Notes from Columbus: 5/3/2005 Rick Evans

How to lead healthy balanced ministry.

As part of the normal christian life, we should see healings. There will be different levels of anointing, but we should be seeing stuff.

There are 10 things that will help us to lead healthy balanced ministry times in the life of the church.

1. Believe in your heart that God wants to speak to you. The prophetic: God telling his secrets to his friends. We need to believe that God wants to speak through us. Jesus said "My sheep hear my voice"
   
2. Go beyond the obvious. Go beyond ministry by application. The sermon may be on a certain topic, but God may also be doing something else. Don't beg people to come up to satisfy the last teaching point.
   
   
   
   • Before the ministry time, prepare and listen.
     
   • When you arrive, look around and notice what God is doing.
     
   • During worship, look and sense what is going on.
     
   • During the teaching, also look around.
     
   • As you invite the Holy Spirit, don't be in a rush.
     
   
   
3. Commit to the activity of waiting on God. Learn what his voice sounds like in the quiet, so you can hear it in the noise. We want the giver, not just the gifts. In terms of hearing God's voice, we are always on a learning curve. It will grow over time as we are faithful.
   Ahead of ministry, listen and wait. Give God the opportunity and time to speak. (Rick shows up to conferences a day early and begins to walk. He brings a single piece of paper titled 'ministry time' and asks God to speak to him. God often tells him both the person's situation and what he wants to do or say. This builds faith, which leads to authority.)
   
4. Approach ministry times with authority. Be strong but not arrogant. Authority comes out of hearing what God wants to do. (If you didn't hear anything, still invite the Holy Spirit, but don't claim to know something if you didn't hear yet). Jesus has all authority and sends his disciples in his authority.
   
5. Two heads are better than one. Build a team. Benefit from collective gifting.
   
6. It's all in the packaging. This doesn't mean that you get slick, but don't scare people. Don't make people afraid you will point them out and reveal their sin. Give the word, but let them respond rather than singling them out.
   
7. Look for the signs of the Kingdom. The Lord may speak warnings to you. He may give you a sense of what's coming up. There are certain catalogs of images to become familiar with and notice -- a broken mirror may mean a woman hetes her image, for example. Look for the demonic. Look for the Holy Spirit.
   
8. Ask God for more anointing. And ask for your new marching orders.
   
9. Take time to stand in the waterfall. Receive.
   
10. Never give up!