A note from Rich...

Brother Rich sent this to me last night and I thought it appropriate, with permission, to share with you...

I think what is going on in the hearts and minds of so many in the body right now is a response. We are unsettled in our current "church" (the cultural event
that happens on sunday) because something isn't sitting with us right.
I don't think most of us know what it really is. I think we've talked
alot about the secondary things that better reflect who we are,
elements we want to bring to our local body, but the why has been
shrouded, not easy to explain. The easiest way to explain it is "we
want to be different than you" but that doesn't really explain it
either.

I think God gave me the answer.

The different way we are approaching both the secular and the
non-secular is a response to a unique situation. We have a generation
that has larger numbers than ever before growing up with unheard of
affluence. Those outside the church are running amok with it. Just turn
on MTV spring break this week. Even my parents never dreamed of such
affluence. In the 1930's such affluence existed in the Hamptons in a F.
Scott Fitzgerald novel. Now it exists in most suburbs in America, and
there aren't enough spring break spots to hold them all. That's the
world's response. What about the body of Christ's response? That is
what the yearnings of our hearts are about.

We are looking at a future that is ours to spend how we choose. The
basics of food and shelter are not that difficult for us to achieve,
not like they were for the generation raised in the great depression or
the war years of the forties. We are not looking for a retirement where
we golf and live a life of leisure as has been sold to so many as the
purpose of retirement. I am looking forward to a time where I can work
with abandon on the things God has called me to, with the freedom from
the need to earn a wage.

What is going on in the church is a response to a new reality that did
not exist for many of the older people in our church, did not exist for
at least our parents, and certainly not most of our grandparents. It is
a response to an incredible affluence, and using that for the things
God has called us to as believers, and it truly requires nothing short
of a total restructuring of the church. The model is what we saw in the
1940s as we geared up for the war. Everything was turned to the task at
hand. Ford stopped making cars and started making bombers by the
thousands. Everyone worked overtime, like there was no tomorrow to make
as much of what was needed to win the war. This all happened because
price was not an object....winning the war was. This made a lot of
conflict with old timers who were used to the ways it was done when
small numbers and small amounts of money were involved, but their
strategies couldn't fit the paradigm of huge amounts of money and huge
amounts of production.

I think this it what we face today. We are trying to gear up for the
"war" God has us for, the one he has made provision for, the one he
wants the body to be equiping us for. We need to radically grow and
reinvent the structures to support us in this war. I'm not talking so
much about literal growth as it applies to buildings and such, but a
body that is all on the same page and is structured to support this
generation that has been given this amazing gift of affluence and wants
to spend it lavishly on the Kingdom. This is why we see "church" so
different than people who are not of this movement, and why we are
seeking different things. The most important thing is to realize that
God is raising up a numerous generation for His work, and that we need
to structure the church so that they get what they need to do that
work, not so that we get what we need to be happy. If our job is to be
the body of Christ, our job is to support the other parts, and not try
to be the parts we're not. Christ is the head, and directs this
generation, this movement. If we are not going to go out and do the
work ourselves, our job is to get in line and support what He is doing.
The problem up till now was understanding what he is doing. I for one
have been convinced...I've seen it in so many of the people I meet,
from the Sloases to Jeremy and Diane Vaccaro to the Cosby's, to Tony
Biasell, to the numerous camp people...the list goes on and on. The
evidence is in front of us every day. The challenge is to get the body
to see it while they can still be of help, and before it divides itself
further over the thing that should be uniting us the most, and to not
let those who can't see what God has shown us obstruct us from doing it.

That's my prophesy and I'm sticking to it!