November 30, 2013

There was a time when Elijah preferred just eating and sleeping to prophesying (1Kings 19).

Yes, after he escaped Jezebel's wrath, it took God's repeated still small voice (like the sound of a gentle breeze) to rouse him back to Israel and the fray of ministry.

As with him, sometimes the things the Lord brings us back to are vitally connected to following Him in the future.

For example, in my life for well over five years now, the Lord has brought me once and again back to the Assemblies of God (affectionately known as the "AG").

When I left denominational ministry, the first place I landed was an AG church in Burlington Vermont of all places. They even let me evangelize a bit. When the pastorless AG church in Lyndonville Vermont needed pulpit fills, I gladly drove through the snows of Marshfield on Route 2 East and took the gospel with them into the Union Hall.

The last time the trustee asked me to preach he asked me to serve up the Lord's Supper and I did happily, under the Bingo Board no less.

I followed the white lighted cross up the road in Maine and took counsel with Br. Cliff.  When a friend's family was going on long-term churchlessness, I recommended them to Br. Art in Vergennes. When a family member died this past summer, I went across the street in Cheshire Connecticut and received prayer from an AG missionary to Uruguay.

When I was joyfully walking the streets of the Fair Haven section of New Haven Connecticut on a stark late November morning in "stick season", past the devoted Mexican Soccer players in Criscuolo Park, I just had to go into an AG church at the corner of Chapel and Lloyd. I heard, in Spanish, the end of the sermon about a new level of intercessionary prayer and faith action for their city.

I'm thinking "what's up with me always going back to all these AG churches Lord?"

Now I have already talked to AG higher-ups about pastoring, but I don't think my service to the AG is necessarily pastoral.

I think it's about the following word, that I got a couple of days later, in a still small voice:

"It's time for the Assemblies of God to celebrate the Holy Spiritual sacrifice of the Lord's Supper, like the original church after my resurrection, according to whole unity context of 1Corinthians 10-12 (the bread that we bless is it not a Holy Spiritual and real experience of God here and now) and John 6 ("unless you eat my body and drink my blood" you don't have all I want the fullness of life I want to give you) and Luke 22,20 (it's not just a memorial of an old passover. It's a new Spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God)."

Further, "This will bless all my people."

Now I'm no expert in much of anything, but like most of us I do know a little something about eating and sleeping, and perhaps a little something about going back always to serve the Lord. 

So, I humbly offer this word, and the biblical analysis of "Reviving the Lord's Supper" topic on this site which now also includes 40 biblical table of the Lord meditations revealed by the Lord.

Thanks to all my brothers and sisters in the AG, where I have always been welcomed. 

For a short video synopsis of this restored biblical based lord's supper: http://vimeo.com/63572579

For written introduction "Reviving The Lord's Supper From Vatican Dogmatism And Protestant Neglect" and 40 table of Lord Meditations:

http://www.zionpentecostmission.com/the-lords-supper

Copy of email to AG Superintendent and response:

http://www.zionpentecostmission.com/table-of-lord-meditation-n.41.html