I fell asleep almost immediately, and had this dream:
I was in a church, attending a service.
The church was very strange, though. It was a composite of many different ones that I’ve been to.
The sanctuary looked like the one in PhiladelphiaChurch just up the street from Loyal Heights Playground in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, but in the dream I had the impression that it was the sanctuary of a particular church just south of SeaTac airport.
The sanctuary furniture was a mix of things from many churches I’ve attended over the course of several decades. The pews were from another church a mainline denomination one, where SeaTac Worship Centerhad rented space in the evenings.
There were people in every pew. The church was filled, but not full. In almost every pew, there were empty spaces big enough to seat 2-4 people together.
Every one was seated, the service was just ending, and the Minister had just finished…
As people began to stand and look around, I had an awkward feeling much like you get when you’re in a room full of people whose faces are familiar, but whom you don’t really know…a feeling of having to interact with people but not really knowing what to say.
Then things changed very quickly, as if I had blinked, or turned my head away for a moment and things were different when I looked back again. I was still in the same room, but now it was filled – crowded, in fact. The aisle was filled with people, some standing, some sitting.
Instead of being socially distant, everyone was interacting. Some were conversing with others, some teaching or explaining something to another, some praying with another, some laying hands on another.
The aisle, empty before was now crowded folks standing in it. There were many sitting or lying on the floor as well, overwhelmed by Holy Spirit.
AS I looked around the room, a saw a number of dead apostles I was familiar with – James Berkley whose ministry had largely emphasized God turning the hearts of the fathers to their children and children to their fathers, Elvin Gadney, and Harlan and Granville Graham. As I looked at each of these people, I thought, “There So and So. Look, there’s Such and Such,” recognizing each man by name.
But the faces didn’t match the names. In every case, it was a different person identified by the apostle’s name and familiarity, even though every one of them was a least a generation younger, and some two generations younger. These were the men and women who had been impacted or equipped by those apostles.
Someone began to sing, and without any worship team, the room filled with adoration to the King. Those ministering to others didn’t stop when the worship started, but continued what they were doing. Everyone in room was made (or was being made) whole.
As soon as I woke up, I wrote down the dream, and asked what it meant. Some of what it means we’ve heard before, a lot. So much so that at first I questioned whether I was really hearing God or the trite echo of “the day of the one man ministry is over and I’m about to do a new thing” that we’ve heard so often (both from true prophets and form some who are fairly convincing copies).
Having made certain I’m hearing what I was, her it is.
It’s not at all about what God’s about to do. It’s about what he’s already doing.
The time for the man up front to be the primary minister is finished. The Lords says, “What I’m doing isn’t in the church walls, the time for one man to be recognized as the primary minister is finished, and I am giving visions to the ones who have been overlooked, and strategies to the discounted ones.”
I will build strong relationships and lifelong friendships between members of my Body who have been strangers. I will give visions to the ones who were called blind and strategies to the ones called foolish. I will release inside of you my heart for people so broadly and so deeply that you will be called Those Who Love Their Brothers by those who don’t know me.
You are called the Ones Who Love by those who haven’t met me yet, because you are loving them even when it is costly to you. You are growing more and more day by day and week by week in love, wisdom, and power to make the broken whole.
Already when you are walking in the way, you stop to heal, to liberate to bind up and to loose.
the day will come suddenly when those going from one place to another will have to be careful where they step, because the way if filled people standing in me, sitting with me, and resting in me.
Multitudes of bound ones have been set free and a vast people who will know their Father continue be liberated and will bring wholeness and peace form the Sunshine Coast to the Siskyou and from the Olympic Coast to the Rockies.
Don’t weep for the ones I sent out who have died where you are and live where I am. Look, and see them in those they’ve birthed, those they’ve equipped, and those they’ve trained. You’ll see their hands multiplied in the children of their love for my Bride and I, and those sons and daughters will do more, and more freely than the fathers ever dreamed of doing.
Spontaneous worship in streets and squares.
Sudden invasions of freedom in stores and parks.
Floods of healing on every corner and under every tree.
A plain illustration of the love of the Father spread abroad in the hearts of men, bringing peace and wholeness.
Many will be confused and don’t recognize what I’m doing and some of them will seem intimidating to you. But don’t be afraid to demonstrate my love. It is more extravagant and reaches much farther than many know.
Didn’t I tell you it would be something you haven’t seen before? Don’t be surprised if it is seems strange! Why are you amazed when I told you it was new, and not like what you have seen before?
But you will see me do more than you could ever ask, think, or imagine. I’ve already started!
Don’t hesitate.
Don’t hold back.
Don’t wait.
Run to the lonely.
Bind the broken.
Love the ugly.
The false little wind is stopping.
A great Wind has begun to blow,
pushing the sea before it!
~Craig Adams
https://www.facebook.com/craig.adams.9849
[Editor’s Note: Craig is a northwestern native, currently on assignment in upstate New York.]