waves of power in Aus - who knew?

Was doing some homework on a conference speaker we're probably going to listen to.

I downloaded a couple of mp3s to hear Ken Fish's teaching; seems fairly standard approach to prophetic gifts (given his background with Wimber etc) - which I generally agreed with, but it was not that that most got my attention.

What caught attention, was the comment on one of the churches where he had been a speaker.

Since June 2010, the Lord has been visiting Australia with waves of greater and greater power.

Really? I wasn’t aware, hadn't heard .. or seen
Goes on …

Many .. churches .. have experienced significant power encounters resulting in a large number of testimonies of healings and changed lives. This outpouring is now spreading to... churches in the eastern states and has been taken to Indonesia as well.

Well – how about that. Could this be on the move under my nose without knowing it? Probably.

When i think about it, a couple of friends in a local country church did describe a powerful leadership retreat – where God turned up in powerful ways - which had made me wonder if this dimension was again afoot - but basically i was ignorant of any widespread pattern.

Without being aware me having read any of this, Deb happened to download an mp3 from one of those churches mentioned above.

To paraphrase the first few minutes of the message she downloaded (which was basically teaching through early parts of Genesis) the pastor starts off by mentioning that someone in the congregation, earlier in the day, had had a word of knowledge: to the effect that God wanted to heal damaged knees. "Conservatively speaking", says the pastor, "we have had at least 11 full healings of knees today" - (5 in one service, 6 in another)– "excluding those who just felt quite a lot better etc".

No hype, relaxed down to earth tone, just a report of what God is doing, observing the increased level of healing that is now operative, noting the change of season it seems to be associated with. i know the church; friends know the pastor. Down to earth, balanced.

He goes on to say, there have been times that they would have thought 11 healings in a year was not bad; and 11 in a month was pretty good. But 11 in a day –seems a greater dimension of God's power and working for healing is happening.

Reminds me a verse in the Gospels:

One day Jesus was teaching, and Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there. They had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal the sick.

Seems that by and large we in the Western church have got used to the power of the Lord not really being there to heal the sick. Not that its that black and white – the teaching still impacts lives, hopefully, and other kinds of healing occur, we’re very blessed with medicine, there is still a trickle of testimony, of response to faithful prayer etc, still evidence of less dramatic but powerful healing, and occasional dramatic things - for all of which I’m very deeply grateful.

But its rarely like this obvious proclamation; not 11 healings following one word of knowledge in one day. So teaching through that passage would rarely be accompanied by the expectation that something similar might occur today. Also seems even those churches that are seeking and pursuing such things, often find 11 healings a year is more the norm.

These things are signs as well - they point to something. What could it mean here?

God's increased presence is one thing. Of course its hard to comment on that from a distance, and i personally have no idea of other or more subtle meanings. It will quite probably mean something more in the context of the local church where it occurred, given the culture and dynamics of their church community- though no doubt there is always some element of mystery and sovereignty around what God does.

But the large scale pattern, of God visiting Australia in power, is what I’m interested in –including the possibility of missing it altogether, as i seem to have been. No doubt much more will soon be heard, (and probably will soon be contentious among those who don't like their such dimensions and unpredictable experiences like this - who believe perhaps that the power of the Lord was with Jesus, but cannot be present in the current church in any parallel way).

The closest thing i've ever seen to revival broke out in a little Anglican church on the outskirts of Melbourne in the mid 90s. Incredible blessing for many people, me included - but i think it was costly for the leaders in the end. I gather their own oversight eventually found God turning up like this to be outside the acceptable norm and form; or decided it was not God etc, though i don't know exact details. It had spread to other churches by them of course, but did seem like this little church had been chosen out as the entry point into Melbourne. At least 10,000 people must have gone through there - week after week they were packed out several nights a week; always asking for a show of hands as to who was new - always half the crowd was. The gentle style of the ministry, and the deep power of God moving, was amazing. I spent hours being touched and healed by the Presence of God in that setting, being taught, and experiencing, drinking it in. 

I imagine the increased presence of God, and the strange ways He works, will always tend to be to something of sign that will be spoken against, revealing hearts, as that prophecy given to Mary about Jesus outlines. I'm not a naive enthusiast - there are always be risk of tares with the wheat, always possibility of counterfeit things and hypey or other human distortions that accompany this at some level - i can see some of that possibility just by looking at my own heart. But we have to decide if these are possible (and perhaps tragic) distortions around the edges, or go the core definition of what is happening. Even without knowing much of this current move, I think the core is real, mostly because i've tasted things like this before, have wrestled with how this reality intersects the biblical mandate etc, before.

And for those who want to go no further than the bible - i also like that principle. As long as we see whats really in there. We won't break the roof to lower people in, or see people healed by passing shadow or touch of an annointed cloth, unless God really is there in unusual dimension anyway. I haven't seen that much of those things, but enough to know it can still happen today, that its biblical, and to be desired.

humility is the first response - i don't want to miss what God is up to:)