true if you will let it be. We can learn, (maybe the hard way) that life is full of these times, and how we respond to them will "Make us or Break us".
We saw another one-liner one day that really had a truth in it, we will never forget. It said; “As a Christian our life on earth will be the only hell we will ever experience…but for a non-Christian…this will be the only heaven they will ever know.” That’s a powerful thought.
We’ve all had our fair share of adversity, failure and yes heartache, but we can’t let them take us out or down for very long, otherwise the enemy of our lives will just build on them till we’re totally taken out. We’re so thankful, that the Lord carries us through everyone one of these.
Like Joshua in the Old Testament story, he wrestled with God and gained the victory.
When we go through struggles and wrestle with God to get the Blessing, whether it's in relationships, health or financial struggles, as someone watches us deal with these problems, we can be trusted by others because of how we handled ourselves through them.
We have found in our lives that the benefit in these times for us, has given us more grace for others that are going through the trails of life. We can come along side them with words of encouragement not judgments. We can be the ones who lift them out of the ditch that they have fallen into, and watch them do the same someday for someone else.
That’s how it works saints; the benefits you received have to be sown back in to others. Always remember that whatever might be happening to you is not just for your benefit only, that would be such a waste if it were so…but you have to be willing to share your circumstance transparently, so that others will gain from your experience, example and leadership.
Trust the Lord that, adversity, failure and heartaches, can be a blessing for you and for others.
You don’t need to pray that these will come so that you will be used; they are just part of life, here on earth, but thankfully not in heaven.
Can’t wait till Jesus comes back, we are so looking for His return. Aren’t you?
U2R1 4 a reason
This statement is only true if you will let it be. We can learn, (maybe the hard way) that life is full of these times, and how we respond to them will "Make us or Break us".
We saw another one-liner one day that really had a truth in it, we will never forget. It said; “As a Christian our life on earth will be the only hell we will ever experience…but for a non-Christian…this will be the only heaven they will ever know.” That’s a powerful thought.
We’ve all had our fair share of adversity, failure and yes heartache, but we can’t let them take us out or down for very long, otherwise the enemy of our lives will just build on them till we’re totally taken out. We’re so thankful, that the Lord carries us through everyone one of these.
Like Joshua in the Old Testament story, he wrestled with God and gained the victory.
When we go through struggles and wrestle with God to get the Blessing, whether it's in relationships, health or financial struggles, as someone watches us deal with these problems, we can be trusted by others because of how we handled ourselves through them.
We have found in our lives that the benefit in these times for us, has given us more grace for others that are going through the trails of life. We can come along side them with words of encouragement not judgments. We can be the ones who lift them out of the ditch that they have fallen into, and watch them do the same someday for someone else.
That’s how it works saints; the benefits you received have to be sown back in to others. Always remember that whatever might be happening to you is not just for your benefit only, that would be such a waste if it were so…but you have to be willing to share your circumstance transparently, so that others will gain from your experience, example and leadership.
Trust the Lord that, adversity, failure and heartaches, can be a blessing for you and for others.
You don’t need to pray that these will come so that you will be used; they are just part of life, here on earth, but thankfully not in heaven.
Can’t wait till Jesus comes back, we are so looking for His return. Aren’t you?
U2R1 4 a reason
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