Onward, Forward, Toward…

In the latter moment of prayer time Saturday Evening, R.T. Kendall was sitting in one of the pews and was accepting short and brief conversations with many of the people who attended. I waited in line and finally got to approach and thank R.T. Kendall for the seminars and how the seminars helped usher in some truth, dispel some lies, and changed me and began a work in progress in some areas while continuing the work in progress in other areas. Mr. Kendall politely shook my hand and thanked me for the comments and expressed joy that someone was blessed and changed and prayed for and encouraged me to go forward and fulfill my destiny.

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Throughout the Saturday sessions, I ran into many people from my previous church who were glad to have seen me. It was a time for joy, a time for small fellowship, and in light of words said by R.T. Kendall, a time to reflect on the things I learned from my previous church. Even though there were some bad theology preached in reference to the Third Wave and the New Apostolic Reformation (Wagner, Jacobs, Pierce, and Sheets) and an overemphasis on the Holy Spirit, worship, and very little Word (Oh, the small group does this for you), there were many good things that I did learn about Grace and compassion.

When I had left that church for numerous reasons, I felt at that particular time in my life that I had to discard and uproot everything I had learned in order to gain truth. I remembered telling an elder on the visitation team of my current church that visited me a week after I turned in a visitation card that:

I left my previous church seeking the truth and a balance between the Word and the Holy Spirit and I felt that this church, from the times I visited, appeared to be ‘the last fortress of balance between the Word and The Spirit within this city’ and that if it was not, I was prepared to take a huge risk and try the house church movement in my next church experience.

With intentions of a nature to gain ‘balance and truth’, I realized three years later that even though the intent was noble and pure, the method I went about in the quest for a balance between the Spirit and Word was not exactly correct. In my quest, I went (via Matthew 13:28) and uprooted the sprouted tares before the harvest. and what eventually happened is that the scenerio in Matthew 13:29 came to pass where when I went to uproot the tares of inbalance and untruth in the name of trying to preserve the wheat, I ended up pulling out some wheat of truth in the process and came up in certain areas of my life a empty harvest. I should have been wiser in hindsight and waited in order to allow the wheat and tares to come into full harvest. Where agriculturally, this would allow the wheat and tares to be more seperate, distinct in apearance, and actually easier to uproot without uprooting the wheat; spiritually, this would have allowed the wheat of truth to seperate itself, be more recognizable in appearance, and easier to have more harvest to reap.

I probably would have still left to attend my current church, but I feel that the growth, transition, and events in life would have been slightly smoother. I confess that I did not allow myself to see what truth was there in my previous church and embrace it as truth and ended up burning some precious wheat along with tares. Now, I learn to take what was truth in previous experiences and embrace it as truth while letting discernment come in due time instead of rushing into action discernment to alow the wheat and the tare to be more distinguishable and the tare to be easier uprooted and burned without burning wheat at the same time.

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After the Saturday evening service, I was invited by one of the elders to join him, other elders, and other church members for dinner and ice cream afterwards with R.T. Kendall. I being very shy, reserved, and socially phobic in many areas, reluctantly agreed to go. I arrived and sat at the tables with the elders, church members and enjoyed the fellowship and the ice cream. I found R.T. Kendall to act exactly as he did in the church, respecting the elders and church people, greatful for what the church did for him, not being overly forceful or demanding, and respecting the authority of the elders and pastoral staff of the church.

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There was at one point in the Friday night session where the podium was slightly loose and the podium would not stay adjusted to R.T’s height and the weight of his Bible, books, and notes. Two of the elders tried to hand tighten the wing nuts adjusting the tilt and height of the podium to no avail. R.T. Kendall’s reaction was ‘Don’t worry, we can fix this later and I can easily adjust accordingly and easily’. He politely thanked the elders for their attempts, slightly adjusted his leaning habits on the podium, and went forward. There was no rebuke to the leadership nor was there a ‘the devil is attacking me, pray hard NOW stuff!’ I admired this very much for I remember growing up in Pentecostal services, this type of incident would have turned into a spiritual warfare rebuke fest and repentance session of some leaders personal dislike as sin and equate the dislike in the house of God as the reason the podium would have gotten loose and unable to tighten and readjust.

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Thank you church for holding this conference and thank you R.T. Kendall for speaking the Word of the Lord at the present time and hour.