How we can drift and loose our call/identity - Conversations with John Thomas and Robby Dawkins Pt.1

[Music] well guys welcome to conversations I am so excited about this particular conversation because we have Robbie Dawkins with us so Robbie I just tell you a little bit I've been watching just what you've been doing and where you've been out for a number of years because we have a very similar background um coming out of the vineyard church and I was so excited hearing how God was just releasing stuff and seeing what he's been doing in you so you got involved with a vineyard no was that out of did you run into when Berg did you run into one of the vineyards just curious like how did that start years before the Toronto blessing I'd say at night probably 1993 I had brought in a one of the the vineyard youth pastors he was the junior at that time his name was dawn salad and he was the junior high youth pastor at the Anaheim vineyard which is where John Weber pastored I brought him to Atlanta we were having a banquet for our young people we were trying to find a speaker somebody had mentioned that Don would be a great speaker to bring in and so we did and and they they had some relationship with them and and so we brought him in and he came in and one of the first things we hung out a little bit and he looked at me and he goes he goes you know you're a vineyard guy and you don't even know it and I was like what's the vineyard like I didn't know anything about the vineyard and so the only thing I'd known was the cover you know John whoever being on the cover of I think it was Christianity today wearing a Hawaiian shirt and this guy who looked like a Santa Claus figure and I was like I'm not some you know Santa Claus well maybe now I've got that my way too but you know like wearing Hawaiian shirts or anything like that so to me I just dives like he's wrong but then you know a few a few years after that all of a sudden and it was really for me the connection came in because Toronto because of what had happened there and it so I was adverse to it at first and did not like what I was hearing what I was seeing because we were at us at a spirit-filled Mennonite Church okay I was youth pastoring there I definitely had no upbringing in Mennonite whatsoever but it was just it was a it was a job it was an opportunity to seem like nice people and I went to work there and then they started going up to Toronto and I think by their second trip stuff started happening to us because of just what they were carrying and bringing back and so we went and you know there's now a you know famous video on YouTube of me getting my first visit there just getting blasted but it really that really lit us up and man I looked at my wife while we were there and I said if you could bottle what's in this room right now and take it to the streets it'll change the world this'll change the world and little did I know that I was really prophesying what I was gonna be stepping into yeah and so but that was yeah that was our introduction to it and so we were like well if this is what the vineyard is that's what we want to be you know because we were all about that we we weren't about that before but once we had the encounter the jad changed everything and so you know encounter will adjust your theology you know it'll just it'll adjust all that and so that's what happened and so we just started going man that this is what we want to be a part of and so we did ultimately we ended up we got the nod to plant a vineyard church and so we did in the Chicagoland area specifically in Aurora Illinois and so yeah that was the start of it that's so cool I never actually got to go to Toronto something I'd always wanted to do but when I came in I was this would be 95 96 I'm out on drugs in and out of the streets like there were times where I was homeless sleeping on park benches during that period of time and I just I had this awakening I knew God was real went after found a Bible and had this encounter everything changed I'm off of drugs and I started going to a church and this church was having the follow-up of Toronto so this would have been about 96 but when I started going there and they had every night every Sunday night not every night every Sunday night they just opened it was worship it was Holy Spirit just whatever happened and I had so many encounters that that marked my life so I never got to go to Toronto but I experienced a lot of that hmm that really shaped something and and when I was the the particular church that I was a part of and we ended up being in leadership or doing small groups and everything and I got to be a part of the leadership of that church while they transitioned from being hey we're gonna have overflow to hey we're moving towards the seeker sensitive model and yeah lately starting to shut down the the stuff that was so passionate is painful it was hard because I mean I was I remember listening to to our pastor talking about having words of knowledge where he'd see a ticker tape open up over someone's head and he would read the words and he didn't even know what the words were but they were medical conditions Wow and people getting healed Blake I like to get an impartation for that guy but then I listened to a recent message from the same guy talking about word of knowledge explaining how the word of knowledge is a a gift that God gives some people to be really intelligent no my lord wow what a digression because this was my foundation this yes is what really shaped me and and I just I've seen this this progression that that becomes kind of easy where we get settled with what we're comfortable with right and as soon as we get settled with what we're comfortable with we start to enshrine being comfortable yeah and when you're comfortable what you're come for the bull with shrinks yeah so you end up being comfortable with less and less and less yeah and what you used to be comfortable with here that was like on the edge for other people now that is weird yeah and your comfort level and so I've had to fight to not let comfortability III kind of label it as it's going for the safe is that you go you start moving into safety and you start moot you start moving away from what's risk and I mean if you take a look at God I mean he's he's he's powerful but it's like you know in CS Lewis book lying The Witch of the Wardrobe he you know he's he's their ass they're having this conversation about Aslan and they're like you know is he safe and he's like huh no he's certainly not safe but he is good and that is so true of God there's there's there's not he's not safe but he is good and and and I think what happens is that so much of those guys sort of move towards safety or we have a tendency to move to what and it's also I think the more predictable let's go towards something that you know a plus B equals C when you're dependent on the Holy Spirit you don't know where you're going I mean you may have a general idea but you don't know the particulars you're you're in a place of having to be directed having to be led and for us that's a that's a loss of control and when we're not in control that makes us feel scared and it makes us feel unsafe and makes us feel and there's a part of that you know where the Lord wants us I mean the children of Israel are circular circling this wilderness when it should have just been a couple weeks to get to the promised land but God is creating dependency in them and breaking independence out of them and breaking them free from this thing of being self-sustaining but I think what happens is that movements denominations groups churches individuals start moving to this place of going let's let's move to what something that we can measure it more linear I was just talking with a pastor this past week where if ministry and he was like you know I've got budgets to me i-i've got to have enough you know if you will sort of butts in the seat you know to make sure that we cover these things and and and it's easier to guarantee that through this model versus this model yeah and so I think all of a sudden that becomes it's it's a trade-off which is sad to me because then you know and it's like John Wimber himself used to say the founder of the vineyard he used to say you know we we come to the place to where that we're we believe in the Trinity we believe in the Father Son and the Holy Scriptures yeah we don't see Jesus isn't saying listen I'm going to give you the the keys to you know church growth right I'm gonna give you the keys to to how of Jeevan Church government he doesn't even spell out what church government's supposed to look like we see little pictures of it throughout you know Paul and throughout you know what some of the other you know leaders are doing in acts but we really don't see that you know that Jesus is saying that this is the way to do this and I think it's because you know he's wanting us to be led he wants us leaning into him and what it was so many of these groups and movements turn to as they start wanting to be legitimate and that's sad but I think the temptation in the garden of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was you know the pursuit of knowledge Satan is communicating to Eve you know God isn't giving you everything and you will be as God if you eat of this which they already were ask God right so he's promising nothing but what is what the temptation is is to all of a sudden become legitimate through knowledge and through and then all of a sudden it's it's what I know versus what I encounter and you just can't bypass that encounter because that launches everything in relationship you know and and so yeah it's it's over to legit it's a legit concern and then something that's at sea it is because you have the the fear of man or the fear of losing ya and losing you know I think a big part of my mentor John Paul he was he was in a meeting with someone that when they were getting they were passing away he went to pray for him to be healed they didn't get healed but while he was there this person that was a leader grabbed him and holds on to him and says John Paul don't do what I did yeah God asked me to take a risk and I looked him in the face and said no I've got too much yeah and that's that that ends up happening because we have this thing God gave us this beautiful thing and we're afraid of losing it right but we miss because we this other thing around that I mean you know that encounter with that and so it's we're sacrificing one or the other because the thing is the presence not what comes from the presence right and we miss that so we pursue what comes from the presence and we begin to go after the fruit of something instead of the reality of it when what he's given us the only promise he ever gave us I will be your very great reward mm and that that was I will be with you yeah it's not like you're gonna have all these things I am what you seek but since we go after the things whatever those things be I mean we do it on the other side where we go after the manifestations where we go after miracles but it's not about the presents anymore and then we end up and the other side of the error where when left we've left our first love where we have all this activity and or we go on the side where oh now I've you know all these giftings people are gathering like I mean I I have influence I've got to protect this influence yeah I have this budget look at all these people that I'm helping with this big budget I need to make sure that I'm meeting my budget because I'm helping all these people and we have all these self-righteous justifications for doing something other than just pursuing God yeah and it's the whole self-sustaining thing you know that I've got to do this in order to sustain and it's just all of it is it's all really misleading you know because it's not it doesn't work - the very thing that we're called to you know to be is the church and and so it's it's uh you know it's it's a tragic when we go there you know I mean Paul makes it very clear you know and Corinthians were said listen I didn't come to you you know with excellent words man's wisdom but I came with a demonstration of power now what is tragic to me is that a lot of people see people operating in power as just trying to draw people to themselves but Paul makes it clear he goes I came to you with the demonstration of power not to connect you to me but connects you to the Father right and so the demonstration of the power connects someone to the Father and you know we're working a lot in the Muslim world and one of the things that this came up as a discussion where there's an approach currently we've been heavily involved in stuff that's happening in Iran and working with Ronnie when I say heavily involved what's happening is completely unorganized right it's just it's a it's a firestorm in the most positive way so it's not like you know it's not like it was launched by anybody's idea or anybody but we're trying to breathe on it is what I'm trying to say and try to equip it they are the best that we can and and one of the approaches is is using through Scripture this you know kind of culminating thing of communicating of how to discover Jesus and it which with with a certain group I was telling us like the problem is is that will take years because I mean the plan of that is about a two-year plan before you finally reveal Jesus to the person in Scripture and I'm like we don't have that time you know I'm like well let's let's take that two years and reduce it down to about 20 minutes by praying for those people than having an encounter that makes them desperate to know Christ yeah and say that you were just introduced to Jesus by having that encounter by feeling the heat that electricity by being healed by getting that word by being delivered of that demon all of that was Jesus saying I want a relationship with you and it was eye-opening and we were training about 500 Iranians back in July and and brought him over to Turkey and equipping them to training them and one of the things that that was powerful with this as I told them this I said guys this could easily become because I know Iran's gonna change I know the the regime of the ayatollahs was collapsed it's already collapsing it's just a matter of time but um you know I told them I said you've got to see this you've got it you can't have what happened to the church in Russia after communism fell that doors were wide open but now there's not as much of this pursuit now 20 plus years later that there was initially then and what I was sharing with them as he said you've got to keep this to where that the power is always outward pointing outward and in some of those powerful meetings that we were in and were a part of one of the things that can easily happen and that's a mistake for us as a church is let's keep it in these meetings in this building in this place here the only way that you're gonna see that type of power work of a spirit sustained is when we're sewing it and reaping it and so we were telling everybody listen you know what happens in more of the seeker model is it's like bring your friends will preach the gospel every Sunday is a gospel presentation every Sunday is a pitch for them and we're explaining to them listen the early church the way which was the name of the early church evangelism was happening Monday through Saturday are really the reality was you know Sunday through Friday you know Saturday was there but um but it was happening all the time what's happening in their work that was happening where they lives it was happening in their community and so evangelism wasn't happening by the Apostles getting up and preaching that was happening with the people every day and so what happens is is when we get people create a create a dependency of bringing them to us so we can communicate the gospel we lose but where they are experiencing God and then hearing more and drawing in and what that is is it's planting seeds in the community to reap inside the church and the way that power is sustained is not when it's tried to kept within walls but when its mobile you got to realize I mean God had created it where he intended his presence dwell wasn't in the temple the temple was David's idea he wanted the tabernacle because it's hammer knuckles moles it was it had mobility God wants his presence in mobile Tabernacles that's us he wants us he doesn't want it in fixed walls and so if it stays in fixed walls it's got about a 2025 year run and then it dies out most revivals have about that long of a run if they stay within where they're at but when they plant outside and they they show outside they reap inside through throughout our church we were we were constantly experiencing a constant flow of God's presence because I was always pressing everybody be praying for people at your work be be giving prophetic words your training your activation of the prophetic isn't happening but we were doing it within the church but we were like this is just the practice field for you to go do it where the game field is at your work it's at the Walmart it's at the grocery store and as we saw that we saw a sustaining constant flow because it wasn't just trying to say it's happening here you know what I mean and that's where there seems to be a loss as well is that when we devalue it because all of a sudden we can't manage it we can't control it or it's not sustainable in that sense or we stop sewing it outside because we want to we want to box it and keep it here and put a bow on it go it's at this place yeah mobile Tabernacle yeah that's not yeah exactly God's never gonna allow us to do that yeah with what's his no this is not ours it is the presence this is yeah he's like okay well that's what you built I'm gonna go build something else yeah move on to the next place because you're all of a sudden starting to you know put walls around it and it just doesn't work that way [Music] you

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Length: 20min 18sec (1218 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 16 2020