| New member hello - introduction [message #5593] |
Sun, 15 March 2009 21:48  |
 wishing34
Messages: 214
Registered: March 2009 |
Senior Member |
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Greetings,
My nickname is "wishing34". I prefer
to remain anonymous. I was under the
ministry of Dr. Freeman for 15 years.
I look back on that era with a focus
on our anointing. No need to emphasize
the negative reports but I think all
would agree there were things lacking.
I see the main issue as relating to
the degree of anointing.
Jman
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| Re: New member hello - introduction [message #5612 is a reply to message #5593] |
Wed, 18 March 2009 13:45  |
wishing34
Messages: 214
Registered: March 2009 |
Senior Member |
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Hi,
Here is a feel for where I am at.
My prime concern is that we never had apostles yet.
This is being analyzed elsewhere on the board.
Maturing a church without the most important ministry
gift is way out of kilter.
Once I realized that then I looked at what else might be missing.
I looked hard at what I thought was present - was it God or could it
be man made.
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A metaphor -> in the old days on our stereos we had
background noise more than today. You could have your
music and then, during silent times, you would hear
the quiet hiss of background noise. My metaphor portrays
a 1st century vibrant anointing as the music and what
we had as a minor, intermittent, background of possibly
supernatural events - possibly not.
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Were we very much anointed?
My answer 25 years ago -> yes, incredibly anointed
because the teaching itself is anointed beyond all others
and weekly we hear testimonies. And we have the 5-fold that
no one else has.
My answer now with my elitism gone and no assumption
that we were special -> Not particularly anointed in
teaching - our Biblical, OT, NT theologies were seminary grade but
various seminaries have it also. Many ethical issues were
very honest to the Word as was the faith message and the divine
healing every time message. One could call this anointed or
one could call it honesty before a reading of the Word.
The teachers' style of preaching was then considered anointed but
now I consider it was brash, aggressive, and affected.
With respect to testimonies there were very few ever that
were supernatural for sure - I mean if you tried to explain
the testimony by natural means you would not be able to do so.
We had about the same level of background noise type
"supernatural" events as everyone else - the Muslims, the moonies,
the denominations (still sounds elite eh? ), the atheists.
Diseases do go into remission, everyone has stories of close calls
of missing car wrecks, "mother's intuition" stories are famous for
sounding supernatural, people do wait out diseases if they
have no money for the medical (some are OK and some are tragedies
similar to our people), people do experience incredible things
sometimes. The world makes TV documentaries about them - we made
testimonies. We had some hits and some misses as does the rest
of humanity.
We had the misc. background noise of things happening but
not the clear music of my metaphor - a clear miraculous anointing
that was signs and wonders.
For God's church there should be a "zillion" "mundane" testimonies but there
should also be very many that are so incredible that all must say "that is God" Who
is with that people.... We never had that.
--------------------------
Summary a sound byte:
Whatever it was that we did have it was not the New Testament pattern.
Our supernatural anointing was so shallow that it conceivably was not really there.
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This has got me thinking
How about the following for a new topic on this board...
Topic= "Talk of His wonderous works"
Please share the "signs and wonders" you have seen God do
For the purposes of this thread here are the rules.
(see at the bottom why these rules)
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It must be what you yourself saw with your own eyes or experienced
__________ Do not include the testimony of someone else
__________ Do not include testimony from a book we read
__________ Do not include the Betty Baxter story or similar
It must not be an inward experience (for this thread)
__________ Do not say your salvation
__________ Do not say God told you something
__________ Do not say you sensed His presence
__________ Do not say a dream or vision
It must be powerful and very clearly the hand of God
__________ Do not say we almost had a car wreck but didn't
__________ Do not say the disease went away sooner than normal
__________ Do not say the broken bone trial manifested after enduring several weeks
__________ Do not say the childbirth was OK after it looked bad
__________ Do not say you fell far but were not injured
It must not be easily dismissed (if you were witnessing to a stranger)
__________ Do not say speaking in tongues unless it was understood by someone from Africa, etc
__________ Do not say our teachers were/are better than in other churches
If possible do say when you saw signs confirm the Word being preached in our church meetings
You get the idea
Eventually we will have a list of "signs"
Signs means things that God did that had to be God and and not any other explanation
and outsiders will have to admit that God was with that Faith Assembly people.
And the discouraged among us can be edified that indeed God is working among us.
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| Re: New member hello - introduction [message #5614 is a reply to message #5612] |
Wed, 18 March 2009 16:32 |
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william
Messages: 1465
Registered: January 2006 |
Senior Member
Administrator |
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On Wed, 18 Mar 2009, jman wrote:
| Quote: |
> > My prime concern is that we never had apostles yet. > This is being analyzed elsewhere on the board. > Maturing a church without the most important ministry > gift is way out of kilter. >
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What are apostles, who sends them, and what makes apostles "the most important ministry gift"?
Apostles are those who are called by God to bring about His purposes in at least three areas:
1) Establish churches
2) Impart foundational doctrine that will protect those newly established churches
3) Prayer-- daily and continually for the express purpose that these new churches might become strong in the faith (presumably so that they can in turn reproduce and continue this process).
Most notably we see them being sent out - by the churches - to establish, or shore up new churches. This presupposes that those who are being sent out have already been called and equipped with the proper gifts, by God Himself. The recognition of these gifts and callings by the churches gave them the confidence to send them out knowing that they were, in effect, spreading the kingdom message.
Today's problem? We know how to establish sects that are founded upon a narrow subset of doctrine (whatever the denominational flavor) and because we are attempting to do it with a certain doctrinal slant we miss the steadying foundational aspects of the full gospel-the whole Word of God... ending up with merely a reproduction of the dysfunctional.
Finally we fail because we don't see the importance of continual prayer for the church. Even if the aspects of prayer and intercession are present there can be no success unless those prayers are based upon the Word/Will of God... He isn't going to bless efforts that are only designed to further a particular denominational (even charismatic) slant.
| Quote: |
> > Once I realized that then I looked at what else might be missing. I > looked hard at what I thought was present - was it God or could it be > man made. >
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There is a danger of forming an ideal in our minds of what we think should be happening and because this ideal isn't reached conclude that God is not at work. Let's face it some of the standards that we have erected... those things we think would validate a church as being an ideal NT church... are not a reality even in the idealized NT church.
For instance you have given a set of standards that you believe would either validate or invalidate our common experience. For example, if someone were released from prison as a result of the prayers of the church, would you still consider it "supernatural" if it wasn't accompanied by an earthquake and angels? (Even with the earthquake and the claim of angelic visions most would find a purely rational explanation!)
My point is this... if one leans toward disbelief in the direct agency of God, no amount of "supernatural" occurrences, will be convincing... it can always be explained away.
I'll give a recent testimony of what I believe is the direct intervention of God in a supernatural way to protect my family, and then His supernatural provision arising from the event. I don't believe that it will conform to the standards you have idealized for us, but it is His work nonetheless.
Last month we had severe high winds in the area. A large tree in our yard was uprooted and fell on the house... at least it looked like it was on the house! The size and weight of the tree would have easily crushed the rafters and the two bedrooms at the end of the house costing thousands of dollars in damage. It was in such a precarious position that even one of the professionals I called would not attempt to remove it. His refusal to remove it created a situation where we had to wait until the next day for another company to come out. All night we were believing God to hold it up (He never misses an opportunity to teach us faith!).
This second company came with a crane the next day and got it down... whew! Guess what? The house had no damage. All night it had hovered over the bedrooms! The only visible evidence that something had occurred was the 1/2 inch of shingles that customarily protrude over the edge of the overhang were bent down!!! (The shingles bounce back!)
Next came the bill... ouch!
The following day a check for the full amount (plus a little extra for dinner out) was tendered from a completely unexpected source (not an insurance company!! Bless His Holy Name!). I was only out a little exercise in cutting up the logs!
These are the types of things that regularly were shared at FA. One either sees the hand of God at work or not... sometimes it simply depends on your perspective... in my case I know it was the supernatural hand of God! (see pics below)
I've got to run... maybe I'll move this to a more appropriate area later...
Blessings,
William
I want to believe!
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