More Thoughts On Spiritual Fathers

There is a coming Apostolic order this generation is going to be a part of that will change the face of the way the church in America looks like; it's NOT a return of the Shepherding movement or the old Latter Rain teaching; it's a truer understanding of the need for spiritual parents to raise spiritual kids. The return of the church giving birth to spiritual sons and daughters; and parents; not being dictators!

I posted this comment on Facebook this week and was surprised and encouraged by many of the responses I received. I preached a portion of my thoughts on the restoration of father/sons in Wytheville Virginia last night.

Many people have seen and heard this message so perverted by what I call jack leg preachers that they once again throw the baby out with the bath water. But the fact of the matter is you are here on earth and you are able to read this (all three of you) because you had a mama and a daddy!

I was sharing some of these thoughts one day with a minister and he sharply rebuked me saying this is nothing more that the shepherding doctrine or the old latter rain teaching coming back around.

I told him I wasn't saved during the shepherding movement and I wasn't alive during the latter rain movement. All I know is what I see in scripture. And I also see where modern charismatic preachers have perverted spiritual fatherhood and spiritual sonship to nothing more than another multi level marketing scam. All the while there are young men and young women who are searching for their identity. Many of them having never known the love of a natural father because of divorce or abandonment, and jumping from church to church and denomination after denomination, looking for a spiritual father or mother to stir the gift and release their identity to them.

I am beginning to see an even greater need for small churches and small groups; if these small churches are healthy and reproducing true sons and daughters of God. If you are a small church simply because you think big churches are compromising to get a multitude of people, you have missed the point. That's a spirit of pride masked by false humility.

Mega churches are here to stay! As long as there are mega churches promoting our Mega God who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords! And many of them are using small group structures in order to build people's faith in God. And yes, I know some church are big because there is no conviction of the Holy Spirit in them. But you cannot accuse all of them of this. I know; I've been in some mega churches where the conviction of the Holy Spirit in moving powerfully!

But it doesn't matter whether or not your church is big or small, if we are not calling forth the spiritual fathers and mothers to nurture, disciple and mature those young men and women coming behind us, all we are doing is building a non profit corporation to our honor.

And very bluntly, that stinks!