God is not afraid to let His questions rest heavy on us, intrigue us, frustrate us, and push us forward into a life lived differently and purposely. Questions from God are His merciful intervention and leadership, leading us forward into His satisfying and joy-filled plan for our lives.

Several years ago the Lord began to “mess with me” by asking me questions that I was not prepared to answer. I was pastoring our 7-year old church that was going very well, my wife and I just had our second daughter (which has now bloomed into a 3rd daughter with a 4th child on the way…pray for me), and life was moving right along fairly uninterrupted until God’s questions began invading my heart. I continue to be challenged in my heart daily by the questions that are coming from God’s heart, and I continually pray that as the leaders during this time in history we doing our best to accurately represent and communicate what is on God’s mind right now. Today I am going to share with you two of the questions that have most changed my perspectives as a leader during this time of incredible transition of the local church.

Question #1: Are the people in your church prepared for the hour they are living in and the hour that is coming to the earth?

This question still nags me every day and provokes me to ask in return, “What hour am I living in?” Truthfully, this was the Lord gently confronting the issue of the “fair-tale” of Jesus’ return in my own heart and the coming of a King and His Kingdom to the earth. Somehow the lines have become very blurred in our western Christian culture between “Jesus is coming to be King” and “Santa Claus is coming to town”, and for the first time in my leadership life I was on a serious contemplation and review of the Bible concerning this issue. Suddenly I found myself in the middle of the whole eschatology mess that all my ministry friends avoided because “it didn’t produce any fruit” and caused to many problems in their church. Not to mention, the issue of Jesus’ return “isn’t very relevant to life today” considering all the other problems people are going through right? Here’s the point, Jesus dispelled His light on the reservations in my heart about leading a church that boldly taught about Christ’s return and the establishment of His Kingdom here on earth.

Shortly into this journey came the study of end-time Babylon and the present-day strengthening of a global economic, political, religious system that is intoxicating the earth for this season and will continue to do so in the season to come. Somehow, all of my studies on the end-times were focused almost exclusively on the 7-year tribulation that none of us are supposedly going to be here for, and what I completely missed were the instructions Jesus gave to those living in the generations before the tribulation begins; the cautions He gave to them, the commissions He gave to them, and specifics about the mindset that was to be found in the people of God living during those days. This is what hit me: “I am currently a leader that is unprepared to navigate the days ahead because the return of Jesus, the establishment of Revelation’s Babylon, and the authority that we have as believers in this hour are not as real to me as they should be!”

With this conviction I quickly began to realize that regardless of people’s view on the tribulation, the global climate before this seven-year period begins will be a most deceptive and fearful time where the heart of mankind across the earth will be full of offences towards God and man, while a demonic intoxication will be globally pervasive and popular. The Church in that hour will be simultaneously experiencing intense outpourings of glory and entire movements of spiritual delusion and false teaching. And so the Lord’s question continues to grow in my heart today: “Are the people in your church prepared for the hour they are living in and the hour that is coming to the earth?” In these recent months I have become very sober to the fact that an anti-Christ establishment and the great tribulation are a reality that we must be watchful of, but not to be feared. I now refuse to be lead a church that is so focused on their trials and the activity of this evil kingdom that they lose sight of loving Jesus and walking in the grace and power that God’s given them.

My leadership world was rocked when the return of Jesus transitioned from ethereal fiction to a viable reality in my own heart…”He is coming and every eye will see Him”. Even though no man knows the day or the hour, there is a growing mountain of evidence that the transition from this age of oppression into the next age of Christ’s kingdom being established here on earth is not far away. Whether this transition is in my generation or 10 generations down the line, living with an awakened heart of true love and devotion for Jesus Christ are essential for us to possess and pass down to the generations that come behind us.

Question #2: Is your church raising up messengers or echoes?

I was blessed to be brought up in a great home with great values and a devotion to the Bible, prayer and the presence of God. The scriptures were definitely not absent from my life growing up, and even as a teenager my heart was compelled to know Jesus more through personal devotion to His Word, and those years were monumental in my personal development. I will say that as a young person who was pursuing God, even in our healthy local church, I was definitely the minority. This is not a testimony of my greatness by any means, but rather a realization early in my life that the knowledge of God is growing scarce and absent from our daily lives here in the West, and the willingness to lay down our agendas and plans for what God is doing in the earth is growing very rare as well.

God began challenging me about the “product” that our church was producing, and I realized that from a “manufacturing” viewpoint the local church in America is challenged in the area of producing a “product” that is relevant for what God is doing today. “But Jim, isn’t the church here to help people through the struggles of their daily lives? Aren’t we (the pastors) here to be a voice of encouragement to those in despair? Aren’t we supposed to extract the secrets and solutions that the Bible has and give them to people so that their lives will work better?” I think on many levels the answer to those questions is yes, but the foundational problem the Lord was addressing with me was the lack of personal revelation from God that many believers, and the growing dependency on the knowledge of God-teachers because of a lack of the Spirit’s leadership in daily life.

My kid’s were watching a television show where the cute little furry animals where exploring the Grand Canyon and singing a song called “Echo, Echo”. I had a revelation in-front of Nickelodeon… “I am doing a much better job of creating little echos who can repeat what somebody else told them than I am at building people who have a voice of authority from the God because they really know God for themselves.” Personally, I’ve become a total believer that the Anointing is supposed to be the primary teacher to all of us and that pastors and church leadership are voices positioned by God to confirm what God has been speaking to the hearts of His people while helping to bring further understanding.

If you want to freak your average American believer out completely, catch them in the hallway before a church meeting and ask them, “What’s God been speaking to your heart lately?” Be prepared for stammering lips and an unknown tongue until the person you’re speaking with can think of the last thing they heard from someone else, or until they can drudge up some spoiled spiritual manna from 6 months ago. God graciously showed me how through all of my good intentions I was inadvertently creating an environment that conditioned people for a lifestyle of minimal personal revelation and consequently set them up for the convenience of deception. I began saying to God, “Help me! I don’t want to set people up to be deceived by the intoxicating fallacies that are everywhere in our culture!” At that point God began to challenge me to father a forerunning people in my city, a church with a burning love for Jesus at the center, knowing God and loving people in a vibrant way.

Without a doubt I am far from being an expert on any subject. But one thing for sure, I am on a journey with Jesus that’s changing my life if a real way. I believe that in this hour of history God is asking His leaders some very challenging questions with the intention of awakening our hearts in a greater way to who He is and what He’s doing in the earth. My prayer is that this generation of church leadership has ears to hear the questions that Jesus is asking us and that we have the humility to respond and pursue the path of transformation towards becoming the spotless bride of authority Jesus is coming back for.

The disciples asked Yeshua to teach them how to pray in Luke 11 “as John also taught his disciples.” The implication is that within the movements of faith in the first century there were variations in modes of prayer. Yeshua did not respond by undermining the John’s teachings on the form of prayer. Instead he affirmed the most important values of a prayer offered to the Lord in the form of the “Lord’s Prayer.” Though the content of the prayer was the emphasis of Yeshua’s response, the form likely varied from John’s teachings to his disciples.

Within the history of the church, each church denominational structure developed an approach to prayer that has helped to define them. Constantine and the bishops at Nicaea in 325 determined that standing during prayers is preferred to kneeling. Luther and his 95 theses determined that prayers for forgiveness are not to be directed towards the clergy of the Catholic Church but towards God. The Church of England wrote its own book of prayer as a means of identifying its distinctions from the Church of Rome. Likewise, the Methodist Church was formed on the basis of John Wesley’s belief that personal and communal prayer was essential to the life of the pious Christian. The adaptation of the “Negro Spiritual” as a means of prayer among African slaves in America is the basis for Gospel music that is used in worship in many denominations across the Church today. Many other examples might be included here. The point is that prayer has served the planting of churches of various denominations and ethnicities across the globe. Can we expect effective prayer to be re-awakened with each of these historical church-planting movements in order to see people of all tribes and religious persuasions come to know the Prince of Peace? Let us look at the example of the modern Messianic Jewish Movement.

The Messianic Jewish movement has begun to answer the question of how a life of prayer as believers in Yeshua as the Messiah of Israel can marry the ancient faith of the people of Israel. According to the Hebrew Scriptures, the tabernacle service required morning and evening sacrifices each day. According to the book of Acts, these times of sacrifice were times of prayer in the Temple for the Jewish followers of Yeshua in the first century. Using these appointed times from the Hebrew Scriptures and the Writings of the Apostles, a modern form of prayer has been developed that is consistent with Jewish form. This confluence of Jewish form dated from the tabernacle with modern belief in Yeshua has been a challenging pursuit. Yet, the success of the realization of this form of prayer, along with active outreach among Jewish people, has served to help establish communities of Jewish believers in Jesus that have multiplied within the US and around the world. The combination of these seemingly conflicting religious and ethnic forms inspires hope to see prayer established across all denominational and ethnic institutions.

Perhaps a few more examples from around the world are in order. The Philippines is a country that is primarily Catholic. What if Filipino Catholics began to seek the Lord in prayer of a Catholic form that is relevant to the Filipino culture and yet filled with the life of the Holy Spirit? Perhaps a new move of God could be used to spread the Gospel within the Catholic culture to which the Filipino people can relate. Likewise, the Anglican Church has nearly 40 million members in Africa. What if the Anglican Church in Africa were to see a revival of Holy Spirit led prayer within the clergy and laity of Africa? The ability of the African people to relate to the cultural dimensions of Anglican prayer could unleash a wave of revival that could win the continent to the Lord and result in the planting of many new churches.

Prayer can and must be established in the modern era that is consistent with the Biblical history of the importance of prayer and that preserves denominational and ethnic distinctions. Though at times contentious, the history of Christianity and the formation of various streams within the Church have served to preserve diverse content and modes of prayer. The reawakening of these indigenous ethnic and denominational expressions of Yeshua centered and Holy Spirit empowered prayer is critical to the fullness of the Church in power as we approach the end of the age. Within the Messianic Jewish remnant in Israel and around the world, this indigenous and Holy Spirit empowered awakening in prayer has resulted in congregations of Jewish believers in Jesus being planted across the globe. It is our prayer that the same indigenous awakening would occur in the International Church. For, it is only in an awakening of consistent prayer within each limb of the Body of Messiah around the world that we together might be witnesses from “Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

• Born between 1927-1945: 65% evangelical believers
• Born between 1946-1964: 35% evangelical believers
• Born between 1965-1983: 16% evangelical believers
• Born between 1984-current (projection based on trends): 4% evangelical believers

So, what does this tell us? Of your generation, only a mere 4% goes to church, worships Jesus, and holds onto the Bible as the Word of life. This generation may not be annihilated, but we’re almost there. Are we ready to call this is a crisis? Are we ready to sound the alarm and say, “We need a revolutionizing, turning of the generation in America back to God”? Are we ready to declare this hour of crisis requires a radical response, or is it still business as usual? Do we want the number to fall below 2% before we say, “Lord, help us!”? What we need in America are Acts 2 and Joel 2 responses: to cry out to God for another gut-wrenching revival in America.

O Lord, when will You give us a generation who is yoked with the burden of the Lord for America, for the nations, for our next generation at this very hour? Do we live to be yoked with the burden of the Word of the Lord and the burden of intercession for this nation? Unless a historical revival breaks into this land and turns the flood of darkness back to where it came from, this nation will not turn.

Why is God raising up prayer rooms across America today? Why is this prayer movement set in the context of the current historical moment? The battle is not over and the key is in your hand. I am not ready to put up a white flag and admit defeat. Even if there is only 4%, all we need is a generation of fiery revivalists in America who will go into prayer and fasting and call down fire from heaven to come and turn this nation back to God. That is how good old gut-wrenching revival happens.

Human ingenuity, ideas, ideology, philosophy, political activism, strategy, and methodology all fall short in turning a nation back to God with a revolutionary force. We need an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We need a historical revival in America. We need a historical revival that will shift the fundamental DNA of the civilization in America in a revolutionary magnitude.

There is truly a need for us to stand during this onslaught and say, “Lord, clothe me with the two-fold burden of the Lord: the burden of prayer and the burden to proclaim the Word of the Lord.” The Word of the Lord is going forth and running across the earth, looking for a generation of people whom He can clothe and upon whom He can put a burden. He wants to clothe that generation with a burden of intercession.

We must understand that some of the greatest works of God can be accomplished on our knees. Nations would turn, cities would be opened up to God, and the hardest sinner’s heart would melt as we go on our knees and cry out to God to have mercy upon America. Let’s put our face to the floor, and cry out for God to have mercy on America. We need a tangible burden of intercession.

We need to prepare a generation for eternity. We need God to rend the heavens and come down. We need God to clothe us with the burden of intercession. We must contend for revival because many people are not prepared for the type of scenario that is coming upon America and the world. We must prepare. If we are called to just do this one thing, let’s do it well.

So how do we respond? Faced with diminishing returns, the Church has pursued greater cultural relevance and run after all of the latest strategies and techniques. We’ve become more seeker-oriented, more purpose-driven, more missional, more simple, more of whatever the latest church growth or church health solution is offering us. But none of this has worked… because we haven’t stopped to consider whether God Himself might be opposing us and all of our man-made strategies and methodologies.

In Jonah chapter one, God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh to proclaim a prophetic message to that people. Jonah has other ideas. Instead of Nineveh, he decides to board a ship to Tarshish. You know the story as well as I do… We read in Jonah 1:4 that “the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.” Jonah is headed on a path taking him away from God’s will – and it is the graciousness of God to send this storm to prevent him from continuing down that path. Initially, the sailors attempt to deal with this storm in the way that they know how – they called out to the gods and “threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship” – but to no avail. After they determine that Jonah is the cause of their troubles, they ask him what they should do? Jonah tells them that they should throw him overboard and the sea will grow calm. To the sailors, this probably seemed too radical of a solution, so instead “the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before.” God increased the ferocity of this storm – determined to see Jonah brought back on the path that he had laid out for him.

Several years ago, Allen Hood was preaching at our church on the subject of God’s opposition. In a similar vein to some things that Allen shared in that message, I believe God has been opposing the American Church in the West. He has orchestrated a “storm” of sorts against the church, opposing all of our strategies and techniques – not because he dislikes us but because he is so lovingly committed to us. In the midst of this storm of our ineffectiveness, many have sought first to lighten the ship, to get rid of the heavy stuff in our Gospel message, in the Scriptures, in our discipleship, in our theology. We’ve heard aspects of what is on the Lord’s heart to come through this storm but it has seemed too radical and we have sought to simply try a little harder, “to row with all our might.” But this has only caused God to increase His opposition to our efforts – to get us to the place of surrendering to the radical thing that He is calling us to embrace. He is too committed to us to allow us to continue down a path that is leading us away from His purposes for our lives.

I have been in the midst of this storm. Our church has been in the midst of this storm. Over the last several years, we have been confronted with our barrenness as a people. Sadly, we have spent a lot of time and energy seeking to row a little harder to get out of this storm… but we have discovered that that is useless when God is the author of your storm. The storm just gets stronger. Simply-put, we have come to understand that God has graciously opposed all of our efforts and all of our strategies because He is calling us to become a church that is radically committed to the priority of prayer, to become a “Praying Church.” Revival preacher Leonard Ravenhill once remarked that “The man who can get believers to praying would, under God, usher in the greatest revival that the world has ever known.” We must become a people of prayer – both to thrive and to survive in the days ahead. To thrive in the midst of the greatest move of the Spirit on the earth but also to survive in the midst of the greatest persecution that the Church has ever known. God knows this. And so does Satan. Satan opposes us to keep us from the place of prayer. But God opposes us to get us to the place of prayer.

On May 25, 1961, when President John F. Kennedy announced on his commitment to put a man on the moon, he said these words: “Let it be clear – and this is a judgment which the Members of the Congress must finally make – let it be clear that I am asking the Congress and the country to accept a firm commitment to a new course of action-a course which will last for many years and carry very heavy costs… If we are to go only half way, or reduce our sights in the face of difficulty, in my judgment it would be better not to go at all… This decision demands a major national commitment of scientific and technical manpower, material and facilities, and the possibility of their diversion from other important activities where they are already thinly spread. It means a degree of dedication, organization and discipline which have not always characterized our research and development efforts.”

I believe similar things are involved in making this commitment to prayer. It will take time. It will be costly. It will require diverting our time, energy, and resources from other important activities. And if we only go half-way, it would better not to go at all. But at Bethany Church, we’ve given in. We’ve agreed with God’s radical solution, and have committed ourselves to becoming a “Praying Church.” Critical to this journey, we have had to painfully face our barrenness as a people. But the Lord has also reminded us that it was through many once-barren women in the Scriptures that his most powerful servants came forth. Sarah with Isaac. Rebekah with Jacob. Rachel with Joseph. Hannah with Samuel. Elizabeth with John the Baptist. For all of these women, it was their barrenness that awakened the great and desperate cry for the Lord to come and provide the life that only he could bring. I pray that it is true of the Church in America as well; that the Lord would allow our present barrenness to awaken a deep and desperate cry to the Lord to make us a fruitful people once again.