Bev and I spent the weekend near Northampton with the leaders of all the Oxfordshire Community Churches. We had a very prophetic time! There was very little by way of new teaching, but God spoke powerfully about the following:
1. A reminder that He is sovereign:
* so, we can relax and trust God for prophetic words to be fulfilled
* we do not need to strive to call down God's blessing - he has chosen us!
2. Future adventure using ancient tools
There is much that is new yet to do, but there are some old ways to take up again, including: submission in the church, discipleship (not just mentoring, but real discipline!), small groups as places of feeding on God's word
3. The importance of love and selflessness
* love is more important than strategy
* it is love that melts people's hearts
* we're not in it for ourselves, but for others
As I said, these things were not new to any of us, but they came to us with a fresh power and really touched our hearts. There were quite a few tears!
There were a lot of dreams (even I had one, which is very rare!) and prophetic words that touched individuals, bringing quite a lot of personal refreshing.
Bryn Franklin also had a vision about the challenge of seeing a 'breakthrough'. In his vision, he tried many ways of breaking through, but none worked, and God said to him, "The only way through is for you to be broken". The obstacle to seeing more of God's will is our unwillingness to be broken. This fitted in well with the call to love and selflessness.