Rain and the Holy Spirit

First, a quick update on the Honduras team. The last couple of weeks have been very difficult because of weather in Honduras. Rain has come in massive amounts all across the country. Many homes have been evacuated and some people have died in the flooding. This is a not unfrequent problem in Honduras, because of the effect of the mountains and valleys geographically. Our team is safe, but has not been able to travel to our village areas because of the weather. Instead they are working on well drilling until travel becomes better. Please pray for the team for safety and success in the well drilling and for a quick return to the villages for inductive Bible studies in early November.

Now, let's talk about the rain of the Holy Spirit. In fact let me introduce another critical element of church planting movements. Using the list from Bob Robert's book, as given in the first article for September on this blog, I am referring to the 14th critical element. It is, "The Authority of the Holy Spirit".

I am skipping a discussion of the 3rd through 13th elements, because I think that this one belongs with the first 2 logically. These 3 elements form the "Spiritual Basis" of CPM. To give them again in brief they are:
1. Extraordinary Prayer
2. Authority of Scripture
3. Authority of the Holy Spirit

When I first heard this latest element, it was phrased something like: The Bible and the Holy Spirit are all you need to begin (a cpm project).

These 3 elements make the point that CPM is a God-movement. It is a divine work and simply cannot be reproduced by mere human methods. In fact, these elements are not methods at all, but rather descriptions of principles found in all CPMs. These 3 elements keep the critical elements from being a mere mechanistic formula for success.

Let's look at them as God-connections to the CPM enterprise.
Extraordinary Prayer: Illustrating dependence on God and relationship with Him.
Authority of Scripture: Illustrating obedience to God and submission to Him.
Authority of the Holy Spirit: Illustrating the prescence of God and empowerment by Him.

I really think that these 3 are not only spiritual foundations, but are really the whole foundation of CPM. Making these elements real in our own lives is where it begins. Before we launch our projects, we really should take inventory to see where we are spiritually in relation to these things.

More to come next time.

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