Lutherans and Rick Joyner

Right now there is a conference going on in St Paul MN. It's being put on by a group coming out of the ELCA called Lutheran Renewal.

They are having some great men of God at the conference. Rick Joyner, Graham Cooke, John Paul Jackson are among them. I got this information because of a note from Rick Joyner on Facebook. These are prophets on the leading edge of what God is doing in his church.

This is the Larry Christiansen Group. They've been around a long time.

Much good has been done by his group in encouraging freedom in the Holy Ghost in the Lutheran Church ELCA. Meanwhile the ELCA as a denomination has drifted into profound apostasy.

I have charismatic pastor friends who USED to lead Assembly of God churches who now lead Lutheran Churches who have left the ELCA and have affiliated with some other group, most of the time Free Lutheran and Sometimes a small denomination from Fergus Falls called Lutheran Brethern.

Some years ago Peggy and I were part of a small church that was the keystone church in leading such a movement in the LCMS. Del Rossin was the head of that group. Faith Lutheran of Geneva.

They had conferences where Members of Renewal in Missouri would come in and meet. Several hundred pastors were participants. In it's day it did much to encourage pastors and leaders to enter into the fullness of the Baptism of the Holy Ghost.

We often would host these out of town pastors at our home. They were precious men of God hungry for more. I loved the humility and passion they had.

It also gave me a vision of what GOD was doing in denominational churches to bring new life, renewal, to them.

Even though hundreds of good charismatic ELCA churches exist, they cannot stay affiliated with a denomination that pokes God in the eye. They must of necessity leave that group when new light comes.

In the LCMS however, even with the Renewal in Missouri organization going quiet as leaders age and retire, the fire has been lit and is growing. I don't know numbers but I'm guessing thousands of pastors and leaders flow in the power of the Holy Ghost in all the fullness of the spirit.

I know many. Hear about others. God is honoring the commitment to the core of the faith that the LCMS and it's unwillingness to compromise with the world by pouring out HIS spirit in power in many churches of the LCMS.

The day of the big organization is over. Cross pollination is happening. It looks like this is renewal in the LCMS one congregation at a time. That people and the pastors are drawn to the things of God without some grand Scheme....Except by the Holy Spirit.

Will it cause a split. Perhaps. But that split already exists. My hope is that the light of the truth of the GOOD NEWS will shine on congregations whose only anchor of faith are documents and confessions from long dead German theologians. Martin Luther was profoundly right, many who followed on later began to erect walls of dogma that try to keep people inside some imaginary construct (see the Matrix).

I just read thru the small Catechism as published by the LCMS's Concordia Publishing House. If you just read the words of Luther, any pew jumping Holy Ghost church or tongue talking pastor will heartily embrace them. It was good to read it again. It gave me insight into how damaging bad theology can take good theology and distort it.

It's the "additions" and editorial comment in explanation that are so harmful. They put God squarely in a box and try to close it.

He won't be closed in. He's God. He laughs at this.

Let God be God and those who choose to be his enemies be scattered.

And THIS is why I believe that GOD is doing what he is doing and I want to follow the Blackaby admonition, Figure out what God is doing and cooperate with HIM. I do. I am. I'm not here to change the LCMS. I have no capacity for that. I am here to cooperate with God as he does what he does.

Where that takes us all God only Knows. That gives me comfort. I don't have to know.