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Home Group Gatherings
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That Upper Room Experience
Small groups need to be an essential part of our life especially when you consider the global events that have come upon us. There is a lot of tension out there and that tension seems to be hitting us on many fronts. The world is drastically changing making it difficult for most of us to just get through the day.
In our busyness, we have isolated ourselves as we attempt to handle all of lifes challenges. It really is vital that we start connecting with one another, and pray with one another as we enter into this new season that the Lord has for us. Sunday morning may not be an option for many, but a home group gathering during the week is ideal when you think about where the Lord is leading us and how he is wanting to release us.
It is in that small setting, that gathering, that home group environment, as originally intended, where we can find strength, encouragement, peace, and the protection we need from the ongoing spiritual warfare that is constantly brushing against us. We need to enter into that resting place where those needed paradigm shifts can take place — allowing us to see the battlefield from a whole different perspective. It’s at this resting place where we see the provisions of the Lord. Our Father is a good Father and He always makes a way for us.
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Small Gatherings as to the Original Design
It’s when we gather for all the right reasons that Holy Spirit can release that needed upper room experience for us all. As we commit to being in one accord, honoring one another, serving one another, while walking with a genuine love, and showing a true concern for one another that those things in the Spirit can be released on a whole new level.
It’s at this very place where the commanded blessing comes upon us and restoration begins to have its way, which is the very reason why Jesus came. With that, comes the angelic who are also wanting to partner up with those who are aligning themselves up to unity, followed by those needed divine appointments as the dynamics of the kingdom of heaven start to habitate before us with signs wonders and miracles. The whole idea is to go from visitations, to that place of where we just habitate in the presence of God as He moves us down the harvest field.
As a home group carves out an ekklesia model similar to the one that Jesus exemplified, it too will have the ability to creatively change that part of the world that we find ourselves in. It will change us as a people, and it will change community as we know it. And it will create all kinds of attention as the kingdom of heaven starts to land all around.
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We Need to Change It Up
How we functioned in the past , — is not going to cut it when you think of where the Lord is wanting to lead us. And neither will a gathering operating in a top down system get the needed results that Holy Spirit is looking for when it comes to the releasing of the Kingdom of Heaven. Small gatherings or home groups need to make a way where everyone is involved, where everyone contributes to help paint that much bigger picture as to what God is doing amongst us. We need to get away from what it is that we are so programmatically use to, and allow everyone to somehow play their part in what Holy Spirit is unfolding.
Every small group / home group needs to embrace the true character of Jesus. As Holy Spirit continually testifies of Jesus in the character of Jesus, so do we also need to be following that same model as Holy Spirit empowers us.
It is this very model that the Lord is wanting to breathe upon as he releases incredible life to the home groups / gatherings that He is about to release. As we engage, it is important to understand the season that we are presently in. Understanding the season will help in the direction that we need to be going, and it will give us all kinds of clues on what the battlefield actually looks like — which is also important.
We also need to allow the Holy Spirit to initiate every meeting as he begins to direct the flow of that meeting. We also need to prepare ourselves to engage in the very part that Holy Spirit has given us to play. Our God has molded us, He has defined us, and He has equipped us.
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It's All about Teamwork
We now need to learn how to function as a team. The perfect birthing place for any teamwork is in a home group / small group environment. Everyone should contribute at some level. According to who we are in him and how He has equipped us — that now needs come into play at every gathering. We need to honour one another and create that safe place as we all move forward as a team. Our God has uniquely designed each and every one of us, and we need to honour that and allow room for everyone to step forward! Walking in humility will play a big part!
Holy Spirit will set the tone, then we just need to flow. It’s when connecting all the dots on how a home group needs to function — that "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done", will now have the ability to land powerfully on many levels as it displays the goodness of God.
Once a model is established in a home group — it can now be duplicated! Those around you now see a functioning model as to its original design. A team, a Kingdom, and the angelic all working together, coming up with some amazing results. You now have a working model that is easily transferable. A model that has aligned itself to the original model.
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Scriptures that Set the Tone for any New Gathering
Philippians 2:1-4
“ If there is any fellowship that we share in the Spirit, any comfort of love, any great depth of affection and compassion, then make my joy complete by being of the same mind, having the same love, being of one accord, and of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition, strife, or vain deceit, but with an attitude of humility being neither arrogant nor self-righteous, regard others as more important than yourselves. Do not only search out only your interests, but search out the interest of others also.”
1 Corinthians 12:7-11
“ A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the same Spirit gives the gift of healing. He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.”
Romans 12:3-8
“ For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.”
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EkklesiaRising.com / JesusMinistries.ca