The Change Has Begun

"The winds of change are blowing. More on this later." I posted that on my Facebook wall just a week ago. This is the "more on that" to which it was referring. If you are on Facebook and you read this blog that probably makes a little more sense.



The first, highly anticipated change, happened yesterday by the clock. Sunrise will be in about two hours, more or less. The mission director and the personnel director walked into my office and sat down. After exchanging the customary pleasantries, one of them said words to the affect of, "This is probably not what you were expecting in this meeting." Soon after, the personnel director told me that would be my last day of employment. Whereupon I replied, "This is exactly what I was expecting from this meeting."


Yesterday was my last day at the Central Coast Rescue Mission by their choice. I had so many people telling me that was going to happen soon, I almost felt like Elisha in the hours before Elijah turned the main, prophetic responsibility in Israel over to him. (2 Kings 2) Only there was not an Elijah turning anything over to me, at least not that I know of.

Thankfully, the Lord has been gathering people around me for the past year or so. I was not even aware that was happening until very recently. It simply seemed like the natural course of events, the ebb and flow of relationships. It is very obvious now that it is much more than that. It is a God-ordained gathering of people with like minds and similar visions for what The Church In Santa Maria, CA can and should look like. Let us add "will" look like, by faith right now. We know God has already done what He is going to do--it just has not been manifested in our time yet.


Now we come to the previous post. If you are starting from the top of the page on your computer screen, and are behind at all, you may want to read "Ecclesiaticisms" first. The first comment was written by a person I know, and I know the church to which he is referring. However, let me hasten to add that when I stopped writing that post, I had no idea he would respond to it. The meeting he refers to had not even happened at that point. There may be a factual error or even two in the comment, but it has been our custom to print all comments in their entirely rather than to selectively edit them. I do not know who wrote the second comment. Again, we have always published all the comments, even when the person writing them preferred to remain "Anonymous" for whatever reason. This blog was started in direct response to a call of God to expose the religious spirit that controls churches and deceives people in the Santa Maria Valley. It is beginning to look as though more action will be required than simply writing a blog. (Somehow I knew I was not going to get off that easily.)

The change has begun. It began on Monday of this week when my employment was terminated. Let me don my prophetic hat and tell you, I know what is coming next. I am not at liberty to share that in these pages at this time. I will write about it in this space after it happens, just as I did with this one. I believe I can tell you, there are people, inspired by the religious spirit, who do not want me to have any more influence in the Kingdom of God than I have. Too bad for them the Holy Spirit set me free from my day job to give me more time to ratchet up the work I am doing. Along with my termination, I lost virtually all my public, teaching ministry. That is only temporary. The truth is, the people who have been gathering around me have already made it clear they will not let that happen.

The change in my employment situation was handled on relatively congenial terms even though the company could have accomplished their goal of terminating my employment without getting personal as they did. The next one could get ugly. Let me assure you, I will be there, but will not be a party to the ugliness. Ugliness, wherever it rears it's ugly head is not the way things ought to be done where love rules. Read about the works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19-21. Those have to be three of the ugliest verses in the Bible. I usually feel as though I need to wash my hands, or brush my teeth, or something, after reading them.

Creflo Dollar talked about "agape tests" in a message I heard a few years ago. Those are times God orchestrates the circumstances of our lives in such a way that we can either follow His way of love or our way of selfishness. When we love, we pass. When we let selfishness be the practice of the day, we have to try again at a later time. That puts everything on hold. We are not ready to serve the Master until we can love. I, we, have an agape test coming. According to Dalton Austin and Anonymous, commentators on the previous post, they had, or are currently having an agape test. Still not telling everything I know, I am taking the same agape test they are. My aim, my goal is to pass this test (and the next one) by God's grace so I am deemed worthy of taking whatever the step after that is.

Now that I reread the previous paragraph and think about it, perhaps my termination meeting was an agape test. Maybe the way I ultimately handle the termination is an agape test. Maybe writing this post and not telling everything I know is an agape test. I do know this: I want to be a person God can use however, whenever, and wherever He chooses. You see, it's not all about me at all.