MY DREAM FOR URBANLIFE MINISTRIES I do have a dream for urban life ministries. I dream of a ministry that is about people, lots of people. They will not be my people. They will be the Lords people. People who enjoy being people, people that are colourful like a spring flower garden. People that are fruitful like a well watered farm. People that will know that we are on a journey, the most awesome journey ever taken. We will explore, we will live without limits, we will frolic, we will stay up late, we will window shop heaven, and we will infiltrate every nook and cranny. There will be granddads and grannies, there will be the yuppie generation with their personal branding, there will be the salt of the earth normal, everyday go to work 9-5 people, there will be teens and toddlers and babies lots of babies. It will be the ride of your life. We will be frivolously joyous. We will be gloriously free from touch not, taste not. We will busy ourselves with finding new ways of exalting and worshipping God and restoring old ways forgotten. I dream of our gatherings being like Jacobs journey in search for a wife and finding God. Genesis 28:12-19 (nlt) as he slept, he dreamed of a stairway that reached from the earth up to heaven. And he saw the angels of God going up and down the stairway. At the top of the stairway stood the Lord, and He said, “I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham, and the God of your father, Isaac. The ground you are lying on belongs to you. I am giving it to you and you’re descendants. Your descendants will be as numerous as the dust of the earth! They will spread out in all directions—to the west and the east, to the north and the south. And all the families of the earth will be blessed through you and you’re descendants. What’s more, I am with you, and I will protect you wherever you go. One day I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you.” Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I wasn’t even aware of it!” But he was also afraid and said, “What an awesome place this is! It is none other than the house of God, the very gateway to heaven!” The next morning Jacob got up very early. He took the stone he had rested his head against, and he set it upright as a memorial pillar. Then he poured olive oil over it. He named that place bethel (which means “house of God”), I have a dream of a people that will love Father God so much that they will be like fountains of living waters. I see a people that are so filled with the presence of God and the life of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit that everywhere they flow everything turns from death to life. Ezekiel 47:1-9 (nlt) in my vision, the man brought me back to the entrance of the temple. There I saw a stream flowing east from beneath the door of the temple and passing to the right of the altar on its south side. The man brought me outside the wall through the north gateway and led me around to the eastern entrance. There I could see the water flowing out through the south side of the east gateway. Measuring as He went, He took me along the stream for 1,750 feet and then led me across. The water was up to my ankles. He measured off another 1,750 feet and led me across again. This time the water was up to my knees. After another 1,750 feet, it was up to my waist. Then He measured another 1,750 feet, and the river was too deep to walk across. It was deep enough to swim in, but too deep to walk through. He asked me, “have you been watching, Son of man?” Then He led me back along the riverbank. When I returned, I was surprised by the sight of many trees growing on both sides of the river. Then He said to me, “this river flows east through the desert into the valley of the Dead Sea. The waters of this stream will make the salty waters of the Dead Sea fresh and pure. There will be swarms of living things wherever the water of this river flows. Fish will abound in the Dead Sea, for its waters will become fresh. Life will flourish wherever this water flows. Acts 17:28 (nlt) for in Him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, ‘we are his offspring.’ I dream of a people that are whole, holy, graciously humble and responsive as a deer. Psalm 42:1 (nlt) as the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, o God. I thirst for God, the living God. I dream of a people that will not flow down stream with the status quo, but they will be drawn upstream to the origin, the head, Jesus Christ our Lord. A people great, grand and luxurious, all living for Christ the King. A “tupos” church. A proto type of heaven.
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