From the Desk of Steve Shultz:
I hardly know anyone who doesn't need some restoration in their own family...I think we all do, and this includes the Church family as well.
I want you to read through this heart-felt message by Lyn Packer of New Zealand, as she offers great revelation for family restoration and unity in the Church.
Lyn Packer says:
Over the past few years, as I've carried this word growing within me, I've become more and more convinced that the Church needs a fundamental shift back to viewing each other as family...
Let this word from Lynn take us all into fervent prayer for the Church family at large! (To Subscribe to the Elijah List subscribe here.)
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"God Is Calling the Church Back to Being a Family"
Lyn Packer, Tauranga, New Zealand
For the past few years I've carried a prophetic word inside me that has built up over time, and I believe now is time to release it. That word is what follows in this article.
God is calling the Church back to being a family, not an institution, a ministry or a business, but a family – His family!
Let me give you some insight into how this word came about. For several years I had lived with this growing uneasiness, a feeling of being dislocated and disassociated from family somehow, even though I dearly love and see my natural family often. It wasn't until I was talking to another prophet one day that I understood what had been happening to me. They said, "Prophets often live their message, not just give a message."
All of a sudden things made sense. I had been feeling the heart of the Trinity for their dissociated, dislocated family. I had carried this in me, feeling both their pain and the Church's pain. Since then, as the Lord and I have been processing in preparation for releasing this word, He has lifted those feelings and I feel normal again.
Prophets not only often carry the message within them, they also often model the answer, and unknowingly in my own life, I had been doing this over the past few years. My heart's cry and my focus has been to embody and live out this prayer: God, You are love and I know, as one made in Your image, that's what You've made me at my core and what I'm learning to be. God, make me a living manifestation of love!
Where We Are Today
Over the past few years, as I've carried this word growing within me, I've become more and more convinced that the Church needs a fundamental shift back to viewing each other as family.
Many times the Church doesn't feel like family because deep down we've strayed away from seeing it as that, and therefore haven't put our efforts into being that. Instead, we've often come to view the Church as a ministry, a meeting place, an institution, and it has often been modeled on a business or ministry, not a family.
We may acknowledge that we are brothers and sisters with our words, but when the Church is run on any other model, family will never be able to truly function. Does there need to be processes, structures and other things in place for the family to function well? Yes, but those processes and structures must come from the base of providing a place where family can be facilitated and really thrive. Our call is not to build a ministry or the best church in the city, even to affect society, as good as that aim is. Affecting society should be a natural outcome of the family of God functioning and loving others well. (Photo via Unsplash)
All over the world many people in churches everywhere are dissatisfied, feeling disconnected from other church members. They are longing for true family and community and aren't finding it in the places where they meet to worship. There's no worse place for that feeling of being lonely and disconnected than in the family of God. Why? Because...(continue reading)
