Part 1- Introduction

There are four simple reasons for writing this “manifesto”.

Firstly, the ministry situations in which we increasingly find ourselves defy any attempt on our part to apply our normal human reasoning. We are being asked to solve issues that involve people with complex psychological, spiritual, financial and physical problems, or to find our way to a solution through a web of untruthfulness, deception and sometimes outright evil. In some cases, we find ourselves at risk of violence. Most of these people that come our way would not be considered lovable. Unless we start to operate very differently to the way that we have in the past, we will at best apply a short term fix to a problem.

I feel that the change that God is looking for is for us to become spiritual men and women that can bring the gifts of the Spirit to bear, not only to address the “impossible” issues that these people are facing, but contemporaneously to create a compelling moment for these people to turn to a real, active, and loving God.

Secondly, there is an acute awareness that God has brought these people across our path, and it is not His intention that we avoid dealing with these matters. We don’t choose when to be responsible for people – we have been made responsible. We fail to meet our responsibility unless we step up and deal effectively, efficiently, and “unnaturally” with the situation.

Thirdly, I believe that we are being challenged in our relationship with God to “phase shift” – to move from being primarily physical and emotional beings to people that are “spirit first”. By this I mean that we stop looking at ourselves and the world around us as a three dimensional environment that operates within the boundaries and constraints of time, and begin to perceive and experience things on a larger scale. The spiritual realm is the “real world” – we need to relocate.

Fourthly, and this reiterates some of what I have previously said, I think that we are now moving to a new stage in God’s plan in which we will consistently be presented with the “impossible”. The places where complex, dangerous and high risk situations exist (and are the norm) have now become our new playground. I think that we have been born into a time, and into a specific country, for the purpose of creating and contributing to a watershed moment in history – where 2,000 years of desert wandering comes to an end and significant spiritual progress begins to be made on a wide scale.

There are pockets of spiritual power being exhibited. There are those people that God is using in unusual and powerful ways. But these are discreet events – it’s the equivalent of a paraplegic that has very strong arms, but is incapable of running . The church is not operating corporately as a spiritually powerful entity, with various gifts and talents all working together to provide a fully functional instrument. The time is close where we need to focus our efforts on getting ourselves, and those around us, over the fence and start to act like spiritual men and women.

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