Resurrection: by Tim Kernan

“Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved!” Mark 16:15

I will never forget my first conversation with my dear brother Kip, who has become a father in the faith, at the Starbucks on Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, across the street from the Red Lion in Portland Oregon waiting for the start of the first World Missions Jubilee. I’m sure he said a lot of other things to me but what I remember saying was so powerful that its helped me to understand Jesus’ ministry to this day. He said “If you want to turn your ministry around you need to 1: focus on the committed few. 2: Show the miracles. 3: Drop the hammer.”

Over the past few years working in the ministry under Kip I’ve preached in11 countries, personally baptised 15 people and God has cobbled together a small leadership team of 19 for me in four countries that have baptised many more. These past years in our fledging global movement have taught me so much and in so many ways I am still a total newbie; full of immaturity.

At this years GLC there were so many incredibly inspiring and wise sermons preached. The Spirit of unity, love and vision was so inspiring that we could have had the conference in a back ally and it would have been one of the best conferences I’ve ever attended. That being said the beautiful conference location, singing, organization and hospitality were the cherry on the cake. You guys made it look easy and you refreshed us all!

I especially want to thank the Williamson’s and Gonzalez’s for their incredible hospitality. Chilling out with Michael and Michele came at just the right time for us! Sitting on their balcony overlooking Hollywood, cutting into a USDA T-bone steak (the potatoes I made were undercooked…RRRR!) and chatting as the sun went down was pure bliss. It was actually that night that I heard my nugget of gold for the conference. I think it was Michele who mentioned something like “You’ve got to resurrect your ministry four times a year”. I was talking about that to everyone for the rest of the conference. I took so much out of the conference but that was my nugget of gold I was clutching when I landed back at Heathrow to dive into our final 12 months in London. Thank you as well Victor Sr. for the gorgeous slow roasted pork burritos, for giving us your bed, and for your example of zeal and passion! Thanks for to your whole family for taking turns with Jr so we could get the most of the conference. It meant the world to us.

It was also amazing to spend time with our friends DJ & Kasie, Maxim & Natasha, the Bartholomew clan, the Underhill’s, the Ciaramellas, Hess’s, (so glad for that sushi place!) Lotay, Shay, CL, the Adam’s and so many more! What’s the Kingdom without friends? (John 15)

The message I heard from Kip at the Starbucks on MLK Jr. Blvd, needs to be applied more often than I thought. Its not a long slow process but its actually a process of constant resurrection. Its not just the elements of the plan either, its the order as well. The first thing that we need to do is figure out who are committed few are and start to disciple them and sharpen their lives and doctrine. We can’t “drop the hammer” to victory. We cannot blame the weak or lukewarm members for the state of the church. That can have a devastating and satanic witch-hunt effect that can kill the church. First comes discipling the committed and capable few who will be able to teach others (2 Tim 2:2). Second comes the miracles: lives turned around, marriages rebuilt, families reunited, frienships built but not least baptisms and new souls coming to God. A committed few doing miracles and preaching the Word is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

If Jesus, the poor and “illegitimate son” of Mary (do you think the neighbours bought the whole Holy Spirit thing?) living in the Congo style Roman occupied territory of Galilee could gather some illiterate fishermen and do some miracles then we are without excuse.

At that point, with examples abounding and miracles fresh in everyone’s mind its time to consolidate the membership. The weak need help, but the uncommitted need to make a choice (Luke 14). This pruning is not out of a lack of tolerance. The lukewarm and the bitter and never willing to sit quietly, instead they are driven to preach and spread their sin. Its an old proverb: “misery loves company”. We need to give the uncommitted a choice. We do it to save the church so that even THEY will have something to come back to when they have repented. If we don’t, we ruin the church even for them!

We have had many miracles in London, 14 baptisms in the last year, but right now we are in need of a resurrection. Its been two months without a single baptism and I take full responsibility. We had the Ukraine Conference, the McKeans visit, our leaders retreat, our annual first principles review and tests, our special collect, our career development workshop, a trip to Naiobi, Kinshasa, Moscow and this trip to LA all in three months… That is plain bad leadership on my part and it shot our evangelistic momentum to pieces. It seasoned us quite a bit but just killed our evangelistic momentum. I’ve apologized to the church and it won’t happen again.

That being said I am blessed to have a dynamic leadership team of disciples who truly desire to be discipled and trained in righteousness. We all need to clean our hearts of sin so that God can do the miracles. Please God, we need the miracles! At that point we will need to wheel around to be sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that the weak are helped, the timid are encouraged, but that they lazy are warned (1 Thes 5). By the power of God we will resurrect once again.

We have four and a half months ahead of us until Christmas with the massively encouraging and faith building Gathering Conference right in the middle. We are going to be focused on miracles! Then we have Christmas and in early January we have our Annual Kick Off Evangelism Workshop. Then we have seven months of pure straight highway to focus on more miracles until the Williamson’s come to replace Lianne and I in August.

We are also not unaware of Satan’s plan to disrupt us so we need all your prayers! Please fight a path for us through prayer so that we can be used by God this year! Its all I want for Christmas! In some ways nothing has changed from that first meeting with Kip. I’m still on the narrow road of a saviour (Jesus not MLK Jr.), I still have a growling red lion across the street and we are all enjoying the fellowship, waiting for the Great Jubilee of Jesus to get started soon in heaven.

Love,

Tim