The end-times church is prophesied to be like the original church in the Book of Acts, with no institutions, no expensive buildings, no paid pastors. The church will meet in homes and will be centered on making disciples that make more disciples.
I have posted many stories on pastors such as Francis Chan that have walked away from large institutional churches, in Chan’s case a church of 5,000 to set up home churches with no paid pastors or buildings. I personally support the Kenya Home Church Movement and am delighted to post stories here on its growth.
The following story about rap artist Lecrae reveals further what God is doing with His church in these prophesied “last days”.
Lecrae loses tour date after tweeting that he’s done with ‘institutional, corporatized’ Christianity.
Reach Records founder Lecrae revealed that he and his team lost one of their tour dates this spring after sharing an honest tweet about deconstructing from “politicized” and “corporatized” modern church culture.
“Once upon a time I thought I was done with Christianity. But the reality was I was just done with the institutional, corporatized, gentrified, politicized, culturally exclusive version of it,” the popular emcee tweeted on Tuesday.
The following day, Lecrae re-shared his tweet and wrote: “Just lost a show because of this tweet. Point proven.” The Grammy award-winning artist added: “Vulnerability gets people kicked out of exclusive tribes. Jesus welcomes the outcast and seeks to bring healing.”
Lecrae does not get all things right like all of us but he is right on point with this move.
This post is taken from a great article by Shane Idleman: The great shrinking church in America.
It’s clear that many churches have closed or have considerably shrunk in size since COVID-19. Reasons range from “church-goers are still scared to return,” to “they prefer watching live feeds.” But why have bold churches experienced tremendous growth? This issue is much deeper — it’s crystal clear that people are hungry for the truth.
As a church in California located in Los Angeles County, I understand the enormous challenges of pastoring in these dire times. But, if the truth is told, the COVID crisis simply revealed the foundation of many churches, as well as the heart of many pastors. But thank God, there is hope!
Pastors, I’m writing this to you to encourage you to be bold as you lead your congregation through these difficult and challenging times. But this boldness won’t come naturally, it will come supernaturally. It will have a cost:
“Life-giving preaching costs the preacher much — death to self, crucifixion to the world, and the travail of his own soul. Crucified preaching only can give life. Crucified preaching can come only from a crucified man” (E.M. Bounds).
The fire of the Spirit is contagious
On October 25, 2021, we began having church every night at 6 pm for two straight weeks. At times, the atmosphere was overwhelming — a full altar, dozens of baptisms, the demonic realm being crushed and countless lives changed, both in person and through Livestream. As the old-timers used to say, “God heard our cries and showed up!” The key verse for us was Isaiah 64:1, “Oh, that You would rend the heavens! That You would come down! That the mountains might shake at Your presence.” (You can view the services here.)
Speaking boldly is no longer optional, it’s essential. That’s the missing ingredient today. God is no respecter of persons, status, or achievement, but He is a respecter of principles (Acts 10:34). If you seek Him with all your heart you will find Him. Then you will be better equipped to lead your congregation to the Fountain of Living Water once you yourself have drunk deeply. The fire of the Spirit is contagious.
This doesn’t mean that your church will grow; it could shrink, but it does mean that you’ll now have the power of the Spirit resting upon your life. Churches filled with the Spirit do the works of the Spirit. Jesus said that “whoever believes in Me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12 NIV).
If your church doesn’t look like the New Testament church, are you sure that you’re truly “having church”?
Dead is for a graveyard, not a church
The Christian life is to be living and vibrant, not dry and dead. It begs the question: “Where are the rivers of living water that Jesus spoke about in John 7:38?” When it comes to experiencing a spiritual awakening (revival), it can’t be worked up, it must be brought down from heaven.
In Lev. 9:23-24, the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people and the fire came down and consumed the burnt offering. God brought down the fire, but the responsibility fell on the leaders to keep the fire burning. They were to remove the waste but not the fuel. The same holds true for you and me. We must remove the waste of pride and add the fuel of humility.
Ignite your church with prayer meetings and worship nights. Humble yourself and lead the way and find comfort on the altar as you cry out to God for boldness. The two-week event described above was over a decade in the making as we persisted in seeking the heart of God. He truly is a “rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6). When God chooses to give us a measure of revival in our bondage, worship, humility, and obedience, He will keep the flame going.
The beauty of brokenness
The beauty of brokenness is that humility crushes pride and ushers in the presence of God. Moses spent years on the backside of the desert as God broke and prepared him. Joshua’s humility no doubt came from lingering in the presence of the Lord. Isaiah was completely broken when he cried, “Woe to me! … I am ruined! …. My eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty” (Isaiah 6:5). Jeremiah collapsed and cried out for humility in the people, “My soul will weep in secret for your pride” (Jeremiah 13:17).
The Psalms are saturated with the brokenness of David, and Jesus’ disciples had to be crushed like olives so the anointing oil could flow. Paul had to be knocked to the ground and his eyes blinded by the glory of God before true humility became a mark of his ministry.
Do you sound like a voice “crying in the wilderness” because you’ve been touched by God, or a voice whining in the wilderness because you’re dying spiritually? You can change that today.
We provide the sacrifice, He provides the fire
When you lose intimacy with God, you lose boldness and the Spirit’s fire. Return to Him, and He will return to you (Zechariah 1:3). The strength of your church is in its purity and spiritual power, not in its numbers. God doesn’t need a majority — He is the Majority. We are not CEOs running a business, we are watchmen warning a nation. Prayer can no longer be a footnote at the end of a sermon; instead, prayer and worship must guide the church in these critical times.
How can you receive a measure of revival in these dire times if there is no desperation? God can’t pour into your heart if it’s already full of self: Self-willed. Self-sufficient. Self-made. Self must die in you before God can really live within you.
The greatest hindrance to revival is within your own heart. It’s time to break up your fallow ground and seek the Lord while He still may be found (cf. Hosea 10:12). Again, although we can’t work revival up, God can bring it down from heaven if we prepare the soil of our hearts. We provide the sacrifice — He provides the fire.
Shane Idleman is the founder and lead pastor of Westside Christian Fellowship in Lancaster, California, just North of Los Angeles. Shane’s sermons, articles, books, and radio program can all be found at shaneidleman.com or wcfav.org
My followers know that I believe the church in the end times will be the church as described in the Book of Acts. I promote the church model as modeled by Francis Chan which is House Churches, no paid pastors, and no buildings. Nevertheless, I thought the truths expressed by Pastor Shane Idelman are worth a post.
The Bible defines in the book of Acts, what the Christian life should be as a disciple of Jesus Christ — healing the sick, cleansing the lepers, raising the dead, casting out demons, and making disciples of all nations, baptising them to Jesus Christ, and teaching them to observe all things that Jesus commanded.
Sadly, this does not describe the Christian life for most of us in the West. The church needs to come back to the beginnings of the church that we read about in the Book of Acts. We have to return to God’s intention and see how the Holy Spirit moves as we step out in faith to share the Gospel and grow His Kingdom.
Torben Sondergaad of the Last reformation explains what he believes has occurred with the church in the West and what needs to happen now.
“It was never God’s intention for these revealed truths to result in independent church denominations that, after a while, quench the fire of revival. God did not intend to create separate churches and denominations with their own disconnected ‘little’ truths, while ignoring the other parts and, thus, hindering their members from gaining the whole truth. We believe that it is a reformation that will restore the Church back to what we read in Acts: a simple disciple-life led by the Holy Spirit, where the kingdom of God comes near in homes, on the streets, in shops — yes, all places where people are,” says Torben.
“He says the Church is not the building; the Church is you and me. “God does not live in a temple built of stone. He lives in us — Christians, His disciples. Jesus wants to be part of our everyday life in a practical, direct relationship with Him, without intermediaries.
“I have so many testimonies of people who have been sitting in a Church for 20 or 40 years and have never led anybody to Christ, never cast out demons, healed the sick or experienced the supernatural life, and don’t have testimonies like we read about in the book of Acts.
“The book of Acts should be the normal Christian life — being led by the Holy Spirit and used by God to build His Church, whereas most Christian churchgoers do not lead a life as described in the book of Acts,” says Torben.”
He contends that although Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, we should ask ourselves if the Holy Spirit is living through us in the same way He lived through the followers of Christ in the book of Acts.
Have we arrived at a Christianity without Christ? Find out with guest Dennis Pollock and Tim Moore of the Lamb & Lion Ministries evangelism team as they provide their Prophetic Perspectives.
Lamb & Lion Ministries was founded in 1980 by Dr David Reagan as a non-denominational, independent ministry. The Ministry does not seek to convert people to any particular church. Rather, it seeks to lift up Jesus and draw people to Him as Lord and Saviour.
The Ministry was established for the purpose of proclaiming the soon return of Jesus. We do not believe it is possible to know the date when Jesus will return. But we do believe it is possible to know the season of the Lord’s return, and it is our conviction that we are living in that season.As all of my followers know this is also my calling.
Hundreds of clergy, staff and congregants of the Church of Sweden, Europe’s largest Lutheran denomination, have declared in an open letter that it is now a trans-inclusive institution.
“We write to you from a church that is also trans,” reads a line from the letter, titled “Personal Letter to You Who are Trans,” posted on a dioceses website and addressed to trans-identifying people who serve and attend the church, Summit News reported.
Signed by around 1,000 priests, deacons and members and published on the official website of the Västerås diocese, the letter also seeks to explain how the church could be described as trans.
Sweden’s flag is seen near the Stockholm Cathedral in Gamla Stan or the Old Town district of Stockholm, Sweden, June 9, 2010.
However in 2017, the denomination had already told clergy that they needed to start using gender-neutral language when referring to God, and avoid masculine terms such as “He” and “Lord.” so this letter is not something new. The church had already departed from Biblical values many years ago and are suffering the consequences of that decision. For example, in 2009, the left-leaning Swedish Church voted in favor of blessing same-sex marriages and elected Eva Brunne, the world’s first openly lesbian bishop.
Many of the members have been leaving the religion in record numbers. In 2018, insiders said the denomination was expected to lose over 1 million members over the following 10 years.
Sputnik News at the time translated the official Members in Motion report from the denomination, which found out that 85,848 Swedes left the Church in 2016, followed by 93,093 members in 2017.
The Bible the Lutheran church has rejected prophesies that prior to Jesus return much of the church will fall away and compromise with the world’s values. If only they could see, that by their actions, they are fulfilling this prophecy.
In this special interview edition of Unbelievable?, Justin talks to Ugandan pastor Richmond Wandera, director of the Pastors Discipleship Network in East Africa. They talk about the history of Christian revival in East Africa, elections and Covid in Uganda, spiritual warfare, secularism, and the challenges of prosperity gospel preaching in some churches. It is a fascinating discussion that not only examines the regional challenges but also addresses the influence of Western Christianity both past and present. It has been a blessing for me to hear from Richmond, a humble, totally committed servant of Jesus but also well educated on what God is doing in East Africa. As God has connected me with His church in Kenya, the Kenya House Church (KHC) group, Richmond’s testimony has confirmed my commitment to support the growth of the end times church in East Africa. I hope you will join with me to help the KHC movement. You can do so by making a donation on this website. Click on the Donations icon on the Home Page.
These testimonies are from people whose lives have been impacted by The Last Reformation Movement started by Torben Sondergaad. I have shared many of Torben’s videos on this site as I am sure this is one of the ministries Jesus has raised up to serve His church in these last days before He returns. Special live guests are Arjan and Annie van den Hoek from Holland now living in Curacao and Amos Shabalala and his wife Mary Ann living in Sydney Australia. Their stories are very different. However, they each share their take on how to press on and keep on serving the Lord, even when times are extremely hard or lonesome. I was particularly taken by and able to relate to the story shared by Amos and Mary Anne. As they live in Sydney, which is where I live, I will endeavour to connect with them.
Rev Christina Beardsley is a transgender priest in the Church of England and author of numerous resources on trans experience in the church. She engages with Preston Sprinkle, author of ‘Embodied: Transgender Identities, the Church, and What the Bible Has to Say’ who takes a grace-filled but traditional Christian approach to sexuality. They discuss how churches should engage with trans people, theological questions of ‘bodily’ and ‘gender’ identity, and the issue of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria.
Contrary to what Beardsley stated, we don’t have enough data to recommend puberty blockers, hormone therapy or the surgical removal of normal body parts. Physicians are not engineers, they are repair men and women. Medicine needs to be very careful when it gets into the business of treating desires and not diseases. When humans try to create better living through chemicals they all too often fail to read the warning label.
Beardsley tried to make the case that there was a medical consensus concerning the role of transitioning in the treatment of gender dysphoria and pointed to several multidisciplinary transgender medical societies. The problem with these organizations is that dissenting voices are not allowed to be part of the discussion. Multidisciplinary should mean different perspectives on a problem and not the same perspective expressed in academically different languages.
Sex-reassignment surgery and hormone therapy are experimental medical measures that potentially cross a therapeutic line and need to be rigorously studied before they are embraced as the “treatment of choice” for gender dysphoria. I fear that entering into such a grand social experiment will leave behind many medical casualties.
It was unsettling for me to watch this video but it was valuable to do so to learn of Beardsley’s journey and the decisions he made along the way to now present as a woman. I concluded that Preston Sprinkle had done a credible job of presenting the Biblical viewpoint.
American Christians, who desire to live godly, conservative, biblically-oriented lives, need to prepare themselves and their families for suffering. The writing has been on the wall for some time, decades even, yet the church has done little to stop it. Instead, like a row of dominoes, she has fallen over on issue after issue. The church has watched while influential institutions and religious leaders denied the miracles of Jesus, rejected the inerrancy of scripture and its history of the Cosmos particularly Noah’s worldwide flood. The time when God judged the world destroying all mankind save eight people. Lawlessness brought on God’s judgement back then and lawlessness will bring it on again. The world is rejecting God’s laws with legalized abortion, gay marriage, adopting transgenderism and even embracing critical race theory. Additionally, we are witnessing apostasy in the church as it conforms to the new world’s standards. Also, we have witnessed many “celebrity pastors”, priests and pastors in denominational churches commit moral failures through affairs and sexual abuse.
Whatever circumstances befall the church in the coming years, we must keep in mind that we have a Saviour who was the perfect propitiation of God’s wrath. In Him, we are predestinated, called, justified, and glorified (Romans 8:30). His blood has covered our sins and set us free from the slavery of sin and death. Regardless of where the world goes and what horrors the church may face, we can rest in these truths, knowing that our greatest and deepest needs have been met in Christ. No amount of emotional, mental, and physical suffering can dislodge us from our Savior’s embrace. As sure as the sun comes up tomorrow, the gospel will remain the power of God for salvation – your salvation. To thrive in a world that hates Jesus (and duly us), we must cling to Christ and His gospel. Before any worldly allegiances, we are Christians. We are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). Should the world burn down around us, we can joyfully sing because we are eternally secure. There is no greater news than this.
Extract from article in Patheos: Persecution: The New Reality for Biblical Christianity in America by Jack lee
David Reagan lines up America’s future with Biblical prophecy. He believes that America is in full scale rebellion against God and has past the point of redemption. God’s judgement is underway and His wrath will follow. This video reveals the truth. The facts David Reagan state are irrefutable. One statement made by a Harvard professor is powerful. “You take away religion and you cannot hire enough police.”
America’s future looks very dim as the forces advocating moral depravity and contempt for God’s Word prepare to take over the White House and Congress.
LIVING ETERNAL NOW 