The Door Is Open
August 22-24, 2013
Edmonton, Alberta
After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven.
And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said,
“Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” Revelation 4:1
Every generation has a mandate – a divine purpose that is hidden in the heart of God until the appointed time comes for it to be revealed and established in the earth.
Generation X (born c. 1965-1979) was created by God with a passion for the pursuit of His glory and a longing to see the hearts of the fathers and sons turned toward one another. Wired for reality and relationship, they carry a mandate to see the Church restored to God’s original dream: a Presence-filled family whose intimacy with the Father and unconditional love for one another transforms the Church into a homing beacon for a lost and dying world.
Until now, Gen Xers have been scattered and mostly voiceless in the Church because they have struggled to connect with Church systems that seem to value on program or accomplishing a vision above relationships with God and within the Body. Discouraged and disillusioned, many have simply “checked out” – either physically, by leaving churches and ministries or the faith, or emotionally, by attending but without really engaging their hearts.
But God has not forgotten Gen X. At the beginning of 2012, He began to speak us that the destiny of Gen X is coming into collision with God's timing and this year marks a turning point to see the restoration, repositioning and release of Gen X into our mandate. In a gathering in February, the Lord released a vision to us of a door that was firmly closed and electrified, like an electric fence. A Gen Xer came to the door and tried to open it, but instead received a shock. Surprised, he pulled back. A few moments later he tried again – and got another shock. This scene kept repeating until, dejected, he withdrew and stood away from the door, uncertain what to do. Then the scene changed and now the same door was slightly ajar and no longer electrified. Then the Lord said, “This is My word to the Gen X in this season – the door is open! The door is open! The door is open!” Then the scene changed again to a group of Gen Xers who we knew were gathered in Western Canada. As they stood together suddenly a door opened over their heads towards Eastern Canada.
We believe a door is now open in heaven and that if remnant of Gen Xers will answer His call to come together and wait on Him, He will take us through that open door begin to reveal “the things which are to come.” (Revelation 4:1)
In obedience to the Lord, we are releasing a call to Gen Xers, and any one from the older and younger generations who carry the same heart, to gather in Edmonton, August 22-24. Together, as one family, we will worship and venture with God through the open door as He reveals to us the secrets of His heart.
We look forward to welcoming you to Edmonton this August!
With love,
The Awaken Team
Believers from every generation answered a call from the Lord to gather in Edmonton August 22- 24, 2013. To read the accounts of what the Lord did, please click the report links below. If you would like to listen to or download an MP3 of the session, click the MP3 link (click the link to listen – a window will open in your internet browser. To download the mp3 simply right click on the browser and select “save source as”)
The Door Is Open - Part 1 - Living Right Side Up [1] Listen to Session 1 MP3 [2] Listen to Session 1 Worship [3]
The Door Is Open - Part 2 - The Governor [4] Listen to Session 2 MP3 [5]
The Door Is Open - Part 3 - Nothing is Impossible [6] Listen to Session 3 MP3 [7] Listen to Session 3 Worship [8]
The Door Is Open - Part 4 - Embracing the Pain [9] Listen to Session 4 MP3 [10] Listen to Session 4 Worship [11]
The Door Is Open - Part 5 - Edmonton [12] Listen to Session 5 MP3 [13] Listen to Session 5 Worship [14]
The Door Is Open - Part 6 - One Family [15] Listen to Session 6 MP3 [16]
The Door Is Open - Part 7 - Lay Me Down [17] Listen to Session 7 MP3 [18]
The Door Is Open - Part 1 - Living Right Side Up
The gathering exceeded anything we could have hoped for or believed would happen! It was such a joy to be together with those the Lord released to attend the gathering from Western Canada, Quebec, New Brunswick and Newfoundland! And for those who could not come, but who supported with your prayers and faith and giving – thank you! It was the collective obedience and sacrifice of all of us that opened the way for the Lord to accomplish the longing of His heart for this gathering.
The Foundation
As we shared in the first session of the gathering, six of seven of us on the Awaken team first met when we served together in Watchmen for the Nations, a relational network of thousands of believers in Canada who share a common heart cry for the Church of Canada to be fashioned into a resting place for the glory of the Lord. For 10 years (1999-2009) this remnant of believers journeyed with the Lord, gathering at His request, walking out prophetic steps of obedience to see the redemption of Canada’s eternal destiny. Our experience in Watchmen and the training and mentoring we received through David Demian, as well as other respected spiritual fathers and mothers from across the nation, have been invaluable and integral in shaping our understanding of the principles of God’s kingdom and rule.
It’s upon this strong and secure foundation, which has already been laid by the older generations, that we believe God is calling the younger generations, Gen Xers and millennials, to begin to build. However, building the first floor of a house is very different than laying the foundation. So while God means us to embrace the values and principles of the journey, He does not want us to try to replicate its steps or create forms or structures from what were rhema words of God in that journey.
Creatures of Habit
This is the tricky part because as human beings we are creatures of habit. So we have a tendency to try to “franchise” revelation from the Lord. When a church or ministry does something that seems to be successful, we try to find a pattern and duplicate it, hoping for the same results. But if we look at the Old Testament we don’t see God “franchising” strategies – the children of Israel only marched around the walls of a city once. Their journey was not about learning strategies for warfare – it was about learning how to follow the presence of God as He manifested Himself in a pillar of fire or a cloud. And so it should be for us.
Our Awaken team, with our spouses, had been in Edmonton for two days before the gathering and as we talked and tried to discern about different aspects of the coming meetings, we found ourselves slipping out of rest and into human planning. Because we have been in so many gatherings, we have unconsciously developed expectations of how things ‘should be done” based on past experiences, good and bad. So without even realizing it, we were falling into trying to fit the gathering into these pre-set patterns more than positioning ourselves to receive revelation and a fresh word from God.
Thankfully the Lord confronted us about this the night before the gathering. Throughout the consecration call we would pray in the Spirit together every morning (except Sundays – just couldn’t get a schedule to work between church in 5 time zones) and from those times, much revelation came that we shared during those three weeks. As we were gathered on Wednesday night, the Lord challenged us by asking, “Why are you forgetting what you already learned during the consecration call? I told you that a new door is opening so why are you trying to force things into an old pattern instead of seeking Me for new ways?”
We were cut to the heart and began repenting right on the spot. That repentance turned into a prayer meeting and, after about an hour, we knew exactly how we were to start the first session of the gathering: confessing our own struggles to everyone so that together we could ask the Lord to help shift us from being people of the mind to people of the Spirit.
Living Right Side Up
Most of us are living inverted lives – with our minds in ascendency over the Spirit instead of the Spirit in ascendancy over the mind. Because of this we struggle to walk in Kingdom ways because the things of the Spirit are foolishness to the natural mind – they can only be spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14) So if we try to hear the Lord through the grid of our human mind, it’s going to be like trying to listen to a radio station with constant static. We are never going to hear clearly because we are living upside down. We need to turn things right side up and become true sons and daughters of God, led by the Spirit of God in every aspect of our lives. (Romans 8:14)
To hear more about this and our journey in the first session of the gathering, click here to access the MP3. [2] (click link to listen – a window will open in your internet browser. To download the mp3 simply right click on the browser and select “save source as”)
To hear a selection of worship from the first session (please note this is raw board mix – not professionally mixed) click here to access the MP3. [3] (click link to listen – a window will open in your internet browser. To download the mp3 simply right click on the browser and select “save source as”)
Love,
Stephanie
On behalf of the Awaken Team
We desire our journey to be an expression of the corporate body and not just a few of us, so if the Lord gives you a vision or dream or speaks to you through a scripture or if you have a story or testimony you would like to share, please send it to share@awakenthedream.org [19].
If you would like to stay connected with Awaken the Dream and the journey, you may sign up at http://www.awakenthedream.org/connect [20].
The Door is Open - Part 2 - The Governor
Have you ever been in worship when suddenly the whole atmosphere shifts and you can feel a tangible presence of God that captivates your heart? Everything in your being starts yearning to run and soar with the Lord. But no matter how hard you try to “take off”, you feel grounded, as if something is constraining you and pulling you back to earth.
I had this experience in the second session of the gathering. We had felt to begin the Thursday evening session in worship, waiting for the Lord to release further instructions to us. The worship team was entering into deep places with the Holy Spirit and I could feel not only myself but many people longing to do the same. But every time the worship would build to a point that it seemed like we were going to break through to a new level, something would hinder us and we would drop back down to earth. So the whole worship session felt like a yoyo: up and down, up and down. And when the worship ended, there wasn’t the release that comes when you know you have fulfilled what the Lord intended. It was more like knocking and knocking on a door until finally we got tired and things sort of faded out to an incomplete finish. And the promise of “something more” hung heavy in the air.
During the worship, I kept asking the Lord, “What is going on?” And He spoke one word clearly to my spirit – governor. I looked it up in the dictionary and found this definition: an attachment to a machine (as a gasoline engine) for automatic control or limitation of speed.
Then the Lord said to me, “People are being limited by their past experiences and so, even though the door is open, they are not able to enter into the new.”
Corporate worship can sometimes be like going to a swimming pool with a group of people. When the worship starts, you get excited and jump full force into the pool. But just as you start enjoying the water, someone suddenly yells “Ok, out of the pool.” It’s only at that point that you realize, to your horror, that other people, while dressed in bathing suits, haven’t actually ever left the edge of the pool. Since you are standing there sopping wet while everyone else is dry, you can feel kind of stupid for your exuberance.
If this happens to you a few times I will guarantee that the next time you go swimming, you will think twice about jumping into the pool first. Maybe you’ll just stand on the edge and poke a toe in to test the water and see if anyone else is going to jump in first.
This is how a lot of Gen Xers have felt in worship in church. As soon as worship starts, we get excited and dive in head first. But just as the presence of God is building, suddenly someone gets up and says it’s time to do announcements or take an offering. To shift from intense passion or intimacy of communion with God into planning the next church picnic is like shifting straight from fifth gear into first gear. It’s grinding and painful. So much so that subtly we can start holding ourselves back.
That’s how our past experiences become a governor on our spirits, preventing us from going full speed in the way we know God has fashioned us to do. What God desires is to free us from this governor, so that we have no limitations in our passionate pursuit of the presence of God in worship and every other area of our lives.
So how can we get free from the governor of past experiences? It’s not by trying harder or forcing ourselves. In fact, it’s the opposite – it’s by coming into a place of greater surrender.
To hear more about how God wants to free us from the governor, click here to access the MP3 [5] from the Thursday night session of the gathering. (Click link to listen – a window will open in your internet browser. To download the mp3 simply right click on the browser and select “save source as”)
Love,
Stephanie
On behalf of the Awaken Team
We desire our journey to be an expression of the corporate body and not just a few of us, so if the Lord gives you a vision or dream or speaks to you through a scripture or if you have a story or testimony you would like to share, please send it to share@awakenthedream.org [19].
If you would like to stay connected with Awaken the Dream and the journey, you may sign up at http://www.awakenthedream.org/connect [20].
The Door is Open - Part 3 - Nothing is Impossible
There is a persevering faith in the older generations (the boomers and builders) that is an incredible inheritance for the Gen Xer and millennial generations, if we will have the humility to receive it.
So after worship, we had the privilege of hearing Rick and Nell, as well as Danyele Bloom, the national president of Aglow Canada, share with us from their life journeys. Then, in accordance with 2 Timothy 1:6, then prayed for us and laid hands on us to impart to us from the rich deposit of persevering faith the Lord has built in their lives.
To hear more about what was shared Friday morning, click here [7]. (Note: click link to listen – a window will open in your internet browser. To download the mp3 simply right click on the browser and select “save source as”.)
Click here [8]to hear the worship from Friday morning including the declaration - Nothing Is Impossible!
If your heart is stirred as you listen and you want to receive an impartation of faith, it’s not too late. There is no time or distance in the Spirit. As Danyele said, people are only instruments through whom the Holy Spirit operates. You can reach out and receive an impartation of faith, right now, directly from the hand of the Father. Let’s pray this prayer together:
“Father, I don’t want to live any more in the limitation of my human understanding because I know Your desire for me is to live by persevering faith. So I’m asking you to impart into my life a gift of faith, the faith that against all hope believes. Father I choose to take my place in the procession of faith of generations and say, ‘I throw off every hindrance and the sin that so easily entangles. And I run with perseverance the race marked out for me, fixing my eyes on Jesus, the author of perfecter of my faith.’ In Jesus’ name, Amen!”
Love,
Stephanie
On behalf of the Awaken Team
We desire our journey to be an expression of the corporate body and not just a few of us, so if the Lord gives you a vision or dream or speaks to you through a scripture or if you have a story or testimony you would like to share, please send it to share@awakenthedream.org [19].
If you would like to stay connected with Awaken the Dream and the journey, you may sign up at http://www.awakenthedream.org/connect [20].
The Door is Open - Part 4 - Embracing the Pain
But rather than pressing into the Lord for understanding, we have often swung one of two ways: we have laid the blame for our suffering squarely on the shoulders of the older generations (“If only they weren’t so vision-driven/task-oriented/controlling and would get out of the way and let someone else lead!”) or we have believed a lie that, for some reason, God has forgotten us (“I’m too messed up, God has given up on me/passed me by”).
Both these lies have kept us wallowing in self-pity and trapped in despair because we have failed to see the bigger picture of God’s eternal purposes and sovereignty. We know that we are wired with an almost obsessive need for the presence of God and a longing to see the headship of Jesus recognized and honoured in the Church through a sensitivity and obedience to the Holy Spirit. And yet we haven’t understood the price that needs to be paid by a generation destined to shift the Church into experiencing a new measure of the manifested Glory of God in our midst.
Paul explained in 2 Corinthians 4 that we have this treasure (the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ) in earthen vessels so that the power may be seen to be of God and not man. How can light be seen through a clay jar? By breaking it.
Knowing that He cannot share His glory with any man, in His wisdom and mercy, God has been taking Gen Xers through an intense journey of brokenness. This has been an act of love for our protection, not our destruction.
Understanding and embracing, rather than resisting, the pain or suffering the Lord has allowed in our lives to shape and prepare us, is key to our release as a generation.
To hear more about God’s journey with Gen X, click here [10]. (Note: click link to listen – a window will open in your internet browser. To download the mp3 simply right click on the browser and select “save source as”.)
At the end of the session, we took a time to worship and offer ourselves wholeheartedly to the Lord. Click here [11] to hear the worship from Friday afternoon.
Love,
Stephanie
On behalf of the Awaken Team
We desire our journey to be an expression of the corporate body and not just a few of us, so if the Lord gives you a vision or dream or speaks to you through a scripture or if you have a story or testimony you would like to share, please send it to share@awakenthedream.org [19].
If you would like to stay connected with Awaken the Dream and the journey, you may sign up at http://www.awakenthedream.org/connect [20].
The Door is Open - Part 5 - EdmontonThe Lord directed us to have an open worship night for the city of Edmonton on the Friday night of the gathering.
When the Israelites entered into the Promised Land, they were commanded to fight for their brother’s inheritance. Even Ephraim and Manasseh, who received their portion before crossing over the Jordan, were required to cross over and war until their brothers were established in their inheritances.
This is a picture of how the Lord wants us to function as a Body in our nation. The Church in each province, region, and city is meant to display a unique facet of the glory of God in accordance to the purposes the Lord has entrusted to them. As we contend for the blessing and breakthrough of the Body in different places, the nation is strengthened.
Just as people gifted with prophetic insight receive revelation and speak into the destiny of an individual, the Lord will also speak through the prophetic regarding His purposes for the Church in a city, province or nation.
In March 2002, Patricia King, a well-known prophetic voice, released the following word while visiting Edmonton:
“I was asking [the Lord] specifically about Edmonton, and I have been seeing for two days now a vision of like a military post. It’s like a pillar post, and it’s right here in this area. And tonight as we were worshipping, I actually saw like that portal of glory coming down upon this. And then I started seeing that out of that military post was coming armies of soldiers. And then I saw them get up on the horses with Jesus and follow Jesus and I believe there is a mandate – one of the mandates – on this area is for the people of God to become the warriors of God, and to be called as a military post in the Spirit to contend for the victory of the Lord and to be protectors for this region.
And I saw that on the top of this military post, there was almost like a lighthouse and it was turning around with light going out into all the regions around you. And the Lord wants to use the Edmonton region to have significant impact on all the areas around you, to the north, the south, the east and the west where there will be a releasing of the light and the glory of God but it’s going to come through a warrior posture. A warrior posture: standing and saying, “Jesus, You are the King of Glory, the Lord mighty in battle, the Lord of Hosts”. He’s the Captain of the armies of heaven, and I believe that God wants to release into this region a revelation of Psalm 24, and I believe that Psalm 24 is going to be a significant scripture for Edmonton. That is, all the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, all it contains and all that dwell therein. It says, ‘Open up ye gates, open up ye gates, and let the King of Glory come in. Who is the King of Glory? The Lord of hosts. He is the King of Glory. The Lord mighty in battle.’ And there’s something so significant about that scripture for this particular region. And I prophesy it out right now that the city of Edmonton and the region around this area will become as a military post that will honour the King of Glory, and that will be used to release the light and the glory of the gospel like a lighthouse going around into all the regions around it and will stand as a protector in the nation of the plans and the purposes of God.”
During the worship on Friday night, the worship team began singing out Psalm 24 – even though they had no prior knowledge of this prophetic word. So when the worship was finished, this prophetic word was shared and spiritual leaders from Edmonton and the surrounding areas led the whole gathering in prayers of agreement, spiritually aligning and reinforcing what the Lord has already spoken over Edmonton.
To hear the Friday evening worship, click here. [14]
To hear the prophetic word and prayers made after worship, click here [13].
Love,
Stephanie
On behalf of the Awaken Team
We desire our journey to be an expression of the corporate body and not just a few of us, so if the Lord gives you a vision or dream or speaks to you through a scripture or if you have a story or testimony you would like to share, please send it to share@awakenthedream.org [19].
If you would like to stay connected with Awaken the Dream and the journey, you may sign up at http://www.awakenthedream.org/connect [20].
The Door is Open - Part 6 - One Family
Weeks before the gathering, the Lord laid on our hearts the importance of having at least a seed of millenials (born c. 1980-2000) in the gathering. Saturday morning we had a wonderful opportunity to hear the hearts of some of those millennials the Lord called to the gathering.
One young woman from BC shared her burden to see her generation walking together, both with one another and with the other generations. She also shared a vision God had given her during the gathering where she saw her generation, holding hands with the Gen Xers, forming a line right across the nation.
A young man from Manitoba also shared with us what God was revealing to him during the gathering. He confessed that had come out of obedience to the Lord but without any heart for Gen Xers. But that was soon remedied as God began breaking his heart for Gen Xers. He spoke a word of encouragement and blessing over Xers and then asked other millennials, if they were in agreement, to stand with him and release this simple but powerful prayer/declaration:
Lord, make me an advocate of every other part of the body. Make me a ligament. I will spur others on with all my might.
The hearts of all those present in the gathering were so touched that we came to the front of the church and, as the generations stood intertwined together without any gap, as one family we made this same declaration!
To hear more of what was shared and declared in the Saturday morning session please click here [16]. (Note: click link to listen – a window will open in your internet browser. To download the mp3 simply right click on the browser and select “save source as”.)
Love,
Stephanie
On behalf of the Awaken Team
We desire our journey to be an expression of the corporate body and not just a few of us, so if the Lord gives you a vision or dream or speaks to you through a scripture or if you have a story or testimony you would like to share, please send it to share@awakenthedream.org [19].
If you would like to stay connected with Awaken the Dream and the journey, you may sign up at http://www.awakenthedream.org/connect [20].
The Door is Open - Part 7 - Lay Me DownDuring our Saturday afternoon session, the Lord directed us into two prophetic acts as a way of sealing everything He had been speaking to us about during the gathering.
First, the Lord directed us to anoint our necks as a proclamation that we are bowing to the yoke of the Lord and declaring that we will not be a stiff-necked people.
Second, the Lord asked for all Gen Xers who felt called to stand for the fulfillment of God’s purposes for our generation, to step forward as a prophetic statement that they are walking through the open door and joining with the company of those from across the nation called for such a time as this.
In accordance with a picture the Lord had given us earlier in the gathering, first all those present formed a large circle, while the Awaken team stood in a smaller circle in the middle. As we all began to sing Lay Me Down (a song the Lord gave us as a theme for the gathering) , those Gen Xers feeling to stand for our generation stepped forward, moving from the wider circle and into the smaller one. Then together as one family and as an intercessory representation of the body of Christ in Canada, we all bowed our necks and anointed them with spikenard, declaring that God will have in the Church of Canada a “soft-necked” people, who will easily bow to His Lordship and take upon ourselves His yoke alone.
To hear more of what happened in this session, please click here [18]. (Note: click link to listen – a window will open in your internet browser. To download the mp3 simply right click on the browser and select “save source as”.)
If your heart resonates with the call to be “soft-necked” and live your life in a more complete submission to the King, Jesus, then we encourage you to join in as you listen, anointing your own neck and praying the prayer with us.
And if you are a Gen Xer and you feel that you are one of those the Lord is stirring to stand to see His purposes fulfilled in our generation, then, wherever you are, we encourage you to step forward and join in singing the song.
Lay Me Down (Chris Tomlin)I lay me downI’m not my ownI belong to You aloneLay me down, Lay me downHand on my heartThis much is trueThere’s no life apart from YouLay me down, lay me down
It will be my joy to sayYour will, Your wayIt will be my joy to say
Your will, Your way
It will be my joy to sayYour will, Your wayAlways
Remember there is no distance in the spirit and if you are an Xer who has made that commitment and would like to connect with others of the same heart across the nation, please email us at share@awakenthedream.org [19]. Psalm 68:6 tells us that God sets the lonely in families and we believe in this hour, He is knitting many of kindred spirit from all generations together so that we can have the safety and comfort of not walking alone.
Love,
Stephanie
On behalf of the Awaken Team
We desire our journey to be an expression of the corporate body and not just a few of us, so if the Lord gives you a vision or dream or speaks to you through a scripture or if you have a story or testimony you would like to share, please send it to share@awakenthedream.org [19].
If you would like to stay connected with Awaken the Dream and the journey, you may sign up at http://www.awakenthedream.org/connect [20].
The Door is Open - Part 7 - Lay Me Down
During our Saturday afternoon session, the Lord directed us into two prophetic acts as a way of sealing everything He had been speaking to us about during the gathering.
First, the Lord directed us to anoint our necks as a proclamation that we are bowing to the yoke of the Lord and declaring that we will not be a stiff-necked people.
Second, the Lord asked for all Gen Xers who felt called to stand for the fulfillment of God’s purposes for our generation, to step forward as a prophetic statement that they are walking through the open door and joining with the company of those from across the nation called for such a time as this.
In accordance with a picture the Lord had given us earlier in the gathering, first all those present formed a large circle, while the Awaken team stood in a smaller circle in the middle. As we all began to sing Lay Me Down (a song the Lord gave us as a theme for the gathering) , those Gen Xers feeling to stand for our generation stepped forward, moving from the wider circle and into the smaller one. Then together as one family and as an intercessory representation of the body of Christ in Canada, we all bowed our necks and anointed them with spikenard, declaring that God will have in the Church of Canada a “soft-necked” people, who will easily bow to His Lordship and take upon ourselves His yoke alone.
To hear more of what happened in this session, please click here [18]. (Note: click link to listen – a window will open in your internet browser. To download the mp3 simply right click on the browser and select “save source as”.)
If your heart resonates with the call to be “soft-necked” and live your life in a more complete submission to the King, Jesus, then we encourage you to join in as you listen, anointing your own neck and praying the prayer with us.
And if you are a Gen Xer and you feel that you are one of those the Lord is stirring to stand to see His purposes fulfilled in our generation, then, wherever you are, we encourage you to step forward and join in singing the song.
Lay Me Down (Chris Tomlin)
I lay me down
I’m not my own
I belong to You alone
Lay me down, Lay me down
Hand on my heart
This much is true
There’s no life apart from You
Lay me down, lay me down
It will be my joy to say
Your will, Your way
It will be my joy to say
Your will, Your way
It will be my joy to say
Your will, Your way
Always
Remember there is no distance in the spirit and if you are an Xer who has made that commitment and would like to connect with others of the same heart across the nation, please email us at share@awakenthedream.org [19]. Psalm 68:6 tells us that God sets the lonely in families and we believe in this hour, He is knitting many of kindred spirit from all generations together so that we can have the safety and comfort of not walking alone.
Love,
Stephanie
On behalf of the Awaken Team
We desire our journey to be an expression of the corporate body and not just a few of us, so if the Lord gives you a vision or dream or speaks to you through a scripture or if you have a story or testimony you would like to share, please send it to share@awakenthedream.org [19].
If you would like to stay connected with Awaken the Dream and the journey, you may sign up at http://www.awakenthedream.org/connect [20].
The Door Is Open!
August 22-24, 2013
Edmonton, Alberta
After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven.
And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said,
“Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” Revelation 4:1
Every generation has a mandate – a divine purpose that is hidden in the heart of God until the appointed time comes for it to be revealed and established in the earth.
Generation X (born c. 1965-1979) was created by God with a passion for the pursuit of His glory and a longing to see the hearts of the fathers and sons turned toward one another. Wired for reality and relationship, they carry a mandate to see the Church restored to God’s original dream: a Presence-filled family whose intimacy with the Father and unconditional love for one another transforms the Church into a homing beacon for a lost and dying world.
Until now, Gen Xers have been scattered and mostly voiceless in the Church because they have struggled to connect with Church systems that seem to value program or accomplishing a vision above relationships with God and within the Body. Discouraged and disillusioned, many have simply “checked out” – either physically, by leaving churches and ministries or the faith, or emotionally, by attending but without really engaging their hearts.
But God has not forgotten Gen X. At the beginning of 2013, He began to speak to us that the destiny of Gen X is coming into collision with God's timing and this year marks a turning point to see the restoration, repositioning and release of Gen X into our mandate. In a gathering in February, the Lord released a vision to us of a door that was firmly closed and electrified, like an electric fence. A Gen Xer came to the door and tried to open it, but instead received a shock. Surprised, he pulled back. A few moments later he tried again – and got another shock. This scene kept repeating until, dejected, he withdrew and stood away from the door, uncertain what to do. Then the scene changed and now the same door was slightly ajar and no longer electrified. Then the Lord said, “This is My word to the Gen X in this season – the door is open! The door is open! The door is open!” Then the scene changed again to a group of Gen Xers who we knew were gathered in Western Canada. As they stood together suddenly a door opened over their heads towards Eastern Canada.
We believe a door is now open in heaven and that if remnant of Gen Xers will answer His call to come together and wait on Him, He will take us through that open door begin to reveal “the things which are to come.” (Revelation 4:1)
In obedience to the Lord, we are releasing a call to Gen Xers, and any one from the older and younger generations who carry the same heart, to gather in Edmonton, August 22-24. Together, as one family, we will worship and venture with God through the open door as He reveals to us the secrets of His heart.
We look forward to welcoming you to Edmonton this August!
With love,
The Awaken Team
Every morning during the Warfare of Rest consecration [21], our Awaken Team has met together via conference call for prayer. It’s something we felt the Lord asked us to do, as part of our own consecration and preparing the ground spiritually for the gathering. Most of the times we start by praying in the Spirit and as we do, the Lord begins open doors of revelation. Later, when I’m writing the daily exhortations, often I have the sense they are simply the English interpretations of what has already been prayed out by the Spirit each morning!
This morning, as we prayed, I saw a clear picture of a fence with many Gen Xers sitting on it. Below the fence, I saw the Father standing, arms outstretched, saying “Just jump, I will catch you.” But the Xers seem paralyzed and unable to move. Even though I could see many really wanted to jump, something was holding them back. Then I heard the Lord say, “It’s a leap of faith.”
As I shared with the team, we all agreed that we sense a rising level of contending in our spirits for all those whom the Lord has appointed to come to The Door is Open gathering [22], from every generation. But in particular, we feel the Lord is zeroing in on the Gen Xers, even as He has focused the call for this gathering on our generation. Many Gen Xers have already taken a step of faith and have registered, even if all the circumstances have not yet aligned for them. Still others have told us that since they committed to come, they have been experiencing increasing warfare, over themselves, their families, and their finances.
So why is there such warfare over gathering a group of people from a generation that, until now, has been mostly unheard of in the Church? Simply put, it’s because now we have entered into a kairos or appointed time of God for the restoration and release of Gen X.
Over the last few weeks, many of the Awaken team have been seeing the numbers 11:11 everywhere. When we say the “eleventh hour” it means the time has run out, we’re at the last possible moment. We believe that we are standing at critical transition point right now in the body of Christ in our nation. It seems like every day we hear another word from a respected prophetic voice saying a great awakening or revival is coming to Canada. But just because God is declaring it, doesn’t mean we can sit back and wait for it to happen. He is still looking for a response, for surrendered vessels through which He can move to release what He wants in our nation at this time.
Throughout history, awakening has come through younger people. So it’s interesting that at this time, most of the voices that are trumpeting the call for awakening are coming from the older generations. However, we believe that God wants to do a new thing in this hour and bring awakening into this nation not just through one generation, but through all the generations moving together as one family. That’s not to say that we will all have the same role, but each generation must respond in equal obedience to whatever part the Lord has destined them to play.
And this is why it’s key for the Gen Xers to rise up at this time. As a translation generation, able to understand the language of the older and the younger, we are called to be a bridge and play a vital role in bringing the generations together into one family. We are also wired by divine design with a desperate, almost-to-the-point-of-being-unbearable, need for the presence of God and as such are born “temple builders”. Gen Xers birthed the new worship movement in mid-1990s that shifted the Body from singing songs about God to singing to God – creating a channel of intimate communion with God through worship. But our mandate is not complete. We are meant to lead the whole family, through worship, in the pursuit of the sound of heaven that God is longing to see released on the earth. We believe when this sound on earth resonates in perfect harmony with the sound of heaven, it will create a channel through which we will experience the release of the “greater glory” that God promised through Haggai, that will not just impact the Church but the whole earth.
So why then do we not see the Gen Xers pursuing these mandates in the Church today? Because in our youth, many Gen Xers could not find open doors to radically pursue God’s presence of build a family within existing church structures. But rather than stand our ground in intercession, most of us simply slid to the sidelines - disconnecting, physically and/or emotionally from the Church.
But our departure affected far more than just our generation. Because of our call as a bridge, not only did our absence accentuate the gap between the older and younger generations, it also created a breach that the enemy is now exploiting with the millennials. While most Gen Xers left the Church as “conscientious objectors”, eschewing the man-made system but maintaining an intimate relationship with God, we didn’t realize that the kids in the youth group watching us leave didn’t understand that we were “standing on our principles not to perpetuate an unhealthy church system”. The only message they got was “when things don’t go your way, when things get hard, you leave.” And so they are leaving, in droves, not just the Church, but their faith as well.
Although Gen Xers cannot bear the full responsibility for all that is happening with millennials in the Church, we believe we do have a part that we must own and a wrong door. that we have opened in the Spirit, which we must close. Not just for the sake of the millennials, but for the sake of our generation as well.
Although Gen Xers say we long to see the King take His rightful place in His Body, the truth is most of us were not led out of our place (physically or spiritually) in the Church by God, but by our own pain, frustration, discouragement and hopelessness. In doing so, we elevated our feelings to the position of idols in our lives – giving them the right to direct us, when that right belongs to God and God alone. In doing so, we became AWOL - absent from the Church without leave from our King and Commander and Chief, Jesus.
As Xers, we have reaped the penalty for our faithlessness, as today, in our 30s and 40s, many in our generation are still wandering around in confusion, purposeless, disconnected, seeking to find fulfillment in jobs or families, all the while knowing deep down that we were meant to live for so much more.
But in our weakness, feeling trapped in hopelessness, believe it’s too late for us, God in His unfailing mercy and graciousness is calling out to Gen X, even as He did to Israel through Hosea thousands of years ago.
14 Therefore I am now going to allure [you, Gen Xers];
I will lead [you] into the wilderness
and speak tenderly to [you].
15 There I will give [you] back [your] vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There [you] will respond as in the days of [your] youth,
as in the day [you] came up out of Egypt.
“In that day,” declares the Lord,
“you will call me ‘my husband’;
you will no longer call me ‘my master
17 I will remove the names of the Baals from [your] lips;
no longer will their names be invoked.
18 In that day I will make a covenant for [you]
with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky
and the creatures that move along the ground.
Bow and sword and battle
I will abolish from the land,
so that all may lie down in safety.
19 I will betroth you to me forever;
I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
in love and compassion.
20 I will betroth you in faithfulness,
and you will acknowledge the Lord.
21 “In that day I will respond,”
declares the Lord—
“I will respond to the skies,
and they will respond to the earth;
22 and the earth will respond to the grain,
the new wine and the olive oil,
and they will respond to Jezreel
23 I will plant [you] for myself in the land;
I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one
I will say to those called ‘Not my people, ‘You are my people’;
and they will say, ‘You are my God.’”
The door is open, Gen Xers, and it’s a door of hope. Even as we just read on Day 8, when the situation looked hopeless for the Israelites trapped between the raging Red Sea and the marauding Egyptians, God had one simple word for them: “Tell the Israelites to move on.” Gen X, it’s time to move on. It’s time to forget the past, to stop looking at the circumstances of the present and to venture with God by faith as He makes a way where there is no way and destroys our enemies behind us. It’s time to take a leap of faith, jump off the fence and get in the gap, for the sake of all God wants to do among all the generations in our nation to reveal His glory in this hour.
Gen Xers, if you feel the Spirit calling you to be at The Door is Open gathering [23], don’t let any circumstance or obstacles, real or imagined, hinder your obedience. If God is calling you to Edmonton, it is part of your personal journey to enter into rest and He already has a plan to provide all that you need. Don’t listen to the lies of the enemy telling you that your voice doesn’t matter, that you don’t have a place here, that you don’t belong. Push past the voices of fear and pain from the past. Resist the devil, stand firm and set your face like flint to obey God at any cost. He is not a man that He should lie or the son of man that He should change His mind. If He promises, He will fulfill.
To the older and younger generations, if God is calling you to come to the gathering and stand with the Gen Xers at this time, your obedience is equally critical to God fulfilling His purposes. We are one family and we need to stand together, knowing that the restoration and release of one part of the Body is for the blessing and benefit of the whole.
To those who are walking in the consecration but don’t feel the Lord is asking you to attend the gathering, we want to encourage you that you can still stand in agreement with His purposes, through prayer and sowing. Both are God-ordained ways by which we link in the Spirit to the Lord’s purposes. There is a tremendous power that is released when we agree on earth with what God is declaring in heaven and in this, there is no distance in the Spirit. For more information on what to pray or how to sow, please visit the Agreement page [24] in The Door is Open section of the website.
We are so grateful that God has linked us together in this journey and we thank you for your heart to contend with us to see the purposes of God served in our generation (Acts 13:36).
Love,
Stephanie
On behalf of the Awaken Team
God is Making a Way Where There Is No Way!
A number of years ago, I was part of a team that was helping to organize leadership meetings all across the country. The first meeting happened in Alberta, my home province, and one outcome of this meeting, was that the leaders in my city, Edmonton, decided they wanted to begin to meet together to seek the Lord. This was something I had been longing to see for a while and I really felt from the Lord that I was supposed to be in this meeting. My problem was the meeting had been set for a Monday night right in the middle of this national tour. The weekend before, I was to be in Montreal and the Tuesday after, I was supposed to be in Halifax. So the only way I could make the meeting was to fly back from Montreal Sunday night and return to Halifax on the Monday night red-eye flight.
My other problem was finances. Because this meeting was something I felt to do personally and the ministry had already paid for a flight from Montreal to Halifax, I knew that if I was going to do this, I had to pay from my own pocket. A quick check confirmed what I feared: with such little notice the two tickets would combine to be about $1000. At that time in my life, I was in a very tight financial position and I just couldn’t afford it. Discouraged, I tried tell myself it was ok to miss the meeting but deep inside I wasn’t at peace because I really felt I was to be in that meeting in Edmonton.
A few days later, a friend of mine who needed help booking flights called me very early and when I woke up I had such a bad migraine I couldn’t move without getting nauseous. As I lay in bed with my laptop helping her with her flights, suddenly I heard the Lord say clearly, “Look for those flights you were trying to book NOW!”
To be honest, I was so tired and felt so lousy, I wasn’t exactly brimming with faith. But as the flights were displayed from Montreal to Edmonton on the Sunday, to my shock I saw the exact flight I needed was priced at $20! All the other flights on that day were hundreds of dollars, except that one. I thought it must be a computer glitch and so I tried to book it, thinking for sure by the time I got to pay, the system would right itself and it would re-price. But it didn’t and I got a ticket from Montreal to Edmonton on a Sunday night for $78 with tax!
I shouted to my friend what had just happened and told her now I was going to check the Edmonton to Halifax portion. Now remember, this is a different city on a totally different day. Can you guess what happened? There were two red-eye flights, either of which would work with my schedule, and yes, they were both priced at $20! Just to be sure there wasn’t some crazy sale I didn’t know about, I flipped to the day before and day after. But there was nothing unusual in the price. The $20 flight only appeared on the day I needed and the specific flights I needed. I quickly booked it - for $66!
As I marveled at what was happening the Lord spoke clearly to me, “I did this for you as a sign Stephanie. I want you to know that you never have to try to make a way for yourself. When I say I want you somewhere, nothing and no one, not even Air Canada booking systems, can say otherwise.”
I printed those tickets off and kept them in my office as a constant reminder to me that God can make a way where there is no way.
This story came back to me today as I read an amazing email from a Gen Xer, Svea Braun from Niverville, Manitoba, who, along with her family, is coming to the gathering. This is what she wrote the Awaken team late last night.
So we had a miracle happen last night and thought it might encourage some others who are seeking to walk in rest as they wait for the provision for the trip to the Gathering. We do not have the resources in hand to come to the gathering, as we are moving off salary at our church, and engaging a daily bread life currently.
We shared with our four girls yesterday morning during a family prayer time that we need $1000 for transportation and food by this coming Friday and we need a place to stay in Edmonton. I had felt pretty strongly that we were not to stay in a hotel, that we needed a home, but also felt not to pursue the Awaken leadership to search for something for us. I felt God would provide something supernaturally.
Last night David and I were walking along the Assiniboine River looking at a construction site. An older couple crossed paths with us and we struck up a conversation. We realized that we had mutual friends, and they even knew some of David's relatives. "Ask them if they have a place for you in Edmonton" was the question the Holy Spirit dropped in my heart. We had just met this couple minutes earlier. After talking to them for over an hour about their lives, the Lord (they were believers) and much more, we had to leave. We exchanged contact information and while driving home I told David we needed to call them and ask if they have a place for us in Edmonton. So this morning we did, and the gentleman (whom we just met less than 24 hours earlier) called us back the afternoon saying his brother-in law-lived there and would be happy to accommodate our whole family including 4 kids. Talk about fun divine appointment. We are looking forward to seeing how the rest comes. It is going to be a testimony celebration!
What blessed our team in reading this amazing testimony was David and Svea’s determination not to do things by conventional wisdom. They could have asked me, who they know, to help them find a billet in Edmonton. But they were determined to seek the will of the Lord in even the smallest detail and then believe Him to provide. And because of it, they are on a whole other adventure with the Lord!
We also heard another testimony in the last few days, this time from a Gen Xer in Quispamsis, NB named Jonathan Hallewell.
The first time the gathering was shared with me, I felt like I had to be a part. As soon as I saw the details on the website I asked my wife if she fancied a road trip! This trip seemed out of reach for several reasons, particularly financial, but we couldn't let go of it. I had just over half the aeroplan points necessary for the flight, which would have made it cheaper, although no flights to Edmonton were available. As we set in for prayer, we increasingly felt I had to get there by whatever means and investigated flights to Saskatoon, for which there was some availability. I was watching those flights to make sure they were available and randomly checked the Saint John to Edmonton flight again, which amazingly became available.
However, I was waiting to see if any opportunities to stay with someone came up, and the Edmonton flight disappeared :-( With no leads on accommodation, I was becoming increasingly frustrated, but still felt I had to go. While praying with my wife I suddenly felt to see how much more a multi-city flight would be, and investigated a flight from Fredericton, via Toronto and Calgary to Edmonton. Amazingly it was available! Still with no accommodation, I booked the flight, and then 30 mins later had an email offering me a place to stay. This gathering feels of strategic importance for me personally but also for those of us in the east. Can't wait to be there!
What touched us reading Jon’s email is seeing how he approached this from a place of faith. God was speaking to his spirit, and rather than looking at the circumstances and allowing them to harden his heart in unbelief, he decided to come into agreement with what the Spirit was saying and to do whatever he needed to get there – even if it meant flying into Saskatoon, 5 hours away and finding a ride from there. We believe that it was his determination to be obedient to God and the faith with which he is walking that opened the door for a flight to Edmonton. I can attest to the fact that due to the huge Fringe Theatre Festival that is happening in Edmonton before and during the gathering, there have been no aeroplan tickets available from anywhere to Edmonton for many months. So this really is a miracle!
We know there are many of you who feel called to this gathering but the circumstances seem impossible. So we wanted to share these testimonies with you as a way of encouraging you to remain in faith. We believe strongly that the next season is about seeing a greater demonstration of the sovereignty of God than we have ever experienced before. And this consecration and the tests many are going through to get to Edmonton, are part of the preparation the Lord is doing for us to be able to walk through the new doors He is about to open. Know this: as a team we are standing and contending in the Spirit with each one of you that God will make a way where there seems to be no way!
Love,
Stephanie
On behalf of the Awaken Team
If you would like to find out more about The Door is Open gathering, please visit www.awakenthedream.org/opendoor [25].
If you would like to join The Warfare of Rest consecration and receive the daily exhortations you may sign up at http://www.awakenthedream.org/connect [20].
There is a tremendous power that is released when we agree on earth with what God is declaring in heaven. Two of the ways we can come into agreement is is by prayer and by sowing in faith.
Prayer
Please agree with us for The Door is Open Gathering:
Sowing
If you would like to sow into The Door is Open Gathering or the vision of Awaken the Dream, please click here [26] to be taken to our secure online credir card system. Please note: We are only able to process donations by Visa and Mastercard.
All donations $20 and more will be issued a tax receipt from Awaken the Dream at the beginning of next year.
We are in a season of change and transition. And the Lord spoke to us to take the 100 Days before August's meeting as a time of preparing our hearts to go through the "new door' that He is opening.
And we want to encourage you - whatever the Lord is showing you/doing in your life, we would love to hear it. Just send an email to share@awakenthedream.org.
In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will…Ephesians 1:11
Now when David had served God’s purposes in his own generation, he fell asleep.. Acts 13:36.
Every generation has a mandate from God – a specific divine purpose that has been hidden in the heart of God since the beginning of time; a mystery, if you will, a part of His divine plan that is meant to be revealed and established in the earth through a chosen group of people destined to be born at a specific point in time.
So what happens then if a generation doesn’t really know who they are or what their purpose is?
Well there is a distinct possibility that the purpose of God for that generation may end up partially or totally unfulfilled. And if each generational mandate is part of a much bigger plan, and we, as believers, belong to a long procession of faith, then that unfulfilled purpose can affect a lot more than this one generation. It has the power to affect every generation that comes after it and even impact the timings of God’s master plan.
We believe this is why God is releasing a call in the Spirit at this time focused on Generation X (born c. 1965-1979,) a generation that has been largely scattered and voiceless in the Church. Wired for intimacy with God and community in the Body, Xers have found it challenging to connect in churches which seem to place more value on programs and performance than on relationships. Discouraged or disillusioned, many from have simply “checked out” – either physically (leaving churches and ministries or the faith) or emotionally (attending without really engaging their hearts).
And yet, God has a mandate for Generation X which includes helping to birth a new wineskin in the Church – one which will help transition the emphasis from purpose to Presence and from function to family. To equip us for this mandate, God designed Gen X with a passion for worship and His presence and a desire to see the Holy Spirit honoured in His leadership of the Church. He also gifted us with a wisdom and insight into relationships, so that we might function as a relational bridge, spanning the gaps between the generations, restoring honour to the older for their many years of faithfulness and providing safety and space for the diverse expressions of the kingdom that are carried in the hearts of the younger.
We believe this year represents a turning point for Generation X, a time when our destiny is coming into collision with the timings of God. Across our nation, the Lord is awakening hope and connecting together remnants of Gen Xers whose hearts are to serve the purposes of God for Canada in our generation. A desire is rising among Gen Xers to honour the sacred trust, the inheritance of faithful generations that has been passed to us, while at the same time, as good stewards, building upon that inheritance, adding our pre-ordained part for the sake of the generations that will follow.
Part of this remnant of Gen Xers is being called to gather this August in Edmonton, where, alongside spiritual fathers and mothers and with the witness of the younger generations, we will begin together to seek God’s face for His steps in unlocking our “destined purpose” as a generation in Canada.
So today, 100 days before we gather in Edmonton, let’s begin to prepare our hearts and the spiritual ground for our time together, by making this simple declaration together: God I choose today to be one of those who will stand to see Your purposes served in my generation.
Thee Awaken Team
Our desire is to hear what God is saying for the August meeting and more broadly what He is revealing concerning Gen X in this hour through as wide a representation of the Body as possible. If you have something you feel to share, please email us at share@awakenthedream.org [19].
For a few weeks I have been hearing the phrase “100 Days”. And I felt the Lord was alerting me about the 100 days leading up to the gathering (May 15 to August 22). So I looked up “100” in a book of “Bible symbols and numbers” – but found nothing significant. So I decided to google the phrase and discovered it refers to an Allied offensive in the last 100 days of the First World War. What was more interesting was that this period is routinely referred to as “Canada’s 100 days”
“… due to the substantial role the Canadian Corps of the British First Army played in causing the defeat and/or retreat of the German Army in a series of major battles from Amiens to Mons which along with other Allied offensives ultimately led to Germany's final defeat and surrender…In terms of numbers, during those 96 days the Canadian Corps' four over-strength or 'heavy' divisions of roughly 100 000 men, engaged and defeated or put to flight elements of forty seven German divisions, which represented one quarter of the German forces faced by the Allied Powers fighting on the Western Front. However their successes came at a heavy cost, the Canadians suffered 20% of their battle-sustained casualties of the war during the same period.” (Wikipedia)
Until this offensive began (August 8, 1918) the commanders of the Allied forces were already planning for another major attack in 1919 because they just could not conceive of end to the war in 1918.
“But the first day of the attack, August 8, saw the attacking forces broke through the German lines in dramatic fashion, with the Canadians pushing as far as 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) from their starting points…The swift advance led to a rapidly spreading collapse in German morale that ultimately led Erich Ludendorff to dub it "the Black Day of the German Army" when he was told of the psychological impact on his men.” (Wikipedia)
So successful was this Canadian advance that the whole course of the war changed. Armistice talks soon began that led to the end of the war at 11:00 am November 11, 1918.
As I read this I felt the Lord say that the 100 days leading up to the gathering may be some of the fiercest fighting we have experienced in what may have already been a long drawn out season of war. For some of us, we may feel that we have been fighting so long we can’t imagine anything but war.
But God is saying we have entered into a kairos time of transition – a change of season is coming. And despite what the circumstances around us may be or what our minds or emotions are saying, we need to set our face like flint and keep our focus on what the Spirit is saying. All that God has promised will come to pass because He is faithful and He cannot lie!
The Lord has also been speaking to us afresh about the power of worship – of entering into places where we abandon ourselves into the presence of God and allow Him to speak revelation directly to our spirits. As part of our preparation for this summer, groups in different cities/communities are gathering for times of worship (if you want to find out if there is a group in your area just email us at info@awakenthedream.org [27].)
But even if we are physically separated we can still enter into worship corporately by sharing music the Lord is highlighting to us in this season. Some of this worship was released spontaneously during various gatherings in Canada and represents prophetic decrees from heaven over the Church of Canada, while other songs give voice to the passionate cry of the Bride for the Bridegroom that is intensifying in the earth today. As we listen and worship, wherever we are, we can come into agreement with God and one another that His desires are being accomplished in our lives and in our nation in this hour.
Looking forward to journeying and worshiping together until we meet face to face in Edmonton in August!
Love
Steph
On behalf of the Awaken Team
Set My Face [28] - Heather Clark and Tracy Rahn (click link to listen – a window will open in your internet browser. To download the mp3 simply right click on the browser and select “save source as”)
I set my face as flint before You now
My life I recommit here as I bow
I love it when you gently kiss my brow
And You whisper it’s all right.
A few weeks ago, the Lord said this to me about the August meeting “it’s not about the past, it’s not even about the present, it’s about the future. I am looking for a remnant who will look with the eyes of faith at “what is to come” and, by “calling those things that be not as though they were”, become a conduit through which I can bring My plans, hidden in eternity, into the earth today.”
A few days later I was in a worship time with some friends and afterwards we were sharing what God had been revealing. My pastor, Rick, mentioned a familiar passage from Isaiah.
Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:18-19
“I heard the Lord say,” Rick continued, “if you don’t let go of the old processes, the old ways of thinking, you will be unable to embrace the new. Many of the Jews were looking for Messiah, but when Jesus came, they were not able to embrace him because they were still holding onto old ways, old ideas of how things were going to be.”
The following week, I was sharing this verse with some friends of mine, when suddenly I had a vision. I saw one of my prayer diaries, filled with handwriting, opened to the last page. As I watched, the writing began to disappear, from the bottom of the last page to the top, through to the next page. Then the pages of the book began flipping backwards, faster and faster, and as they did, I could see that each page was being erased. And I heard a voice saying “Clean slate! Clean slate! Clean slate!”
I think that what Rick heard and what I saw is a part of the process the Lord wants to take us on over these hundred days. The word of the Lord to us in this season is that the door is open, from Revelation 4:1
After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this. (Revelation 4:1)
Through that open door is the future – the things that are to come. But for us to even be able to see/perceive the new, first we have to forget the “former things”. Now this can be a struggle for a number of reasons. Maybe we have had bad experiences and wounds in the past that are still framing the way we see God and ourselves today. Or maybe we’ve lost hope and we aren’t sure if anything really can or will change. Or maybe it’s the opposite - we’ve had some great experiences and we finally feel like we’ve found a comfortable rhythm in our walk with God and we don’t want to “upset the apple cart” with something new. Human beings are by nature creatures of habit and we find comfort and safety when things are predictable and controllable.
But in this time of transition, God wants to shake all those things that are holding us or that we are holding onto so He can bring us to the place where we find our safety, our identity, our hope and our security in Him and Him alone. He wants us to be able to anchor our lives on the truth of His unchanging nature (faithful, true, loving, just, merciful, powerful etc ) so that nothing else holds us and we are free to venture with Him into the unknown and help birth the “new thing” He desires to establish in His kingdom on the earth today.
All God is looking for from us is a willing heart. If you are willing just pray this simple prayer, “Yes, God, I want to forget the former things, I don’t want to dwell in the past. Teach me how to close the old doors of the past season so that You can open the new doors in my life.”
Heather Clark has a worship song called Come In. As we listen and worship to this together, let it be a corporate declaration to the Lord that we are part of that remnant willing to journey with Him into the “new thing” today!
Love
Steph
On behalf of the Awaken Team
Come In [29] - Heather Clark (click link to listen – a window will open in your internet browser. To download the mp3 simply right click on the browser and select “save source as”)
Come in, come in King of Glory
Come in come In, we welcome You this day
I have come to greet the King
I have come to give myself in total abandonment
I’ve come to lay down all that holds me back from You
I’ve come to lay down all that holds You back from me
Have you ever been taunted by the enemy? Bombarded with relentless thoughts that what you are doing, what you are believing for is never going to happen? You aren’t going to get healed, fulfill your destiny or ever be truly free from the cycles of death that seem to circle endlessly in your life.
For me these kind of attacks have increased exponentially ever since we committed ourselves to walk this journey with God to see the restoration and release of our generation, Gen X. And it’s not like the enemy doesn’t have a lot of good material with which to work. In the natural, the situation looks pretty grim. We aren’t exactly at our prime time for mobilization. Knee-deep in kids, careers, and mortgages, youthful dreams of spiritual quests have been all but replaced by more immediate challenges – like trying to figure out where all the cordless phones went – again - or how to convince the kids to stay in bed that extra precious ½ hour on a Saturday morning. And if the busyness and cares of life weren’t challenging enough, half of the Gen Xers and almost no one in the other generations even know who we are. Many Xers in the Church wrestle with hope deferred and disillusionment, while even more of our generation, who genuinely love God won’t even darken the door of a church.
It seems pretty hopeless – until you realize that activating demoralized, disenfranchised, discouraged, and in-debt people is not, in fact, outside the Lord’s experiential sphere. Take David, hiding out in a cave, on the run from the spear-wielding, priest-killing King Saul, having “all those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him”. (I Samuel 22:2). Those guys? They became the mighty men.
Or how about Gideon?
The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”
“Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”
“Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”
The Lord answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.” Judges 6:11-15
I just love Gideon’s candor. An angel appears before him, makes some amazing pronouncements and how does he respond? "Excuse me, but uh… where exactly IS God these days? And what do mean, save Israel, clearly you have the wrong address. I’m nobody.”
And yet God is incredibly patient walking Gideon through his self-doubt. One fleece at a time.
Finally Gideon manages to muster up 32000 men to fight the Midianites. Things are looking up.
God’ response? “Nah, too many men, let’s cut this down, let all the fearful ones go. Hmmm, still 10000 hey? Nope, still too many. Let’s see who will lap water like a dog versus get on his knees. 300? Yeah, I can work with 300. At least now, there will be no question when the enemy is defeated before your eyes that it was Me and not your own strength that really saved you."
As Xers, we are at perhaps the weakest place in our lives. Yet, God is speaking to us that He wants to mobilize us into a great army. It seems ridiculous. Most of us are still stuck at the Gideon- excuse-me-God-WHERE-exactly-have-You-been-let’s-say-for-the-last-two-decades stage. Surely He has the wrong people…
And yet, remarkably, He doesn’t. He sees who we are even if we can’t anymore. And yes, it’s true, right now we are a small, scattered remnant, lacking in any real influence, at least as most people would see it.
But that’s not our problem – our problem is we’ve believed a lie that our weakness, our brokenness has somehow disqualified us. When in fact we’re exactly where God wants us to be.
But He said to me “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
If we really want to close the old doors of the past over our lives and our generation, I think this is the first one that has to close. We have to accept that as hard and confusing as things might have been, as much as we may have suffered, in it all God was and is sovereign and He always knew what He was doing with our lives and our generation. We aren’t late, we haven’t missed it and despite how it may look, we are not hopeless.
And we don’t need to try to “fix ourselves” to be strong enough or good enough or wise enough for God to do what He wants to do with us. We just need to embrace the weakness, fully, unashamedly.
When we were younger, we used to talk about being a “nameless, faceless” generation who would take none of the glory from God.
And that’s exactly who He has prepared us to be. And when God, by His own Hand and by His own power, does through Gen X what He has promised and has written it in eternity, it will be a sign and a wonder. And He will be seen as the glorious King that He is and nobody will ever be able to take that glory away from Him.
If this resonates with your heart, please join in this prayer. “Father the longing of my heart is that You would be exalted and seen as the King that You are, through my life and through our generation. Today, as Gen X, we want to close an old door through which the enemy has spoken many lies. We acknowledge that You are sovereign and faithful and perfect in all Your ways and timings. You have not forgotten us nor has anything we have suffered or experienced been without purpose. We choose today to embrace our weakness and to glory in it, believing that Your grace is more than sufficient and that Your power is made perfect in our weakness.. In Jesus name, Amen.
As we worship together with this song, You Must Increase, may this declaration of His Lordship ring out over our cities and nation!
Love
Steph
On behalf of the Awaken Team
You Must Increase - Tracy Rahn [30] (click link to listen – a window will open in your internet browser. To download the mp3 simply right click on the browser and select “save source as”)
We lift You high
And bow down low
How high can You be?
How low can we go?
Higher and higher
Above all else
Above anything else
You are above all
You are above everything
You are above
You are the highest
You’re the Name above all names
You’re the God above all gods
You’re the King above all kings
You’re the Lord above all lords
You’re the Lord, You’re the Lord! (repeat)
You’re our God, You’re our God, You’re our King!
We exalt the Lord!
You are Alpha Omega, Beginning and End
You’re my Saviour, Messiah, Redeemer and Friend
The Name above all names
The God above all gods
The King above all kings
The Lord above all lords
Our desire is to hear what God is saying for the August meeting and more broadly what He is revealing concerning Gen X in this hour through as wide a representation of the Body as possible. If you have something you feel to share, please email us at share@awakenthedream.org [19].
After the Lord spoke to us about calling Gen Xers to gather this August in Edmonton, we began to seek Him as to how He wanted us to prepare (and find the people who were to be invited). He directed us to begin in Vancouver, meeting with Gen Xers at the church that Caleb and Rebecca attend. This is a church with a strong legacy of intercession for the nation.
To Caleb and Rebecca’s surprise as they began making a list of all the gen Xers to invite, they realized that there were more than 50 in their congregation. Even more interestingly, like so many Xers, they had never actually all met together as a generation.
The weekend we picked to go was something chosen very pragmatically – Robin is in university and we planned to go the first weekend after she finished her exams. But it was not, as we turned out, without divine design.
We arrived Thursday to spend some time together as a team and Friday morning we had the opportunity to attend a prayer meeting at the senior pastor’s home. This meeting has been going on for years and is attended by leaders and intercessors from the church, as well as pastors from other churches. They graciously invited us to share and we explained that God had placed it on our hearts simply to honour them as a church for their faithful labour on behalf of God’s desires for Canada and for the impact it had on each of our lives personally.
After the meeting, one of the church leaders, Mei, (the wife of the senior pastor, who is really a co-pastor and incidentally, Caleb’s mom) pulled me (Stephanie) aside in the kitchen. She said that while we were honouring them the Lord spoke to her about the Gen X. He brought to her attention the scripture where Moses says, “If I have found favour in your eyes God…” Most of us are familiar with this verse, from Exodus 33:13 “if I have found favour in your eyes, God, teach me Your ways.” But the Lord reminded her that there was another instance of this prayer, where Moses made a very different request. It is in Numbers 11.
11-15 Moses said to God, “Why are you treating me this way? What did I ever do to you to deserve this? Did I conceive them? Was I their mother? So why dump the responsibility of this people on me? Why tell me to carry them around like a nursing mother, carry them all the way to the land you promised to their ancestors? Where am I supposed to get meat for all these people who are whining to me, ‘Give us meat; we want meat.’ I can’t do this by myself—it’s too much, all these people. If this is how you intend to treat me, do me a favor and kill me. I’ve seen enough; I’ve had enough. Let me out of here.” (Message Bible
And the Lord spoke to her and said, “this is how the Gen X feel.” They are discouraged, they despair of ever being able to see what they are longing for and they feel like they would rather die than live in the pain of unfulfilled destiny. But I want to shift them, to bring them to the place of hope, where they are ready to walk with Me and let Me show them My ways.”
As she shared this, I was reminded of something I had read a few weeks before while studying about Passover on a Jewish website. In a list of Jewish holidays, I noticed that April 28, which was the Sunday we would be visiting Vancouver, was a minor holiday known as Lag B’Omer and was described like this.
Lag B’Omer literally means “the 33rd day of the Counting of the Omer,” the time period between the holidays of Passover and Shavuot. The Omer is the 49 days between the Jews’ emancipation from Egypt on Passover and the day the Torah was handed down at Mt. Sinai on Shavuot. Counting the Omer serves as a daily reminder that the Jews’ freedom wasn’t complete until the Torah was received. The first 32 days of the Omer are observed as a period of partial mourning, but on the 33rd day, the ban on celebration is lifted.* On this day, we commemorate a break in the plague that killed 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva’s disciples. The plague was sent by God because Rabbi Akiva’s followers didn’t conduct themselves with respect toward one another. On Lag B’Omer we celebrate the day the dying ceased.
When I read the phrase “the day the dying ceased” something leapt in my spirit. But I didn’t know quite what to do with it, so I tucked it away in my “hmm what is that God?” file. But now as I heard Mei share that God wanted to move the Gen X from a place of death to a place of life, I knew there was something more God wanted to show us.
The next day, Saturday, we had an all-day, Gen X-only meeting so that people could have the opportunity to share transparently. For hours we listened as people opened their hearts about their discouragement but even more so about their overwhelming longing to see the presence of God manifested in the Church in a way we have not yet seen. “Sometimes,” one girl said, “I’m afraid to even allow myself to go there because I feel like the intensity of it, it won’t come out nice and neat and orderly. It’s going to be raw and messy and desperate – and I’m not always sure the Church, and especially the leaders, are ready for that.”
Hearing the same cry, the same sadness over and over again was a bit overwhelming. At one point, I thought “Oh Lord, how is this ever going to heal and release our generation?” But as quickly as I thought it He answered me “they are more ready than you think.”
That afternoon we asked Mei, who had come to the church to help prepare lunch for us to share with us what the Lord had shown her. (The church was unbelievably supportive, the leadership was there, making food, and a team of intercessors camped out the whole day in a little office across from our meeting room, determined to pray and run spiritual interference with the enemy, so that the Gen Xers could really hear one another and the Lord.) After Mei spoke, I briefly shared about Lag B’omer and then suddenly the pieces of the puzzle started coming together for us. We realized it wasn’t an accident we were meeting this particular weekend and in this place. It was a divine set up and God confirmed that He wanted the Gen Xers from this church to stand on their righteous foundations as an intercessory front for the nation and make the declaration, by faith, over all the Xers in Canada, that this was the day the dying ceases.
We asked those who felt they could make this declaration to stand. But we also knew that there were some who are still in their healing process and didn’t yet feel the strength to stand. So we told them not to feel pressured to stand. Instead we asked those who were already standing to go to them and lift them up. This was a prophetic picture that when we move into what the Lord has promised our generation, we are leaving no one behind. Suddenly God’s presence charged the air and spontaneously those standing began praying over those they had lifted up. There was an unexpected and powerful move of the Holy Spirit that happened as God began touching people deeply.
During this time, one of the Xers shared with us that he felt God wanted us to do the same prophetic act that Elisha had directed King Jehoash to do in 2 Kings 13. It witnessed with us so at the end of the afternoon, we stood together and prophetically “shot arrows” towards the East and then dropped to our knees and began striking the ground over and over, committing that Gen Xers will not let go until we see the glory of God flood Canada from sea to sea to sea. It was one of those times when you know something is shifting in heaven as God supernaturally amplifies our simply earthly actions. There was a roar as we struck the ground that sounded like hundreds of thousands not 50 or 60 of us! The pleasure of the Lord (the tangible presence of God that comes with great peace) descended on the room and we knew that whatever God had wanted us to do, we had been obedient to accomplish it.
The next day, which was actually Lag B’Omer, we had an opportunity to share with the whole church what the Lord had shown us the day before. And then the Gen Xers from the church stood together and called all the generations in the church to declare together that this is the day the dying ceases and to strike the ground by faith.
Throughout scripture we see examples of God using a remnant to stand in the gap and break through on behalf of the whole Body. While we don’t have empirical proof, the Lord assured us in our hearts that this was an important strike in the ground and something did indeed shift over our generation that day (April 28). And we believe that as we continue to walk this journey, together with God, we will see more and more of the “death” that has tried to entangle our generation swallowed up in victory!
If you would like to hear what was shared and declared that Sunday morning, you can click here for the MP3 of that service. [31] (click the link to listen – a window will open in your internet browser. To download the mp3 simply right click on the browser and select “save source as”)
If you feel this word is resonating in your heart, then let’s pray this prayer together: “Father, I thank you that You have said that the time of dying is over for Gen X. I receive this as your word to my life personally and for the lives of every Gen Xer in this nation. Father, we believe that as we go forward you will continue to bring life from death and fulfill all Your purposes in our generation. In Jesus’ name, amen!
Let’s continue over the days and weeks to come to make this declaration over our lives and generation by worshiping together with the songs below.
love
The Awaken Team
Our desire is to hear what God is saying for the August meeting and more broadly what He is revealing concerning Gen X in this hour through as wide a representation of the Body as possible. If you have something you feel to share, please email us at share@awakenthedream.org [19].
New Life/The Season of Singing – Tracy Rahn, Heather Clark, Tabitha Lemaire ( [32]click the link to listen – a window will open in your internet browser. To download the mp3 simply right click on the browser and select “save source as”)
I was a dried up river
A burned down forest
No one could do anything for me
But You put food in my body
And water in my dry bed
And to my blackened branches
You brought spring time green
And new life
You brought me new life
You have made all my deserts into gardens
You have made all my deserts into gardens (repeat)
Now I am made newNew life! New life!
You brought the springtime green and new life
And the blackened branches bloom again
Fill all the land with the fragrance
See the winter has passed
The rains are over and gone
And the flowers appear on the earth
And the season of singing has come (repeat)
The season of singing
The season of rejoicing
You have turned my mourning
You give me beauty for ashes
And the garments of praise
For heaviness
Season of singing
Lift your voices and sing out, sing out
Proclaim a new singing is here
A season of singing
‘Cause winter is over
Winter is over!
The flowers appear
Season of singing
You Must Go Up and Through - A Word of Encouragement and Confirmation
Don’t you love it when God goes out of His way to confirm His word to you? It’s His way of saying, “Keep going, you are hearing right, don’t listen to all those other voices trying to discourage or confuse you.”
One of the Gen Xers from Niverville, MB just forwarded us this great confirmation from a well-known leader in the U.S., Lance Wallnau.
You must go up to go through!
June 7, 2013 | By Lance Wallnau [33]
“I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven.”
Revelation 4:1
There is a door now opened—in the heavens. You must go up to go through!
This has felt like a season of colliding spiritual climates. Erratic warfare: release and heaviness, brilliant light followed by sudden darkness—and not just in the same day—sometimes the same ten minutes! While praying, my wife contacted me and said she heard the words, “a changing of the guard.” I’m not sure what all that means to you, but the atmosphere has shifted and the angelic realm is upgrading all around you!
I sensed the Lord say to us, “I am going before you.” There has been a distinct advance and change of activity in the heavens. We are contending for destiny, and that individual destiny is connected to our individual position in the Spirit. More specifically, our promotions are now connected to the strength of our inner man; our capacity to go up and go through the door of transition into a new anointing and new season of harvest. The door is open … the voice is calling … the timing is now.
In Revelation when John looked and saw the open door, it was “standing” not moving. It was “in heaven” not on earth. This is a door made available in the spirit realm—right over your existing situation. I see now the reason for the seemingly violent shifts of atmosphere. It is because our spirit man must grow in strength in order to access and go into this new dimension. If we are to see more heaven on earth, we must be seated in this heavenly realm.
Then John heard, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this” (Revelation 4:3). John was told that when he went through the door into the next dimension, he would see things to come. A heightened level of prophetic perception is operating in those who have strength to see and hear—to go through (and stay through) the open door.
If we will stay in this heavenly dimension of authority, the things that vexed and harassed and clung to us will fall off. There is an anointing for upgrade upon us now. Previous performance won’t disqualify you. Heaven is calling you up into a closer intimacy—a more glorious obsession with the Godhead. This is the secret to the overcoming life: Open Door In Heaven (Right Above Your Existing Circumstance) = More Grace and Increase
This means less of all the weights and restrictions that held you down during the last season of wrestling. Let’s go up and go through together!
------
So much of this word resonates with what we have been hearing – “The door is open … the voice is calling … the timing is now.”
Our friend Tracy Rahn, a worship leader from Abbotsford, wrote a wonderful song called People on Our Knees. Let’s sing this as our declaration that no matter what, we are going “up and through” the open door!
Love
The Awaken Team
Our desire is to hear what God is saying for the August meeting and more broadly what He is revealing concerning Gen X in this hour through as wide a representation of the Body as possible. If you have something you feel to share, please email us at share@awakenthedream.org [19].
People on Our Knees [34] – Heather Clark & Tracy Rahn (click link to listen – a window will open in your internet browser. To download the mp3 simply right click on the browser and select “save source as”)
There’s no more wasting time
The days are nearly over
Our Groom is quickly coming
He greets us with a kiss
And proclaims, “You have been chosen
For such a time as this”
I choose to follow You
Forsaking all I know
And taking up my cross
And if I die, I die
To find my life in You
Oh Lord this is my cry
Hi everyone
We received this word via email yesterday. Doug Addison is a trusted prophetic voice from the States and this word really resonated with us as a team and so we felt to share it.
As Doug says, we pray people’s eyes are opened to see what is happening right now and to realize that we are living in exciting days!
Love
The Awaken Team
Doug Addison: July through End of the Year: A Time of Promises Fulfilled
June Gloom Lifting
The month of June started for many people with a spiritual gloom. There has been an attack on people's minds to get them to believe the things that God has promised them will never happen. For me, June has been the biggest challenge with my daily prophetic words. I normally get them all very quickly, a month to six weeks in advance. It spiritually felt like trudging through mud this month. This is symbolic of what many people are going through right now. Things are moving slower than normal and not as clear.
Philippians 1:6 (NIV) ..being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
The way to respond in unclear times is to keep moving forward. It's similar to driving through an unexpected fog bank. The sun is still shining above the fog, and it will eventually break through. Remain calm, steady and carry on!
June Is a Time To Complete Things
God is bringing healing to many people who have suffered from "hope deferred" (Proverbs 13:12), or what I call prophetic disappointments. July through the end of the year will be a time of "promises fulfilled." Many things that God has promised you will begin to take shape. We will see lots of movement and relocation.
That being said, June is a time of closure for an old season that is coming to an end. Tie up loose ends, make preparations, and get ready to cross over to a new season starting in July.
New Sound and Creativity
I have had several dreams this month about new music and creativity coming from Heaven. I saw new instruments, including an electronic cello connected to a guitar and a computer. There is new anointing from God coming to musicians, new creative song writing, and new sounds that will open the spiritual realm. Step out and try new things musically.
This new sound from Heaven is intended to create breakthrough in the spiritual realm. It is not limited to churches and will begin to spill over into secular music that has deep spiritual roots. It will have an amazing, positive effect on people.
Trumpet Blast Calls People Into Place
On Sunday, June 9, I heard a trumpet blast in the Spirit and God spoke to me that this is a call for people to begin to fall in their places. God is aligning people into places and positions that will allow them to operate at their maximum potential.
There is a major shifting that is happening right now that will begin to align people into their destiny at a greater pace. We can expect to see a lot of movement and change over the next couple of months. There will be a gathering of people who have been drawn to particular places.
Another aspect of this trumpet blast was to wake people up who have been in reserve. There are many of you who are being reserved or seemingly put on hold for a future time. This time is now! You will get greater revelation as to what and where God is calling you as you step out.
Wounded Warriors Rising
Part of the prophetic word I received with the trumpet blast was that there are "wounded warriors" who are now being refitted and re-purposed and will begin to emerge. God reminded me of a scene from the beginning of the movie Dark Knight Rising in which Batman was on the sidelines living in obscurity. Cat Woman (the enemy) breaks into his cave of isolation and robs him of his fingerprints (his identity). This attack motivated him to come out of hiding and get refitted in order to fight back.
There are battle-weary, wounded warriors who have been suffering from rejection and living in isolation. They are coming back on the scene, as the reality of the enemy robbing them will bring about a new strength to fight back. It is interesting that, at the end of the movie, Cat Woman ends up helping Batman. This is a prophetic parable that the enemy must repay for all that is lost. People who were once enemies will become allies.
One of the biggest prophetic messages in the movie Dark Knight Rising was that the superhero could not save the day alone as he did in the past. He had to rely on others. This emphasizes how we need unity in the Spirit like never before.
God is calling people into place right now. Watch for people to rise from obscurity. People who have been previously considered spiritual outcasts will experience a new movement of God's power and love.
Pray that we have eyes to see what God is doing right now! This is an exciting time to be alive.
Doug Addison
InLight Connection
Email: respond@dougaddison.com [35]
Website: dougaddison.com
Over the past few weeks, we have been seeking the Lord about all the details for the August gathering. We know it’s not like a typical conference where specific people are invited to teach or do ministry according to a pre-determined agenda. It’s more like an adventure; the Father is inviting us to gather in Edmonton because He wants to release something for and through Gen Xers. To do so, He needs a remnant from all generations who are willing to lay down their own ideas and ways and even their right to know exactly what will happen so they can journey with Him for those three days. So as of right now, our only plan is to worship and wait in His presence and give Him the maximum freedom to lead us into His will, His way.
We also feel the gathering is a connecting time for kindred spirits (to borrow from Anne of Green Gables). To facilitate this we have decided to order in reasonably-priced lunches and dinners so we can have our meals together between sessions (details and registration for the meals to come).
We have also been seeking the Lord about what is the right plan for the children and that has been a really interesting journey for us. Knowing many Gen Xers have little kids, it’s almost become a default that if you want Gen Xers in the meeting, you should provide child care. But the word the Lord has been speaking to us [36] is to forget the former things – to let go of the structures and ideas of how things “should be” so that we can perceive and embrace the new thing He is doing. Ever since we made this commitment to let God erase the past and prepare us like a blank slate for what He wants to reveal for the future, He has been exposing so many of the “shoulds” in our lives. The “shoulds” are default ways of thinking – things that we do automatically without even consulting God because they seem rational, reasonable, or even common sense.
You can see that we were operating under just such a “reasonable default” by what we previously posted on the website about the kids: recognizing that many Gen Xers have young children, we are looking to provide child care (ages infant to 12 years of age) based on the needs of those attending.
It all seems very logical except that as believers we are supposed to respond to the voice of God, not react to the needs of people. That’s why Jesus sometimes ministered to just one person, even when hundreds were pressing in around Him. As compassionate as He was, He wasn’t moved by the needs of people or their expectations – He was fully submitted to the will of the Father, only doing what He saw the Father doing and speaking only what He heard the Father speaking. (John 6:38, John 8:38, John 12:49,50)
So the Lord started exposing our “should” mindset about Gen X and kids. One of the ways He did this was by frustrating all our attempts to organize child care. There was just zero grace for it. Then as we began to talk as a team, we discovered that most of us felt not to bring our own kids (we have 20 kids between us). From that we then reasoned that maybe God wanted our undivided attention as Xers and so we were to make the gathering adult-only. And even though we wrote an email explaining all of this, we could not find a peace to send it. So we waited.
Then last Friday morning during our team conference call, we listened to an excerpt from a conference call the Alberta Project group had the night before. Siobhan, one of the Gen Xers who is coordinating worship nights in Calgary, shared, “In Calgary our worship times are kind of crazy, but it seems like God is bringing us to a place where we can press in and hear Him in the midst of chaos. We have lots of small kids and there are times when they are engaged, but there are other times they are just banging around with toys. But I feel this is a picture of our lives. He is asking us to press in when everything is loud around us. It’s not a clear quiet place, and part of me wonders if this isn’t part of our preparation for the days to come.”
Immediately we felt the witness of the Spirit on what Siobhan was sharing because we know many Gen Xers who are so focused on the “chaos” of their lives that they feel hopeless (this is never going to change, it’s too late for me) or frustrated (all these responsibilities are preventing me from being with God); the “chaos” has become a stumbling block that makes it hard for them to see how they can possibly step up into spiritual leadership at this point in their lives.
And yet we know that God’s ways and timings are perfect. What if He deliberately waited to release Gen Xers until this most inconvenient time of life because He wants to use us to birth something new – a new capacity to live in the Spirit at all times? Maybe instead of requiring God to change our circumstances before we step into what He is asking us to do, we need to simply obey by faith and believe that He will meet us in the whirlwind in a way we have never experienced before.
Hearing Siobhan also revealed to us that we had unknowingly fallen into another “default” mindset - “if there is no childcare, then kids shouldn’t attend.” So in order to bring ourselves into alignment with what the Lord is revealing, although there will not be a formal kid’s program or child care, the door is open for children to join us in worship and/or the rest of the meetings. As far as what is available at the church, there is a large nursery area and we may be able to get access to a few children’s church rooms. You are also welcome to bring someone with you to help you with your kids, if this is what you feel to do. Please be aware though that the church is located in a converted warehouse space in an industrial area so there are no parks or playgrounds nearby.
Above all, we want to encourage you not to fall into default ways of thinking like we did. A big default pattern for Xers is “If there is no child care, I can’t come.” If the Lord is asking you to be at the meeting, He has a plan for your kids. If you choose to obey Him and trust Him, He will take care of all that concerns you.
This week for worship we’ve chosen a prophetic song called “Deeper” sung by Heather Clark and Tracy Rahn . As we worship together, may this song be our corporate commitment to let go of our circumstances and let God open new doors to take us to deeper places of intimacy and communion with the Spirit than we have ever experienced before.
Love,
The Awaken Team
Our desire is to hear what God is saying for the August meeting and Gen X in this hour through as wide a representation of the Body as possible. If you have something you feel to share, please email us at share@awakenthedream.org [19].
Deeper – Heather Clark & Tracy Rahn [37] (click the link to listen – a window will open in your internet browser. To download the mp3 simply right click on the browser and select “save source as”)
I want to go deeper and deeper
deeper and deeper
Deeper and deeper
With You
Oh Lord Untie me! Untie me!
Untie me Jesus!
I will run, I will follow hard after You
Deeper, deeper, deeper
To the centre of Your Heart
Engulfed in who You are
Links:
[1] http://www.awakenthedream.org/steps/opendoor/reports/part1
[2] http://www.awakenthedream.org/audio/OpenDoor/Living_Right_Side_Up.mp3
[3] http://www.awakenthedream.org/audio/OpenDoor/Worship1.mp3
[4] http://www.awakenthedream.org/steps/opendoor/reports/part2
[5] http://www.awakenthedream.org/audio/OpenDoor/The_Governor.mp3
[6] http://www.awakenthedream.org/steps/opendoor/reports/part3
[7] http://www.awakenthedream.org/audio/OpenDoor/Nothing_Is_Impossible.mp3
[8] http://www.awakenthedream.org/audio/OpenDoor/Worship_Nothing_Is_Impossible.mp3
[9] http://www.awakenthedream.org/steps/opendoor/reports/part4
[10] http://www.awakenthedream.org/audio/OpenDoor/Embracing_the_Pain.mp3
[11] http://www.awakenthedream.org/audio/OpenDoor/Worship_Embrace_the_Pain.mp3
[12] http://www.awakenthedream.org/steps/opendoor/reports/part5
[13] http://www.awakenthedream.org/audio/OpenDoor/Edmonton_Declaration.mp3
[14] http://www.awakenthedream.org/audio/OpenDoor/Edmonton_Worship.mp3
[15] http://www.awakenthedream.org/steps/opendoor/reports/part6
[16] http://www.awakenthedream.org/audio/OpenDoor/One_Family.mp3
[17] http://www.awakenthedream.org/steps/opendoor/reports/part7
[18] http://www.awakenthedream.org/audio/OpenDoor/Lay_Me_Down.mp3
[19] mailto:share@awakenthedream.org
[20] http://www.awakenthedream.org/connect
[21] http://www.awakenthedream.org/steps/warfare-rest
[22] http://www.awakenthedream.org/steps/opendoor/call
[23] http://www.awakenthedream.org/steps/opendoor
[24] http://www.awakenthedream.org/steps/opendoor/agreement
[25] http://www.awakenthedream.org/opendoor
[26] https://register.beanstream.com/scripts/registration.asp?form=2102
[27] mailto:info@awakenthedream.org
[28] http://www.awakenthedream.org/audio/100days/Set_My_Face_Heather_Clark.mp3
[29] http://www.awakenthedream.org/audio/100days/Come_In.mp3
[30] http://www.awakenthedream.org/audio/100days/You_Must_Increase.mp3
[31] http://www.awakenthedream.org/audio/100days/The_Day_the_Dying_Ceased.mp3
[32] http://www.awakenthedream.org/audio/100days/New_Life_Season_Of_Singing.mp3
[33] http://lancelearning.biz/author/administrator/
[34] http://www.awakenthedream.org/audio/100days/People_On_Our_Knees.mp3
[35] mailto:respond@dougaddison.com
[36] http://www.awakenthedream.org/opendoor/new-thing
[37] http://www.awakenthedream.org/audio/100days/Deeper.mp3