Millennials and Church

My niece wrote a little piece on Millennials in the church. I really liked it so I thought I would post her introduction. I think it really captures the flavour of this next generation of Christians: passionate about God but disappointed with the institutional church.

I called my brother this week.

A freshman at the University of Pennsylvania, he’s the epitome of this generation’s busy youth. Besides his studies at this Ivy League school, he’s involved in the gospel choir, the running club, the science department’s research lab, and a local church. When I called, it was one in the morning (Eastern time,) but he laughed when I scolded him for being awake: “Alison, this is early!”

Despite his age, my brother is one of the wisest persons I know. I often call him to get advice, to complain about my boy problems, to discuss politics, or to debate theology. This time, though, he was more reserved. And, after our unimportant small talk, he spoke with an exasperated sigh.

“I don’t know if I can do this much longer,” he said.

"Do what?” I asked.

“This, this - church thing,” he replied. “It’s so boring – the same thing every week! Will it be like this for the rest of my life? Can I put up with it for that long?”

At that moment, I didn’t know what to say. I knew I should encourage him, tell him it would get better, push him to “stay strong”… but I couldn’t. Frankly, it’s because I feel exactly the same way. And, I’ve felt this way for a while.

If the truth were told, I’m tired of going to church. In fact, I dread Sundays. To me, they represent three hours of boredom. I’m tired of listening to a pastor speak at me for 45 minutes (from my 20+ years of attendance, I can usually predict the outcome of his message.) I’m tired of “dressing up” to worship. I’m tired of wearing a plastic smile. I’m tired of seeing our corrupt leaders on the nightly news. I’m just tired.

And, I’m not alone. Besides my brother and I, there are millions of people in the United States today who are fed up with the state of the American church. Statistics show that people aren’t interested in traditional Christianity – both inside and outside of the church. Most importantly, there’s a generational gap that’s growing increasingly larger as time goes on. 

The millennials (the generation just hitting adulthood) are the least churched generation in this nation’s history. And for some reason, institutionalized churches have been unable to successfully attract or retain most of them. Current church programs aimed at the millennials are not working. If the American church wants to survive into the future, they must be flexible enough to re-shape their current structure to be more relevant and applicable to this generation’s youth and the next generation’s leaders.

Thus, young people are leaving the church and turning to other sources for spiritual satisfaction. Within Christianity, three new trends have evolved: Churchless Christians, the Emerging Church Movement, and House Churches. By engaging in these options, some people have found the satisfaction lacking from their typical church attendance. The American church must learn to be open to such new ideas if it wants to survive in the future.

So How Many People Do You Have?

There are times in life when you meet someone or read something or see something that creates an "Aha!" moment. That happened to me this week.

For the past eight years we have been in the process of establishing a faith community, (planting a church, starting a new work, pioneering - whatever term you might like to use) in our community of Thornhill. When I meet people who know I'm doing this one of their first questions is "So how many people do you have now?" When I say "20-25, if everyone comes" they kind of look at me funny. If they are just making conversation, the conversation usually ends there. If they really want to know, I start telling my story.

I approached church planting the way I thought I was supposed to - because I really thought I had heard God calling. So I read all the books on church planting, attended a church planting bootcamp, had a church planter's assessment done, established a prospectus, read books about establishing a mission statement and core values, set up a time line, gathered a core team and started to pray. I did the demographic studies and determined that the least churched place in Ontario was Thornhill, got approval from the district, sent out prayer letters, decided on a name and started planning a kick-off event.

Even at the beginning I had the real sense that what we were supposed to do would be different in the church planting world. First of all, when I read other people's plans and looked at their organizational structures it just made me tired. I did not want that! I wanted to establish a community that was more organic than organizational. I wasn't exactly sure what that meant but I was sure that I was not going to begin a church plant with a structure that included 17 committees.

So we started. We did what we were good at. We had a great worship team. We had a couple of kick off events (a "shout from the Hills"), met in a church for a while on Sunday evenings and then took the leap to meet on Sunday mornings in rented facilities in a school. The evenings were good worshipping times but meeting in a school was kind of deflating. The school was expensive. We had to set up and tear down every week and transport our stuff to and from the school. It was too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. It was usually not cleaned up from the week's activities (because the janitor used Sunday mornings to clean). It was a long walk from the parking lot (at one end of the school) to the gym (at the other end of the school). When visitors did come we couldn't spend time visiting with them because we needed to clean up and get out by one o'clock. I felt like a failure every week.

I know now that what we were trying to do was establish an attractional model of church in a neighbourhood that was not (and would never be) attracted to church. I had done my demographics - 80% of the community was Jewish! I only realized later that because of the demise of Christendom very few unchurched people are attracted to church (Jesus - yes, authentic Christianity - yes, but not normally a Christendom style church.)

After a year and a half of meeting in the school we decided to meet in our home. It was in the middle of the community. It was large enough to host the 15 to 20 people who came. Surprisingly enough we grew as soon as we moved into our house - 3 or 4 new people. And as soon as we moved into our house this artificial pressure to "be" something disappeared and I started enjoying church again. We started a process of sharing with one another, praying for one another, calling people up if we hadn't seen them for a week or two. We started becoming a community.

We started focussing on our community (or more correctly our communities). People began to realize that they were not there to run a machine called church. There were no ushers. There were no Sunday school teachers. There was no building committee or finance committee or outreach committee. It was just us trying to figure out how to make an impact on our world. So we started praying for one another's work environment and co-workers and neighbours. When someone was sick we laid hands on them - all of us! We went to one another's houses to bless their homes and to prayer walk their neighbourhoods.

Sundays became not the main focus of the week but a time and place to share with others the significant events of our weeks, the answers to prayer, the divine appointments. Ministry wasn't what happened on Sundays but what we were experiencing during the week - not just a place to hear sermons but to tell our stories. It was not about me pastoring a church but all of us pastoring a community (neighbours, family, co-workers and one another). People have come into relationship with Jesus but they don't necessarily connect with us as a worshipping community.

There are times where I wondered if anyone else was doing church like this. Most of my colleagues were talking about their busy counseling schedules, committee meetings, the programs they were involved in or their preaching plans for the year. None of it really related to where I was. I wondered if I was completely missing the whole concept of church. I wondered if anyone else was experiencing what I was.

Then this week I read some stuff that David Fitch had put together about missional churches and the processes they were going through - and it reverberated with me. I will talk about it more in the next post.

Keep it Simple

Roger Thorman at the Housechurch Blog posted on why he does the "house church/simple church thing." I though his reasons were good enough to copy and post here.

I do not see the overall tenor of the New Testament church as being one that focused heavily on “the form” or “the model” of church. Church, the people of God, is simply believers living an everyday lifestyle of worship, service, obedience, loving others, etc, etc. Yes, they gathered to bless and encourage one another, but, honestly, the form of these gatherings was not addressed with great emphasis. I think it was assumed that if Christians lived passionately for God, then gatherings would happen quite easily, organically, and… often very simply.

And… overall… we want to participate with God in His life and in His purpose on the earth.

So… why do we do this house church / simple church thing? … here is my list:

I believe in gatherings that are small, because we need the support, encouragement, and deeper growth that comes from this type of community.

I believe in gatherings where everyone is known so that no one gets lost.

I believe in gatherings where we can learn from each other’s personal lives and stories (not just head knowledge) so that growth and discipleship takes place in the context of genuine, healthy relationship.

I believe in gatherings that are participatory because this involves and engages the entire body of Christ.

I believe in gatherings that call the body of Christ to take responsibility for its own spiritual life and stop relying on mediators, events, or someone else to “bring us the goods” because we need to grow up.

I believe in gatherings that are simple so that we are free to spend time with nonChristians and have the time to invite them into our lives.

I believe in gatherings that are easily multiplied, so that we can see people released to reach people anywhere, disciple people everywhere, and start “churches” at any time in any place.

I believe in gatherings that are inexpensive so that money is freed up for apostolic workers and the needs of the poor.

Is there one particular “model” that all of this fits into? I think God will constantly challenge, stretch, and re-shape our man-made attempts to “do” church gatherings. And I think that is okay. The point is to keep focusing on maximizing our life with Him, our partnership with His purposes, and our spiritual growth.

And, for me for now, this means keeping the whole dog-gone thing simple, simple, simple.

Hospitality 2

As I was preparing to talk about hospitality in the early church at Hills on Sunday, I was amazed at how much I had looked at the book of Acts through the eyes of my late 20th century church eyes. You know, the church that has 3 or 4 hundred people in a nice church auditorium used a couple of times a week with everyone sitting in rows and facing the front listening to one person drone on and on and afterwards trying to find someone to go out to eat with so you could practice the hospitality you were shown by someone else last week.

Now (with my 21st century eyes) I am seeing stuff in the book of Acts I never realized was there. I am seeing that the house churches were the embodiment of biblical and Christian hospitality. These house churches were not preacing points but places where dialogue happened. (Preaching was primarily for the proclamation of the glad tidings to people who had not yet experienced the reality of the risen Christ.)

In my life the theological aspects of hospitality had been left unstudied. If I had ever heard a message on it, the main ideas were neighbourliness or inviting someone home for dinner after church. I never saw that the core of Christianity and the success of the movement revolved around hospitality. Hospitality resulted in household salvation and was the medium of the growth of Christianity

In many ways this is counter cultural teaching but Christians need to excel in this virtue and transform it into a distinctly Christian principle. We are called to a higher level of living than the society around us and so must live as relational people. A commitment to hospitality confronts our society's rampant individualism and it actually protects our life together as the people of God.

A few Scriptures ... Hospitality is our duty and the duty of elders Titus 1:8; it is a spiritual gift Rom 12:13; practice hospitality without grumbling 1 Peter 4:9; by hospitality we may entertain strangers Heb 13:2; in the gospels, the very success of the mission depended on hospitality – finding a man of peace and being welcomed into homes Mt 10:5-42; Mk 6:7-11; Lk 9:2-5; 10:1-16.

The challenge remains: can we break out of the individualistic culture around us (and deeply ingrained in us) in order actually practice what is commanded? I know it is challenging me because hospitality is exercised as a household and everyone in the household needs to cooperate - or at least comply - in order to make hospitality effective. The last post about the role of women in hospitality neglected to mention that it is a combined role requiring husband and wife (and often children and extended family) to participate together "without grumbling!"

Hospitality 1

This morning at church we talked about the significance of hospitality and I might post a few times on this topic. A number of weeks ago Scott Mcknight posted a comment on his blog concerning the role that hospitality plays in the advancement of the kingdom of God. I've quoted three paragraphs of his post and made a few comments afterward.

"Today I want to suggest that women took common places and converted them into sacred spaces, and I want to suggest further that women developed “missional centers” in earliest Christianity. And I want to contend that any suggestion that the hospitality women offered in the 1st Century was simply cooking for others or making life easy for others greatly devalues the kind of hospitality women created."

"Martha and Mary illustrate the kind of benefaction women offered Jesus and the Twelve and the kingdom ministers (Luke 8:1-3). Martha and Mary illustrate how to use one’s goods and money for the sake of the kingdom; Jesus criticized the rich and offered consolation to the poor — and called those who followed him to surrender their goods (Mark 10:17-31). These women were illustrations of how to do that: they used their goods for the kingdom."

"One needs to note that women were so much a part of offering hospitality in the early churches that churches got connected to them — notice Acts 12:12; 16:13-15; 16:40; Rom 16:1-5; 1 Cor 16:19; Col. 4:15 and 2 John 1. If the hospitality that is being offered here is truly Jesus-shaped, it is a hospitality that engaged one another in fellowship, in instruction, in learning, and in shaping the kind of kingdom ministry in those communities.
Now, let me make this clear: women did more than this, but this they did in the earliest churches: they converted common places into sacred spaces."

The hospitality aspect really captures my imagination here. We speak of it as almost something optional as if we would be hospitable if we (male or female) were willing or gifted. But the whole New Testament makes little sense without hospitality at the core of how the church developed.

The ministry of Jesus was dependent on the hospitality of those around Him (Mary and Martha, Peter's mother-in-law, etc.). The church was dependent on the hospitality of those in whose homes the church actually met. Hospitality is not an extra but the strategic central concept of the first three hundred years of the church. The household church was where hospitality was embodied and it was the medium of the early church growth.

Our reluctance to show hospitality, or the hospitality that is limited to family and friends, or the marginalization of household hospitality in favour of mega church programs and fellowship suppers is hopefully one of the things being challenged by the emerging church movement.

I think some of those embracing new monasticism (Shane Claiborne and others) have captured some of the essence of biblical hospitality and it challenges me deeply.

Is Hills an Emerging Church?

Good Question!
I've had to think about that a bit over the last little bit and have had to do some more reading. The previous two posts will give you a bit of background on emerging and missional movements. However there is no real clear expression of what an emerging church really is. If I were required to accept everything that proponents of the emerging church advocate it would make me very uncomfortable. However in true postmodern emergent style let me tell you what we do instead of a list of our statement of faith - because in terms of theology, I am a evangelical who is part of a pentecostal denomination. But what we do doesn't really fit too many categories.

Do I think Hills is an emerging church? Yes and no. ... Someone described Hills as "a small church, a house church, not that unlike a cell group that meets (except with better musicians of course) ... with the removal of formality and hierarchy and format … “ I would add that we have a commitment to whole church participation, praying for one another every week, meals together (not as often as I’d like) a lack of a fixed order of service (although we definitely follow a pattern) and hopefully a responsiveness to the Spirit. I don’t think we are doctrinally different from the Evangelical mainstream although I am a bit offbeat sometimes. Living out life – we encourage holiness, prayer, evangelism, neighbouring. Approach to evangelism - God has placed you where you work and live – love God, love your neighbour, help your neighbour love God. Look for divine appointments.

I'll give you a general description of emerging church from my point of view. I’m not sure where the term originates, but I think there are those who take the concept to absurd extremes as well as others who react to it with equally absurd extremes. In general it is to me a view and practice of Christianity that recognizes its unbiblical practices (dating back to Constantine and the ongoing unbiblical changes made to the church) and tries to recreate church in ways that line up more closely to the New Testament and tries to address the needs found in our world.

Even as I say that, I know that I still participate in some of the stuff I feel has little Scriptural basis – however my approach is to hold those things lightly and make them our own. The best example of that is our Advent sevices – I think many of our Christmas traditions have pagan origins but they can be used to point to Christ and incorporate Scriptural teaching. (The whole debate over the past few years about Christmas trees and crèches and saying Merry Christmas is just so silly to me.)

What all this means to me is that many of the things that we traditionally consider Christian are at best merely conveniences or traditions and at worst heretical. For example the traditional Sunday morning church service has very little biblical backing. Things like church buildings, professional paid staff (ouch), hierarchies of denominations, sitting quietly, one main speaker, choirs, worship teams, the centrality of the pastor/teacher role, lack of participation by 95% of the people, to say nothing of paganized and commercialized celebrations (like Christmas, Easter, Halloween, etc.). This has resulted in a passive Christianity with a lack of discipleship, purpose, anemic Christians who don’t use their gifts, a complete disappearance of certain functions (apostles, prophets, etc.) - building centred worship, consuming all of our resources on ourselves, a “come to us – all are welcome” mentality that has for the most part lost credibility and relevance to much of our world. What comes with that is a top down control structure that borrows more and more from the corporate model. Large churches need a CEO type senior pastor in order to make sure everything happens right and very little is flexible enough to meet the changing needs of our communities. This structure also makes everyone so busy with church that they have no time to be connecting with their neighbours, and with their communities.

I see the emerging church as a way of viewing life and a reaction to the churchy traditions of the past that have hurt rather than helped individuals and communities. It meets because it has to meet and because it wants to meet. The people celebrate what God has done during the week. Its people live out what they believe. They know each other and hold one another accountable. It’s small and nimble, able to adjust to its surroundings. It’s tough to do in our busy, commuter world. It’s tough to do with Christians who have gone to traditional churches because they think that the pastor is an expert who knows God and Scripture better than they do and who can block for them (football analogy) as they go through life.

I'm sure there's much more I could say to describe us but that's all for now. Next I think I would like to address some of the shortcomings and even heresies included in the emerging church movement. Stay tuned!

Spending Time

I've been feeling a bit distracted and unfocused lately and wondering about my priorities. As I think about distracting and contrasting priorities, let me list a few. (The list has actually gotten much longer than I thought possible!)

My family is always a significant investment of time. My daughter Kirstyn is ... playing basketball, is on her worship team at school and in choir. That has meant numerous pick-ups at around 5:00pm at her school in Woodbridge - this week it could be every evening. Then I try to be at her basketball games - which sometimes involves driving her to games - which requires me to be at her school by 2:30 and not get home till 6:00pm - and she has an occasional tournament (which involves a Friday evening and Saturday). Kirstyn also has a number of projects that require driving her around or proof-reading. And then because she attends a commuter school, if she wants to visit a friend it usually requires a half hour drive each way. Although it takes a fair chunk of time I like that she still talks to me about what’s going on in her life, about school, about herself and about boys.

Jared is now in university but he still likes to have long conversations with me – usually about philosophy, or religion or politics or girls. He always likes to talk about stuff he's learning, especially if I can help him understand it (actually he especially likes it when I can't keep up with him). Unfortunately for him most of the technical stuff he's learning is way beyond what I remember of university science or calculus. And he needs a ride to the bus every day - and sometimes all the way to school. Of course I want to spend some time with Brigitte and there are other extended family events.

As for my "calling" there is usually something to do related to church - mostly around administration (budgets and reports) and of course preparing for Sundays. I like to be reading stuff to try to capture what God is wanting to say. Praying and reading and listening and studying is the type of stuff that expands to fill the time available - I feel I could always do more.

Of course I'm also studying and reading and writing for my Doctor of Ministry courses - which kind of fits in when I get motivated or inspired. Some of it overlaps with sermon preparation. I'm supposed to be doing an average of ten hours a week on this.

I'm involved with a bunch of city-wide prayer initiatives. There was a leaders prayer summit in November - for which I was responsible for leading worship and doing some of the organizing. Wednesdays once a month is a meeting of the MissionGTA leadership team, which is going through a major refocusing and restructuring time. Every other Thursday morning is a PrayGTA meeting (the prayer arm of MissionGTA) which organizes prayer assemblies for different events in the city (Toronto city hall prayer meeting and on November 12th, a Sunday evening prayer assembly focused on praying for the persecuted church around the world). We occasionally arrange meetings with national leaders who consult with us about how to develop city reaching teams. I am now also heading up the strategic prayer team in this group (PrayGTA) and although I haven't really been able to get up to speed, I'm responsible to strategize effective prayer for the city and help coordinate intercessors and prayer teams. In terms of prayer and thought energy, this takes a lot of my focus.

On a related note, I really think that for the church to advance in Canada, God will require cooperation and unity in the church - not just lone rangers doing whatever they want and not caring for the city as a whole. I think the scheme of the enemy has been to try and divide and conquer - although the enemy will not eternally conquer, the division between the different streams of the church has made us much less effective than we could be. This will also be the focus of my DMin studies as well - so there is some overlap.

I am also involved in a bi-weekly pastors prayer meeting (at which I lead worship). This group sponsors three healing rooms (Thornhill Vineyard, Lifesprings Fellowship which meets at Willowdale Pentecostal Church and Castlefield Community Church near Yonge and Eglington) and I sit on the Healing Rooms Advisory Committee (which meets infrequently - 6-8 times a year). This pastors group also hosts a monthly 24-hour prayer meeting at various churches in North Toronto. (I'm also on the leadership committee for that and usually lead worship for a two-hour slot during the 24 hours). The Thornhill Ministerial (a group of eight churches in Thornhill) meets once a month and there are some responsibilities associated with that (not too many fortunately.) However, I'm supposed to be on the Out of the Cold committee which helps plan and run the Thornhill program that runs once a week for two months during the winter.

I'm on the chaplaincy staff (volunteer) at York Central Hospital which involves being on call (with a beeper) one week out of six or so. I also sit on the Chaplaincy Advisory Committee which advocates for chaplaincy services in the hospital (that meets four or five times a year). I also need to be involved in some of the events the chaplaincy department conducts like memorial services and various dinners. I'm also the chaplaincy rep for the Organ Donor Committee but I've only been to one meeting so far.

There is a group of people in the Beaches area of Toronto that are trying to start up an outreach through a coffee shop business on Queen Street. It's based on a model in Hamilton called the Freeway. The result should be a community centre style ministry that may develop a worshipping community that develops out of the outreach component. Right now it's only in the formation stages but it involves a lot of thinking and visioning and writing down proposals and dream statements. The team is fairly motivated but I'm providing a bit of leadership and co-ordination. I've been meeting with them once a week for the past month.

All this stuff doesn't include meeting people in my neighbourhood (which I try to do every day - although it's tougher to do that in the colder weather) to say nothing of special neighbourhood events like Bar Mitzvahs or sitting shiva with someone. I also mentor a number of guys (not really part of our congregation) and I also want to make sure I have time for meetings with men in the congregation, and with my friend at the gym. There are the occasional conferences or special meetings including my involvement in my denomination - which can be as much as a couple of meetings a month. There are also the funerals and weddings that come up from time to time which usually include at least one extra meeting (for funerals) and at least four meetings for premarital counselling (for weddings). I want to be in the gym at least four times a week and I can't miss basketball on Tuesday evenings with my Jewish buddies. Then there are the times where I just want to reconnect with someone and stay in the loop with friends.

Wow! I hadn't realized the amount of stuff that is part of my life! No wonder I feel unfocused sometimes. It's not only that there is a lot of stuff, it's also that there are so many different groups of people and different organizations. What's your life like?

Some More Funeral Thoughts

Today is Sunday again. I had a chance to thank the congregation for their notes, emails, phone calls and the flowers. I hadn't realized how special it feels to be remembered during a difficult time - to know others are standing with you. It was the same on Wednesday during the "viewing" (what a horrible expression! I began to refer to it as visitation.) It was so nice to see people - neighbours, relatives, friends of the family - some of whom I hadn't seen in 40 years! One diminutive woman came up to me and gave me a big hug - and then she introduced herself as the daughter of a neighbour two doors down from my parents house (they have lived in the same house for almost 50 years). We laughed when I recognized who she was. I said to her, "The llast time I saw you, you were taller than me!" It was true!

Note to self: Make every effort to quickly connect with those who have lost a loved to pass on condolences.

This Sunday

Tomorrow at Hills Church we continue to experiment with "hearing from God." Our guests will be Mary and Rob Lee from Acts Fellowhip. They were with us two weeks agao and gave us something to think about. The biggest thing was to recognize that God is talking to us all the time. We don't always have ears to hear nor the propensity to listen. The other thing is that it seems that we expect the voice of God to be booming and sound like he does in that Bill Cosby comedy sketch about Noah. Instead it's usually "a still small voice" that sounds a whole lot like the thoughts that flow through our minds. We are going to try to listen "out loud" with each other.

This can be a bit intimidating for some and I've been doing some emailing to describe what it's like. I quoted a portion below ...

As for "part two", I've had a few conversations with a couple of others about that (listening to God corporately) - some excited and some anxious. The conversations I've had reveal many of our preconceived ideas about hearing from God. I think we have tended to over spiritualize it so that we can't relax and see it as a natural part of our lives. I think God is talking to us all the time - about ourselves, about others around us, about our situations, and has been since we were born. Much greater clarity comes when we get born again because His Spirit takes up residence in our hearts. The difficulty is that we haven't learned to distinguish between our thoughts and His thoughts - because many times at first glance (so to speak) they both sound the same. It's the training of opening our ears and pressing in and listening intently that helps us discern the difference.

We actually do this all the time when we pray in small groups. How do you know what to pray for? People don't usually give really specific prayer requests outlining what to pray for. We actually listen to God as we pray and then pray out what we hear. (Granted we can just go through the motions and mimic other prayers that we have heard but that's not exciting or rewarding.) I've heard you pray and I know (and so does everyone else that hears you) that at certain times as you pray for someone, you have really heard from God. Others have done it too and we all know that the prayer came from God. Those are the powerful prayers. Unfortunately they are too few and far between and the reason is that sometimes we just go through the motions (me included) instead of taking some time and effort to ask God "Father, how do you want us to pray about this?" and then listen for a bit.

This learning to listen to God is actually very much like the "small group prayer" thing, except that we separate out the process to identify what we are actually doing. For example if someone asked for prayer for "a friend" what would I do? I would think about that person, picturing him in my mind and think about what he might be going through. I would focus on God, thinking "spiritual" thoughts maybe asking Him how I should pray. Then I would begin to pray while listening to God for what to pray. I would start with what I know (pray blessing and comfort and guidance) all the while searching in my heart/spirit for that insight that God almost always brings as I pray. Then I get an impression or picture of what to pray. So then I pray in response to the picture. My prayer would be describing the picture and praying God's presence into that situation to bring hope, future, healing, release - whatever. So the picture is God speaking to me and my prayer response is me talking with God.

That's what I think Rob was trying to communicate as he shared the pictures and impressions that he got. But really, they all started with a simple picture or image or impression and then he prayed or spoke into that picture. When we learn how to see and hear, it helps us in our prayer life, it helps in our exhortation of one another. I think it really helps in evangelism if we can discern the stuff God is saying to us as we interact with those who are coming to know God. The timing and method of delivery will require both sensitivity and courage but that can also be learned.

I was hoping that "part two" would be a non-threatening way of practicing how to hear from God. I've done that exercise before and it is easy and enjoyable. It's especially interesting in a group of people you have never met before because some of the stuff is right on. What normally happens is that we start by just sharing one word or one image that comes to our mind about someone else.

Hope that helps a bit and I hope I'm not just rambling and answering questions that you aren't asking.