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Team Prophets
Topic Started: Dec 20 2008, 02:56 PM (389 Views)
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Team Prophets

The Lord has blessed some prophets by assigning them to a "Team" calling.

There are steps involved before this type of team will come to maturity:

Our Father has to call the team.
Just deciding to be a team would be great, but it is not enough. We are to work side by side with all our brothers and sister, but this is not the Team that I am addressing.

Our Father must do the choosing of our Team partner.

We may want our best friend, or maybe our spouse, but this is not always God's choice. Our spouses are a ministry team in themselves. There is plenty of articles written on this topic. I am addressing a different team. Sometimes it might be the Lord has chosen our spouse, our best friend, or even someone we may not know yet.

You must identify the call.

Our Father is going to tell you. You may not understand the whole picture, but He will tell you. When the Lord told me I was going to be a part of the Team Ministries, I had no concept of what He meant. He merely told me to stand solid behind my "team" member. Seemed simple enough, but over time I began to get a deeper understanding about the call.

Gentle beginnings.

The Lord will use anything near you to test you and build character into you. He will use the dishes, or the engine of that old car that has been sitting there for years. Every single thing around you in your own environment can be used to test your character and endurance. Likewise, when His plans for you consist of a Team Ministry, you are going to have to have a completely workable character. One of the first things that the Lord did between my Team partner and I was to tell me I had to eat the same thing as my partner. Try it ... eat the same thing as your spouse, or the best friend, or even roommate. After the first couple of times, it gets old. Our personal will begins to manifest very quickly. And when our will manifests, the voice of the Holy Spirit begins to say nice little things like.. "you yield." I would argue... "but I want that second pork chop.. I wanted it more than I wanted the mash potatoes." Then He would just smile and say, "no one is forcing you." Sure, right! But, how could you argue? Then, of course, the Lord would say, "Have you an attitude problem as well?" That is where you had better stop and repent. You can't win against Him. The Lord just does not play fair ... not with those blue eyes, (I haven't seen them, but they must be deep and blue to move me in such a way).

Deeper Teachings.

The training does not stop there. You have got to go through testing and persecution to be honed down and strengthened.
The team member I am assigned to was married. One night the Holy Spirit revealed everything that was going on with my partner while she was talking with her husband. I was in a completely different area and knew each thing that was happening. I covered my head with my jacket, sang out loud, went out on a deck and prayed for the whole city just to not know what they were talking about. It took a long time before I mentioned it to them. About all I could do was shake inside. I had never experienced this before, and was not sure what to make of it. I just felt like I was intruding upon their private areas and that it was wrong.

Over time, I sort of got over it and went on. I know the experience was not appreciated by my team member's husband and it made him begin to question whether or not I was dealing with the wrong spirits. About a year later, I was reading a post sent out by Pam Clark of Trumpet Winds. It was written by Meri Bulingame on May 27, 2002. A year and three months after my own experience. Meri told about how the Lord was organizing Team Ministries. My eyes zoomed through the post. Meri taught about a different type of Team Ministry than in the past:

Meri wrote: "Team ministry in the past often didn't get even to this place. It was often just people who felt led to minister together, who had learned to let God do in their midst at a given time and given place what God wanted. Sometimes it was just two or three people doing what they did within the same time frame or location. But often there was no melding of relationships between these teams. What one or the other did at the breakfast table with his wife was "off limits" to the team. There were specific lines where there was ministry and lines where there were private lives and the two didn't mix. Today God is calling for another type of ministry. It is team ministry, which involves the melding of lives in accountability and covenant. The third day church is one in which God is interested in conforming people to the measure of the stature of Jesus Christ which was determined for them before the foundation of the earth."


The article had more to say that caught my interest:

Meri continued: "Recently Robert Holmes with his team of Australian ministers was in our area again. In 1999, when they were here their relationship as a team was still relatively new, as they had bound themselves together in "covenant" as brothers before the Lord. All that God gave them access to they were accountable to each other for in terms of being open to each other's assessment, input, ect. Mario Liu told of how one night Robert was coming to their house. When he arrived, he looked at Mario and told him everything that had been said between Mario and his wife for the last ½ hour while Robert was on his way to visit them. Things like angry words that had been said and dishes, which had been cast to the floor. The Purpose? Was to bring humiliation and shame? NO, it was to let them as a team know that God is working to confirm them all to His image and that He is personally willing and desiring to speak into EVERY aspect of our lives. It isn't just one or two ministries working together. It becomes a "ministry" with a whole separate identity of Christ in itself."

Unquote


If you are wrestling with the concept of Team Ministries, let me assure you, they do exist. They are not something you just sign up for. Our Father has to carefully choose the Team members and the trials and testings can go on for however long He deems fit.

I still raise my voice in a cry of independence, sort of, but it always catches His watchful eye. But even so, there is a great comfort that I am held so close in check by the Holy Spirit into such a tight accountability. It is what I asked for. I never want to sin against Him. I never want to have my own way in opposition against His wonderful will.. in anything in my life ... ever.
And, it is great to know that He is still preparing us for a work to be done.

Shalom
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