Over the last several years the Lord has been leading and guiding us as a church and ministry into activities that for many in our Charismatic Christian circles are quite extreme. Teenagers invading high school football games to preach the Gospel, kids being trained to prophesy, heal the sick and cast out devils and grandmas invading the Atlanta housing projects with the love and power of God. Critics may say that it's weird or "extreme" but more and more we are seeing it as "normal" for believers of every age and background to be used powerfully by the Holy Spirit in seeing the Kingdom of God come to earth!

The results have been tremendous!

I remember in 1994, when I was first baptized in the Holy Spirit daydreaming about the day when we would be able to take the power of God that we were experiencing in meetings during that time to the streets, winning the lost with demonstrations of God's power. I remember clearly the prophetic voices of our time coming through our church and conferences prophesying of a day when the anointing would not rest on one man, but rather on the entire body as kids, mommies, businessmen and grandmas and grandpas would be used powerfully by the Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus to the lost. Literally, we are living and manifesting the fulfillment of words the Lord gave us 10-15 years ago!

So for the last several years, we have been doing our absolute best to listen to the Lord's voice and launch out, training, equipping and sending folks to take the Kingdom of God "As They Go". Most of the time we have done this without the proper "language" to describe what we're attempting to do; we've just done it. So much of what we've done has been in a "classroom" type atmosphere of trying, sometimes falling, but always improving on what the Lord has been showing us. We have definitely found out through experimentation many things don't work, but quite a few that do! The end result is believers who have identified their personal their place in the body of Christ, who have been equipped in their calling and then "sent out" to "do" what they are called to do!

LANGUAGE FOR THE MISSION

Over the last several months, the Lord has been giving us the language to embody the ethic of what we are called to do as a church and ministry. This is extremely helpful to all involved. From the beginning, a common language was necessary for man to work together. God even saw that with a common language men could do whatever was in their heart to do!

And Jehovah said, Behold! The people is one and they all have one language. And this they begin to do. And now nothing which they have imagined to do will be restrained from them. Genesis 11:6

To scatter the people as they built the tower of Babel, God simply confused their language. Without clear communication, the project ended ingloriously. Very simply, with a common language, people from every background can unify around a common goal and purpose, working together to see God's plan become reality.

We've labored without a common language to describe what we are doing and had fits and starts along the way. Now, I believe that with a common language to describe the ethic and activities we are involved in we will move forward together, in greater unity of purpose and clarity of vision that we've ever had before.

The language that God has given us to describe what we are called to do as a church and ministry is embodied in 3 "D" words: Discover, Develop & Deploy. We'll give a brief overview of what these words mean to us and how they embody the ethic of what we are called to do, as well as govern the primary activities that we are called to as a church and ministry.

DISCOVER

We are called to help believers and unbelievers "dis-cover" the treasure of the Kingdom! Jesus likened the Kingdom to being "treasure hidden in a field" and we are called to help them "see" the treasure! We are also called to help believers "dis-cover" or uncover their calling, destiny, gifts and purpose in God. The treasure of the Kingdom of God is hidden in the field of believer's lives and we are called to bring a shovel and "dis-cover" that treasure! Truly, the talents, gifts and abilities that the Lord has given to every believer (I Cor. 12:7) MUST be discovered, understood and recognized to be effectively employed! For far too long the church has functioned without a clear vision of what their lives and walk with God should look like. No longer should Christians be ignorant of their destiny! No longer should believers walk around in spiritual blindness, unaware of who they are and where they are going.

Again, the kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which when a man has found it, he hides it, and for the joy of it goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field. Matthew 13:44

How do we accomplish this? We "dis-cover" the gifts, callings and destiny of God on people's lives primarily through the word of God and also through prophetic gifts. The Bible says that the testimony of Jesus IS the spirit of Prophecy (Rev. 19:10), or simply put, prophecy is what Jesus has to say about a person or situation. That's what we need to know, what HE says about us. The current, now word of the Lord, as revealed through the scriptures and also through the prophetic gifts (prophecy, discernment of spirits, words of wisdom, knowledge, etc.) are crucial in understanding our place and function in the Lord's body.

As a church and ministry, we will give ourselves to helping unbelievers discover the treasure of the Kingdom through outreaches and a lifestyle of preaching and revealing the Kingdom of God with power! We will also help believers apprehend their destiny through the deliberate function of the prophetic gifts in everything that we do. From house meetings to large corporate gatherings to monthly prophetic "Discovery" nights, we are committed to "dis-covering" the hidden treasure!

DEVELOP

After the gifts, callings and purposes of God are revealed, we have a scriptural mandate to then Develop those gifts, talents and abilities. The Bible calls this "equipping".

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Ephesians 4:11-12

Equipping or developing what has been revealed by the Holy Spirit is essential. For many years we have had an ethic of equipping, where all of our meetings have had a classroom type atmosphere of learning, with the intent of doing. Our attitude has been to "show" rather than just "tell". Many believers have been equipped in the supernatural power of God as they have come alongside others actually "doing" the stuff. This has happened as we have developed our UMT Modules or Urban Missionary Training weekends where quite literally, folks that have never prophesied have started to function in the prophetic gifts with great accuracy. Folks that have never seen the sick healed or the lost saved have begun leading people to the Lord or healing the sick with great effectiveness as they learned by seeing.

More and more we will be giving ourselves to the developing of spiritual gifts in the lives of believers. We'll be accomplishing this through Prophetic Training nights, where we will develop prophetic gifts, our Mighty Warrior Creative Arts School, where we will develop creative gifts, worship training tracks, business training tracks and other equipping tracks soon to come. All in all, our ethic and practice will be the "Equipping" of the saints for the work of the ministry!

DEPLOY

What good is a trained soldier who stays at the base? The ultimate goal of all of this Discovering and Developing is the actual Deployment of believers into effective, fruitful, supernatural ministry.

And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." Matthew 28:18-20

In the Great Commission the Lord emphatically is sending us out! We are called to "GO" on the offense with the power of God and weapons of our warfare. The most liberating and fruitful practice that we have experienced as a church and ministry has been the actually "going" and "doing" of Kingdom ministry. No longer do we take the word of God for granted and learn without doing, we learn with the intent of doing. This corporately has made us a people that are "doers" and not hearers only. For example, we won't just learn and receive revelations about healing, we will take what we have learned and minister to the sick!

But become doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. James 1:22

To this effect, a premium will be placed on "doing" and not hearing only. We are a sending church. We will regularly send teams into our city, into our community and into the nations of the world on local, regional and international outreaches and mission trips.

This is just the beginning. Stay Tuned!


Ryan Lawson