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Transitioning to a new style of church service

Transitioning to a new style of service from Refreshing Hope Ministries on Vimeo.

Transcript:
We are going to try something different on Sunday morning for a while. All of you here are are a part of RHM and we would love to hear your feedback. It would be great if you post it in the comments on this message which should be on the site tomorrow, so we can take the time to go over them later.

Refreshing Hope is run completely by Sylvia and I, There are no interns or secretaries. We do it all, and when we don’t, then it doesn’t get done. For the last 10 months, we have spent about half our week creating a 30 to 40 minute message, creating media references, then making it all into a video, then a blogpost, and sending notification emails.

The extra workload has tied us up and made us homebound. It seems that most of my week is spent coming up with the next message, it is always on my mind, always thinking of the next message, while there are so many other things around us that need to be done, like programming on the website, advertising, writing books, writing songs, praying for people, or just spending time with the Lord without needing a message from Him.

As far as a return on time, I can spend an hour writing a devotional and it will reach 5,000 people, but I can spend half my week creating a video teaching and it reaches about 50. That is 100 times less and if you go back and look at the video teachings that we did, many of them have 0 comments. In other words, no interaction or interest. For 10 months we have continued this pattern and lived from week to week looking towards the next message, but now I feel the Lord taking us into a new direction, at least for a while.

We have already covered the basics of Christianity in our past series with messages like: Praying, Fasting, Giving, Faith, Hope, Love, Grace and works, the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit and much more.

Now I want to move to shorter teachings, more devotional like. Short, pointed messages probably 5 to 10 minutes in length. If I have a word from the Lord, then I will certainly teach it, but if not then I will not go and create one. There may or may not be a weekly video.

As Sylvia and I talked about it, we feel that the Lord has shown us that what makes RHM special is the personal connection and the time that we spend here together. We want to teach you to experience the presence of the Holy Spirit for yourself, right where you are.

You can watch a billion video teachings on the Internet by people much better than me, but will they take the time to pray for you one by one and maybe give you a word from the Lord? To us, that is the essence of Refreshing Hope Live, and what makes us unique.

When the Lord first gave me a vision of doing live, interactive meetings over the Internet - that is what we were doing. I was praying for someone and giving them a word of knowledge, from the Holy Spirit, over the Internet.

So with all of that said, we are going to start making more room for the Holy Spirit. More of Him, and less of me. We are going to sing some praise songs, teach a bit, pray for you, and then sing some more. We are going to be more open to the Holy Spirit and try to follow His promptings. If He speaks, then I will stop and share it, but if He does not then, we will sing praises to the King of Kings. In other words, we are going out on a limb and depending on Him and giving Him room to speak to us during our meetings.


The Middle Man:
In the Old Testament, a priest was a middle man between the people and God. God was Holy, and the people were not. If they came into His presence, they would be automatically incinerated. That is why the Lord told Moses  “You cannot see My face and live.” In Exodus 33:20.

In Matthew 27:51, when Jesus said “It is finished” the veil in the temple that separated man from God was torn from top to bottom. God grabbed it and ripped it open. It opened up the “Holy of Holies”, God’s inner most sanctuary. Jesus opened the way for us. He restored us to the Father. Hebrews 3:1 tells us that Jesus is our High Priest.

What does this mean today? It means that you do not need anyone between you and Jesus anymore. You do not need me, or a priest, or a preacher to interact with God. You can have a relationship with Him right where you are, right now. That is what I want all of you to learn, and to experience for yourselves.