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.

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