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Prelude: Because our Bishop’s chosen sermon topic was to speak about "The Last Word on the Jews", including issues surrounding the Jewish people and by relation, Israel and Jerusalem, he offered to let me talk to the topic as well, especially in light of the teachings I've done this year on the God-given holidays and calendar of the Hebrew people.



We had a reading from Revelation 22:1-2 earlier in the month caught my attention.

Quote:Then he [the one sitting on the throne] showed me [John the Revelator] a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

There, we see a great boulevard with a river flowing from the throne. The river contains the water of life. On either side of the river was “the tree of life”. This seems to be a single creature rather than a bunch of similar trees lining the boulevard. The explanation of the tree is pretty neat. This tree evidently produces twelve different types of fruit, a different one for each month, and it produces leaves that bring healing to the nations. When I first reread this that Sunday, I did not hear it correctly and I was reminded of the passage from Isaiah 61. What I feel that I’ve discovered is one of those “on earth as it is in heaven” moments. We’re very familiar with v.1 of that chapter, but let’s look at a larger context.

Quote:The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,

    Because the LORD has anointed me

    To bring good news to the afflicted;

    He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

    To proclaim liberty to captives

    And freedom to prisoners;

To proclaim the favorable year of the LORD

    And the day of vengeance of our God;

    To comfort all who mourn,

To grant those who mourn in Zion,

    Giving them a garland instead of ashes,

    The oil of gladness instead of mourning,

    The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting

    So they will be called oaks of righteousness,

    The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.

Then they will rebuild the ancient ruins,[/]

    They will raise up the former devastations;

    And [b]they will repair the ruined cities,

    The desolations of many generations.

Strangers will stand and pasture your flocks,

    And foreigners will be your farmers and your vinedressers.

But you will be called the priests of the LORD;

    You will be spoken of as ministers of our God

    You will eat the wealth of nations,

    And in their riches you will boast.

Instead of your shame you will have a double portion,

    And instead of humiliation they will shout for joy over their portion

    Therefore they will possess a double portion in their land,

    Everlasting joy will be theirs.



For I, the LORD, love justice,

    I hate robbery in the burnt offering [don’t steal or borrow from the tithe!];

    And I will faithfully give them their recompense

    And make an everlasting covenant with them [we know this as the New Covenant].

Then their offspring [of those who mourn in Zion: us, if we are mourners] will be known among the nations,

    And their descendants in the midst of the peoples.

    All who see them will recognize them

    Because they are the offspring whom the LORD has blessed.

I will rejoice greatly in the LORD,

    My soul will exult in my God;

    For He has clothed me with garments of salvation,

    He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness,

    As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland,

    And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

For as the earth brings forth its sprouts,

    And as a garden causes the things sown in it to spring up,

    So the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise

    To spring up before all the nations. (in the face of friend and enemy alike, a la Psalm 23.)[/b]

This is just all kinds of fun for me, and there is all sorts of wonderful symbolism and prophetic insight to be had here, weeks worth of teaching. For today, I want to concentrate mostly on the oaks of righteousness, and perhaps their primary reason for being, along with a couple of significant scriptural messages from God to us.



We learned in the Spring that God’s intention was for all of His children to all of their generations to celebrate His feasts and holy days. We see that reinforced in the writings of Zechariah the prophet where God declares blessings on those nations that go up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles and profound troubles on those nations too proud to worship the God of the universe.


<CENTER>

*-~~~-*-~~~-*-~~~-*-~~~-*

</CENTER>



Psalm 122 is one of the Psalms of Ascent, or the Pilgrim Psalms. There are 15 in this series, 120 to 134. Four of them were written by King David, including Psalm 122. I often get all twisted up trying to figure out who’s talking to whom in the Psalms. These songs were traditionally sung by the Hebrews while they made their three-time a year treks up to Jerusalem. “UP to Jerusalem” is not a euphemism. To get to Jerusalem from ANYwhere in Israel, you have to go…well, up. At the southern and the northern ends of Israel, you start at sea level, at the Red and the Mediterranean Seas respectively. Jerusalem is 35 miles from the Mediterranean and about 15 miles from the Dead or Salt Sea. From the northern corner of the Dead Sea to Jerusalem is a change in elevation of more than 3350 feet! 3350 feet up in 15 miles long is a steep slope. It’s not the highest point in Israel, but it is still high and it is and always has been a destination.



Three times a year, observant sons of Israel made a trip and make a trip up to Jerusalem to celebrate the prescribed Festivals of the Lord. Tradition holds that these songs were the marching songs. “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord…” “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord…’” As the folks walked to Jerusalem, as the mood struck them perhaps, they explored the emotions and spiritual truths found in these psalms. Bishop plans to spend some time in these psalms soon, so read them and think about pilgrimage to His holy mountain, to the place called Zion.



Psalm 122:6-9 is a bit of a wild ride, grammatically. Sometimes certain translations actually help us. This is a psalm that starts in exhortation, moves to declaration, and then ends in this amazing little teaching. Thomas translation: “Pray this way for the shalom of Yerushalayim” or “Pray this way for God’s shalom to be on the City of Shalom”. Pray=“to ask for, to beg for”; Peace=“completeness, soundness, welfare, peace”, but not absence of war or conflict; Jerusalem, Yerushalayim= “city of peace” or “teaching of peace”. Jesus actually defined peace best when He declared to the disciples, “My peace I give to you—it’s not the peace that the world knows that I give you.”



To pray is an interesting concept. This reminds me of the Syrophoenician woman in Matthew 15:21-28 where the woman prayed and kept on praying that Jesus would heal her demon-possessed daughter. The disciples asked Jesus to send her away because she would not quit SHOUTING AT THEM! She prayed with purpose and intention and with huge energy. Can we learn something about prayer from her? Probably. Crises drive us to our knees. Sometimes we remember to fall to our knees when we have a great joy or triumph. Most everyone I’ve ever talked to about this stuff confesses that they forget to return to the prayer closet when the prayers are quietly or dramatically answered. It’s a point of discipline that needs to be revisited often, I believe. How then, do we remember to pray for things that don’t affect us personally? Write it down? Ask Father to remind you? Pray whenever you happen to think about it (like RIGHT THEN!?!?)? Make it into your screen saver at work or your wallpaper on your computer. How do you make anything into a habit? Whatever works for you. The point is to pray, and in this case, for God’s shalom in that city of His. His idea.



King David is writing as the Spirit prompted, so He the Holy Spirit is charging us to pray for the shalom of God’s City. Look at what else is in this psalm.

Quote:Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:

    “May they prosper who love you.

"May peace be within your walls,

    And prosperity within your palaces.”

For the sake of my brothers and my friends,

    I will now say, “May peace be within you.”

For the sake of the house of the LORD our God,

    I will seek your good.

[Could this be twisted slightly? The house of the Lord is generally seen as the Temple,

    constructed of stones. I Peter 2:5 says that we’re living stones and being built into a

    spiritual house. Not theology, just a thought.]

I also want to bring one more really important portion of Scripture into our discussion. Please turn to Romans 11. This chapter is Paul speaking to believers, probably both Jews and Gentiles, and is saying that God’s not done with Israel. You and I need to keep his words and thoughts from this chapter in mind when we hear people say things like “God’s done with the Jews. We the Church replaced them.” Not so. Paul spells it out pretty well. It’s all very exciting to me, but this business of provoking the Jews to jealousy and allowing that jealousy to bring them to new life in their Messiah? THAT’s exciting to me! Look at v.15 to see what the final revival will look like: “For if [the rejection of Jesus as Messiah] is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?” The implication from Paul is that Jews need Messiah as much as Gentiles. While he was an apostle to and for the Gentiles, he still had in the back of his mind that through his work, he might provoke his flesh and blood, his countrymen, the Jews of Israel, to jealousy or to emulation (11:14, KJV, same Greek word). How can we share in Paul’s ministry in this regard? Salvation through the Good News of Messiah tabernacling among men, first to the Jew and then to the rest of us. Jealousy resulting in emulating Paul’s faith in Jesus as Messiah. How can we do that? It must absolutely be an action, not a passive hope or wish.



I believe that the minimum actions that each of us as believers should take are two, maybe three. First, as we just read, we do need to pray for the Shalom of Jerusalem. Regular, diligent, fervent, heartfelt prayer. The kind of prayer that you pray for someone you know and deeply love. Mike Caughron against cancer prayer. Pete Graeff against debility prayer. Second, the very first words of Handel’s amazing oratorio, The Messiah, are “‘Comfort ye My people,’ saith your God.” How can we comfort His people? Saw a great bumper sticker this week, “Wherever I stand, I stand with Israel”. I don’t want this to be political, that’s a different teaching. Find ways to comfort God’s people, Israel—not the country, the people! Maybe make a small donation to a reputable organization that has feet on the ground in Israel who provide the hands and feet of Jesus to needy folks in Israel, especially the Jews, but not just the Jews. We have supported one group for years who has a special outreach to Holocaust survivors and their families. Food, personal visits, paying utility bills, and other comforting activities. Those are both fairly easy, minimal-sacrifice-needed kinds of actions, and darned good ones. The third, “maybe” activity depends on you keeping your eyes open in your world activities like work, shopping, and community involvement: Do you know people of Jewish descent or practicing Jews? Make a friend! This means learning kid names, religious holidays, meaningful times in their lives and learning how to befriend a Jew. No need to preach, just be a friend. A GOOD friend. When they see you’re serious, eventually they will want to know why, and then you have permission to say, “Because I love what my God loves, Israel and the Jews.”



Discussions about Messiah won’t be far behind.

“What’s the Church For, Anyhow?”

Dean Thomas – October 16, 2009



A woman at work asked me the question recently, one of those that deserved an answer. I asked for time to consider my response because I knew that she was one who had been bruised in previous church relationships. Then our church lay leaders were asked to fill out portions of a survey that came from a Baptist scenario. Being a liturgical congregation, many of the questions from the baptistic survey really did not fit our mindset or philosophy. It was as though Father was saying to me, “Well, what do you think the church is for, anyhow?”



One thing that most can agree on is that church should really have nothing to do with religion. Religion is what results from the expression of faith through our works. Church is more than that, and it should certainly include the battle against religiosity or a religious spirit.



Then there were conversations with a friend about what his congregation was up to, what their goals and aspirations were. That pushed me further into the thought process of trying to discern what His thoughts and aspirations were for this people, the church, the people that was no people and yet now is a people. The Hebrews have a great term for it—mishpochah or mishpacha, or “family”. From the folks that I know who have some Hebrew skills, this term can be used for a blood, nuclear family (dad, mom, kids), the extended family, or most often for the family of faith. We’d call that the church! Here we have blood relations without any DNA involved.



Family is certainly a major reason for the existence of the church. One translation answers the question about “pure and undefiled religion” being the care of widows and orphans (James 1:27). And Scripture also talks about setting the solitary in families (68:8 KJV or “God makes a home for the lonely” in NASB). Orphans and widows are solitary! Single moms and dads are solitary. Single unmarrieds are solitary. When we include them honestly and at the heart level, we are walking out God’s idea of “pure” religion. There are other inferences that religion is man-made or self-made (Colossians 2:23). To quote the late Steve Irwin, “Danger, danger, danger.” Expression of one’s faith, trying to follow God’s teachings on how He wants to see this done.



Every family is different, right? Yet in Christianity, we have the same DNA of Jesus running through our spiritual veins. We have one Father, one faith, yet many expressions. That’s diversity, and needed. We would be hard-pressed to call any of them wrong, lesser, better, or any other label. That expression of the Family of God is either part of the Family or not. Crazy Uncle Festus is off the wall, but still part of the family. Believers who are Baptists, Catholics, Charismatics, whatever, ALL are in the family who believe and confess with their mouths that Jesus is Lord to the glory of the Father. Do all of them walk out their faith the same way? Oh, heck no! But let’s look at the basics.



What kinds of things did Messiah tell the disciples/apostles to do? What kinds of things did the Holy Spirit prompt in Acts? All sorts of things, some long term, some short term, some immediate.



The “biggie” is, of course, the Great Commission. Matthew 21:18-20 (NKJV used here) is the most expansive definition and has some interesting points. Jesus said, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” To which Matthew added his own thought, “Amen.”



First, Jesus established by what right He was giving this charge. Since all authority has been given to Him, therefore go. So we immediately have God’s stamp of approval on these points.



Look at the points:



Make disciples. This is an interesting command. King James says teach and then in the next verse also says teach, but the two words are very different. This one is probably better as “make disciples”, mathēteuō in the Greek. Making disciples is an interesting process. I don’t know the Greek word picture here, but the sense seems to be to mould to the precepts and concepts of another. One hears the teachings of Messiah, is pierced to the core with the incredible truth involved and wants to not only know more, but to study, absorb, and ultimately emulate those precepts, to become the embodiment of that truth. We cannot force people to accept Christ. The Crusades and the Inquisition should have taught us that. If people see the change wrought in us and ask us why and how, we can share about the How and the Why. They people who’ve seen the results of the power and are confronted with the power of the Truth, can make a choice. Once they choose to follow Christ, we have started them on the road of discipleship. The ultimate goal of discipleship is teleios, mature believers who can minister from what they themselves have received (a bit of a twist on 2 Corinthians 1, comforting instead of ministering). One rule in the Kingdom is that I cannot take you higher or deeper than I have been.



Baptizing them. This is what we consider to be a sacramental function. It walks hand in hand with the discipling function. It is more than mere emblem, we know that. The water dries, the clothes dry, and once the hair is dry, no one will know by appearance that the person has been baptized. It’s still a command. When one studies baptism, the impact of the word is marvelous. It’s a word used by wool dyers. White wool gets “baptized” into the permanent purple dye. It will never be the same. It is now purple to the core. Dip it again and again, and the wool will deepen with color. It’s still wool, but it will never be white again! When we are baptized in water, we are being baptized into Christ, that we can take on the likeness and precepts of the One Who saves. It really goes hand in hand with the discipling process as well. There is a verb tense in Greek that is an ongoing tense. It was used for the words of Jesus and the words of Paul. Jesus said, “Ask…, seek…, knock…” Translated, it means “ask and keep on asking…, seek and keep on seeking…, knock and keep on knocking”. A couple of Paul’s words that use this tense are “be filled and keep on being filled”, “pray and keep on praying”, “rejoice and keep on rejoicing”. You know the quotes, my guess. Paul also talked about needing to work out one’s salvation, or to walk out one’s salvation. The concept is to be saved and keep on being saved until ALL of your being is converted to Messiah’s way of thinking.



Teaching them. The word here is the one from which we get didactics, or the process of teaching teachers how to teach. This relates also to what are often called the “five-fold ministry gifts”. When we read Ephesians 4:11 the word teacher is also this same root word, and in verse 12, we find the reason for all of the five-fold gifts: for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry. They teach us to teach others, with the expectation that we will teach others. That’s part of God’s plan. It’s not enough to suck in knowledge and precept and concept and nifty acronyms and formulae. The plan is for us to become productive in the kingdom!



One of the things that we need to be taught and reminded of regularly is in the next line of the Great Commission: “I am with you always…” First, it’s present tense, not future. Second, have you ever noticed that, in English, we see YHWH invoked here? I AM with you always.



To sum this part up, get them equipped to live the Life and walk the Walk. Seal them sacramentally. Teach them how to teach others. Help them find the assurance that I AM is and will be with them always. “Church” or the assembled saints is for the express purpose of corporately walking out God’s plan, everything talked about here and more.



What does "walking it out" look like? hrug:



That’s a separate post. :lecture:

Hello all,



My name is Gabriel and I am new to the site! I am a 30 year old male who ministers in my church choir, as well as in mime, liturgical, and hip hop dance. I've been dancing since I was about 12, but did not begin dancing in church until I was 19.



My pastor called for an urban dance team and I joined. 3 years later, I became team captain.



I began to branch out and explore other areas of dance and have grown to love mime and creating theatrical urban dance pieces as well.



I hope to meet great people here and grow as a dance minister.

This past weekend, our dance team did a ministry piece for our Sunday service.



It was I bow my knee, sung by Ron Kenoly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ixVjk51kfo



The song is simple worship chorus with a very slow tempo, but the arrangement and vocals are excellent and it builds throughout the piece, has a great intro and ending....all components that can make for an anointed presentation piece.



As I listened to the song through for the first time, I immediately knew we could use it as vehicle of expressive worship and give a throne room experience to those who saw it.



The choreography used dance, a banner and crown, and celebration streamers. The multi-colored Celebration Streamers represent the favor of the Father over His people, taken from the reference to Joseph's many-colored coat representing the favor of his father.



The piece begins with a solo dancer who is joined by a second for a duet of the 2nd verse. A king's crown is brought in. We used the <URL url="http://www.zionfire.com/Crowns.html">Redeemer King crown, because we have access to the throne of grace by the redemption bought for us by the blood of the Redeemer, Jesus. Then, as the dance continues, the <URL url="http://www.zionfire.com/KingJesus.html">King Jesus banner is processed and positioned at center front.



At this point the two dancers are joined by the 3rd (who had just posted the crown brought in). The three dancers take the celebration streamers, join the sticks in the center, and form a pinwheel formation with the streamers stretched out overhead. As they rotate, the image is one of the believers walking under the canopy of the Father's favor.



On the final choruses, the dancers move the streamers out to sides and center of the congregation, and then come back in and join for a final pinwheel formation. The piece ends with all dancers facing the banner (which is center front) with streamers stretched overhead and lifting in honor to the King.



We did this with a small team of 4, with one dancer doing double duty as crown bearer before joining the final streamer choreography. More dancers could be easily added into this blocking plan if there was sufficient space and personnel available.

This is intended to be a series on the streams themselves, expanding on what has been said already, I'm sure.

===============================================

We talk a lot about three streams and we have labels for them, but what are the streams about and what do those streams bring to the table?



Convergence worship incorporates three distinct flavors of Christendom under one umbrella. It brings the advantages, the concerns, and the pitfalls of all three, but it also brings the standard, scriptural benefit of a three-stranded cord—much more useful and stronger than a single or a double stranded cord could be.


Evangelical Stream



What is being “Evangelical” and how does that express itself? While the label implies an evangelistic bent, that’s not all there is. Think about all of the things that go on in an evangelical congregation. There is often a strong teaching element, usually heavily influenced by scripture and scriptural themes. The need for attention to personal responsibility in the relationship to Messiah is certainly a strength. In worship and praise, hymns have traditionally been a large part of the mix. Like any musical form, hymns can be good, great, ho-hum, or downright non-scriptural. There is a richness in Christian hymnody in areas of theology, doctrine, and even the Christian walk. Yes, there are some pretty schlocky hymns that really don’t support theology, doctrine, or anything but the feel-goods of the faith. When we all get to heaven, when the role is called up yonder, etc. By incorporating the evangelical, we bring the awareness of the need for an intentionality when it comes to salvation, teaching about what it means to be a Christian and walk the Walk, a rich tradition of the use of music for worship, praise, teaching, encouragement, and exhortation.



Charismatic Stream



What does it look like to be Charismatic? This is probably the toughest to define. It’s not enough to “know it when I see it” either. The world uses this word in a very man-centered way. That double meaning has had a lot of unintended consequences. Too many Charismatic congregations have been built by and around charismatic pastor-teachers. That’s probably not fair as there have been many other churches that were really based more on the personality of the leadership or the quality of the music services than on a pure Christian, community ethic. The root of the word in English is charism, from the Greek charis, most often translated as “grace”. The church fathers extended the word’s meaning to particular gifts of the Holy Spirit given as graces to religious communities to distinguish them from each other and from the world, and then it was taken even farther so that “a charism is a gift freely given by God to a person or community, for the good and service of others in bringing about the Kingdom of God.” (vocations.ca) When a new work emerged in the 1960s, the word was stretched again to name and define that work as the Charismatic Movement, a Pentecostal movement within the evangelical and liturgical churches. Typical services were (and are) marked by what were seen as the manifestation or works of the Holy Spirit and included the miraculous, the prophetic acts, and speaking in tongues (glossolalia). There is often a very personal aspect to the ministry in Charismatic services. The prophetic can be either for the assembly or for a single person or family. The miraculous would include many of the gifts of the Spirit outlined in I Corinthians 12.



Sacramental Stream



The third stream is the sacramental or liturgical. The major emphasis in this stream is not the actual liturgy itself, as some would suggest, but the emphasis is the very focus of the liturgy, Holy Communion, the Lord’s Supper, or the Eucharist. Again, the liturgy is very much a teaching tool, as is hymnody in the evangelical community. Prescribed prayers are recited, portions of Scripture are read and explored. The basics of the liturgy itself are fairly constant, as are the words and actions surrounding the consecration of the elements. That constancy and repetition create a stable means of passing on the essence of the faith that is as significant as the songs sung. People hear the words and often repeat them silently or under their breath, thus participating in the actual rite, involving themselves in the most important sacrament in Christian life.



For hundreds of years, two of the streams have coexisted, sometimes at odds, sometimes with little awareness of the other. There have been hints of the Charismatic stream from the beginning of the church, but usually those hints have been isolated and often ignored. Ecstatic speech, words of wisdom and knowledge, gifts of healing, visions and prophetic utterances are sprinkled through the writings of the church fathers for those with eyes to see. When the Reformation split the church again, there were still hints that the Charismatic stream had not disappeared, but it seemed to have been pretty successfully suppressed. At the turn of the 20th century, there were eruptions of the Charismatic. The Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles, CA, a similar event in Topeka, KS, others in Alabama and Florida and what became known as Pentecostalism was born and it was as though the Holy Spirit was again unleashed in the world. Pentecostalism was a pretty good partner for the evangelistic stream. It would take nearly 70 years for the liturgicals to embrace the Charismatic, but they did. Now there were two separate, two-stream expressions of Christianity and there were people (leaders and laity alike) in both streams who knew there was more, but had no idea what that could be. Slowly, Charismatic evangelicals began to crave and seek the sacramental and Charismatic liturgicals began to awaken to revere the evangelical.



For some, the culmination of these amazing things occurs when a group of believers set aside their biases and suspicions to pursue the melding of all three at the same time, as complementary forces, working toward that scriptural three-stranded cord. When a body honors the sacrament of Communion and promotes the need for a personal and integrous walk with Messiah and recognizes that God can and will work sovereignly and powerfully, they discover the strength of God’s three-stranded cord.

Probably our favorite worship leader, because he produces songs that are sublimely suited for pageantry and throne room worship. The arrangements and production are always well-crafted and the delivery is passionate and anointed. We have more Paul Wilbur pieces in our repertoire than from any other artist because of those reasons. That, and because he has the same heart for Jewish roots in Christian worship that we do in ZionFire. We are thrilled anytime we have the opportunity to minister with him and are always happy to hear of his next release, because we know there will be something on there that we can use to proclaim the Kingdom through coordinated pageantry.





To be continued....