Biblical Patterns to a Supernatural Church

Jack W. Hayford

The Lord is calling shepherds “beyond all limits” to replicate a ministry of the power of Jesus in those we lead and feed, and to mobilize and equip people to be the Body of Jesus

Christ wherever they go. I have the inestimable privilege of being the grandfather of an outspoken five year-old named Emma. When she was four, she attended her first wedding and made this pronouncement in the car on the way home: “There will certainly be no kissing at my wedding!” When she was asked to explain this rather unusual decision, she said it was because she didn’t intend to get her lipstick or her pretty white dress messed up by kissing. Following an apparent rapid reassessment of her first statement, she uttered this amendment a few minutes later: “Well, maybe when I get married my boy can kiss me, but I’m going to wear Chapstick!” A few months later, after attending her second-ever wedding, we knew she had gained the mindset of future wedded bliss. This time Emma’s declaration was, “I don’t think the boy kissed the girl long enough!” From no kissing, to limited kissing, to unlimited kissing—in a matter of months, Emma went from acquaintance to intimacy. I believe there is a reassessment taking place in the Church today about how far we are willing to go with a full availability to intimacy with God and the power of His Holy Spirit. Uniquely, over the last 100 years, the Lord has been moving by His Spirit within the broader circle of the Body of Christ to open hearts to the availability of the supernatural power of God, and to multiply that supernatural life not only to us but through us. A second Reformation is taking place in our time; as dramatic in its recovery of New Testament life in the power of the Spirit as the first Reformation was in its recovery of New Testament biblical authority and its truth of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. There are three key terms in the title of this chapter. First, the biblical patterns are the Word of God—every word. If we are going to find patterns, we will find them in the Word. Secondly, we will find the supernatural in the life and power of the Holy Spirit—all the works of the Spirit. Thirdly, the Church we are talking about is the Body of Christ—every member, supernaturally empowered, moving in the light and life of the Word. Recovery of Ministry Mindset The Church was not developed by superstars, but by shepherds who led and fed in a way that not only brought people to Christ for salvation, but replicated a ministry of the power of Jesus Himself in them. There is a recovery of ministry mindset in the Church today—the mobilizing of people to be the Body of Jesus Christ wherever they go. Not only are more today opening to the power of God at every dimension, but they are experiencing it in all parts of the Church. Having transitioned out of the role of Senior Pastor at The Church On The Way in 1999, my ministry is becoming one of mentoring and nurturing other pastors. At The Jack W. Hayford School of Pastoral Nurture, groups of 45 pastors come together for one week every month in a

mentoring time of interactive exchange. More than 1,200 pastors from over 40 different denominations have come to spend this time with me of ministry, refreshing and spiritual renewal. It is from these thousands of hours of face-to-face dialogue over the last several years that I have discovered two things about pastors: Virtually all are well-trained and effective to teach and preach the Word of God and lead people to Christ. But far fewer are equipped to lead people into a relationship with the Holy Spirit that enables them to move with confidence in ministering the life of Jesus. These are not my observations alone; I hear pastors identify this need themselves. Most pastors don’t know how to equip and resource people in the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s not a lack of conviction on their part that it ought to be done. Most realize that it is one thing to lead people to encounter Jesus in His saving work, and another to equip them to experience an invasion of His life so that they might touch the world as His Body. Bringing a reality to the presence of Jesus in each member of His Church is the call to every pastor today. Whatever your tradition is, how you go about it or define it, is immaterial to me, but that it occurs becomes a mandate for us as leaders. The Spirit-Formed Church I call this the pursuit of the Spirit-formed Church, and it flows out of a three-fold biblical pattern: Every believer needs to be Spirit-born, Spirit-filled, and Spirit-formed. You may choose to say it in a different way, but I am persuaded it takes all three things if the Church at large—the people we lead and feed—are going to become a supernatural church. A supernatural church is not a building in which supernatural things happen—as vital and desirable as that is—but rather a Body of people through whom supernatural things continue wherever they go. In other words, I am called as a pastor not only to be a faithful Bible teacher . . . not only to do the work of an evangelist . . . not only to train people in the disciplines of the Christian life so they may train others; I am also called to equip people to move in the life and power of Jesus according to the truth of His Word. A church thusly equipped moves with a supernatural dimension just as Jesus did, and takes that reality with them wherever it goes in the world. The degree to which church culture has defined supernaturalism as an end in itself—sensationalism or the pursuit of the miraculous—is the degree to which I will not be understood by some readers. Supernatural spiritual life doesn’t exist in order for us to be entertained. “Showboatism” must be eliminated from our thinking and certainly from our practice. Our quest is to go into a broken world the way Jesus went, and the way that He said He would send us: “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you” (John 20:21). As the Spirit was given to Jesus without measure (John 3:34), so Jesus has lavished an overflow of supernatural power upon the Church so that we may go as He did. When Jesus made a public declaration of His ministry in a synagogue in Nazareth, He could not have been more explicit about how we are to go: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:17-19). This full dimension of ministry is not simply for the beauty and power of what takes place within the immediate context of our church life, but is in the equipping of our people to do that in the world. The Spirit did not fill Jesus for Him to minister in the synagogue, but in the world. And He does not fill us to minister only in our churches. Rather, the Spirit desires to empower His

Body to take the teaching, the counseling, the discipling, the ministry out of the churches to the poor, the brokenhearted, the captive, the blind, and the oppressed. I believe I am safe in suggesting that most pastors are not taught to do that--and thus are not equipped to teach their congregations how to do it either. Looking at the lives of the two most prominent individuals in the New Testament—the Lord Jesus and the apostle Paul—can mobilize our own passion for such a ministry to come alive in people who will move in supernatural power, victory and authority in Christ. The Founder’s Building Plan and Program (Matthew 16:13-19) Jesus had in mind from the beginning a Church that would be born of the Spirit, filled with the Spirit, then formed by the Spirit. The core passage containing Jesus’ plan and program for the Church is Matthew 16:13-19. Peter’s confession of faith in Matthew 16 is a passage that we all love: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (verse 16). There is something about those words that quickens every heart. It’s a supernatural statement, not one conjured up by Peter, but given to him by God (verse 17). Jesus’ response is that Peter’s understanding gives Him room to build. When Jesus said He would build His Church upon “this rock,” He did not mean upon Peter. He meant the Church as His Body would be built upon the truth which Peter confessed. I wonder if Peter was not asked throughout his apostolic life, “Are you the rock upon which the Church is built?” He took great pains to teach that the Church is made of innumerable “living stones,” each being built up as a spiritual house for the habitation of the Lord (1 Peter 2:5). The Founder’s plan was for the Church to be built as miracle upon miracle takes place, out of living stones in motion, stones that have come alive with the life of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God. I submit to you that there are people today who will first be impacted with the Gospel more by a miracle manifestation of God’s power than by a verbal testimony or preaching. Both are essential in the long run. But, as I have said, we do one far better than we do the other. Would that God might remove from some portions of His Church a superficial preoccupation about the miracle power of God, and remove from other portions a nervousness about the very possibility that it might occur. The Founder’s plan is that the Church be built upon the truth that Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, has brought dead stones to life. His program for the Church is three-fold: First, the Church is to be a people of supernatural power in Christ. There is great significance in the fact that Jesus said, “I will build My church,” not “I will build My synagogue.” That is not because the Church would transcend the Old Covenant, but because He was describing something that was more than a mere gathering of people. The concept of the Greek ekklesia (assembly, church) goes back to the founding of the Greek state, to the very birthplace of democracy. The ekklesia was a dynamic and living entity, activating and enfranchising the people with authority, rather than just the head. Authority was endowed and transmitted to others. Greek citizens would gather at the bema, the judgment seat, or judicial bench, in Athens and conduct the business of the city-state. People would gather and debate, discuss and decide; it was a self-empowering entity with a purpose. Results flowed out from the gathering, the ekklesia, which impacted all the citizens of the city. Jesus was speaking of His Church as a people that will determine the direction of a culture, not

by political activity but because of power which He would give them from the throne of the Father—the keys of the Kingdom. The second part of the Founder’s program is that the Church would become people of supernatural authority in Christ. Jesus projects the formation of a Body endowed with His life and authority wherever they go, exercising the binding and loosing capacities of the Church and its dynamic potential at prayer. Jesus’ program is one of capacitating all of His people to become fully functional in all of His life. He said, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be [will have been] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be [will have been] loosed in heaven” (verse 19). These keys are not symbolic only; they are real. They have to do with the way the Church operates in the spiritual life, with how we unlock and release the grace and power of God. There are prayer keys, power keys, Bible study keys, keys for witnessing effectively for Christ. They are Kingdom keys by which the supernatural dimensions of the Kingdom of God are made real in the Church’s life. Keys not only release, they also ignite. Think of driving your car—how far could you get without the key? But when the key is inserted and acted on by the driver, authority and power are united, and action results. The key to my car does not release my power. The key releases and ignites the power of that which can take me where I cannot go on my own. And just as I learn to use the power of my car in appropriate ways, so I learn the principles of releasing the power of God in and through my life. Realistically and lovingly, may I acknowledge that exercising the authority of the Kingdom of God is not without risk. Think of driving again--is there not risk involved? We see the results of that risk daily in the news. But our safety is not to park the car in the garage and go nowhere. When we venture out in the power of God, the same Spirit who empowers us is there to guide, direct and shield. As with the Twelve, there will be mistakes and successes as we learn to walk with Jesus in Kingdom authority. Finally, the Church is to be a people of supernatural victory in Christ: “the gates of [hell] shall not prevail against it” (verse 18). The perfect passive form of the participles in verse 19 show that the keys do not function on our authority, but on authority already settled in heaven. That is, it is not the Church achieving victory in this world, it is the Church walking in victory and triumph that has already been realized. The Church doesn’t achieve supernatural victory—it participates in it, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, administrates the triumph of Calvary, achieved through Jesus’ finished work. Prayer, first of all and above all—applying the triumph of Calvary—creates the environment for a supernatural Church. There is certainty in what we have been called to do. The purposes of the Founder of the Church will be realized as we appropriate the supernatural dynamics of Kingdom life and the victory that has already been realized on our behalf, both in the contexts in which we minister, and in the people we send forth. Next, we look at the Founder’s plan and program for the Church being manifested in the life of the apostle Paul and his relationship to the Church at Ephesus. It is here that we see something of the pattern that established churches with supernatural power to impact a pagan world and establish a stronghold for the Gospel. As it aligns with Jesus’ plan and program—empowering believers to engage the darkness with transforming light and works of power—it illustrates our Lord’s intention for His Church, as we have seen in Matthew 16.

A Follower’s Primary Passion and Pursuit (Acts 19:1-41) Paul’s most extended pastoral relationship with any church was the three years he spent in Ephesus. There was an enormous amount of fruit borne out of that relationship, spreading from Ephesus throughout an area of 100 by 175 miles--a Roman province of the day. It would be easy for us to look back at what happened in and around Ephesus and think it happened because Paul was an apostle. But it wasn’t Paul’s books and tapes, or his television ministry, or his seminars that changed the culture in and around Ephesus. It was the people that he was touching and mobilizing to move in the life of the Spirit: “Moreover you see and hear that not only at Ephesus, but throughout almost all Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away many people . . .” (Acts 19:26). People who, at Ephesus, were being exposed to the power of Christ, were moving out in that power and in the truth of God’s Word through the commercial, political, and social channels of the region. Four distinct dynamics were present in the ministry of Paul at Ephesus: First, there was steadfast teaching of God’s Word (19:8-10). Please let no one mistake the fact that the foundation of everything that brings about a supernatural Church and the power of Jesus’ life in people is the solid teaching and grounding of people in the Word of God. But recognize that we are not training people for the ultimate Bible quiz; they are being prepared to have the Word of God incarnated in them by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Word of God is more than history or even theology. It is a prophetic declaration and a supernatural reality coming alive in their life and through them to others. Paul engaged in steadfast teaching of the Word, grounding people in the “Kingdom” possibilities of their life. The Word, incarnating Jesus in believers, proliferated through them until the whole geographic region was impacted. Second, there were miracle signs confirming God’s Word (19:11-12). Verses 19 and 20 summarize what can be found in more detail throughout Acts 19: That the supernatural power of God was normative in their experience. As Jesus declared they would be, these miracle signs became confirmations of the reality of the Word. The people were being schooled (not entertained) in a setting where sound Bible teaching was joined to miraculous encounters with spiritual power. The sick were being healed, demons were being cast out, and miracles were taking place. This represented an awakening of people to the reality of the living God in contrast to the granite pagan gods of Greece that offered nothing but the confusion. Third, there was purifying power advancing God’s Word (19:13-20). We are familiar with the story of how pagan and occult books and objects were brought and burned in a fire in Ephesus. We are perhaps less familiar with the fact that many of those confessing and bringing their dark possessions were believers (19:18-19). The text doesn’t say “when they believed.” It says those “who had believed.” I believe when they saw the emptiness of the dead, religious display in the Jewish exorcists who tried to cast out demons “in the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches” (19:13), their eyes were suddenly opened. Those who had begun to know the Lord recognized that there was more to their walk with the Lord just knowing about Jesus’ name. The event provoked many believers into serious confrontation with compromise and spiritual blindness and a supernatural purifying took place. Purging ourselves of those things that cripple us for impacting the darkness also opens us afresh to a vulnerability of God’s Spirit because we depose the spirit of the world in any place in our own life. This purifying makes way for the supernatural Church.

Fourth, God’s Word was “incarnated” in the Church (19:21-41). When you read of the great uproar that took place in Ephesus over the presence of Paul and his fellow ministers, you are bound to conclude that something dramatic had taken place. Demetrius, a silversmith, said it plainly: “Paul has persuaded . . . many people” (19:26). Paul’s coming to Ephesus found people who knew religious tradition but who had never had a vital encounter with the Spirit of God through Jesus Christ. Out of that springs a church that impacts the entire region. It is a supernatural church because it has been led by a leader who was beyond being limited by a reticence towards the supernatural himself. The dynamism of Christ’s life in function and power shakes up the status quo, as many lives are touched through “many people.” The impact in Ephesus—a culture so like ours—was made by a congregation being led by a preacher-teacher who cultivated their ministry as well as exercised his. Increasing numbers, learning to exalt Christ in their worship and living, were also equipped to minister Christ in their personal contacts with human hurt and need. The report of Acts points to people who not only knew how to tell people the gospel of salvation and forgiveness, but who were equally adept at touching them with the gospel of healing, deliverance and works of power. The Founder’s plan and program were being carried out through a faithful follower’s passion and pursuit. What did Paul do that launched such effectiveness through this local church? The Fulcrum of Supernatural Power (Acts 19:1-6) However we read this passage—and admittedly, significant differences of opinion exist—there is, by any interpretation, an inescapable issue presented to us. These believers had a level of biblical faith, but were without a fullness of divine life or power. Paul’s pastoral work depended upon more than teaching and grounding people in God’s Word. He also knew he must lead them to an acquaintance with, and an impacting, experiential encounter with the Holy Spirit. We are called, as Paul was, not only to bring people to Christ, but to mobilize them in the miracle life of Jesus with a word of witness on their lips and the touch of Jesus through their hands. The Spirit-formed Church is one in which He forms the fullness of His Person in us. It will move us beyond our comfort zones, beyond all limits. We cannot lead people into an intimacy with Christ that is deeper than our own. From Acquaintance to Intimacy I hope you see now why little Emma’s remarks about marriage were so compelling to me. She made the adjustments about marriage that I want to make about my walk with Christ. I do not want to shake hands with Jesus--I want to embrace Him. I want to “kiss the Son” as the psalmist said, for “blessed are all those who put their trust in Him” (Psalm 2:12). And, having opened myself up to a lifetime of intimacy with Jesus, I want to lead others to do the same. The Founder of the Church has given us His plan and program, and His follower Paul has shown us how to pursue both with passion. We have seen what happened in Ephesus when the Church encountered authentic supernatural power, authority and victory in Christ: an entire region of the world was turned upside down. I believe Jesus is waiting to do the same in our corner of the world today. It will take all the Word’s truth, joined to all the Spirit’s gifts, animating all the members of Jesus Christ’s Body.

Moving Beyond Your Limits 1. Do you agree with Jack Hayford’s suggestion that a “second Reformation” is under way in the church? What evidence supports your answer? 2. He asserts that most pastor-leaders are better at teaching and preaching the Word of God than at leading people into a relationship with the Holy Spirit that enables them to move with confidence in ministering the life of Jesus. Applying his thesis to your life, do you agree or disagree--and why? 3. Assuming you agree with the direction of his statements, what “limitation” do you most frequently encounter when you consider moving out of your comfort zones in ministry? (For example . . . fear? Peer pressure? Resistance from others? Lack of know-how?) 4. If you were to meet with a group of pastors to discuss implementing the thesis of this chapter, what are the top three concerns you would bring to the table? 5. Have you ever been part of a “Spirit-formed” church or group of believers? If so, what characterized it? If not, what would you target as objectives for your church to become “Spirit-formed?” 6. Knowing of Jack Hayford’s Pentecostal background, did you stumble at all over his comments about “supernatural power” and “miracle power” of God being manifest in the Church today? How can the Body of Christ find common ground in discussing this issue? What supernatural elements should characterize the entire Body of Jesus Christ? 7. What are the safest roles you fill in your church--the places you are most comfortable? What roles are the most threatening? What could you do in the next year to begin exercising “Kingdom keys” which you have never used? 8. Reviewing the four things that happened through Paul’s ministry in Ephesus, evaluate your ministry in light of: •The steadfast teaching of the Word of God •Supernatural signs confirming God’s Word •Purifying power in the Church advancing God’s Word •The incarnation of the written Word through the corporate impact of the Church 9. As a “guesstimate,” what percentage of your church is like the disciples Paul met when he first came to Ephesus? Paul taught them, laid hands on them, and prayed for them. What can you do for those in your church with Ephesus-like results in view? 10. Given where you are on a level of intimacy with Jesus, where is it reasonable to expect your church to be now? In five years? In twenty years?

Possible callout statements: 1. The early church was not developed by superstars but by shepherds who led and fed in such a way that not only brought people to the truth of God, but replicated in them a ministry of the power of Jesus Christ Himself. 2. Every believer needs to be Spirit-born, Spirit-filled, and Spirit-formed. 3. There is a recovery of ministry mindset in the Church today—the mobilizing of people to be the Body of Jesus Christ wherever they go. 4. Exercising the authority of the Kingdom of God is not without risk. 5. The Word of God is more than theology; it is to become incarnated in the life of the believer by the power of the Holy Spirit. 6. Bringing a reality to the presence of Jesus in each member of His Church is the call to every pastor today, whatever your tradition.