CHURCH
CHURCH
CHURCH GOVERNMENT

The major problem in the encouragement of the Holy Spirit working in our churches is one of participation. For we see the role of 'attracting' the Holy Spirit as being the responsibility of leadership. Sadly, in many cases, leadership encourages this wrong idea, effectively trying to restore the Old Testament principle of a priest (pastor) being an intermediary between God and the people.

This is highly unscriptural! For Jesus came to bring a new way, a new priesthood, the 'priesthood of believers'. Every believer is now to have a direct, personal relationship with God through the sacrifice of Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit within each one of us.

Of course, this becomes more difficult, in a practical sense, the larger the church. Put simply, the larger the church, the more spectators there must inevitably be.

This is not God's way! God is seeking a people who are individually sold out to Him with a personal relationship and experience of the Holy Spirit. Under the New Covenant we are all to be 'ministers', not just a privileged few.

However, too often I have seen that when a church member gets closer to God, hearing from Him something different to what the leadership is promoting, the person is ostracised and ridiculed.

In these end, end times of 'hot and cold', there are greater numbers of 'hot' people around, many of whom are leaving the traditional church system as their truly Holy Spirit led ideas are being ignored.

So what is the answer to this problem? Unfortunately the potential solutions are unpalatable to most pastors and leaders.

There are at least two ways of improving the situation

1. Encouraging more people to participate in services.
2. Reducing church sizes to enable greater participation by all.

Both of these ideas fly against conventional wisdom of church leadership. Leaders generally want to restrict 'audience participation' to keep things in good order and under control.

As well, leaders invariably want their church to grow in size, for many reasons. Yet statistics continually show that the most effective churches in evangelising are new church plants. These hugely outperform well established and large churches in bringing converts to the Lord and also enable more people to participate spiritually.

If we are to develop as a body spiritually, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we need to seek new ways of involving all believers in the spiritual operation of the church. This is a huge and difficult challenge that will require new, lateral thinking from the traditional ways of 'doing church'. May we be led by the Holy Spirit in doing this.

I simply want to share some of my testimony with you. For I have not always been so keen on the Holy Spirit.

I was brought up in a typical New Zealand Baptist church of the time, where the Holy Spirit was known by name rather than through experience.

My attitudes were typical of my background.

I remember, while at university, being taken to a Pentecostal meeting during a time of revival. I hated it and swore to myself that I would never go again to such a meeting.

A few years later I abandoned the church altogether in favour of the world.

At a moment of desperation in my life, upon bankruptcy many years later, I truly came to accept Jesus as my Saviour and started the ongoing process of making Him Lord also.

At this time my wife, Kathy, was involved with the things of the Holy Spirit, which I again rejected. The Lord had other ideas however! Finally He convicted me (through the Holy Spirit!) that I needed to experience and let the Holy Spirit teach me more.

This revolutionised my life!

From simply understanding the 'words on the page' of the Bible, the Holy Spirit would now reveal the 'words between the lines'. The Bible took on a new depth of meaning that I had previously had no comprehension of.

The Holy Spirit literally wrote the discipleship course, 'Walking With Jesus' while I simply held the pen.

As I grow and mature in His ways He gives the broad revelations that form the foundation of the teachings of this ministry. I then have to research them to fill in the details.

I can testify to the huge difference the release of Holy Spirit power has made in my life. He has brought the Word alive. He has brought me closer to Jesus. He has helped me understand the Father's will for my life more clearly.

Something we don't want to know about!

Over the past 2000 years all the great moves of God have been Holy Spirit led.

Nothing has changed. The Holy Spirit continues to search the world for those with an open heart to Him. Open for a direct relationship, that is, not one through another person. For the Holy Spirit is our personal trainer, to use a term fashionable in today's world.

May we look to Him at all times.

WESTERN WALL TUNNEL

The entire western wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem has been completely revealed for the first time since 70 C.E. Excavations have uncovered all 490 metres of the wall that once formed the western girder of ancient Jerusalem's great Temple and the entire stonework that formed the basis of the original Temple mount in now exposed. An ancient Hasmonean water tunnel, built about 120 B.C.E. and later blocked by Herod’s builders in also visible for the first time and is one of the rare Hasmonean finds uncovered to date in Jerusalem. One of the most unexpected archaeological finds disclosed by the excavation is that Herod did not complete the entire construction of the Temple mount as historians and archaeologists believed to this day. A change in the type of masonry used at the northern end of the western wall is evidence that Herod built all but the last stages of construction of the Temple mount. Instead of the polished stones with characteristic Herodian masonry marks, part of the original stonework is roughly hewn. One of the mysteries uncovered during the excavation is the presence of massive stones that measure some 14 metres in length, 3 metres in height, and are estimated to be 2 metres thick and to weigh over 300 tons. No one can explain how these gigantic rocks were transported to the site. Walking along the tunnel, you can see the rock escarpment of the long lost Antonia fortress at the northern end of the western wall built by the Maccabees. This imposing building complex existed for only a few decades before it was demolished by he Romans followinn the fall of the Temple. The Tunnel is wide enough for one person to pass at a time, leading to a one-way route exiting at the beginning of the Via Dolorosa.

Legend:
1. New entrance to tunnel
2. Moslem Quarter
3. Via Dolorosa
4. Lions' Gate
5. Temple Mount
6. Christian Quarter
7. Church of the Holy Sepulchre
8. Path of the tunnel
9. Jewish Quarter
10. Western Wall Plaza
11. Western Wall