A New Thing

We just returned from four days of an amazing pastoral/board retreat.

The nature of our leadership retreats changed dramatically back in 2001.

Through a very hard situation we were facing as a church and leadership, we abandoned our typical Spring Retreat of flip charts and 5-10 year planning, for four days on our faces before the Lord, desperate to hear His voice through His Word. It was such a remarkable retreat that ever since then we have done three a year where the goal is being with Him together in worship, prayer and the Word. And, interestingly, we end up getting more strategy and direction from our time in God’s presence than when we tried our best to figure out best practices borrowed from other “successful” churches.

In anticipation of an upcoming retreat our Executive Pastor makes rotating assignments for at least three or four of our pastors to seek the Lord and bring a devotional in one of the sessions through the three or four days away. Without any collaboration, and without fail, in each of the 54 retreats we have experienced in 18 years, God has woven a common thread that runs through the devotions as He speaks to and shapes our lives in ministry.

This retreat a few weeks ago was no exception.

We had just come off an amazing corporate prayer meeting where the worship of the people was like a roar you’d expect from twice the number in the prayer meeting. The time of intercession was powerful as God focused our faith on His unlimited power on behalf of those who love Him (Ephesians 1:19-22). And the unplanned intercession and prophetic ministry over the church from two visiting Ethiopian evangelists felt like the oracles of God to the church.

That prayer meeting, the night before, prompted us in our first retreat session together to wonder if the Lord was getting us ready for Him to do a “new thing” amongst us. And, if this was the inauguration of a new season of His visitation on the church, it caused us to ask each other whether we were ready for a “new thing.” The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were threatened by the new thing God was doing and missed the day of their visitation (Luke 19:44).

What followed over the next few days of the retreat were four devotionals that gave shape to our sense that first day that we, as pastors and leaders of our church, needed to be ready for God to do a new thing in and through us.

1. Our Children’s Pastor challenged us with the calling, the assignments, and even the attire of the Old Testament priests. From several passages in the Pentateuch he observed that, while there was a wide range of duties for the priests, from the tending the Tabernacle to a role in Israel’s wars, their principle and overarching task was to minister in and from the presence of God. The presence of God was their first priority. And that their task of next importance was carrying the names of the people on their shoulders (meaning the work of ministry) and over their hearts (meaning the compassion of ministry). We spent a great deal of time in prayer asking God for a fresh anointing for His calling on us, and actually took time to anoint each other for the new thing God was doing.

2. Our New Heart Pastor (ministering to the broken and hurting), brought a powerful word on the necessity for the Lord and His Word to be like fire shut up in our bones (Jeremiah 20:19)…that zeal for God’s house and people would consume us. He added the necessity for the fire within to be tempered by the trials of life so that, like a sword tempered in the fire, it would not shatter during our engagement with the enemy. Another powerful time of prayer followed, that the Spirit of God would help us fan into flame the passion for God and ministry that launched us in the beginning of our lives.

3. Our Executive Pastor brought a powerful word, using a treasure box his father had made for his children. He said that if all the Lord was doing and that we treasured in our hearts, stayed contained in a box, we would have missed His purpose for doing a “new thing.” He challenged us to take the lid off the box and allow the Holy Spirit to expand His work through us even outside the walls of the church. We concluded that this was a key piece of the new thing the Lord was doing amongst us. Great prayer time followed.

4. The final devotional brought by one of our elders was related to our trust in all that the Lord was doing and wanted to do amongst us, even when it did not fit with the comfort zone of our previous experiences. What followed was one of the most powerful times of prayer with pastors, board and spouses that I have ever experienced.

We came home convinced that indeed God is going to do a new thing amongst us and that our task was to draw near to Him in expectation and be ready to follow, to take steps of faith, and trust where He was leading.

I am convinced this word is for you too.

Read back through the four devotionals and invite the Holy Spirit to fulfill His work through you.

Then be ready to obey!