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Actually read your bible. Don’t let it say things it doesn’t explicitly say like oppressing women or holding them back in the Church. The bible doesn’t say that women can’t preach or be in certain roles or callings, some men have created theologies like that, the bible never says that, consider the whole counsel of God. Don’t misappropriate scripture and create new laws or protocols it doesn’t. Use scripture to interpret scripture not your worldview, western preferences, racism, politics, culture, misogyny, man pleasing, man hating, feminism and a whole host of other fear responses. Using the bible to make a point it never explicitly states and thereby robbing people of purpose or God’s intention is the bedrock of the doctrines of demons. The spirits behind these influences are insidious, they are crafty and they convince good men. Woe to those who knowingly oppress the people of God to please a system, men, organisations or theological constructs. There is no jew or greek, male or female, slave or free before God, you may be one of those but they don’t define your access to God or create limitations on his calling, Christ and being in Christ are the only prerequisites. Making distinctions Christ does not is a terrible idea. The pushback of this generation is a direct result of the lack of clarity and enough Godly examples of the life God intended for all His Children. Empowering only some of the army is the error and its cracks are now laid bare. May we learn healthy family. Empowered and free Fathers and empowered and free Mothers, the whole army not only half an army. All tribes, tongues and nations that embrace and point a truly free family to their God. There is a seat at the table for every person, true biblical and reckless inclusivity, for all sinners, the lost, the deprived and those that we don’t understand and yes even those that we fear because they expose our own sin. Inclusion is not however about compromising purity, holiness or righteous living in it’s truest form. Our biggest concern while on the subject of sin should be that they may know Him. The rest sorts itself out before long, in Him. Sometimes slowly over time and sometimes in an instant. Our objective is never to condone sin but moreover to move away from sin consciousness to Christ consciousness. That is the only salve! Our soap boxes about things we don’t understand or can’t begin to relate to will have a lot less impact than love that displaces fear. Introducing people to the innocence they have available in Christ is the point here. Again it’s not about agreeing with brokenness or condoning sin. It’s about the saviour not the sin. The confrontation of truth in love is fruitless through a protest or verbal lynching in your town square or focusing on changing all sorts of laws that don’t apply to believers anyway. Heart change at grassroots is at a table and through a heart to heart connection and through the actual regeneration that only Christs hand holds. We are in an age of reform, stumbling through it’s passages as we are. If there is one thing I’m convinced of it’s that we won’t recognise Christianity in coming years. The contrasts will be stark not blurry. There is a remnant and they only want Him! The rest for all it’s pomp and ceremony will fade. The Christian relevance of today will be the stain-glass windows of tomorrow. The only thing that is truly relevant is His presence and His leading and the only thing that will last is love. It is a precarious hour, embrace the shaking of all that can be shaken. He gives but He also takes away and He is giving lavishly to true lovers amidst the continual taking away. I would say God bless your ‘business-as-usual’ approach but He’s not into that, not now, not anymore. The burning and the purification that reveals faith is where we are at. This is an era of the redefinition of Church! It will be about a people and not a place. The location of gathering places will be irrelevant. We would we wise to heed the lessons of the underground and persecuted Churches in the Middle East and Asia long before appropriating the mega Church philosophies. This is not because of coming persecution per say, but because we the Church thrive on the fringes. It is where we actually see humanity in it’s true state and vulnerability outside of our comfortable Christian holy huddles, I would suggest it’s where we truly belong. It’s the place free of ‘groupthink’, or fear of challenging the status quo. A place of grit and Spirit filled innovation. If we want to see things we haven’t seen before, as the saying goes, we will need to do things we haven’t done before! At the very least returning to the things we did at first, or perhaps that they, the early Church did at first. The peeled back layered truth of your every deepest longing, whether you know it yet or not, is first love fire and the Saviours every word in the new covenant echoing in you ears. Yes to the house Church movements you probably won’t hear of on Christian radio. Yes to community Church and it’s initiatives. Yes to the mega Church and online Church perhaps but golly gosh, pray He is actually in it. More importantly is He the head truly. It’s not hard to tell really, perhaps it may be at first, but it’s one of those things you can’t ‘unsee’ once you have seen it. If you have seen, be kind, be patient, love well, Let go, forgive, and be free but don’t drink the cool-aid of mans vain and high ambitions, it is poison. Mega doesn’t automatically equal fruitful. Staying small when thats not what He is doing or being ever insulated and flogging yourself probably isn’t your lot either. Bridal love, song of Solomon style is one way to connect the dots of a bride being readied. As one speaker asked ‘when you imagine the wedding feast of the lamb do you imagine being a guest at a table? Why do you imagine you are a guest at the Marriage feast at the end when you are actually supposed to be the bride? Cast out demons, prophesy, do all the things but for the sake of the world and yourself, be sure you don’t evoke a response one day of ‘I never knew you’. Translated differently ‘you did these things but we were never intimate’. Faith without obedience is dead but so is walking out the gifts of the Holy Spirit without the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Things you plant may die. Seeds often have to die to grow. You will have trouble in this world, but remember, He has overcome the world. He still works in beauty from ashes. You will continually surrender assumptions throughout your life, God help you when you stop surrendering what you think you know. His thoughts and ways are otherworldly, they are always better. Choose the tree of life not the knowledge of good and evil. The one is life defined His way, the other is self definition, the spirit of this age. You will walk through pain and suffering and you will abound in joy, and peace. Grace will be found and it will be sufficient. Embrace the heart process & mess of all these big words, may we continue to grow in our understanding of them all. Be taught of God. Draw near to Him. You will have some real friends, open your heart to deep connection. Let them love you, fight with them, cry with them, laugh with them. Learn to play. There is nothing better here on this side of eternity than being alive and thanking God. May you never lose your wonder. Don’t long for ‘the good old days’, back when God did things in a way you enjoyed or preferred. Instead be found longing for His face and what He has here, now, today, always. He never leaves or forsakes. It’s called daily bread, fresh manna. May you always be sustained. Don’t be afraid of the new. More than 2000 years after the words were recorded, new wine is still not intended for an old wineskin. Clutch the old wineskin for all it’s worth but you won’t have the new wine long because that old wineskin will burst. It truly is time to embrace a new wineskin. It is the critical need of this hour. “If you do what you have always done, you get what you always got” - Henry Ford. Don’t be afraid of being an exile in a strange season. Many forces cause migration and change. You will face change, you may migrate. Hear Him when and if He calls, if He does, please say yes! Blessed are you when your context for everything thats happening is ultimately every knee bowing and every tongue confessing the name of the Lord. He is returning for the pure and spotless Bride. Blessed are you when you are drowning in a flood of heavenly realities rather than the ground war of earthly debate, fear, conspiracy and analysis. That is to say Christ speaks a better word. He is rested, He is your rest. He isn’t striving and He is seated on His throne. He will be enthroned forevermore. If you do nothing else ever, learn to rest in God. Keep your eyes fixed on the things above. Blessed are you when every north star is vaporised, utterly crushed under the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ the bright morning star, your true north.