Freedom Christian Fellowship

The past two months since our last update, have been an intense time.   Joel, Brad and I have had opportunities to grow together in the Lord, both on a personal level and also as a team.   This has led to some wonderful and refreshing moments.

Our first meeting with more than just the leadership team was memorable.  Our friends David and Melanie from Paving the Way world missions were here in January at the same time that we took in our first member of the program.   We played the Jesus Culture DVD with our new projector and sound system in the basement.   The presence of the Spirit was very strong in the meeting leading to a powerful message from Joel’s heart as well as an almost tangible intensity at one point.

This encouraged my heart deeply because it showed me that if men will band together to seek God wholeheartedly the Spirit of the Lord will manifest in a special way — that together we can bring a greater anointing than any one individual.   Rather than seeking God intensely almost alone in the midst of a larger body, we are seeking intensely together.   All of us are beginning to see the firstfruits of this kind of relationship in our lives.  Joel gave a testimony of being freed from rejection last week, the Lord has dealt with lust in my heart in a deeper way than I remember, and Brad has also felt and ease in entering the Spirit.  Jaime has even had a signficant breakthrough against a stomach problem she has had all her life.

I find myself  coming to worship hungry for and believing in God in a way that never remember in a consistent way.  Instead of working it up,  our collective hunger for God seems to leap right out of me as I reach out to God.    I feel that we are drawing near to God and away from the world.   This has caused a jealousy for God to be released in my heart — being with a group of guys who want to keep it pure is worth more than any church empire we could ever build.   I feel that deep encounters with God are near at hand and that one day on this path we will know his intimacy among us in the way that we lie awake in our beds dreaming about.

Another friend, Craig, came and visited us, and ministered a word about our identity in Christ.   His pastoral gifting and ministry were a real blessing to the entire team.   Craig has played a major part in helping us minister to our first program participant and each step forward with him has been a true miracle.    God has used the situation to teach us some important lessons and we feel that we are ready as a team to embark on the second phase of this ministry, which may have us welcoming 3 more guys in the next two weeks.   As we work with them, we believe God will turn ashes into beauty.    We are also beginning to see that our message of freedom itself is liberating, as people are touched by a church model that is built from the ground up around people.