After Phase I of a work or move of God, it is hard to transition into Phase II, which is the solidifying, establishing, and securing phase. This will be difficult but necessary work, if the gains are going to become fruit that remains. It can also be a very fulfilling and exciting part of the work, but cannot and should not try to sustain the excitement level of the work in Phase I.
One of my early mentors, a retired Air Force Colonel named Doug Carty, used to say that every Christian should be locked up for six months after receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I thought this was curious because he was a huge proponent of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, but he also thought that Christians could do serious damage to other churches and works during this period after the baptism because of the zeal without the experience of wisdom.
Overall, the church seems to be stuck more in lukewarmness and could use some of the excitement of Phase I. We need a revival almost everywhere. Even though our works and church plants are almost all in Phases II and III, we, too, are looking for revival and preparing for it. In some ways, this will turn us back to Phase I, and will require a lot of navigating to go through all of the transitions again, but this often happens when you really begin to multiply your fruitfulness.
A member of our Fellowship of Ministries was a professional wine taster who told us some very interesting things about wine that relate to the church. The Lord used this metaphor, both wine and wineskins, for the church for a reason. A professional wine taster can taste a new wine and tell you what it will be like in five years, ten years, and so on. Of course, aged wine is the best, if it is aged right. The best aged wines will have a drop or two of new wine injected into them every few years to "excite them." However, it is a very delicate operation. If too much new wine is put in, it will be ruined, but if none is added, the wine will lose its life. The same is true of the church.
Any church that does not have new believers coming into their fellowship, at least periodically, will likewise lose its life. However, the churches that have a continuous ingathering will usually stay at a low level of maturity and development because they have to focus so much of their energy on caring for the new believers. Some churches are called to this, and it would be wrong for them to move away from it. However, the best of all would be a church that could meet and minister to believers at every level, constantly calling them to higher ground or deeper waters. That is how the church was designed to be, which is the reason for the three parts of the dwelling places of God in Scripture.
I usually get blessed and discouraged going to "deeper life" fellowships. I love the devotion they have to know the deep things of God. We are told in I Corinthians 2:10, "For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God." Therefore, if we are abiding in and following the Spirit, we will be compelled to go deeper. However, if these fellowships do not have at least some new believers coming into them periodically, they will have much knowledge, but little real life. These can then go into a state of pride or defensiveness, which makes them into an old wineskin that cannot hold new wine.
I also get blessed and discouraged at the same time when I go to churches that are overly focused on evangelism (yes, that is possible). I get blessed by their devotion to lead the lost out of darkness into the light, but I get discouraged by seeing many who should be eating solid food who are still drinking spiritual milk and remaining at a low level of maturity, which is usually the case.
Of course, if you really want to see the church, you cannot look at any one congregation, but you have to see the whole church in your city or region. Viewed together, such a church will usually have everything. However, because the church remains so disconnected, few can take advantage of the strengths of others. This is why the church will never be what it is called to be without unity.
How is this unity going to come? First, if we are truly drawing closer to the Lord, we will be drawing closer to His people as well—all of His people. In most cases, the true maturity of a congregation will be measured by its relationship with the other congregations in its city or region. This is not always the case, because there are times and situations where all attempts at developing a relationship with other congregations are rebuffed or rejected. There is also a phase of development when such interchange can be a distraction, and we need to allow for this.
A book was written a few years ago on co-dependence that highlighted an important truth about relationships, which basically broke them down into three phases. These were Phase I, which was co-dependence, Phase II, which was independence, and Phase III, which was the highest form of relationship—interdependence. One point that the book made, which was true, is that you cannot go from a Phase I relationship to Phase III without going through Phase II. It is Phase II, independence, when a person's own identity is formed, and you cannot go to the highest form of relationship, interdependence, without knowing who you are.
Likewise, the body of Christ will not be able to come into true unity until every part knows its part. Then we will not have feet trying to be eyes, and the eyes trying to be hands, etc. It would not do me any good to have two of the healthiest hearts in the world. It would not do me any good to have one good heart if I do not have one good set of lungs. But this is actually a level of the problem we are not to yet. Presently, the church is still overall at a very low level of maturity, which is measured by relationships, because so very few believers even know what part of the body they are, and very few congregations know what part of the body they are.
By polling those attending our conferences, who tend to be the hungriest of the hungry and most serious Christians, we estimate that fewer than 10 percent of them even know their own ministry or gifts of the Spirit, and a much smaller percentage of them are functioning in their ministry or gifts if they do know them. How well would you be doing if only 5 percent of your body was working? That's how well the body of Christ is doing now.
If the church is having the kind of impact with just 5 percent of it functioning, and its impact is substantial, what would happen if the whole body came together with each part working as we are commanded to do in Ephesians 4? We would do much more than turn the world upside down again; we would turn an upside down world right side up!
The reason so few Christians know their callings, much less are being equipped and released to function in them, is because we are stuck in Phase I of development. The churches and works that try to remain at Phase I when the Lord has moved on will dry up or break up, as very few seem to be able to make the transition. It is not only crucial that we fix this, but it is essential. We cannot stay where we are any longer. The church that does not go on to maturity will perish faster and faster as the intensity of these times unfolds.
However, the church that proceeds to and through Phase II into Phase III, which is the multiplication and fruit-bearing stage, ends up releasing many Phase I works again, so we are back in the fun again! A mature church that is truly abiding in the Lord will reproduce, and every new birth starts as a newborn, or Phase I work.
The turbulence comes when there is a transition between the stages. Change is hard. It takes extraordinary leadership to navigate through change, and it usually requires a change in leadership, which can be even harder. We must learn how to do this. The leaders who do not release a work when it is time will bog down, and not only eventually lose the work anyway, but they will lose the life they have been given, because that is found by abiding in the Lord.
One reason why so few believers are being equipped and released is because of the bottlenecks created by people who become territorial or possessive of their positions and will not move on. When this happens they die, and the people under them start to die. All true fruit comes from abiding in the Lord. When He is moving us on, we must respond. We will address this in a little more depth next week.