Asking Needed Questions

Notes from presentation by Perry Noble at Unleash 2008

If you are not going to use your church God would like it back so He can give it to someone who is going to use it for His glory.

Praying alarm goes off — so we realize

• God created church to reach the world
• Church attendance decreasing while population increasing — and we want to form study groups to study this issue
• We need the alarm so we can wake up and reach the world for Christ

1. What is it that God wants to do in my church?
   1. Too busy working to know what Father’s heart is
      • Get caught up in doing own thing own way
      • Not spending enough time with Father to know his vision
   2. If older son (parable of prodigal son) knew Father’s vision, he would have stopped “working” and gone to find the lost
   3. Time
      • Must spend passionate uninterrupted time with Father
      • Need revelation not just inspiration
      • If God didn’t tell you to do this, don’t do it — you’ll screw the whole thing up
      • Be who God called us to be, Do what God called us to do
        • World needs our church to be what God wants us to be — not what some other church is
        • Every church is individual to God
        • Quit telling God what he can’t do
   4. Effort
      • We need to go all out for God
      • Put on “best performance” for God
        • We offer half-hearted presentations and then blame it on the Holy Spirit
        • Holy Spirit won’t take the blame
      • Once you take something ordinary and overlay it with the best you have, God will move in and anoint it and use it for His glory like you’ve never seen
      • If going to reach the world for Christ — have to spend some money
        • Vegas is willing to spend billions on nothing and churches are arguing over nickels and dimes
        • Fund children’s programs — spend money on them
   5. God is calling us to do something unique
      • Listen to God
      • Have passion
      • Believe God can do what God is calling us to do
2. What are the barriers that stand in our way?
   • Refusal to change
     • Don’t allow personal preferences to get in way of what God wants to do in our church
       • Personal preferences can hamstring creative processes
     • Great ideas become old and will need to change
       • Hanging onto personal preferences keeps this needed change from happening
       • Need to kill old and bury it to get new (God buried Moses and told Joshua to move)
       • Honor, respect old but move on to new
   • Jealousy
     • Rejoice over success of others
     • Be careful what you speak against — because if God is in it you’ve spoken against the Holy Spirit
     • Learn that when God is moving somewhere to celebrate that
     • God will do great work in a church around you to see if your character can handle it
     • If you can’t celebrate others, God may say I can’t trust you with a blessing
   • Lack of understanding
     • Have no idea of what we’ve got ourselves into — don’t know what God has given us to know God’s heart
     • We have power of Holy Spirit, have the Word of God, have the blessing of God, have the anointing of God, have the calling of God, quit telling God we can’t do it
       • Should be able to go anywhere and grow a church for Jesus
3. What do we want to celebrate?
   • Our job is to tell world who Jesus is
   • Fear — made movements in churches about everything other than Jesus Christ
   • Church should lift up name of Jesus and Jesus Christ alone
   • Celebrate people meeting Jesus
     • Anytime something was lost and then found they celebrated
   • Pray to be set on fire
     • Don’t be comfortable with churches that don’t reach people

Church belongs to Christ

God has a plan

What is God’s plan for our church?

We need to beg for revelation

Lord, give us a detailed vision.
Lord, help us overcome our barriers.
Lord, help us to celebrate your success.
Lord, help us to embrace the new things we are called to do.

Thank you, Jesus