Breakout #2

It is my opinion that people will not join or stay in the Church because of some great theological insight, but rather because they are hugged. The Church should be the greatest toucher and hugger within society. As the body of Christ in the world, the Church should be the greatest lover of all. But that is easier said than done. In fact if you’ve been around Church much at all you know that most churches spend more time shrugging than hugging.

Most Churches are great “filling stations,” step right up, get your high-test grace. See you next week: same time, same place. Well it is my desire that the Father’s House Churches would not merely be a “filling station,” but a place where God’s people are formed and fashioned into the family of God, the very Body of Christ. That requires reaching out to others, hugging, shaking hands, and lots of amens.

I believe that the Church is a community of disciples, in which lay people share ministry with the ordained. For me the Church is a community where we try to create as many opportunities as possible, on a quasi-sacramental basis, to lead people into encountering some kind of touch from God. I truly believe in the “real presence” of God in the everyday lives of ordinary people – in the eating, the drinking, the singing, the weeping, the birthing, the marrying and the burying.

Our holiness is in the ordinary, our holiness is in loving with everything we’ve got, and in loving the way Jesus loved. The Church doesn’t make me holy. The Church doesn’t make you holy. The Church reminds us of what we already possess.

With all my heart and soul I believe that the Church is the Body of Christ. I also believe that the Church is the family of God and that I am bound to every man, woman and child of the Church because of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. I believe that in Christ I am a part of every member of the Body of Christ and that they are a part of me. I believe that this relationship in the Spirit is as real and as profound as the bond of the flesh and blood. I believe that I am truly part of the Body of Christ. But just believing all these beautiful things about the Church is not enough. If they are to have the influence on my life that they are meant to have, I must also experience what it means to be part of the Body of Christ. Knowing and believing are just not good enough.

Family and relationships have taken on a totally different meaning for me. Relationship is where I primarily find the Lord. My own quest for holiness is to live all the relationships of my life as completely and as lovingly as I can. The call to shepherd for me means to belong to my people and to allow them to belong to me. I see my life as one in which I am called to share my life with brothers and sisters as they become “flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone.”

The only thing that truly touches us is the knowledge that we are “loved.” The “successful” or “effective” pastor touches his people not because of his theology, style or personal gifts. He touches his people only when he loves them and allows them to love him. The successful fellowship is the place where God’s people experience this love – ministers, deacons and lay staff loving others and being loved in return.

Community is the place where I feel loved, accepted, important and known. Community is not just the place where I am told about the love that God has for me in Christ Jesus; it is the place where I am loved and empowered by that community to give that love to other people. Community is far more that correct theological, scriptural and moral teaching. If the doctrines of the Church do not personally engage and touch me, I can never really hear them or respond to them.

People don’t understand and accept Christian teaching because of logical and scientific explanations, as true and as correct as they may be. Somehow these truths must come alive. The only place where this happens today is in a living vibrant community that is always in the process of celebrating the sacrament of friendship and family. In order to become a real community people must pass from mere formal adherence to principle and rule to a living and joyful sharing of faith and life.

My heart is overwhelmed with the knowledge that the enemy has established strongholds, (seats of resistive authority), within our lives in order to keep us from being fully integrated into the body of Christ, the Community of His Love.

Two of the very strongest “holds” on people today are; “individualism” and “expectations.” Everything in this world is designed around the fulfillment of the individual, thus every individual places expectations upon people around him or her. These two factors are strong barriers to the reality of God’s community of love where every person works for the fulfillment of all.

We are called to lay down our lives for the sake of Jesus and the gospel. We have been called to a kingdom that is more than the sum total of the individuals but rather about the family that is being formed in the likeness and image of our father.

It is time to start a revolution of “re-forming” the family of God that is centered around the very revealed love of the Father, Jesus Christ. His sacrifice was for us “all” not merely as individuals with expectations but rather as a family living and loving together.

The children of Israel thought of themselves as grasshoppers. That is in part because they looked at themselves individually rather than collectively. I want to challenge you to see yourself collectively as the Body of Christ rather than individually trying to tackle the entire world alone.

Unity is the forerunner of the power of the Holy Spirit. With that reality in mind let us move to be re-united as the very family of God, empowered together by His Presence for the removal of every stronghold that has hindered the body of Christ.

In His Great Love,

Bp. Quintin

The BreakOut of Love

The Following is an excerpt from Bishop Quintin Moore's Book "Love the Heartbeat of Christianity" and and excerpt from Bishop Moore's current sermon series "BreakOut"

---

Modern Christianity has elevated the written word so high that it has removed the need for people to have an encounter with God. Modern Christians replaced relationship with for rules and regulations. Jesus said, “You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you'll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me! And here I am, standing right before you, and you aren't willing to receive from me the life you say you want.”

The scriptures are given to reveal, to led us to the Christ. The One who was and is God’s Love revealed to us. If the Church is to recover her role within society and fulfill her assignment to witness to the world, she must have heart surgery and remove the blockages that have hindered her from receiving the love of God and from loving the Lord and each other. Paul had his heart jump started on the road to Damascus. God took the paddles and shocked his heart back to life.

Listen to these words: “If I acted crazy, I did it for God; if I acted overly serious, I did it for you. Christ’s love has moved me to such extremes. His love has the first and last word in everything we do.” He admits that his world was totally overcome with the love of Christ.

Love took complete control of his living. It was the driving force of his life. Love was the energy of all that Paul said and did throughout the journey of his life. He very clearly states that the heart of a Christian is to be filled with love: “…the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

Nearly all of the other Apostles have similar things to say about the subject. Peter says, “Above all things have fervent love for each other.”

ABOVE ALL THINGS!

Peter made it very clear. It is not your doctrine, your denomination, or your degrees that will give you the life that you seek; it is love! Peter says to make love your first priority. Focus on it. Don’t let anything take its place. HAVE FERVENT LOVE!

Wow! Do not just love, but have fervent, unceasing love. Never take a break from loving each other. Why? “… Love covers a multitude of sins.” Lord knows we all need a covering. Peter is very clear; nothing else even comes close to love. The world has offered counterfeits. Even religion has bowed to the demand for new fads and fashions, for the latest and the newest. But Peter and Paul were moved with passion by the love the Master revealed to them. Love is our passion. It stirs and controls us to live beyond the status quo of the culture. It drives us to be reckless and radical. It forces us to love those whom the world and religious people reject and neglect.

Love demands justice for dying children. Love does not just feed the hungry but redistributes the wealth of the world by forgetting the debts of all and restoring the land to the original owners. (the essence of the year of Jubilee)

Remember the last question that Jesus asked Peter? “Do you love me?” Jesus knew that Peter knew He was the Christ, but the question now is, do you love Me?’ Not once but three times Jesus asks this question. Why? I think He was driving the point home, deep into Peter’s heart.

No wonder Peter says, “ABOVE ALL THINGS HAVE LOVE.”

John the Beloved, goes even further: “He who does not love does not know God; for God is love.” Very simply, to know God is to know love. If you don’t love, then you don’t know God. Only those who love know God. The one who laid his head on the chest of the Lord, the one who had listened to the beating heart of the Master, says very clearly God is Love. God does not have love, no, His very nature is love and Jesus is the revelation of the Father’s nature. John challenges us to step out of our reasoning and step into relationship.

The very heartbeat of the Christian life is Love.

Without real God-love, our hearts can never beat with the Life of God. That is why each of the apostles goes to such extremes about the love of God. They heard the Lord’s answer to the question. “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” His reply was very direct and every one of the Apostles heard His answer.

"You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."

All the Law and the Prophets rely upon these two commandments. In other words, all the other commandments are built upon or spring from these two. Over the last five hundred years the church at large has focused on everything but these two. The Body of Christ is separated and weak because of the differences of opinions about everything from music style to baptism. Rather than loving God and each other we have majored on methods and interpretations.

In Christ’s day men were working their way to Heaven by keeping the Ten Commandments, and the hundreds of others that they had manufactured out of them. It is not much different today. People are still searching for the right doctrine or denomination. These arguments have separated the very family that Jesus died to create. Today people are looking for the right Christian formula that will guarantee success and heaven to them. Unaware that heaven is within and that success cannot be measured except within the heart of ones soul, humanity continually seeks to acquire by human effort that which can only be received as a gift from God.

Into this world of rules and regulations, an unlearned rabbi from Galilee named Jesus makes this outrageous statement that if you focus on one thing you will fulfill everything. If you love, you will unconsciously fulfill the whole law. Isn’t it time to repent and return to loving God and loving each other?

Any attempt to become righteous without love is futile. However, I want to quickly caution you, your behavior alone will not open up the doors of heaven for you. (How many people do you know who perform all the right things but don’t really love people?). This little book is a cry in the wilderness for a return to Love. But in no way do I want you to interpret it as a call for merely behavioral change. The change that is needed must be the results of a heart change that has been and continues to be the work of the Holy Spirit. You and I can do nothing on our own, but empowered by the Father’s Spirit we can be and do all things.

We are created by “love,” for “love.” Only the reception of unconditional love will bring us into our fullness as a created being. The enemy does not want any of us to receive that “love.” So he established “strongholds,” in our minds that keep us from being able to believe or receive the “love that is God.” Those false perceptions of who we are and who God is are to be destroyed by the “truth,” of who God is and who we are. He desires to reveal His love to us.

God desires to break into our lives that He might break us out of the limitations that has held us back for generations, I believe that His love is going to break through all the barriers that have been erected in our lives and in our regions. There is a revolution of love that is breaking out right now. So join the revolution and start loving yourself and others and God.