Category Archives: church planting

Click on following links for: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

In 2007, I had a weird dream in which I saw a bunch of five bananas. Four of the bananas in the bunch were rotten and one was perfect. End of dream.

I told Honey about the dream, but even with her help, I had no clue what the dream was about.

As with all of my dreams, I wrote it down in a notebook so that I could review it sometime in the future.

Then, I went into the kitchen to make myself breakfast. I poured GrapeNuts into a bowl and grabbed what looked like a perfect banana. As I peeled it, I was surprised to learn the fruit was rotten. Not one portion of it was eatable. I tossed it into the trash can.

Next, I grabbed another banana and began peeling it. Surprise! Surprise! It, too, was rotten. Then, I grabbed a third and a fourth one. Both were also rotten. The trash can now contained four rotten bananas.

Finally, there was only one banana left in the bowl. I picked it up, checking it over. Just like the others, there were no marks on the peel; it looked perfect from the outside.

What do I have to lose? I thought.

So, I peeled it. And in fact, it was perfect in every possible way, not one bruise on it.

As I stood there looking at the banana, the Holy Spirit spoke to me heart: “The first four callings have been restored to the Church and are mostly rotten. The fifth calling will soon be ready. It will be perfect.”

The Holy Spirit was referring to the five-fold callings in Ephesians 4:11 –

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers.

But even more, I felt the Holy Spirit was especially referring to the end-time apostles when he mentioned the fifth calling’s perfection.

The rottenness of the first four callings – teachers, pastors, evangelists, and prophets – is due mainly to the traditional church system rather than to the personal character traits of the people in these callings.  The traditional church system has shoved these four callings into a box and sculpted each of them by its traditions and hierarchy.

The end-time apostles are not coming to fit into the traditional church system’s mold, but instead, they’re coming with sticks of dynamite to blow it apart.

The apostles are coming!

(Continued in Part 5)

Click on following link for: Part 1 and Part 2.

What are the Biblical requirements for being a prophet? Or an evangelist? Or a pastor? Or a teacher?

Actually, outside of being called by the Lord, there are no biblical mandates which have to be met for a believer to become any of these callings. None. Zilch. Nada. Zero.

Now, this does not mean that these callings are imparted without some degree of preparation, but this is strictly the Lord’s decision on what the preparation program will be. He’s the Boss; and He doesn’t confer with men or groups about His preparation plans.

For instance, when the Lord called me to be a prophet, I didn’t rush off to confer with a pastor or  a group; but rather, I just walked in my calling and used the gifts which came with the calling. I began prophesying.

And of course, I made mistakes – lots of them. But my mistakes did not negate the calling on my life. I repented often, learned about my calling and kept on prophesying.

And when the Lord called me to be a teacher, I followed the same course. I walked in my calling and began teaching. Period.

Okay, all of that is fine and dandy for the callings of prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher, but what about apostles?

Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? (1 Corinthians 9: 1)

The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles. (2 Corinthians 12:12)

If you check Christian internet websites, you will notice a glut of people who claim to be apostles. It’s almost as if the calling is as common as pennies; they’re all over the place. So, do we just take a person’s word that he (or she) is an apostle and then submit to him? Take a look at what Jesus said:

I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false. (Revelations 2:2)

Works are not enough to prove the validity of an apostle’s calling. I repeat: works are not enough to prove the validity of an apostle’s calling. The  true apostle must also have had a visitation with Jesus and he (or she) must have signs, wonders and miracles which glorify the Lord.

Anything less than these three biblical mandates causes the supposed apostle to fail the test.

And guess what? We believers are the ones who must check the apostles out.

So, get ready! The apostles are coming.

(Continued in Part 4)

Click on following link for: Part 1.

For most of my dad’s life, he was a Christmas and Easter service attender. Anything more than that took a special program to drag him to a church’s pew.

In fact, I remember as a young boy, hearing a neighbor ask if he would see Dad in church on the following Sunday.

“Well, you just might see me,” Dad replied, “if the church’s windows are clean, and if you happen to look out when I drive by.”

So, with this in mind, you can understand the shock I felt in 1995 when the Holy Spirit spoke these words to my heart: “Your dad should have been the one who trained you and helped you into your calling, but he did not make it into his own calling.”

After hearing the words, I sat in my pickup truck without moving for minutes; I was stunned. To be honest, I did not know if Dad even knew the Lord. And as far as Dad having a calling on his life, that seemed impossible for me to believe.

So, I stored this experience on an empty shelf in my heart.

Two years later, Honey and I went back to my hometown to visit Dad while he was in a hospital. He had suffered a major relapse from a heart valve operation. Because of divine timing, Honey and I were able to spend some time alone with Dad. Honey prayed for him and I asked him questions about his personal salvation.

“Don’t worry about my salvation,” Dad answered, “that’s all taken care of.”

And the Holy Spirit impressed me that Dad was indeed saved. A point which I had not known before that day.

Then, for some reason, I left the hospital for a half hour or so. In that time period, Dad related his testimony to Honey.

It seems that Mom was very sick when I was a youngster. She was in a hospital and her doctor told Dad that it was iffy whether or not Mom would survive her sickness.

At that time, Dad was a twenty-eight year old farmer who loved his wife and had two children under six years of age. He was distraught and did not know what to do. So, while staying at my grandmother’s house, he bowed his knees in the middle of the night and cried out to the Lord.

The Lord saved him and Dad became a child of God. But even with this,  Mom’s life continued to hang in the balance over the next few days.

Finally, Dad threw himself on his knees once again in the middle of the night and cried out to the Lord for His help.

Then, Jesus walked through a wall into Dad’s bedroom and came to Dad and said, “Your wife will live and she will raise her children and see them grow up. But to help you over the next few days, I will come to you and comfort you each time the doctor tells you that your wife may not live. In this way, you will know she will survive.”

Jesus left the same way He entered the room: back through the wall.

Dad said that each time the doctor told him that Mom might not live, he felt peace in his heart. He knew Mom would live.

And Mom did survive the sickness. She is now eighty-six years old.

Five weeks ago, I went back to the Midwest to help my parents for what I thought would be a time of recuperation for Dad. But Dad’s condition worsened and I took him to an emergency room on a Sunday morning.

As I drove him to the hospital entrance, I had a quick vision. In it, I saw myself sitting in the truck fifteen years earlier after the Holy Spirit had spoken to my heart about Dad’s calling. But this time, the Lord spoke to my heart and said, “I’m taking your dad home.”

Dad died on May 2, 2010. He was twenty-three days short of being eighty-nine years old.

Now, I’ve included my Dad’s testimony to underscore an important point: the Church desperately needs the ministry of the apostles.  Many callings need to be fathered and brought into fruition.

(Continued in Part 3)

“He’s dead! He’s dead!” exclaimed the courier from Rome as he walked up to us.

I stopped working and stood up. The other tent makers did the same.

“Who’s dead?” I asked.

“Paul’s dead!” said the courier, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “He was beheaded in Rome about a month ago.”

Even though I knew Paul’s ministry would probably have a sad ending, the news stunned me. O Lord, why? I thought.

I walked away from the group, not wanting to talk about the apostle at that moment. It was just too painful! So, needing to  sort everything out for myself, I walked down to the Aegean Sea and sat on a rock. There, I thought back over my years with Paul.

The first time that I met Paul, I was not impressed. His stature was too puny, only 4 feet 6 inches tall and 110 pounds in weight, and his public speaking talents were too shallow when compared to Apollos and the other orators. Yes, he was brilliant and could write, but these were facts which I learned later and did not figure at all into my first impressions of him.

Yet, there was something about Paul which drew me to him. Maybe, it was his fiery passion for the gospel; or his fierce boldness; or his love for the church. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but anyway, I joined up with Paul and traveled along with him as his aide.

On our first journey to Rome, we ended up swimming in the Mediterranean Sea. Somehow, the Roman soldiers did not execute us and we were able to swim ashore to Malta. And eventually, we did arrive in Rome.

Next, I spent two years, waiting for Paul while he was under arrest. When we finally resumed traveling again, everything became a blur of afflictions, hardships, distresses, beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labors, sleeplessness and hunger.

Then, the fire in Rome changed everything for us from bad to worse. Christians were blamed for the fire and Paul became a marked man. Nero sent soldiers to hunt him down in Asia.

Finally, the stress wore me down. I could not take it any longer.

“Paul, I didn’t join your ministry to be killed by Roman soldiers,” I said on the day of my departure. “I’m going to Thessalonica, start a business and maybe marry a young woman and start a family. I’m too young for a martyr’s death!”

Paul was disappointed, but what could he do? I fled on a boat.

It had been almost two years since I last saw Paul and now he was dead. My mind wandered here and there as the blue waves splashed against the rock I sat on.

Did I make the right decision when I left Paul? I wondered.  And how will I be remembered by future Christians?

for Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica…(2 Timothy 4: 9)

(Continued in Part 2)