Lynn Green

Category: Current Events

  • Are you ready to catch the Wave? This is still the year of breakthrough!

    Are you ready to catch the Wave? This is still the year of breakthrough!

    Photo by Álvaro Serrano on Unsplash

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

    Vikki, a leader in one of our training bases in north western Uganda, sent the following article.  I think it is really important.  She and her husband, John, have clung on to the word of the Lord as they understand it and have not given up, though they have experienced one hardship after another.  I believe they have pioneered something that will be an example to many.

    I felt this letter was so important that I read it out on my weekly Facebook Live-stream.  You can find it there and it will be posted here soon.

    In my summary statements, I recommended  a book. It is Reinventing Organizations, by Frederic Laloux.  I recommend the illustrated version.

    Here is Vikki’s letter:

    A letter to my brothers and sisters in YWAM

    April 2020

    Warm greetings from YWAM Arua, Uganda, East Africa. In the middle of this global pandemic, I would love to share with you what God has been putting on my heart in terms of what He is doing, and what we are still waiting to see. First, allow me to give you some background information for context.

    Six years ago, we first started hearing about a Word of the Lord to the Body of Christ worldwide foretelling a Wave of Revival, a global move of the Holy Spirit that would usher in a Billion Soul Harvest. The timeline predicted this Wave would start in 2020 and continue. For YWAM as a global movement, that Word included a promise of multiplication times ten. God spoke to our founder, Loren Cunningham, about flattening our YWAM leadership structures even more into circles of leadership and relationship, rather than top down hierarchical leadership, in order to prepare for this growth and multiplication.

    In YWAM Uganda, our National Director responded to that Word by removing his title of Director, and taking steps towards expanding the national leadership team into an Eldership Circle with more representation from the various YWAM bases.

    Our response in YWAM Arua to that Word and the promise of multiplication was to look at our current leadership structure and ask God how to position ourselves for this Wave and the subsequent growth. At the time, the encouragement to move into circles of leadership was meant for the regional and national levels, but was not expected to be done at the YWAM base level. There was a sense that YWAM bases functioning at a local, operational level, needed a more top down leadership approach in order to keep things moving smoothly.

    As we prayed in Arua base, however, we felt that in order for this Word to our global YWAM family to come to pass, it needed to reach the base level where the majority of YWAM ministry takes place. We felt strongly that for us to ride the Wave, we needed to move into a base leadership circle that would position us for growth and multiplication.

    Through a significant process of seeking wisdom from other international YWAM leaders, prayer, revisiting the Words of the Lord to YWAM globally and YWAM Arua specifically, as well as reviewing our personal Words of the Lord as individuals … a process that spanned three years… we finally made the move into a leadership circle. John removed his title of base leader and took up the role of elder. Others of us joined John in eldership, and still others came together as ministry leaders for their various teams.

    As I speak, our base of 40 staff has 4 elders and 11 ministry circle leaders working together to run this base and prepare for the Wave… that’s more than a third of the staff in leadership. And no, none of us holds the title Base Leader. It is also important to note that our team includes 3 bases that were operating in South Sudan until the civil war broke out in 2016 when they fled to Arua for refuge. This is one of the reasons we have a plethora of leaders in Arua base.

    It sounds crazy, a recipe for disaster, too many cooks in the kitchen.

    But what if it’s true? What if the Wave is about to hit, revival breaks out, and many new believers come into the Kingdom? What if doors of opportunity that have been locked down for weeks, sometimes months or years, suddenly fling open?

    My hope is that we’ll be ready to jump up on our ministry surfboards and ride that Wave. My prayer is that we’ll be able to multiply quickly as God leads us; grow rapidly with few hierarchical bottlenecks.

    For years we’ve been laboring and sweating and praying and scratching our heads wondering how in the world to lead in a circle, how to trust God to have the final say, not anyone with a title or a stamp. We’ve wrestled with God’s Words and promises, wondering if we really heard Him right, or have we gotten off track somehow. In moments of insecurity I’ve reached out to international leaders, fathers and mothers of YWAM, asking them if we took the whole circle leadership thing too far. Some encouraged us to keep at, don’t go back, hold the line. Others weren’t sure; they wondered if bases need a more directive style of leadership to give vision and focus.

    Ultimately it was God again who encouraged me, who told me to trust Him, to wait and see. As 2020 neared, I felt a growing sense of expectation…would the Wave start to move across the globe? I kept talking about it to anyone who would listen. By then I think a few people had grown a little tired of all the Wave talk. I didn’t blame them… six years is a long time to work and wait and wonder.

    But I continued to pray. I asked God for eyes to see. I lifted up every member on this base and their kids and prayed that none of us would miss the Wave. I staked everything on the Promise of the Lord, and I didn’t want anyone swept under who should be riding on top.

    So I watched for the Wave that would sweep the earth.

    Then COVID-19 rocked the world.

    Wait a minute. Just one cotton-pickin’ minute.

    This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. People aren’t meant to be going into isolation…we’re meant to be gathering in greater number than ever before.

    People aren’t meant to be full of fear and anxiety…they’re meant to be set free and filled with hope and peace.

    People aren’t meant to be dying… they’re meant to be receiving eternal life!

    Everything that is happening is nothing like I expected. Nothing. In fact, the exact opposite.

    On the 18th of March, God spoke:

    You have been faithful to steward my promises, to carry my words both for you and for the base, to believe in the face of doubt and conflict…the time is coming when you will begin to see the fulfillment of these words. The world is in turmoil but I am about to unleash a move of my Spirit more powerful than coronavirus. You are seeing the enemy’s attempt to bring confusion and fear globally. Soon you will see me bring clarity, hope and salvation globally, and what a difference it will make! The enemy can only imitate, distort, mutate, but the Truth is about to be revealed, and everyone will see.

    Once again, I find myself in the place of trusting God’s word no matter what the circumstances. That is what God’s children do… we listen, we trust, we obey.

    Now it is our job to walk in that victory and power, to move in the opposite spirit to the works of the enemy:

    • Instead of division and isolation, let us reach out to the hurting and scared and draw them into a family.
    • Instead of fear and anxiety, let us minister peace and hope.
    • Instead of focusing on physical death, let us lead people to the Source of eternal life.
    • Instead of lifting up the name of coronavirus, let us lift up the Name of Jesus!
    • Instead of helplessness, let us prayerfully move in the power of the Spirit to see healing, salvation, life.
    • Instead of darkness and despair, let us shine our light on the hilltop, that all may see the salvation of our Lord. Let the whole world be filled with the knowledge of the Glory of the Lord as the waters cover the seas.

     

    Let us not give up at the last minute right before the Wave hits, but let us cling tighter than ever to God’s promises. He is YAHWEH… Promise-Maker AND Promise-Keeper.

    Yes, it will be challenging. Yes, we will face difficult decisions and loss in various forms. But if we can stand our ground, hold firm our faith, I believe we will ride this wave with the Holy Spirit in one of the greatest global revivals the world has ever seen.

    Father, help us not to miss this. We’ve prepared for years; we’re ready to ride. Make us sensitive to Your Spirit so we can join You in bringing Your Kingdom of light, love, hope, healing and everlasting life to a world desperately in need of You. Thank You for the privilege of partnering with You at such a time as this. May Your name be glorified. Amen.

     

  • Is the Prophecy True?

    Is the Prophecy True?

    Photo by Jeremy Yap on Unsplash

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

    I took an unusual step on April 6th and published a predictive prophecy about Covid-19.  If you have a look at it, you will see that Craig from Northern Ireland said the Lord had told him it would end in 24 days from the time he heard the message.  That would make it April 8th or 9th.  (The context was not global, but UK-wide.)

    Since then, the news has been consistently bad, leaving an overall impression that the pandemic is getting worse in the UK.  Today, with new figures published from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) and the benefit of two weeks of hindsight, Philip Johnson published an article in the Daily Telegraph.  This quote comes from that article:

    “Figures from the ONS yesterday showed that, in the week to April 10, there were 18,500 deaths in the UK which is 7,000 more than average because of Covid-19 but about the same as in the first week of January 2000, a bad flu year.

    According to Prof Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University and a clinical epidemiologist, we passed the peak of deaths on April 8, which suggests that the mortality from Covid-19 is not much worse than it was 20 years ago. Indeed, with a much higher and older population, it is statistically less so. Arguably, it has been suppressed by the lockdown and yet two countries that have not had one, Sweden and South Korea, have fared better than the UK.

    Prof Heneghan says infection rates halved after the Government urged people to wash their hands and distance themselves from others on March 16. But ministers “lost sight” of the evidence and rushed into an unnecessary lockdown.”

    In spite of the general impressions conveyed by the media, the worst might well have passed.  The other part of that prophecy was that Covid-19 would disappear faster than it came.  So far, we don’t have a lot of evidence for that, but the statement from Professor Heneghan encourages me to pray in faith that this virus will leave our nation and the other nations of the world faster than the predictions.  It has been written and said many time in the past week or two that we will have live with this for years.  May it not be so!

    With our faith strengthened, let’s pray that well-proven prayer,  “LORD HAVE MERCY, LORD HAVE MERCY, LORD HAVE MERCY” and banish this corona virus!

     

  • Message to YWAM During the Covid-19 Crisis

    Message to YWAM During the Covid-19 Crisis

    Photo by T Steele on Unsplash

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

    (I read this teaching message from Martha during my last Facebook live-stream and several people wanted the written version, so here it is!)

     – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

    What strange times we are living in. As the corona-virus crisis started, our YWAM community was confused on how to pray. The crisis brought up a lot of questions: Is this a judgment from God on the earth? Is this the devil’s schemes to destroy all of our “God Plans” this year? Do we repent for God’s wrath to be averted? Do we rebuke the Enemy and the virus in Jesus Name? More importantly, where is God in the midst of this, what is He doing and how do we respond?

    As we prayed for clarity, we realized that this virus started as a result of man’s rebellion to authority and ultimately to God’s laws. It most likely started in what they call a “wet market” in the city of Wuhan where there was illegal buying and selling of live wild animals to be used in traditional Chinese medicine practices. There are two animals in particular who carry forms of this virus; the bat and the pangolin (an almost extinct reptile like animal) – both bought and sold for their supposed “healing powers”. There are strict laws against this behavior in China – but this market was operating illegally. Many of the pandemics that we have experienced over the last half of a century have come out of Asia and from these illegal practices.

    As this virus has been unleashed on the earth – of course the Enemy is loving it! Satan comes to steal, kill and destroy and he is always attacking God’s agenda! But in the midst of this God is still on the throne! Psalm 93:3-4, “The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted their voice; The floods have lifted up their pounding waves. More than the sounds of many waters, Than the mighty breakers of the sea, The Lord on high is mighty!” He is not caught unaware. He is EVER PRESENT and He is using this time for His purposes.

    So, what is GOD doing? And what is our response? I believe there is not just ONE thing, I think there are multiple things He is doing.  But, I wanted to submit to you FOUR THINGS that I believe He is doing and how we can respond in this time.

    1. A CALL TO REPENTANCE. It’s a time to repent as a human race for ignoring the laws of God and bringing destruction upon ourselves. Yes, the virus, but also in other areas where our nations have strayed from God and His Law: In my own country, the USA, since abortion was legalized in 1973, we have killed over 60 million babies. Globally we have experienced the war against the sanctity of marriage. In the West particularly, the homosexual agenda has succeeded in legalizing same sex marriage and pushed for the acceptance of transgender rights and gender fluidity. We have globally walked away from God and his Truths. This time is a wake-up call! And what about our own lives? This is a time to ask God: what is it in my own life that you want to put your finger on in this time? Where are the areas where I have personally strayed from your ways? It’s a time of heart searching and examination. A time of evaluation and pruning. He is cutting away the old ways and the diseased areas of our lives that new growth can come.

    As our YWAM Community began to take our position in repentance, the Lord used several Scriptures to guide us: Numbers 16:41-48 and 2 Chronicles 7:14.

    2. A CALL TO REST. A few years ago, I was reading in Matthew 24:38-39 where Jesus is teaching about the End Times and he says, “For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away.” As I read this, a huge banner appeared in my mind stretching over this verse that said: The Power of Distraction! They were so busy with eating, drinking, getting married – the things of this life, that they missed the Kairos Moment of God!

    We get so busy, our lives are filled with meetings, schools, conferences, traveling… and even though we are doing all of these things for God, we can become so tired and lose the passion for which we started all those things. I think one thing God is doing in this time is saying, come away with me. Come to a time of rest. A time of quiet. A time of solitude.

    Solitude is one of the Spiritual Disciplines. We have been reading the Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. In the chapter on solitude he says, “Don’t you feel a tug, a yearning to sink down into the silence and solitude of God? Don’t you long for something more? Doesn’t every breath crave a deeper, fuller exposure to his Presence? It is the discipline of solitude that will open the door.”

    This time is an invitation to solitude, to rest, to re-calibrate of the rhythms of our lives.

    3. A CALL TO RESTORATION. I’m sure you’ve all read the articles about how this time is giving the earth a chance to heal. I’ve seen pictures of the Himalayan Mountains on Facebook. Apparently, they haven’t been seen this clearly in over 50 years. The canals in Venice are clear. The quality of air over our cities has improved drastically – our environment is healing.

    Restoration is happening in families. I read a testimony of a believing family in Wuhan. Their lives had become so busy, they hardly spent time together. The parents hardly knew their children. Then they were locked down for months together in the home and they got to know one another again. They had time to share deeply. They began to grow in love again – she said it was the best time their family had ever had.

    We are re-connecting with loved ones. FaceTime calls and Zoom have helped us connect with parents, friends and relatives. Marriages are being worked on! Being in quarantine brings up a lot of our weaknesses and deficits. We are face to face with all of our “stuff”! It’s a time to take a raw look at our relationships and to reconcile, to heal. God is using this time to heal relationships all over the world.

    4. A CALL TO READINESS. God spoke so many things over the year 2020 globally. It was to be a year of breakthrough, a year of acceleration for the Kingdom of God. And now, seemingly, this has come to a halt. I believe that God’s word is still true. This will be a year of Acceleration and a year of Breakthrough, but it looks different to what we thought… he is giving us time to get ready for a great harvest! In Darlene Cunningham’s message to us, she relayed the story of when they had to send all of the students home from the Kona Campus. She said as they sent the students home she was thinking, wait, this isn’t what’s supposed to happen, the waves are receding. But then she remembered that often as waves recede, they come back even stronger! A greater wave is coming after this!

    The Scripture that God has given our YWAM community in this time is the parable of the Ten Virgins in Matthew 25:1-10. The essence of the story is that the bridegroom WAS coming. It was a time of expectancy and waiting. It was a pause, a rest, an invitation to wait! Five did not bring enough oil, five did. Then the time of breakthrough happened, the bridegroom came! They got up to trim their lamps but five did not have enough oil – they weren’t ready. This time is an invitation to readiness. Trim your lamps, renew your resource of oil, tend to your inner life, let your roots go deeper, draw into the Lord, rid yourselves of all that keeps you away from Him. Call out those little foxes that are ruining the vineyard – get your lamps ready for the breakthrough that is coming.

    There is an invitation from the Lord in this hour. An invitation to repentance, rest, restoration and readiness. Take time to embrace the invitations. Make room in your schedules to respond. Let’s not miss this moment.

    Martha (working in the Middle East)

  • Inaccessible Truth

    Inaccessible Truth

    Photo by Moja Msanii on Unsplash

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

    A few years ago, Marti and I were invited to meet and talk with the Cardinal of Vienna.  Bruce Clewett a YWAMer, had become close to the Cardinal and had extended the invitation to us and another friend.  We walked to the Palace in the centre of Vienna and were met by one of his assistants who told us we would have 15 minutes.  Everything was formal until the Cardinal appeared, shook our hands warmly and began the conversation by telling us when and how he was filled with the Holy Spirit as a young trainee priest.

    More than two hours later, we were still enjoying very friendly conversation despite the assistant poking his head through the doorway every few minutes.  Before leaving, I asked a sensitive question, after first saying he didn’t have to answer what I was about to ask.  I said, “This has been such a wonderful, easy evening of fellowship around our love for Jesus; are there other senior Catholic clergy who would have been comfortable with this evening?”  Without reservation he named a few, starting with Jorge Bergoglio, Cardinal of Buenos Aires—now Pope Francis.  When he was in Buenos Aires, he was also close to, and remains close to, Alejandro Rodriguez, the YWAM leader in Argentina.

    A GREAT ARCHBISHOP

    On a similar theme, the Canon Residentiary of Coventry Cathedral came to our YWAM base in Harpenden to teach on our reconciliation courses.  Then he was appointed Dean of Liverpool Cathedral, at which point he hosted a YWAM meeting when Loren Cunningham was visiting the UK.  We had a relaxed and very enjoyable dinner in his home and there was no doubt about the depth of his faith, his joy and his remarkable abilities.  Not many years later, he was announced to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury—at which point he also agreed to be Patron of YWAM in England.

    This is not really an exercise in name-dropping; My aim is to make it clear that I know that these two men have a strong, Biblical faith.  Each of them has been working hard to move their Church towards living, outworked faith in Jesus and I am both pleased and amazed to have seen this wonderful development.  But it is very hard work and I doubt that either of them is overjoyed to see the progress they have, or haven’t, made. 

    NO REAL THREAT

    The truth is not a threat to the kingdom of darkness if it is inaccessible.  The offices these two men hold require them to appear almost entirely in formal and carefully managed situations.  They must wear clothing that no one else wears.  Not to put too fine a point on it, they often wear funny hats that you never see on anyone else and the cassocks they wear are more like dresses than the clothes men usually wear.  They often address us from the grandest and most historic buildings, surrounded by priceless works of art.  They must preside over ceremonies that must seem like mumbo jumbo to anyone without an education in the practices of the formal churches. 

    The Archbishop still conducts friendly evangelistic dinners in Lambeth Palace.  On those occasions, he is a wonderful host and shares the Good News about Jesus naturally and confidently.  But we, the public, only see a carefully managed man who seems to have little in common with us.

    A SCANDALOUS MISREPRESENTATION

    The media and entertainment world don’t often give any exposure to the Christian faith these days, but when they do, they like to focus on the “professional Christians”, who dress funny, seem rather stiff and distant and, in the media narrative, often turn out to be hypocrites.

    Jesus was so very different from all this.  He completely avoided all the professional religion of his day.  There was just one thing that made him stand out—WHO HE WAS.  He didn’t need or want to dress differently.  He did not have servants surrounding him and keeping other people away.  There were no crowd barriers and he did not confine himself to religious buildings. 

    THE CHURCH BECOMES SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE

    For more than three centuries, the Church largely followed in the pattern Jesus established.  But, in 326, the soon-to-be Emperor of Rome, Constantine, had some sort of conversion experience and by the end of his life eleven years later, he had elevated the leaders of the Church to positions of formal social power.  We have never fully recovered from that.

    I certainly don’t stand in judgment against the Pope, or Archbishops, or Cardinals or Bishops of Vicars—or celebrity preachers!  But they are trapped in a world that looks like it has little relevance to the daily lives of most people. That serves to make the Good News seem irrelevant.

    HE WAS INCARNATE AND WE INCARNATE HIM

    Ordinary Christians hold the key to solving the problem of accessibility.  “We” are the ordinary people, who dress like anyone else, who live in ordinary houses, cook our meals, do our laundry, go to work (when allowed to!) raise children—but we have a true faith that makes us very different—or certainly should do.

    Perhaps a testimony from Wuhan, ground zero of the Covid-19 virus, will illustrate.  From about 1950, the Christian faith in China grew at the greatest rate ever known in human history.  For every believer in 1950, there were probably more than a 1000 by 1995.  Then the government relaxed its persecution of Christians.  Pastors became more powerful; church buildings sprang up across the nation—some of them big enough to qualify as cathedrals—and the conversion growth slowed down.  After two decades of greater freedom, the government focussed pressure on churches; their buildings were torn down.

    Then the virus hit Wuhan and some of our friends there were very ill.  They grieved and prayed over their city in their isolation.  But they also rejoiced that something in the spiritual atmosphere had changed.  People in their thousands sought out Christians to find out why they were not afraid, why their lives radiated peace.  The number of Chinese people becoming Christians grew dramatically again.

    TRANSFORMING THE ORDINARY

    The TRUTH becomes accessible again when ordinary people live Christ-like lives; when they meet to support each other, to care for others in need, to pray together, to absorb truth from the Scriptures together. 

    Undoubtedly, some of the very large congregations meeting in church buildings in other parts of the world will survive this crisis, but many will not.  Although congregational meeting can be encouraging and large worship celebrations can be uplifting, we might be at turning point when these are no longer the primary expression of Christian faith.  If we become more known for meeting together in neighbourhood groups, sharing our joys and pains together, reaching out to our neighbourhoods, loving the lost and needy, searching the Scriptures together, learning to be open and transparent, becoming more loving and kind—then we might see the kind of growth that Christian saw in the early centuries and has seen again in China.

    Let’s pray and work to make the truth accessible!

    Lynn Green.