firealarms

It’s been a long time since my wife and I just attended church.  We’ve been at church every week for years, but as youth pastors.  Most of the time we didn’t get to make the main service, or if we did it would only be one of us.  We planned on attending a church that we had heard amazing things about and were genuinely excited to worship Jesus without having to worry about being looked at under a microscope.  Then we were invited to attend the church we grew up at for my baby niece’s dedication.  We decided to go to Resurrection Fellowship (or Rez as the locals call it) for our very first service as a family.  This church has given me so much through the years, I am full of love and gratitude for it and it’s people.

I felt the Lord had something to say to my wife and I Sunday morning.  It was significant that He was drawing us to a place we thought was not a part of our lives anymore for our first day of refreshing.  The service was nice, my niece was cute, my wife and I were enjoying being together.  In the middle of the sermon the fire alarm went off, rudely interrupting the service.  I don’t think this has happened in Rez’s history.  The pastor tried to laugh it off as his guys sprang into action, hoping to solve the problem.  He made lighthearted jokes to tamper the situation and really handled himself well.  After about 15 minutes he had to throw in the towel, prayed and dismissed his congregation.

From 2011-2012 fire alarms would go off unprovoked everywhere we were.  We would have to evacuate in the middle of the night from our tiny apartment and wait for the fire department to deem it safe to return (this happened twice in two different places).  Right after Epaggelia was born the alarm that was for the entire building, only went off in our tiny cracker box of an apartment, several times in a two week span.  Management couldn’t explain it, nor could they apologize.  They weren’t very good at their jobs.  We lived at our church in the missions quarters when we were in between places for a couple of months, all the sudden the fire alarms would go off and freak out 3 year old Rapha.  What was going on??

It was a bummer that people didn’t get to hear the preaching of the Word that Sunday morning, but I was hearing from God.  I’m about to overspiritualize things for myself and my family, I guess we’re weird for believing that a ghost man talks to us, and to other people for us.  Our trusted friend and pastor, Tammie, encouraged us in the Lord in 2012 when the alarms were going off.  AdriElle texted her in the middle of the alarm blaring in our faces and asked ‘WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO US!!’  She told us it was a prophetic sign from God that things were heating up spiritually in our lives.  When Tammie texted us back she had just moments before been in a service where someone had taught on that phenomenon, things heating up to the point of fire alarms going off.  When things are happening in the spiritual it manifests itself in the physical.  Soon after we started experiencing the Holy Spirit in our youth services like we had only dreamed about.  Signs, wonders and miracles.  Crazy growth, especially for the church we were working at.  Have you ever heard of a church that declined in attendance but the jr high ministry exploded? Neither have I, but that’s exactly what happened.  We saw things we had prayed for years to see.  For all of that to happen things had to heat up.  So what is God saying in October of 2016?  Old church, new season, transition, desperate to hear Him.  What’s He saying?  That things are once again heating up.  We are far from finished.  He was reminding us of who we are, it doesn’t depend on us having a position in the ministry.

This is not New Age nonsense.  We believe the Bible, like for real.  People get all bent out of shape and weirded out when you talk about spiritual things.  Let me rephrase that last statement; Christians get all bent out of shape when you believe the Bible and believe it’s not just metaphorical or dispensational.  Is it possible God would speak to us beyond Christian radio?

In the book of Jonah a vine grows overnight and dies overnight-God was speaking.  In the book of Matthew Jesus curses a tree that doesn’t bear fruit and it withers up, than He speaks.  The book of Exodus is full of miracles that were speaking more than the miracles themselves; preachers have preached billions of messages interpreting what God was saying through His signs and wonders.  To those who believe already there is not a lot of extra convincing that needs to be done.  For those who doubt, why?  I understand if you’re not a believer all together, it’s impossible for you to believe.  For Christians to be in such doubt and unbelief the second they hear someone talk about anything that only God could do is depressing.

I am not the Word, Jesus is.  I can absolutely be in error.  Yet God has a long history of using men and women who are submitted to Him, even if they get some of it a bit wrong. I’m not positive what the future holds.  When the fire alarms are going off around us we have two choices.  On one hand we can embrace it and say yes to what God has and is saying.  On the other we can run out of the building and find a safe place.  As for me and my family, we hear the alarm sound and it brings great joy to our hearts.  I know we are being prepared for something much bigger than us.  It used to just happen in our home. Now it happens in the house where revival used to live.

That or I am just a pretentious blogger.  I don’t have to prove anything, that’s the Lord’s job.

Playlist for my contemplation of firealarms (don’t try to recreate, I imagine it only really makes sense to me)

1.  But For You Who Fear My Name- The Welcome Wagon
2. Firestorm- Earth Crisis
3. Waste It All- Kim Walker-Smith
4. People Get Ready- Misty Edwards
5. Just Exist- Touche Amore
6. Get Free- The Vines
7. For The Sake Of The World- Bethel Live
8. Here I Am- The Explosion
9. Together, Burning Bright!- Take It Back
10. Nothing Like Your Love- Hillsong United
11. All Consuming Fire- Jesus Culture
12. Love Has Found Me- Greg Brown
13. Who Can Compare With You- Bethel Live
14. Chanbara- At The Drive-In
15. Apocalypse Now And Then- Every Time I Die