First Summit Session

The first session of the Summit was tonight, the session on Evangelism, and the whole summit is talking in the context of "What have we done? How has it worked? What do we need to do differently?

The schedule was re-arranged somewhat. Arthur Blessitt opened things up with entheusiasm, and Chuck Girard (of the band Love Song) followed up with a wonderfully candid conversation. Trevor represented the "alternative people": goths, punks, hardcores, ravers, metalheads, "retro-hippies", the "global nomadic youth" movement. He emphasized that we've focused on friendship evangelism, and now we only have Christian friends. His emphasis was that we need to rely on prophetic evangelism, or Spirit-led evangelism, or intentional "divine appointments."

It's interesting that we acknowledge the need for the power of God to bring anyone out of darkness into light, but we often overlook signs and wonders - what John Wimber used to call Power Evangelism - to bring the message of hope. Jesus certainly did! Just almost every time He taught the Word, he also healed someone (or many) or cast out a demon or six or something.

That concept was echoed by Cindy McGill who uses healing and prophecy at her Burning Man outreaches (I love her model!) and Matt Sorger who has tremendous success emphasizing the glory of God's presence. Preaching the knowledge of salvation worked for my generation; it does not work for the current one.

This Evangelism session ended with the main speakers praying for and imparting to those among us that feel called to a ministry of evangelism, and those prayed for the rest of the congregation.

Thanks for your prayers for impartation, for clear direction, for Trevor's health, encouragement, and for his speaking.

Oh yeah: I put a bunch of links in the last post: connections to many of the key people and groups; but I forgot the link for Promised Land Fellowship that's sponsoring all this. It's here. They're cool people!

A Day of Scouting

Trevor slept pretty much the whole day which was a very good thing! He's feeling better this evening, and he's still planning to speak at the Summit. I still think it's bad enough that he's following Arthur Blessitt, one of the most well-known evangelists from our generation. Praying for strength, clarity of thought, and clear communications.

Todd and I scouted the area. We walked to the little storefront church that we'll be meeting in (that is hosting this entire series of events!) and then to the park where Saturday's Convocation will be. Didn't realize that it would be so far! Found ourselves walking down Haight Street, and turned right at Ashbury. What a weird place: a mix of the counterculture and mainstreat, smoke shops selling "medical cannibis" next to commercial tourist shops. I estimate that we walked 6 or 7 miles walking, including getting meds for Trevor.

It looks like the wedding of young leaders that was planned has been postponed. I guess it was too big of a surprise for the families.

Found out that the place we're staying is in the heart of the "Tenderloin District" of San Francisco. The locals say, "Sure, there are loads of drug dealers, addicts, prostitutes and mentally unstable street people, but if you can get past that, you'll find it is also one of the city's most exciting and diverse locales." It certainly is diverse!

I've observed that almost nobody on the streets makes eye contact with anyone else, though they're certainly very aware of everyone else nearby. Inside the shops it's different, at least in the local ones (the tourist shops don't count): they greet you as an old friend whether you're buying or just looking. We had a wonderful conversation with the proprietress of a local Thai restaurant.

How desperate this town is for light.

We're in San Francisco!

OK, this is definitely a cross-cultural experience. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The drive down here was long and it was not un-eventful. Twice, we came pretty close to getting hit, and that was before we got to San Francisco. Thank you for your prayers!!

Our team leader, Trevor, is pretty sick, so right away, we're asking for prayer! He's just back from Kenya, but it seems that he's dealing with the 'flu. We assume. We hope. Please pray.

We're ensconced in the San Francisco City Center Youth Hostel. It's a hectic place. The English language is scarce here; I'm sitting in the crowded "common area" and I don't hear English anywhere among the busy conversations. The van is parked three or four blocks away, and the streets between there and here are... shall we say, "an educational experience." I declined her proposed education, and scurried home quickly!

The Summit doesn't start until tomorrow evening; Trevor needs to be at a gathering of speakers at 6:00 pm, so he'll sleep in. We hope to have some time to pray together in the morning, looking for the day's instructions. If we get the chance, we might look around the city, to get our bearings.

We're already in touch with some of the others who are down here ahead of us, and some who will be coming later. It looks like we'll give a ride home (as far as Portland) to one person, and someone else may share our eclectic room here.

Yikes. Thanks again for praying!

Prophetic word for my generation

This is a prophetic word declared by Bob Jones over this movement, though not perhaps over the specific days that we'll be in San Francisco. This carries the heart of part of what we're praying towards:

The youth are gonna come in without number. It's started, you’re not gonna be able to stop it. But they will fragmentate if some of you over 50 don’t get behind them. You’ve got the wisdom of pain and failure behind you; that is really important to impart to this generation that is about to come forth. You can motivate and direct, but one thing you must not do is get in front of them.

Another very important part of the over 50’s is that they are the Joshua generation that’s gonna cross over. You’re gonna cross over before they are. And those of you that have been worried about dying young at 85 or 90 or 100, if you get behind this you’re not gonna die you’re gonna have something to look forward to live. So it really is important. I’ve sent those that have retired and they didn’t re-fire, and they weren’t here long. So it is really healthy for the over 50’s to get something to live for, get behind, fire-up and finance.

The over 50’s has got to scratch to finance it. Sow it in to the youth, sow it into your grandchildren and great grandchildren, because they’re gonna be around. So you over 50’s get a vision for living.

Down to the Wire

We're coming down to the wire. In about 36 hours, we'll be leaving for the Summer of Love Summit.

I spent the last weekend camping with my extended family. Several groups among them serve to sharpen my focus for this trip with their questions. They don't speak Evangelical Christian-ese, so I have to translate my expectations into actual English for us to communicate. That's good, but it is somewhat difficult for a trip like this.

Well, first of all, we're going there to repent on behalf of my generation for fumbling the ball when God started pouring out His presence in the '60's. Then we're going to plan for ways to help the next generation do better. Then we're going to party with the hippies and with Heaven. I didn't discuss the growing feelings of a specific prayer assignment once we get there: how can I? I don't know what it is yet!

Today, we're praying for clarity, for solid relationships between us as we travel ("iron sharpening iron" doesn't always look pretty, does it?) , for a minimum of distractions with directions or travel arrangements, etc. Focus, David; focus.

It's My Turn

For the years, I've had the privilege of being part of the sending community for scores of short term and a not a few long-term missions trips. I can't tell you how much I've valued that, and how much richer I am for having had that experience!

But now it's my turn. OK, so it's a little turn – only about a week – and I'm not even leaving the country, but it's something of a missions trip! I'm excited! And it lines up with a recent prophetic word we got about needing to get back into pioneering ministry. Let me tell you about it.

Early in August, two friends and myself will drive to San Francisco, California, the garden from which the hippie movement sprouted during the "Summer of Love" exactly 40 years ago. It's our belief that the revivial that God started – known in the media as "the Jesus People Movement" – degenerated into the hippie movement: the knowledge of the love of God was corrupted into the casual sex and casual abortions of "free love"; the experience of the Holy Spirit was replaced by a drug culture that shouted, "Turn on, Tune In, Drop out!"; the Spirit of Revival was traded for war protests and campus riots.

In other words, the revival that had been handed to us was dropped, and the move of God was usurped by a move of the flesh: what came about contained some of the same seeds, but at least partly because of the mishandling of my generation, those seeds fell into poor soil. Yet again, Jesus' parable of the Four Soils in Luke 8 makes a whole lot of sense: the Jesus People from Haight-Ashbury fell victim to the weeds and thorns of Jesus' parable, and were turned aside from fruitfulness by many "cares, riches, and pleasures of life."

I'll be traveling with Trevor Macpherson and Todd Adams, and those of you who know these two Godly Yahoos know that their presence means an interesting, if intense, time together. Our goal is to meet with other leaders from the Jesus People revival of the early 70's and strategize how to avoid similar mistakes as we hand the leadership of the current revival to the men and women of the next generation.

We'll conclude with a very large gathering in Golden Gate Park repenting for these and other failures, celebrating the marriage of some of the leaders of the next generation (can you imagine? an outdoor wedding!), and bringing invitation to the denizens of the park for a Wedding Supper. Sounds pretty ostentatious, doesn't it? It does to me too, but that's what we feel like God is calling us to do.

On the way back, we think we can attend church with Graham Cook (Sunday morning) and Bill Johnson (Sunday night), if we plan our trip right. We'll be back home by the middle of August.

You can find similar thinking to ours here: http://www.realsummeroflove.com/

So we're looking for support. We don't particularly need financial support, though if you want to, you can invest in the trip; you can ask us how. What we really need is prayer, and lots of it. First, if you're aware of any ways that you personally have short-cut the legitimate move of God in your own life, please join us in repenting for those sins: that's the main thrust of our trip. Beyond that, we'll treasure prayer for our safety, for divine appointments, for wisdom and humility in the meetings, and anything else you can think of. Please don't hesitate to share what you're hearing in prayer with us, too.

Who knows? This may be just a wild hare of a fifty-something "aging hippie" and his buddies. On the other hand, we think that our Father is up to something, and we want to see if we can help Him, or at least watch Him, in His work. Anybody can do nothing; we'd like to do something. Even if it’s weird.

www.pilgrimgram.com

www.dmclain.com