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Light the Nation Report--held in Dallas TX, May 5-8,  Section 2
written by Teri Lee Earl
(Please feel free to pass on each or all reports, with copyrights attached)

A New Way of Being Church

May 6, 1998  4PM workshop
Speaker: Pablo Deiros

After saying some general things about revival, Pablo began to speak of history.  He taught us of how Constantine changed Christianity - made it the state religion of the Roman Empire.  He changed our meetings from homes to buildings (temples like the other gods had). The church changed in many other ways.  The church mission changed. The priests and clergy were divided from the laity - even the gift of tongues became the reading of the Bible in Latin.  I didn't take extensive at this point because I'm already been familiarizing myself with this history, and it blessed my socks off that someone was speaking of it publically.

Pablo Deiros stated that we need to change to change our paradigm to a new way of being a church.  Traditionally, we have read church history from our past to our present.  If we are now approaching apocalyptic times (end times), we need to look at history from a different perspective.  We need to look from our future to our present.

The Christian paradigm of today is in a terminal condition.  We need to become a church that listens to the Spirit, going back the basics of the days of the apostles.

--
Up until now as far as I know, this subject matter has never been shared publicly by anyone who is well-known. .  I had desired to thank Pablo profusely for publicly sharing what many, many people across U.S. have been hearing about from the Spirit.  God provided the chance to do so. I was forthright and expressive of the fact that 2 years ago in faith we had put up a website in order to both prophesy and prepare for what the Lord was saying would come. Since then, there have been many responses from people who are hearing the same thing. Pablo had some specific exhortations and encouragements.

This Light the Nation report was given by Teri Lee Earl © 1998 Harvest NETwork  (http://www.harvestnet.org)


On Strongholds

May 7th, 4PM workshop
Speaker:  Eduardo Lorenzo

This was the teacher I mentioned earlier who had to wait on the Holy Spirit battling religious spirits and common U.S. mental strongholds before he could make the point.

This teacher stated:  Certain strongholds of the devil have to do with our culture which has influenced us for many years ... the religious spirit has become a backdrop so that we don't understand the truth...How did Jesus form His church?, he continued...  He had little money so he probably rented a small house at the edge of the town and put up a sign.  He was a carpenter, so we can be sure that it was a beautifully crafted sign which said:  "Signs and Wonders Sunday mornings 9:30AM & 11AM, Prayer meetings every Wednesday night"  Eduardo said, "This is a good method.  A good method for the devil."

The truth of Scripture comes into our head and if it stays there, the birds of the air will steal it.  It must go to our heart and be expressed in our body, for instance the joy of the Holy Spirit might cause us to jump up and down, praising Him with our mouths.  Love might cause us to touch and hug, and express the fruits of the Spirit.

Eduardo noted that the great majority of the people in the conference thought that they would receive the conference when Claudio touched them.  Nothing wrong with this - if you believe you will receive by touch, someone will need to touch.

Eduardo spoke of oil in our lamp.  We don't get this from Carlos.  The Holy Spirit gives.  "If we receive from the oil in our lamp, we won't need to go to specific, detailed conferences with Cindy Jacobs to tell us how to do intercession. We'll know from the Spirit" (Eduardo then seemed to realize that it might appear as though he was putting down ministries such as Cindy's, so he took care to state that conferences such as these are good).

For 20 years as a pastor Eduardo thought that converts had to come to church.  This was a stronghold in his mind.  God spoke to him, "I want Adrogue [Eduardo's city]."  So, he had moved there.  As time went on, he thought that he was successful.  The church was growing, but God kept saying "I want Adrogue."  The Lord told him to buy a local theater.  This would take $700,000.  It is impossible to borrow such money from the banks of Argentina.  But when God directs, we obey - we don't need to know why. He had to move his church back to the smaller building in order to buy the theater.  For 20 years God kept saying, "I want Adrogue." When Eduardo asked God, "Am I doing something wrong?" There was silence.  Finally he realized that the question was wrong, so he asked God, "Are we doing everything wrong?"  God said "Yes!"  Then God told him, "Everything you are doing inside, do outside."

The walls of our temples hide the glory of God.  Do everything outside where everyone can see it.  The devil says, "Your experience is personal.  Keep it private!"  (Eduardo and interpreter hid behind lectern now to illustrate.)  Then the devil says, "It's biblical."

Christianity is a public expression.  The 120 people waited for 10 days in the upper room.  Some argue that God was preparing them then, but the Holy Spirit wasn't waiting for the church, He was waiting for the multitude to arrive for Passover.  They spilled out on the street - if they had stayed in the room after the Holy Spirit came, they would still be arguing today about exactly what happened.

-----
end of account of this teaching
This Light the Nation report was given by Teri Lee Earl © 1998 Harvest NETwork  (http://www.harvestnet.org)


One City, One Church

Ed Silvoso and others spoke often of Church being actually One church in a city, in God's eyes and in His Word .

Ed Silvoso spoke of changing spiritual climate of city via prayer. Then Luke chapt 10 as model. Don't stay in closet praying--*prayer evangelism* (praying for the felt needs of the lost)--publicly!!!!. Houses of prayer, booths of prayer, for lost to come to for prayer. Bless them, fellowship with them, pray for them, THEN preach to them.

I am going to quote a paragraph from Ed Silvoso's book, "That None Should Perish" pg 81.  I'm quoting this because it says succinctly what the Argentines referred to many times regarding the role of the pastors according to Scripture:

"I know of no church that criticizes its pastor for not taking care of the needs of the lost sheep (salvation) but know of too many churches that have fired their pastors for not taking care of the 99 sheep that are safely tucked into the fold.  Nothing could be more opposed to Jesus' teaching about the role of the pastor.  In Luke 15:1-7, He emphasizes how the good shepherd leaves the saved sheep to go after the lost one.  Our selfish preoccupation with our cosmetic needs at the expense of the eternal life of the lost is the ultimate expression of the religious spirit that controls many Christians today."

 ---------

The following is my very basic synopsis of my understanding from conference of the Argentine's strategy for taking cities for Christ. Please keep in mind that all of these strategies have been prayed over carefully, and that the Argentines are constantly listening to the Holy Spirit and whatever adjustments He might make:

-Pastors of churches/fellowships reoriented to the fact that they are city pastors.  One person from Singapore stated that relationships for identity (organizational or fellowship ties) are not the same as relationships for a _territory_.

-Everything, everything, everything must be precipitated by much intercessory prayer.  One directive from Pastor Martinez from the Azul (Azul, Argentina) model is that theology not be discussed in the pastor's prayer meetings - for this would cause disunity.

-Pastors pastor the whole city including the lost and each other.

-Prophetic direction must be received.  Cindy Jacobs, for instance, prophesied to Azul that the city would be taken by the youth. Strategies shared and acted upon with great success by youth in this case.

-City evaluated and re-evaluated - maps gone over.  Different churches/congregations to be responsible for (adopt) sections of city/town for prayer.  The more unbelievers in a section, the better.  It is not enough to tell pastors to tell their congregations to pray.  People could not go to intercessors meetings unless invited by pastors - they were to be the pastors most trusted intercessors. These intercessors meetings were apparently awesome.

-Various strategies like stickers to mark the "House of Prayer" for neighborhood houses.

-The fact that unbelievers were being prayed for was not hidden at all, but was broadcast and open. People on the street began to ask each other "Did you pray for Azul today?"

-Ed Silvoso had shared more about the "Houses of Prayer" and the utilization of television - to have TV-based church meetings for the city's believers to dedicate their houses and be ready to pray.

Disclaimer: At the time,  I was open to the concept of "one church in a city" approach as a way to motivate people to relate to each other as a community but had some concerns about the approach too. My concerns centered on some of the statements made such as pastors pastoring the whole city, and intercessory meetings were to be 'invite only'.  I did not make these reports in order to push Cindy Jacobs, Ed Silvoso, or any other name or organization though.  I made them in order to give my eye-witness account to these events.


Light the Nation Report--held in Dallas TX, May 5-8, 1998
(Please feel free to pass on each or all reports, with copyrights attached)

Reconciliation--Racial and Gender:

On the night of May 5 (the first night) at Light of Nation conference in Dallas, TX, an African-American speaker (from Promise Keepers) stood up to give a description of what they felt began the the complete racial separation of American churches which exists today.  Prior to our present situation, African Americans had worshipped with their white  brothers and sisters.  They were segregated--in a separate section in the church meetings, but they still worshipped in the same room.

This speaker and others had been in prayer about this for quite a while before learning the answer of what happened to change that.

At an A.M.E. church in Philadelphia, Pa., around the turn of the century, there was a prayer meeting with the blacks in one section of the sanctuary and the whites in another, as usual.  The whites stopped their prayers, but the Spirit came upon the black section, and they began to interceed in a powerful way. So, their prayers were lasting longer than the rest.  Some of the white Christians approached the blacks and told them to get up and move. At that point, the blacks of course were extremely offended.  A black pastor said, "We will not bother with YOU anymore."  The blacks left, and that was the last time any blacks worshipped or prayed in the same room with any whites in the city of Philadelphia.

From there, the division also went to Azusa street, where eventually history was 'rewritten' to make that revival seem like a white revival only, even though it started with the blacks.  The revival died (they feel as a result of this division between whites and blacks)  This speaker also said that it was revealed to them that division between the races has been accomplished by some event at the turn of each century. So we should be aware of the enemy's pattern and not allow it to happen this century.

It was repeated in the conference in various ways that we cannot effect our society without dealing with our society in our churches.  It was asked that the African Americans in the audience stand up, and the whites of the audience pray for them, and apologize to them. Afterwards, this separation in worship was reversed by having *a black worship leader lead the worship* that night.  This was very powerful and was personally encouraging to me. (I've seen alot of talk, but little action as far as African Americans being actually honored as leaders)

---------

At this point,I should mention that the theme of identification reconciliation was often repeated throughout the conference.
Part of Dutch Sheet's teaching (Fri. May 8, 2:15 p.m) was about redigging the wells of our inheritance .  The Philistines had filled up Abraham's wells, and Isaac returned and redug the wells. The first 2 wells Isaac redug, were filled up again by the Philistines. Well #1 Isaac named Hebrew word for 'strife' and well #2 he named the Hebrew word for Opposition/grapple. Well #3 was not refilled by the Philistines, and this one he named "the broad place".

 **This is the generation God is holding responsible to deal with the sins of our fathers.**  Before Isaac could inherit the blessing, God had to expose iniquity.  We are also reaping good things from our fathers before, as well as bad.  Some have wondered why do this--we are repenting for things we (as people) never did ourselves. Dutch says as long as the Spirit leads, we will do it.

----------

 Ed Silvoso spoke on the last general session of the Light the Nation conference, May 8, 8-9 p.m.

 His subject began with the path of reconciliation which ends in the Christian family before it can impact the world.  This can be traced in the book of Ephesians.

 He spoke of how women have ultimately been put in bondage not just by the world but in the Church. This was accomplished by the devil's favorite tool, scriptures. He spoke on the creation passages, and the fact that we are to be co-heirs in Christ with men. He spoke of prayer evangelism being the subject of the book of 1 Timothy and went straight to the oft-misused scripture regarding women in ministry: 1 Tim. 2:1-5.  He stated that the restoration of the Church included women in their place of ministry. He also launched into a rather deep discussion of the end-times role of women, and how we will crush the head of Satan. In the end, he asked the men to kneel down in front of women who stood up, and ask their forgiveness on behalf of men who had abused their headship and oppressed or hurt women. He also had the women pray over the men. All I can say is I highly recommend this teaching, and it is too long for me to try to do it justice by 'proxy teaching' it.

This Light the Nation report was given by Teri Lee Earl © 1998 Harvest NETwork  (http://www.harvestnet.org)


Claudio Freidsen's testimony and teaching

 This is a brief account of the teaching of Claudio Freidsen, given on May 7, 2 p.m. General session

He began with the following text:

Deut. 8:2  "And you shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.

Claudio's purpose was to encourage us who have gone through difficult times--times which don't make sense to us, and seem  completely unproductive.

Claudio's testimony of his ministry experiences (in brief):

After graduating from seminary, Claudio launched into his first church-planting experience, happy to practice the things he had been taught. He worked hard to implement the necessary organization to conduct an outside crusade. He and his co-workers gave or sent out tracts and invitations, and all the necessary equipment was set up so he could preach in the park.

4 grandmother's showed up.

Claudio was unprepared for the lack of interest from society.  There was no spiritual breakthrough after 90 days of this crusade, with him preaching to a virtually empty audience. The 4 grandmother's came each time, and later became long-standing members of his church.

He and co-workers decided they had to do something to draw the people, so they decided to show a film outdoors. The people came to see the film. As soon as the film stopped, they left.  He did not get a chance to preach at all, before all the people left except for the 4 grandmothers.

So, they decided not to do so much talking in-between the ending of the film, and his preaching.  Claudio hid behind a near-by tree with his microphone on, his Bible open to the first passage. As soon as the film said "The End" on the screen, he literally LEAPED out in front and began preaching. The people left, running as fast as they could, with him standing there saying, "Don't leave,please!"

And so in his church later, were these four grandmother's who were very sweet ladies who treated him more like a grandson than a pastor. They knitted sweaters for him, etc.  To compound that, he would everyone once in awhile meet with his fellow graduates from the seminary. They were experiencing success in their ministries, while his was a flop. This created tremendous frustration and pain.     ----
 

The things we experience in life in a personal way might cause to wonder if God has forgotten us, or if we have no favor in His eyes. Even experiences from childhood may leave us wondering.  We begin to look around us, and wonder why it is different for others.  "Why is it this way for me, God?" "Will my situation EVER change?"

If you walk in the will of God, don't allow times of frustration to stop you half-way.  God was getting rid of all of his self-sufficiency, and righting his relationship with his wife during these times of lonliness, frustration, and trials.

----

Even while revival had started in Argentina, Claudio was experiencing something else other than revival.  He was teaching at a seminary and one time he noticed all of his students had fallen asleep during his teaching. He woke them up and asked them why they were asleep, and they told him that they had been up until 4:30 a.m. the night before, because they were at Pastor Carlo's meetings. There were many deliverances, miracles, and salvations. There were upwards to 50,000 people there every night. Claudio decided, "I've got to get to know Pastor Carlos"

Then Claudio told of how he went to one of these outdoor meetings for the first time. He had not quite walked to the edge of  Carlo's meeting, when his wife became ill and started manifesting, and some people had to help her. When he got there, one of his seminary students ran to him and excitedly begged him to help them with all of these demon-possessed people. He said he'd take care of the one lady laying on the ground with eyes shut, but then had to ask his student more about how he should pray.  When he did begin to pray over her, her countenance changed suddenly to demonic contortions, and she rose up, grabbed his tie, and with great strength twirled him around--but his students helped him and then they went on from there.

After this, for the next year, Claudio spent time with Carlos, and Carlos pastored him and prayed over him many times. His family was under great financial distress, etc. As a family, they decided to get around only supportive and loving people--No longer did they stay around strifeful, jealous, or bitter people, etc.  ---

When someone suffers, the only thing he thinks of the reality of the moment. But do not lower eyes, reality looks different now--don't give up the promise and the dream. We are like the clay and He is the Potter.

---

God showed Claudio in a vision where he would lead revival. He traveled around town until he found the park in the vision, and it turned out to be the worst park of the town. It was known to be so dangerous in that park, that some of his companions/worship leaders said to him: "I don't want to be killed, I can't go here with you." So, several left.

After much prayer they continued on. This time, before the set time of preaching, Claudio was again hiding behind a tree, shaking with fear. A mob was approaching the park to cause trouble for the pastor/preacher. But as soon as he stepped out on the platform, the power of God fell, and the people who had just been sputtering words of hate changed--miracles, salvations, and a thousand drug addicts were delivered that night.

---
end of my account of this teaching/testimony



This is the end of my "Light the Nation" reports. Throughout, I've mentioned specific dates and times to make it possible for those who want to get the tapes.  You can get these from Fresh Publishing Videos, P.O. Box 867 Lewisville, TX. 75067 (214)219-1188 or (800) 856-7240


These Light the Nation reports were given by Teri Lee Earl © 1998 Harvest NETwork  (http://www.harvestnet.org)
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