When I first encountered the "Transformations" videos, I was the director of a prayer ministry in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As I watched the documentaries of transformed cities, I stood at the end and shared with the pastors that were gathered there, "THIS is something I can give my life for." The thought of God's presence coming in such manifest presence to change the very fabric of society. It was something that, at that time, I had only heard and read about, now seen. I was changed forever.
In the years since, I have come to realize both personally and professionally, that very very few in the U.S. and western cultures really have a grasp of what that looks like. We have never had that first hand experience that shapes our expectations and definitions. So two things happen. One, we content ourselves to living vicariously through these stories and videos and although wanting what we see, inside we are not really sure it can ever really happen "here." Or, secondly, we settle for a lower standard of meetings, initiatives, and short-lived encounters on Sunday mornings, or conferences and leave to a life that is still far from that higher ideal.
I have been around enough to have been witness and participant in a lot of really good things. Great initiatives that have been powerful times, but never got us to that place of true transforming revival. I have been in meetings where the plans were made to make such and such place an "igniter" city, and then the plans were laid out. And to be honest with you, I've done enough of that, and seen enough to know that they are great things, they touch people, but if what we have been doing for the past 15+ years could get us where we wanted to go, we would have been there a long time ago!!
So what is different about this "Journey to Transformation" and the "Beginner's Course?" I'm not here to "sell" anything, please understand that. But... I am not satisfied with what I have seen so far. After thirteen years of research and observation, there are things that are repeated principles of the way God interacts and responds to a hungry desperate people. The Journey to Transformation (JTT) is a setting forth of those Biblical, historical principles, particularly for our Western mindsets.
The "Beginner's Course," is 12 hours designed to prepare hearts to understand the "What, Why, and How" of presence-based transformation. It is as thorough a teaching on transforming revival as you will find anywhere. Not a program, not an initiative to go do, it is meant to inform and teach so that when a community comes to the end of this time, they will be confronted with the question, "now that we know what it is, are we ready to pay the price and give ourselves to this?"
I will be posting more on my observations as we move along here (hopefully with much better frequency). I am looking for a people who really have the desperation and hunger for Him to come, and are truly ready to set aside agendas, pride, division, business, and preconceived ideas and pursue God until He come.
I wonder where those communities are?
