Kris Vallotton and Bethel

I recently attended a conference with the rest of the team where Kris Vallotton was the main speaker.  We were going mostly as a fellowship, not for the message, as I had only heard Kris briefly on a single web cast before.  I just knew that the Bethel related guys were doing cool things and the host of the conference was very excited about having him in.    We didn’t go because we were big followers of his, but because we were looking for an opportunity for the guys to have an encounter with God, and do something as a team.    Kris tells some great “God stories”  Everyone laughed a lot during the services.   I cried a couple of times over the stories.   It was a great experience.    People know Kris and the Bethel guys, though, not because they are funny, but because they are saying something profound to the church in this time.

There was a very nice anointing around his life that I feel like restored my fire and “freshness” with God.  (Not to mention the worship really moved me). Vallotton’s signature is what I might call “prophetic worldview insights.”   This made him a little bit like a Graham Cooke that was more focused on the church orientation than strictly personal issues.  One of Vallotton’s trademarks is to throw big ideas on the table, and then just move on rather than fully develop them.  This perhaps is because they are actually coming from God as revelations and he himself does not fully know what they mean or imply yet.   He put several big ideas on the table that I want to interact with here.  Keep in mind, though I disagree with Kris on several points, I see him as operating under a real mantle from God for changing the church in our generation.  I’m just a guy with a blog trying to figure out what to do with this stuff.

I say this as someone who didn’t feel like I naturally “fit in” with the Bethel folks or the people that they attract.   The spike haired pastor with the USSR t-shirt giving the blessing was only one of many “fish out of water” experiences for us.   However, God is speaking to the church through them right now, and we need to listen and hear what they are saying.  I felt like God showed me tonight how even people who are committed to a life of following the cloud of the anoint will can the new anointing.   I always thought that as a Charismatic who was sold on following the Spirit, all I had to do was ride the wave, but it doesn’t exactly work like that.  Even radical Spirit Filled types can miss what God is doing in their generation because God will design it in a package that maybe doesn’t look so radical and Spirit filled on the surface.  Well the Bethel guys are really shaking things up by changing our orientation toward church.

Bethel as the new Kansas City? Vallotton is definitely one who is looking at a more long term horizon for the church, unlike those in the Kansas City movement.  In fact, one could see how Bethel in some ways has picked up the mantle that Kansas City put down—by blending the Latter Rain (prophetic) with Pentecostal and Vineyard influences.  Kansas City you could say lost out because its leaders lacked the humility to complement their gifts, and now because what remains (the IHOP movement) has gone over to an unhealthy view of the end times.    Bethel comes with an anointing to get the Charismatic church back on track – actually reaching people instead of just waving banners around.   Some of the observations of Bill Johnson could have come straight from the mouth of Curry Blake, but Johnson has the mantle for charismatic people to listen.  The difference is that Bethel doesn’t come with a lot of stunning fireworks.  I don’t really enjoy Bill Johnson as a teacher and they don’t do “wow” prophetic meetings.  Overall I saw the genius of God in this.  Charismatics pride themselves on following the cloud – how can a people who have built their lives around chasing God miss the next move of God?  Well if God comes to them “in a whisper,” without hype or fireworks, then they will only know it is God if they recognize His hand and voice in what is taking place.  God is not a miracle factory.  He is looking for a people that will join with him to bring the Kingdom to earth.

Historiography. Vallotton referred to the Catholic church as our mother and said he really didn’t know whether or not it was a good idea in 1517 to separate from the Catholic church or not.  He did not come across as an advocate for return to modern Catholicism, however.  This is a reversal of Latter Rain “Restorationism” such as laid out by Kevin Conner and Bill Hamon.  It says we need to get back to a place we were, rather than emphasizing the things God has strategically done to bring us forward in the past 5 centuries.  Conner would see God continually restoring the church doctrine by doctrine and practice by practice beginning with Luther, through Wesley and right down to now.  I side with Conner and the Latter Rainers on this one.   I see the Medieval Catholic Church as being corrupt necessarily because of its tight integration of Church and State, not something we want to rebuild or revisit.

Relationship to the World. Vallotton is pointing to something real though that God is doing in our time.  He’s rolling Spirit filled people into places of influence in the City of Man.  They are a kind of New Testament Daniel Company.  He talks about this as a collaboration between God ordained secular (Romans 13) government, and God ordained Church (Ephesians 6) government.  There is a lot (2000 years of history and thought) to deal with here.  What I saw out of this was lighting a different way forward than strict political activism.  This was a more about a kind of civic activism – the Kingdom is something that comes and saves souls, but also shakes up the culture of the city.  This is very powerful.  Rather than focus on the national political scene which tends to marginalize us, or focusing on spiritual mapping which may not actually do anything, here we have an approach that says “transform your immediate environment.” by leveraging the God given power of Romans 13 offices.  We have to end our hostility toward these offices as “the world,” and start looking at them as the powers which God has established over our city.  He gave examples which included a Christian prophetically elected as mayor, a reformist mayor in a corrupt city supported by the church, and secular officials supported in doing good by the church.  He talked about how solving problems in the city gives the church credibility that we have lost as well.

Eschatology. Vallotton specifically attacked the Hal Lindsey (premillennial) gloom and doom worldview, saying that this kind of view actually gives power to the devil. We start awaiting the coming and empowerment of the anti-Christ not the coming of Christ.  I am on board with these points.  Where he got into murkier water was the expectation of the church’s role in the world.  There was definitely a postmillennial (church taking over) overtone to his teaching.  For example, he held up the Renaissance as a point to which we should return.  He saw this as a time of church dominance in the culture and that as a goal.  He also told some great stories which revealed his orientation to be less about theonomy (takeover by law) and more about real influence in the culture.  His contention was that we should be the people who solve the problems of our cities, and that that can start by us taking a servant attitude toward our civic leadership.  As an amillennial, I fit this insight about the government of this world not into a “redeem the city” paradigm since I follow Augustine in truly seeing a “City of Man” which will ultimately be destroyed.  I see impacting the city as being about saving souls ultimately, but secondarily about making the manifold wisdom known to the principalities and powers.  You don’t bring down the principality over a city through a “prayer walk.”  Even a revival alone will not do it.  The instrument of civil government working with the church, however, can do it.  It’s a kind of taking “Spiritual Warfare” onto the devil’s home turf.

Protestant Individualism. Vallotton identified and criticized Protestantism’s orientation toward valuing people only based on doctrine. He saw this as being historically rooted in the tradition of Protestants separating and joining based on doctrine,  but I don’t think he made a strong enough connection that this orientation is partly dictated. by Protestant theology.  Individual salvation by faith leads us to separate from our families and others and forge our own lives based on Christ.  In fact, individualism is the sine qua non of Protestant civilization.  Our desire to “separate” or “join” with others based on “doctrine” is intimately connected with the idea of individual salvation versus the Catholic or Orthodox ideas of salvation by the Church.  So we can’t exactly throw that overboard.  What we could do, however, is tweak it, and I think his ultimate conclusion was very good: we have to value and love people because they are people, not based on their level of agreement with us as we are apt to do as Protestants.  He talked about an “iron curtain coming down” which was a very powerful image.  That iron curtain is the strict separation we place between ourselves and unbelievers and the way we instrumentalize them by focusing on their conversion (changing their minds) more than actually loving them through their lives.

Judgment versus Reaping and Sowing. Vallotton told a story of being with a bunch of other apostolic/prophetic voices and challenging their assumption that God was judging us for this or that.  He seems to agree with Jim Richards that God doesn’t bring “judgment” per se after the cross.  He allows us to reap the consequences of our actions.  Was Sept 11^th a judgment or a consequence of our actions and attitudes? He specifically called out David Wilkerson as being one who has prophesied a lot of gloom and doom over the years, none of which has come to pass, and said we need to get out of that mindset.   Kris sees it as a contradiction for God to bring death on us because of our bringing death on others (such as through abortion).  He made great points about “culture” and how it really is a feedback loop: you have to change the system.  However, I don’t think that this means that God can’t allow or even bring death as a consequence of our killing.  This is certainly the basis of capital punishment.  On the other hand, I think Kris is onto something when he takes the focus off of “God’s judgment” and puts it back onto us and by extension the activity of the Enemy of our souls to exploit our sin to destroy us.

Remarkably, these were only a few of the major paradigm shifting ideas that Vallotton put forward.   He also discussed “Apostleships”, the “Owl” prophetic movement, and multi-generational church just to name a few others that I can’t cover here.  All of this led me to conclude that I need to be spending more time with God and less time with my brain.  God is a genius, so He tells you things that you could never figure out from a lifetime of study.  He breathes on an idea and it has life.   I need that a lot more than another degree.

Faith and The Word of Faith

A recent commenter was trying to understand why Charismatics seem to be particularly open to the Word of Faith movement and assume that if you are anti-Word of Faith you are anti-Charismatic.   When I was in high school, before I became Charismatic, I remember staying up late with my brother and watching one of the TV ministries with my brother.  It was completely ridiculous.  I had a hard time even recognizing it as Christian.   Yet these guys are raising enough money to stay on the air.   It was several more years before I was introduced to the Faith teaching in the church where I came into the Charismatic movement.   At the time it seemed that the pastors of that church were more interested in the Holy Spirit than the money and I saw the Faith teaching as something separate from what I had rejected on TV.  I saw it as part of believing God.  I was believing Him to be a supernatural and victorious person and that entailed an attitude of victory, overcoming and faith.   Declaring Scriptures over myself made sense and I was glad to do it.   It never got me the breakthrough from lifelong sin patterns, but it gave me a much more victorious mindset.   I later found out that the church pastors were in fact not much different from the TV preachers and were making incredible salaries while expecting very high sums out of the congregation in many different ways.

Which leads to my first observation:  it’s funny how “faith” always gets tied in with money.    I do not think it is supposed to be.   When you start going after the money, you end up with “name it and claim it” and a very selfish version of Christianity.   That was never what I wanted — perhaps because I had never lacked money or status, or perhaps because I had already put it all on the altar when I accepted Christ.    Yet, these faith teachings about money always end up in “give to get.”   Instead of giving to speed the gospel, you are now giving to increase your bank account.   Count me out.  I’m trying to build a heavenly bank account.

My second observation is that the Word-Faith teaching quickly becomes a kind of Gnosticism, much like Christian Science.  You are declaring yourself healed even though you are sick.   You are declaring yourself free even though you are in bondage.  You end up starting by denying reality.  This is a fundamental problem that keeps it from “working.”   Instead of exposing and confronting you end up denying.

But does that mean I am completely anti-Faith?  Actually it doesn’t.   After a number of years of not listening to that kind of teaching, I’ve realized that I’ve lost an important part of my Christian identity that I need to bring back in a healthy way.   I don’t think that I could listen to the main teachers on this subject for the two reasons above, yet I think that the “Attitude of Faith” is absolutely critical.   What would a “Faith” teaching look like without the money stuff and the denying of reality?   Hard to imagine isn’t it??

Well for starters, I think it would become focused on victory over sin, demons, and disease, which are the things that I think I remember Jesus focusing on.   I think it would also focus on confidence in the face of danger and intimidation.   It would focus on bold proclamation of the truth and walking in the full stature of Christ.    Secondly, I think that it would begin by recognition of a problem and THEN asserting the will of Christ over it.   You are sick but — Jesus makes you well.   Instead of Gnosticism we have declarations of victory on behalf of an almighty God.   Real Faith is about stepping into the attitude and position of Jesus on the Earth.  Hebrews 11 does truly paint a fabulous picture of the “man of faith” that God wants us to be.  Is the money really that exciting?  Can’t you get hyped about that on a late night infomercial?

Which leaves a question — where do the “confessions” that form the heart of the WoF teaching come in?  Actually these Scriptural confessions were part of why it was attractive to me in the first place.   The idea of quoting a Scripture to take authority over my problem made a lot of sense to my evangelical-fundamentalist ears.   I moved away from them because I felt that they weren’t really getting the job done and because of the “Gnosticism” issue of denial of reality.  I am thinking about bringing them back, but with a different focus — expose the issue, and assert God’s dominion over it.

New Perspective on Paul

It was asked in a comment what is the significance of the New Perspective on Paul.   First of all, I am not going to pretend to be an expert.  It’s a bit of a tricky subject that people will want to argue about.  If you want a more expert debriefing, check out one of the audios here.  Or you may want to look at John Piper’s book “The Future of Justification.”

The simple version is as follows.   Back in the 70s, a scholar named E.P. Sanders wrote a book called “Paul and Palestinian Judaism.”   It claimed that Paul was not arguing against Jewish legalism, he was just arguing against Jewish exclusivity.   It was based on research which Sanders believed showed the Pharisees and others to not be oriented toward salvation by works by to salvation by grace.

It seems like a minor argument, but it’s actually quite significant.  If Paul was not arguing against Jewish legalism then this affects the meaning of terms like “justification” and “works of the law.”   If Paul was not arguing against those who would seek salvation by human effort, then in effect things like the letter to the Romans are no longer about how to be saved.  They are about who gets to be in the church or not.

Sanders contended that Luther’s tortured conscience is really the source for our reading of these terms as dealing with legalism.  Ever since the Reformation we’ve been misunderstanding it.   In essence, this reading of Paul reverses the Reformation.   Out is the “old” Lutheran salvation by faith perspective and in is something about being part of God’s covenant people.  If Salvation is not by faith, then dare I say we labor in vain.

This argument was picked up by James D.G Dunn of the University of Durham in England and then N.T. Wright, who is now Bishop of Durham.  N.T. Wright is the main person influencing the average evangelical.  This is because he sees himself a kind of moderate evangelical, and has taken strong stands in the past against the crazy theological liberal ideas.   People that are otherwise very orthodox are drinking down his commentaries and books.   Certain ultra-Calvinist groups have also picked up on this as a basis for their views called the “Federal Vision” or “Auburn Avenue Theology,” which undermines salvation by faith too, but just in a more conservative way.

Now of course Wright is too slippery to show his cards and take these ideas to the logical conclusion.  If someone from the NPP were to show up and read this blog they would most likely claim that I had not really understood the New Perspective, or that I was making conclusions that the proponents themselves do not make.   I think Wright as an Anglican may see himself as trying to create a new path by de-emphasizing certain Reformation distinctives and thus build a bridge between Protestants and Catholics, but it’s not really a new path, it’s a new basis for the old path of salvation through the “church.”  It seems that ever since it’s founding Anglicanism is always fighting between the Puritan and High Church parties — see for example the “Oxford Movement” Regardless, it’s not a path we can take, because even if Wright and other proponents are unwilling to draw the conclusions, they will inevitably surface.

Pentecostal or Reformed?

With the rise of contemporary Reformed thought, a number of Charismatic groups have also arisen which embrace Calvinism.  Perhaps the most important of these is “New Frontiers” a major church planting network from England.    A major concept for Charismatics in the 20th century was a dream of unifying the “Word and the Spirit.”  Ern Baxter, one of the major leaders of the Shepherding Movement, was one who held to this concept.    So was R.T. Kendall, who wrote a book by the same title with Paul Cain.   Smith Wigglesworth gave a major prophecy on this topic near the end of his life.   Baxter and Kendall saw this as a union between Calvinism and the Charismatic.  And there are many heirs of the Shepherding Movement today who hold to Calvinism.  C.J. Mahaney is perhaps the one with the highest profile.   So there has been, and continues to be a shift toward Calvinism among Charismatics.

This partly because of the logical connection between Charismatic ideas like hearing God speak, being refined by fire,  and waiting on God with the concept of a God who controls the details of our lives.   If you doubt that these ideas create problems or go together, look no father than the recent book written by the young Reformed pastor titled: Just Do Something

Now the reality is that few people hold a truly consistent theology.  Instead we tend to get our ideas out of a buffet of the current ideas of the time.   At the same time, even those who are expert in theology are not always consistent, because the consistency leads to uncomfortable conclusions.  Now to a certain extent, such tensions are inevitable – since the creator of the universe could never be reduced to a single idea.   On the other hand the recognition of tension does not mean that we have to live in confusion, contradiction or denial.   Every theology has a “center” that really determines the direction it will ultimately go, regardless of what beliefs specific individuals hold.

So for example, if you are a Calvinist and belief that God predestines people to salvation, you can of course be a very evangelistic person and belief in the urgency of mission.  However this is logically inconsistent.   If God has already predestined them, it takes a lot of the urgency of mission away.  Therefore with time – perhaps a couple of generations, the theology will tend toward it’s logical “center”  This is about where things stood in the days of William Carey, when he launched the missions movement almost singlehandedly against the Calvinistic bent of his day.   This idea of a God who is in control is the logical center of Calvinism.  Therefore I believe that a truly consistent Calvinism will ultimately always tend to be more focused on government of this world than evangelism.  There will also always be more Calvinist intellectuals than Arminian ones, because the logic focus on the need for man to “do” is decreased, and the logical need for him know the correct theology is increased.   Only when you look into history and trace what happens to an idea after it has been living in a church culture for a few generations do you really get the flavor of where it leads.

Arminian theology seems to thrive best as a response to Calvinism because it does not have as good of a theological “center” as Calvinism does.   A theology of “free will” alone can too easily lead to liberalism or humanism.   People crop up to call themselves “Arminian” basically only when the Calvinists start telling us that God is damning people.  Aside from that most Christians are glad to ignore the “systems” and just say that God wants people saved.    If Calvinism and Reformed though are not healthy centers, and Arminianism alone is not a viable center, long term, what is?

The reason I feel the need to address this topic is because I was listening to the Introductory lectures of the brilliant instructor Richard Pratt, on the RTS Itunes U.   His explanation of Reformed/Calvinistic thought as a tradition was compelling, and it led me to ask, do we have a tradition that can be as logically compelling as Reformed thought or are we just a protest movement?

In my last post I talked about a unifying idea for a truly Pentecostal/Charismatic theology:  Possibility in God.   This is a truly Arminian concept, yet it is also a God-centered concept.  I propose this as an alternative “theological center”   For Wesley this manifested in the sanctification idea.  He believe that holiness was possible in God.  150 years later, the holiness people were putting this into practice and seeing dramatic miracles (and yes, a good deal of legalism).   The Pentecostals took the holiness ideal to its logical conclusion and became a movement based around the possibility of walking as Jesus walked.   As long as we are reaching toward God as a people, we as a people will continue to move theologically and eschatologically toward Him.  As soon as we stop, we are off into error.

The Theology of the Possible

After years of study, I feel that I am finally starting to get a hold of an idea that has eluded me.  I did a long paper in Seminary so that I could clearly understand eschatology.  Separately, I’ve been trying to understand how Charismatic preaching and Bible interpretation works.   This leads ultimately to an examination of our Charismatic practice to find the “way forward.”

There are a lot of groups offering us a false “way forward” in the church right now.  The whole “Emergent” movement is capturing a generation with pseudo-Christianity.  The seeker friendly church is watering down the Gospel.  The New Perpsective on Paul is deceiving the scholars.  The Charismatic church is rife with abuse of money and power, and chasing after signs.   Meanwhile our culture is going down so fast we can’t keep up.  It’s discouraging out there.  We need revival.

Now this is not a post about revival, but it is a post about having a theology that can undergird a revival.   This is the theology fo the possible.

First, our view of the end times.   I have come to the conclusoin that although almost no Charismatic/Pentecostals who embrace amillennialism as a system, we are in fact amillennial by  nature!  Just to review, in a nutshell, the postmillennial view looks for taking over of institutions.  The premillennial view looks for Christ to return and take over.  The amillennial view says that we are in a spiritual millennium now.   This is why some theologians prefer the term “present millennialism” or “inaugurated millennialism.”  The reason why we are present millennial in nature is because we fundamentally are a movement about believing that you can have “more of God” than you have.   We are a movement that says you can “be like Jesus.” You can actually do the things he did, think like he thought.  You can have a ministry like the apostles had.   This is a basic hermeneutic of bringing a spiritual reality from heaven into earth.    This is present millennialism.

However, Charismatic/Penteocstal groups have been everything but present millennial.  This is at least partly because the he Reformed/Calvinist guys who developed Amillennialism have a very boring conception of a spritual millennlum.  They would go bonkers if they heard we had adopted their view (and made it more optimistic), but the basic features of their system, how it reads the Bible, and where it puts events, is really the one that “fits” with Charismatic/ Pentecostalism.  It’s not just a “good option” for us.  It fits with our “more of God” view life.

You see, postmillennialism, which is popular in some Charismatic circles, like Bill Johnson or Bill Hamon, involves us ultimately “taking over.”  It’s definitely an attitude of the “possible” but it is not an attitude of the spiritually possible.  The more you get into taking over this world, the more you end up moving away from the Pentecostal/Charismatic idenity of having “more of God.”    Same thing with premillennialism.   When you get into this, you stop believe God about what you are and can become, and you start focusing on what is coming, and how you have a “last days” ministry.   Now that I see this, I would call John G. Lake a present millennialist.   His life passion was bringing the spiritual dominion of God into the Earth.   He rejected the premillennial dispensationalism that all of the Pentecostals of his day accepted, and although he had a “dominion” mindset, it was not about taking over governments.   His passion was the God kind of life.  That is my passion too.  And that is the same thing that George Warnock lays out in the Feast of Tabernacles.

Connect to this, The Latter Rain brought in a view of “Restored Truth” showing that the Church was moving progressively in a direction looking more like the early church.   The early rain had come, and now the “latter rain” is coming.   One step at a time, first Luther bringing back salvation by faith, then Wesley bringing back responsibility of man, then the Pentecostals bringing back the dynamic experience of the Holy Spirit, etc.   The church itself is on a trajectory of spiritual upward movement.   Each move of God takes us closer to be a glorious end time church.     This concept also fits with both the Charismatic worldview, and the present millennial system.

This leads to my third, related, observation.   The Charismatic hermeneutic is different from the traditional Reformed hermeneutic.  They believe all doctrine must originate from the Bible.  We believe that God is speaking now to highlight things in the Bible that we never corporately saw or practiced before.  Of course no one explicitly believes that, but in practice that is exactly what Charismatics believe.    For the Reformed people God “spoke.”  For us he “is speaking.”   It is a way of saying we believe in revelation.   We do not believe that prophets or a revival can create new doctrine, but because we believe God is restoring the church, we believe revival can reveal Biblical doctrine that has not been emphasized before — such as the 5 fold ministry.   It’s been there for 2 thousand years, but only since 1948 has anyone actually “tried” it.    That’s because we believe in the possible.  We believe that the church and the individual have the possibility to be more like God than they are and that is what God is taking us to, one step at a time.  Therefore when a “new revelation” is released, we instinctively receive it as part of taking us there.   This is actually not always good, but do you see how it ties together?   The “more of God” worldview means a present millennium, a view of the progressive restoration of the church,  and an openness to what God is saying “now” through the church.

This has been a missing piece — connecting our theory of what we are dong to what we are actually doing.   Normally we just dip into the evangelical bucket for “doctrine” add on a few Charismatic distinctives and keep doing our Charismatic thing.   It is inconsistent.   Part of what we’re missing is how you “validate” when God is bringing something forth, versus when it just sounds exciting, but isn’t a revelation.   Charismatics are very succeptible to hype.  If you hype it up, we might think the Spirit is moving.  And the Spirit moving is the hermeneutic of now.   If you are bringing more of God, you must be right, and you must have the doctrine we need.    No need to validate.   But if you wanted to validate, would you have the tools?  No.   That’s because evangelical hermeneutics do not provide the tools.   They just tell you how to be “safe” and avoid any possibility of error — which of course doesn’t work anyway.   But now things are changing.   Redemptive-Historical preaching and Biblical Theology are on the rise, and they are unlocking how the Bible itself works.  My theory is that this method of reading the Bible is more conducive to revelation.  It recognizes that how the Apostles themselves interpreted Scripture is how we should interpret it.  As Pentecostals, we go one step farther — they way they interpreted the OT, is the way we should interpret the NT and evaluate revelation.    Use of the apostolic method of hermeneutics is how we should validate what God is speaking to the church “now.”

For me this leads to a tight theology of the possible.   We are Arminian because we believe that the way things are is NOT the way things have to be.  We embrace a view of “Restored Truth” and are present millennial because we believe in greater possibilities for the church itself in history.    We use Apostolic Hermeneutics because we believe that we can do the same things that the apostles did,  including the way they interpreted the Bible, and even receiving revelation directly from God.   These are all deeply rooted in and connected by the single belief that we can and will have “more of God”!

Growing Ministry

Often we talk about about growing a ministry, this equates a ministry with a thing.. a large church or program is considered a ministry. However, I’d like to suggest that we focus on the human aspect — the ministry result that happens to a person. Ministry does not actually happen unless someone is actually touched or changed as a result of what you are doing. This is what we want to cultivate. We don’t want to grow a ministry, we want to grow ministry. We want the amount of ministry that happens in our church to increase exponentially regardless of what is going on with headcount.

Let’s look at the encounter with the woman at the well as a model for ministry activity:

1. Jesus met the woman at the well and he ministered to her.
2. Her life was changed.
3. She ministered to other people (the whole town) through her testimony
4. The ministry team (Jesus and the disciples) followed up on all of the people that she touched, and touched some more.

One person received a real touch from God and it changed the town. These kinds of “follow on” ministry situations happen repeatedly in the Bible, and I think that is one of the golden keys we’re missing.

Most ministry is like scattering seed. It just goes everywhere — rocky ground, the path, the thorns, and the soil. And there is nothing wrong with scatter shot activities. You need them. Jesus, John the Baptist and the disciples performed a lot of that. But you have to go beyond that. We scatter seed, and scatter it, and hope something grows on its own. Then when we aren’t seeing enough growth we start a program and try to get people into it. The initiative for the program is is not coming from the people, it’s coming from us.

Ministry means service, service is meeting the needs of the people. If you want to grow ministry, meet the needs of the people. The context does not matter, small or large the goal is to touch individuals. Jesus ministered to the woman at the well. The dynamic transforming power of God was now inside of her. She’s excited. What do you do now that you’ve got someone who has received ministry? Here are some common scenarios:

1. I’ve been in some churches where someone who receives a touch from God like this becomes a “problem” for the pastors and they will ignore this person or something similar. This can be extremely hurtful to the person God has touched. Jesus was surrounded by throngs. What did he do anytime someone pulled on Him? Did he say “this is not a hospital church” or call for the ushers? No! He met their need. That’s because the pull from the person (faith) is what makes the ministry happen. You’re foolish if you turn people away, you are thwarting your own ministry.
2. Nothing. She just gets the ministry, tells somebody, they acknowledge how great it is, and that’s the end of it.
3. She would get farmed into a group or possibly connected with someone. Now this is a much better result, depending on how it works, real change can happen.
4. She performs “follow on” ministry. This is the ideal. When someone is touched, there is holy fire within them. There is grace to touch someone else. “Freely you have received, freely give” Testimonies are the most basic ways of doing this. If its someone more mature, the follow on may be a teaching. Perhaps if they got healed, they start praying for others healing. The “ministry” they receive becomes the ministry that they give back to everyone — including the person who gave it to them in the first place!

We’ve spread the fire by letting the person who received do some giving, but we’re still not done. The Bible says that Jesus and the disciples went down to the city and stayed for two days and ministered to more people. They followed up on the result of her ministry! We follow up with a person who is touched, we give them a chance to minister to others, and then we follow up on the results of that, which as you can imagine leads to a cycle. More people are touched, more people minister, etc. This is what I’m talking about in “growing ministry.”

1. It begins with a “pull” from someone. A hungry person came to you or you scattered seed to one or to a thousand, and someone was stirred.
2. You feed them.
3. They are changed.
4. They feed others.
5. You begin again with the people they touched.

What you are now doing is cultivating the life of God among His body. Instead of setting up pyramids where one person takes initiative and everyone else is farmed in, which is what natural man always does, we are cultivating the “vine,” the life of God among our people. Every fire starts with a small spark. We can’t figure out why no fire is starting. It’s because we’re not fanning the sparks into flame. We let them go out, and then strike another match. You get enough sparks, and there starts to be a fire. The more lives change, the more people believe that lives can change. That’s more faith. More faith means more miracles. So it’s not as much about “vision” and ministry direction, and all of those things. It’s about fanning and chasing the fire of the Holy Spirit among the people (including yourself). When it gets hot, you can even burn dead wood in there.

Survey of Evangelism Methods

There are several major theories of evangelism out there.

Fundamentalist Evangelism – This method became popular in the early part of the 20th century and has carried on in conservative groups down to this day. The basic approach is that everyone must hear the gospel. It involves going door to door, passing out tracts, or accosting people on the street. The goal of each of these encounters is to get someone to pray a prayer of salvation with you. This generally requires a lot of stamina and courage because it involves being rejected a large percentage of the time. In addition, during the process I often wonder if I’m not pushing some people farther away.

Seeker Friendly Evangelism – On the other end of the spectrum is the approach that says we should create church environments where non-believers are comfortable and then find ways to get them to come. Getting comfortable involved toning down the message, adding good coffee, saying things like “the Bible works for me,” etc. The main problem with this is that it’s very easy for people to go to church there a long time and never have a true conversion to Christ. Easy to get in the door, hard to get “to the altar.”

Power Evangelism – This approach says that what brings people in is the power of God. We should heal, prophesy, interpret dreams, and pray deliverance prayers over the lost and they will come to Christ — that is what Jesus did. The problem with this strategy is that it can be like building a baseball team around always hitting home runs, or a football team on “hail mary” passes. When something miraculous happens, there is no doubt it has a powerful impact on bringing people to Christ, but it also tends to make people feel excused from doing the more basic evangelism activities. Instead we get focused on getting enough power from God to have one of these power encounters.

Servant Evangelism – Pioneered by Steve Sjogren of the Cincinnati Vineyard, the idea here is that by serving people in uncommon ways, you can open their hearts to God. Instead of passing out tracts on a hot day, you will be passing out water. Instead of knocking on your neighbor’s door with a Bible, you might be cutting his grass. There is no doubt that this method does in fact open people’s hearts, and it is definitely lower stress than confronting them all the time. I’m going to put in this category also approaches which focus on doing good things for marginalized groups like the poor and elderly. By meeting their needs, the gospel is able to go forward.

Divine Appointment Evangelism – This method says that God will put people who are ready in our paths, and we need primarily to be ready to give them the Gospel. Larry Tomczak has developed this idea. He carries his personal testimony in the form of a tract and is on the lookout for anyone who could be ready to receive the gospel. He will interact with them, and often give them his tract. The key to this theory though is that you do not need to touch everyone, you just need to touch the person who is ready.

Queen of Sheba Evangelism – The Queen of Sheba came from the ends of the earth to see Solomon in all of His splendor and encountered God in that way. This theory goes that by building great buildings, awesome music, big business, and otherwise impressive structures, the World will come to us and realize that God must be among us. If this does happen, I’ve never actually seen it. Normally this is a way for all kinds of worldly pursuits to come in the door of the church.

Each of these methods, except perhaps the last, has an insight that we can take as the basis of another model. Here are some principles I’d like to suggest

1. Hell is real and there is urgency around reaching out to people. We must take definitive action.
2. We need to be on the lookout and ready at all times to reach out to someone.
3. We need to have a full toolbelt ready in our outreach. This means a business card at minimum, but it also means the power of God. Healing, prophecy and the power of God are essential.
4. We need to have a place to bring them once we have reached out to them. Many encounters will just be a small step in a person’s conversion. If you are going to start reaching out to people, you need somewhere to bring them as a next step.
5. We should scrub the environment we are bringing them to of “weirdness.” By that I do not mean the truth, or the Holy Spirit. What I mean is things that make coming to our church or group an unnecessarily strange environment. This means uncontrollable laughter, rolling around on the floor, etc, are not appropriate for a meeting where there will be unbelievers.

Mike Bickle’s IHOP Eschatology

Mike Bickle has had a tremendous impact on the church in his generation.  One that far outstrips what most of us could hope for.   God called him at a very young age to be the pastor to the prophets of Kansas City.  These Kansas City Prophets went on to shock the worldwide church with the divine word and power of God.   Now that’s not to say that things were all right.  There were definitely issues, but it is to say that God used this team to do something very significant in the life of the church.   Then Mike taught on “Passion for Jesus” and the “Song of Solomon” and really helped a lot of people find the Love of God in a new and very significant way.   Mike is a household word in the Charismatic movement.

In the past couple of years he’s started teaching on what he calls “Apostolic Premillennialism”  Because few Charismatics have a well defined eschatology, and because of Bickle’s enormous influence, Apostolic Premil is making the rounds in the circles of the young radical types.  Bickle distinguishes this from other forms of pre-millennialism by it being more optimistic — more focused on the Apostolic character of the church that is supposed to be coming.    Apostolic Premillennialism is really an attempt at systemizing the Spirit of what Bickle learned from his spiritual mentor, Paul Cain.   Cain in turn, was passing on much of the eschatological emphasis of the Latter Rain.

One of the keys of the system is the role played by prayer.  Intimacy with God is the key of the end time church.  It is how the church will survive the tribulation.  It is the oil in the lamp of the ten virgins.   Intimacy is what you need and prayer is how you get it.   Of course that’s true, but the eschatological signficance may be a bit overblown.  Whenever we attach “end of the world” to our mission, it can get pretty trumped up.   Many Charismatics are telling us we’re the Joshua generation.  It seems like most generations in the last 100 years have thought and taught they were the last and final, super-significant generation.    I want to be the Joshua generation, but I’m fine with being the Moses generation too.   Or even the Abraham generation.   I plan on reforming the church and proclaiming the truth to my death bed and teaching my sons to do likewise.

Bickle’s entire focus has taken on a huge Eschatology focus.  It’s one of the main components with a huge multi DVD “Omega Course” to work through it all.   I don’t think that’s healthy.   I think it’s eerily like John Alexander Dowie, and William Branham’s end — where they started to think they were Elijah’s.  Or more possibily it’s like the turn into the ditch made by early Pentecostalism, when dispensationalism took hold and the power of God left the movement.    Now I’m not one to say that eschatology is insignificant.  These examples prove the opposite.   My argument is that when eschatology takes undue focus, it’s because you have the wrong eschatology.

Apostolic Premil suffers from the same problems as all Premil systems:  Double Vision.   The idea of a future millenium of physical dominion followed by the devil unleashed raises too many issues, and moves our interest away from the present and into the future.    Revelation becomes a book about a bunch of stuff that will happen at the end of the age, which we see as coming at any minute, but could be hundreds of years away.   The millenium is a time when believers rule under Christ, but then there are the other unbelievers… what are they doing, and where did they come from?  It’s double vision because the millennium is not future — it’s now.    The application of Revelation, is not past or future, it’s now.    The application of the parables is not future, it’s now.   The reign of the church is not later, it’s now.    Bickle has the right heart in the wrong system, and I fear that the system is taking over just like it did to another generations of radicals at the turn of the last century.   R.A. Torrey was one great giant whose later years were lesser than the first because he embraced premillennialism, at least so thought John G. Lake.

What’s right about Apostolic Premil is the part that came from the Latter Rain via Cain — that the church is increasing in glory, not just in size.  The final church will be a glorious representation of Jesus and reflection of the apostolic church.   The end of this age will be an Apostolic time.  Yes.

There will be a great tribulation.  But it is more continuous with our present time than we think.  This entire church age has been one of tribulation.  It’s only in the areas that Christ has to some degree conquered that the tribulation is lessened.   Whenever the Gospel makes it’s first inroads, the persecution is always severe.  There will be an antichrist figure and there will be a beast system.  But that too has had much precedent in history.  Hitler and the Nazi’s were a very good recent representation of the Anti-Christ and the beast system.  Whatever happens at the end, will be categorically similar to what they did, not some completely different thing.  The last days are not just in the future.  The last days are the entire era since the Apostles until now.

Intimacy will be important in that kind of a time, and Apostolic power will mark the church.  But let’s not put it into a premillennial framework.   The Latter Rain helped move the Pentecostal church which had been dried up by premillennialism away from that, and now we’ve come full circle to a Latter Rain-ized premillennialism.  We’ll get the same results.    The reign of God’s people is now through the church.  Not over governments but over the Spiritual powers of this world.  We’re despoling the enemy’s kingdom wherever we go.   That is what is important and that is what we have to stay focused on.  That is the ruling and reigning church that God will usher into the end of history.

After Lakeland

Todd Bentley was exposed as being in the deception and sin of an inappropriate relationship with a female staff member.   The anoited but hard driving evangelist had fallen prey to the oldest of all sins.    It’s a sad story.  It’s sad for the church and it’s especially sad for Bentley, whose wife is separating from Him.   What is especially interesting is the variety of responses that people have had to his fall.

• Steven Strang and J. Lee Grady of Charisma have used the opportunity to reiterate and vindicate the concerns they had all along with the revival.
• Peter Wagner, who led a team of ministers to go down and bless Todd has said something to the effect that Lakeland is bigger than Todd, and it’s just moving to a new phase.   Here is a statement he made about why he did the commissioning ceremony.
• Dutch Sheets has issued a reformational call to the church.

These three responses I think typify the three major categories of responses in the body.  Let me say up front, that I’m turned off by the attitude of those who seem to have the “I told you so” attitude.  When something is popular you can’t openly oppose it, or you’ll be marginalized, but once it collapses, you can now say forcefully what you believed all along.    Watching the tapes, I just have to believe that God worked in Lakeland.  It’s not the time for “I told you so’s.”  It’s the time for “I’m sorrys.”

The people that went down there to bless Todd got a lot of egg on their face, and they’ve had to explain themselves.  They are trying to make the distinction of supporting Todd without validating his ministry.   Yet, it’s really not that simple. If you watched any of the commissioning service, they had extensive over the top prophecies for him.  Which causes one to wonder what spirit are we in?   If something of this nature is going on, and a bunch of major leaders come down there and prophesy something akin to the second coming, not the second meltdown, it doesn’t seem very prophetic.

Moreover, the point of having that service was for these men to put their names on the line for revival.  I agree with Dutch Sheets that those who signed their name on the dotted line in any oversight capacity for Todd or the revival have a responsibility here.   If you put your imprimitur on something and it turns out to be something to be problematic, then you had a failure of due diligence or an error of judgement.  Either of which requires an open acknowledgement.   To go on and mince out why did what you did and how it wasn’t a validation, etc, is not acceptable.

There seems to be a certain group of Charismatics who are unable or unwilling to see anything that presents itself as “spiritual” with a critical lens on.  I was visitng a church like this during the peak of the revival, and they talked a lot about how if you are bothered by something like barking and howling you are being “religious.”  The problem with that is it’s a universal free pass.  If you don’t like this post you’re religious.  Convenient, isn’t it?  Does anything done in the name of the Lord go?   So here we have this huge embarrassment to the church, and all we can say is “it wasn’t about Todd anyway?”  Maybe you’re right.  Maybe it was really about another opportunity to validate the strange practices that have come to be part and parcel of being Charismatic.    “It’s going to continue without him”  Apparently it will.  It will continue in spite of any evidence presented that there might be some house cleaning needed in the Lord’s church.

I believe that it’s a “Joke’s on us” moment in the church.  This uncritical camp thought that that they were going to have Toronto Part II.  Look in the audience at one of these meetings and you’ll notice that the crowd is surprisingly old for such a young evangelist.   It was a group that had come up through charismatic experiences of a different era that was attracted to this.   The new generation might not have been so impressed.   Toronto was a significant move of God, but it also had problems.  I don’t believe God wants to repeat it, I believe He wants to take the next step forward in Hisotry.   Lakeland was an event that may separate and reshape the Charismatic movement.   Those who want to go on doing the Charismatic “thing” will apparently continue no matter what happens.   For others, it’s a gut check.   It says, “Hey, we missed something big.  It’s time to reform and reexamine”   We’re losing like one Charismatic giant every two years.  Paul Cain, Ted Haggard, Todd Bentley.

We need a reformation.  And we don’t need a bunch of arm chair quarterbacks.   We need people that are willing to realize that all of us who participated in a validated this kind of approach are part of this thing.  We need to become something different so God can do something different among us.

Adult Christian Education

Despite the anti-intellectual impulses of many Christian groups, education is fundamental to what it means to be a Christian.  When you are born again, you realize that you have been living in a lie for years, and that you essentially have none of the tools to live in the truth.. so you hunger for education.  The real question is what we mean by “education.”   In reality, there are two very different purposes for education, and therefore two different kinds of pursuits:

The first reason to educated is because you want credibility.   The whole idea of getting a degree is that someone on the other end of that degree recognizes this as a valid credential to allow you to work for them (or get further education with them).

The second reason to get education is because you actually want to learn something.   Now granted, often these things can overlap, but in my experience, the most enriching and significant learning experiences are not the ones that those on the outside recognize or will give you credit for.   Therefore, make sure you understand you reason for getting education before you pursue it.

For those who want credibility, it is important to ask yourself  “Who do I want to place faith in my degree?”  This is especially true in theological education.    Most seminaries and colleges are associated with a particular group, and if not a group, then a movement.    Those from that group or movement will respect your education, and those from outside will be suspicious of it.    Some seminaries have broader credibility than others.   Before you choose a seminary, know who will respect it.

Now for those who want education because they want to learn, there are many avenues which have to be recognized as education:  Seminary, Bible College,  Bible “Institutes”, Informal classes/conferences, mentoring, and self-study.

Seminary

Seminary is the time tested way for churches to prepare students for ministry.   It consists of a graduate level education, which is designed as a focused supplement to a broader undergraduate education.  Historically it is considered “professional” education much like a doctor or lawyer.   All liberal and mainline protestant groups such as the Presbyterian Church (USA), United Methodists, Lutherans and others require this kind of education.   Most traditional evangelical groups like the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), Evangelical Free, and Evangelical Covenant, do as well.

Seminary typically is a 3 year experience where a young man is sent away from his church context trained in a number of Biblically related subjects and then hired into a church, often through no relational connection.   Usually you work as an associate or even a youth pastor for a while, and eventually are “called” to be pastor of your own church.   While this method is non-relational, it also means the broadest opportunities based on your degree.  If you have a degree that a particular group recognizes, you will have a variety of opportunities within the group.

Among seminaries that could be termed “evangelical” because of their respect for the authority of the Bible, there are several major sub-types.  These are the groupings I created for the wiki article:  . Reformed, Southern Baptist,  Pentecostal,  Wesleyan heritage, Dispensational heritage, General evangelical.   It is beyond the scope of this article to name all 35 of the schools that I think fit the category “evangelical” so I’m going to stick to highlights for each category.

1.  Reformed Seminaries. These are schools built specifically around Calvinism.  Although you will get a good conservative education,  I would not recommend attending one unless you are a Calvinist or are fairly tolerant of it because Calvinism permeates everything you will do.   If you are a Calvinist, Reformed Theological Seminary is a good choice for distance education,  Covenant is a good choice for community and seminary experience, and Westminster Theological Seminary (East) is a good choice for academics.

2.  Southern Baptist Seminaries.  Since the conservatives have taken over the Southern Baptist Convention, all of the Southern Baptist seminaries provide good options.   I would avoid Southern Seminary because their program is Calvinistic and 4 years long.   Southeastern is one that I would personally look at.

3.  Pentecostal Seminaries.  Being Pentecostal I’m biased here.  I would probably avoid Oral Roberts especially with all of the controversy of late, but the Church of God, Assembly of God and Regent University all provide great option.   Regent is a great program with lots of distance options, but it’s pretty expensive.    Church of God has recently sparked my interest because they are producing some good thought on Pentecostal hermeneutics and are probably more “Pentecostal” and Wesleyan than the AG.

4.  Wesleyan Heritage.   Asbury is the flagship of all Wesleyan/Arminian seminaries.  It is large and has a top-notch faculty.   It’s generally conservative, but has moved a little bit to the left by becoming part of the UMC recently.   I’d look there for academics, but for the more conservative Wesley Biblical is the standout.    They have an all distance M.Div (where you travel a couple of times).    And it’s a shorter (75 hour) program.   This is one of the few places where you can get old school Wesleyan/Arminian education.

5.  Dispensational.   Dallas Theological is the capital of dispensational schools.  Their program is long (4 years) and rigorous.   They are highly cessationist too.   I would not attend any dispensational school by choice.   Dispensationalism, and the corresponding cessationism are very problematic.

6.  General Evangelical.   When the evangelical movement got momentum, the late Harold Ockenga of Park Street Church had the vision to bring some men together and start new seminaries.  Central to his vision was an intellectually vigorous faith.  He started Fuller, but they went liberal very early, and today they are still going that way.   With the help of Billy Graham, he then founded Gordon-Conwell, which is one of the most broadly respected seminaries, thoroughly evangelical, and has a very high quality faculty.    Trinity Evangelical in Chicago, and Talbot/Biola in Los Angeles are two of the other high quality, general evangelical conservative options.

While there are other seminaries out there,  I would only consider paying for a multi-year graduate education like this if it is  accredited by the Association of Theological Schools, which is the most appropriate body of recognition for these kinds of schools and includes a broad base such as Harvard, Princeton and other non-Evangelical seminaries.   As such, common to all of these schools is a general emphasis on the academic elements of Christian learning.    The benefits of completing an M.Div at one of these schools is the broad recognition associated.   Any evangelical will immediately recognize an evangelical education and credentials, although of course different churches and groups within church have specific standards or expectations as well.    Moreover, these programs qualify you for doctoral level work at any of the world’s finest universities.  They are fairly rigorous and comparable to obtaining a Master’s level education in any other subject–except that 3 years is very long for a masters degree.   They are also relatively expensive.

By the same token, the focus of the work is definitely more academic than practical or spiritual.   In many of these schools you will find you learn more about the Bible related topics and backgrounds than you do the Bible itself.    You will also find the spirituality of the students to be very uneven, as this is not an admission criteria.   In general, this is not an environment where I would recommend anyone grow spiritually.   In fact, I would consider this type of education standing on its own to be spiritually dangerous.   It is more likely to produce spiritual pride, promote bad family/life balance, and inordinate attention to details and extra biblical materials, than it is to produce ministers competant to speak to the next generation.   That said, for those who feel called at the highest levels of academics, or for whom credentials may become important for some reason, these are excellent vehicles, when done in conjunction with a functioning church life.

Bible Colleges

Bible Colleges in some ways were a response to the old fashioned Seminary type of education. As many of the Seminaries were hijacked by liberals in the early 20th century, and before the evangelical resurgence in Seminaries, people saw that the Seminary education was actually detrimental to producing ministers, and also did not match their core convictions about education being focused on the Bible and ground in confidence in its inspiration.   Many Bible colleges were founded in this era.     The Assemblies of God has several undergraduate “Bible colleges” which offer a high quality and well respected education.  I’ve talked to several people who have gone to Berean/Global University because of the affordability, but note, it’s not yet regionally accredited.  If you do not have an undergraduate degree and are looking for formal education they are good options, and there are many others.  Regent now has an undergraduate program.    In general, however, I personally would not study theology in undergraduate school.   I would either skip college and do a more practical education, or I would study something else like Political Science, History, Economics, Business, etc and do the theology at Seminary.   This is because Bible College education usually doesn’t directly qualify you for ministry.   People end up wanting or needing to go to Seminary, and then they complain it’s a big repeat and they miss their chance to learn about the rest of the world.

Bible “Institutes”

Charismatics generally do not appreciate formal educational approaches such as those listed above because they tend to focus on the head and not the heart.  But yet, they realize that ministers need education.  Therefore almost every Charismatic group has some kind of less formal training program.   I’m calling anything that is not accredited and/or only offers Bible majors an institute.    The number of these kinds of options stagger the mind.    It’s important to recognize that this kind of education generally does not gain you credibility, except with the very specific group who recommends it to you.   You take this education because you want to grow.  Here are a few Charismatic options.

1.  Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas.  Almost a college, but not quite.  Founded by the campaign manager for the great prophet William Branham.  This school has produced some awesome worship and generally is one of the strongest schools for training and equiping the whole Christian person.  Residential only.

2.  Christian International Ministry College.  This is a program developed and supervised by Bill Hamon.  It has a nice combination of a Spiritual as well as rational emphasis, although I do not have any direct information from someone who has attended or how rigorous it may actually be.

3.  Portland Bible College.  Founded out of the Latter Rain.  Kevin Conner, perhaps the world’s leading Charismatic Bible teacher was a key part of it’s founding years.

4.  The FIRE School.  Founded out of the Brownsville Revival and led by Dr. Michael Brown.  I don’t know what else you might get there, but you will get some heat .

5. Morningstar School of Ministry. Although I have never been a follower of Rick Joyner per se.  Steve Thompson, director of the School ,is really top notch, and here I know you could certainly get a lot of the Spiritual aspects lacking from other programs.   Pincrest Bible Training Center, founded by one of the fathers of the Morningstar movement, is also of intrest to me.

6.  Forerunner School of Ministry.  Mike Bickle’s training arm.   Get ready to eat drink and sleep prayer.

7.  The Wagner Leadership Institute is another interesting semi-formal program, which in the past had some of the leading Charismatic ministers teaching the courses, but I don’t think it’s gotten off the ground in quite the way that originally seemed promised, and I think it’s very overpriced for what you get.

8.  Institute of Spiritual Development.   This program is under development and it is all about the prophetic and dreams.   John Paul Jackson has done alot to advance the general state of prophetic training, having developed a really cutting edge training in many facets of revelatory training including a number of courses.   I would love to spend some time in these courses.   Recognize, however, this is really just a prophetic school, it’s not a full fledged ministry or Bible training.

Conclusion

This leads to a few concluding remarks.  I really don’t find any one of these avenues particular satisfying in itself.   For those with the discipline, and who already posses a college education, I think it’s best to grow in the Lord as the Spirit directs you through an intentional and formalized process of progressive study.  This allows you to drink at many different wells without becoming narrow or dried up.   Ultimately it’s about having a passion for God and being like Him…. I think pursuing one’s education before the Lord in this way faciliates that well…