End-Time Shaking: What Type of Church Will Last?

Last Days Ready Part 4

Video coming soon. Read video notes:

Will the church as we know it last through the coming great shaking or do we need to re-evaluate the way we do things?

This is the story of how God woke me up to the problem and set me on a journey to discover His solution.

My Awakening:

In 2007 I had a startling vision that changed the course of my life forever. As I was intensely praying in tongues and declaring scripture, I went into a visionary experience. All around me I saw and felt an earthquake in the realm of the Spirit.

I saw how the foundation under my feet was cracking and how pieces of the foundation started falling into an abyss of nothingness. I then heard the voice of the Holy Spirit in my spirit: “Step to where it is more solid and eventually you will stand on Christ the solid rock that cannot be shaken”.

I then had the faint impression of someone slightly behind me on my right side holding on to the foundation saying: “But, we have always done it this way”.

I came out of this vision understanding what God was telling me: “When you see the cracks appear in how you do church: move!” I was later led by the Holy Spirit to Hebrews 12 as the explanatory text for this vision:

“25 See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, 26 whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” 27 Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.

28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and Godly fear. 29 For our God is a consuming fire.”

~ Hebrews 12:25-29 NKJV

This encounter opened my eyes to cracks forming in our foundations and the word of God to me was: “Don’t ignore the cracks when you see them, and don’t be like the people that say, ‘We have always done it this way’”.

My journey was never the same; I started seeing cracks, and I knew I had to make a choice. For a short while, I managed to ignore things that started to bother me. But they became clearer and clearer, and God’s voice became louder and louder. What are the things that I discovered?

It’s Coming

There will be great shaking that will remove all things that are not build on Jesus Christ the eternal Word of God. Everything that is not scriptural in our church life and everything we do as believers will be tested by the coming shaking. You may be asking: What are we doing in church that’s not biblical?

I’m asking you to be open-minded and read through your New Testament asking: Are we really doing things the way the apostles taught, and are we really seeing the kind of lifestyle and results they saw?

I’m not out to bash the way we do things. I’m simply issuing a warning: “Don’t be stubborn when church as usual starts running into trouble with the way things are unfolding in the world. Maybe we should start to look at our foundations, to see if they are really built according to the Word of God without add-ons or things we have taken out.”

This coming great shaking will expose all false and mixed foundations and bring into clear focus what God’s Word really says. Some of these cracks are barely noticeable, making it easy for most believers to ignore. But I believe soon they will be so obvious that only the persistently stubborn will miss them.

A United City Church

Why do we see so much division in the body of Christ when we clearly see this addressed in the New Testament? Paul wrote to the church in Corinth:

“10 Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. 11 For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe’s household, that there are contentions among you. 12 Now I say this, that each of you says, “I am of Paul,” or “I am of Apollos,” or “I am of Cephas,” or “I am of Christ.” 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?”

~ 1 Corinthians 1:10-13

How would this scripture read if we applied it to today’s context?

“each of you says, “I am of The Baptist Church,” or “I am of Fountain of Life Church,” or “I am a Pentecostal,” or “I am Fundamentalist.” Or just add your own church, denomination, or non-denominational group’s name.

If Christ is not divided, why is His body? Isn’t there supposed to be just: “…one body and one Spirit, … one Lord, one faith… (Eph 4:4-5)”?

If Jesus prayed for unity in John 17, should we not expect His prayer to get answered? The question is: How will His prayer be answered?

The great shaking will increasingly move the church away from division and towards unity. It will purify the church until we come back to our biblical foundations as a united city church without any denominations and “non-denominational” divisions. See ‘Last Days Ready Part 2’[1] for what is meant by a ‘united city church’.

It is important to note that Babylon the false bride as mentioned in Last Days Ready Part 3 will still harbour these divisions. She will also try to establish her own compromised unity through her ecumenical movements. She is already moving towards incorporating all churches into the World Council of Churches, which will end up being state controlled.

The remnant believers will start seeing these cracks appear and will increasingly move away from church systems that can be controlled by governments, like we saw in the recent supposed pandemic. As my wife and I wrote on her blog:

“The New Testament city church did not divide into denominations nor separated themselves by different names. It was simply known as ‘THE CHURCH’ in that city (1 Co 1:2, 2 Co 1:1, 1 Th 1:1, Rev 1:11). The house that the Lord is rebuilding for Himself is a united household with believers who refuse to be known by any name other than followers of Jesus Christ – the Church.”

~ AwakeningRhema.com

We know through scripture and church history that God uses persecution and suffering to purify the church. It exposes and challenges areas of compromise, complacency, and unfaithfulness. For the truly committed, it leads to a renewed commitment to holiness and righteousness and a greater sensitivity to the needs of others who are suffering.

Persecution compels true believers to set aside their differences and focus on what unites them: a shared faith, mission, and identity. In times of persecution, the church realises that it needs to work together to survive, and this fosters a spirit of collaboration and cooperation.

Again, as we said on my wife’s blog about the early church:

“Keeping the Unity of the Spirit Despite Differences was part of their value system. They allowed for differences of conviction and opinion on non-essential matters (Rom 14). They did not force their convictions on others nor made it a requirement for fellowship. Jesus Christ through the bond of the Holy Spirit was their basis of unity, not any doctrine or institution. They received one another, just as Christ received them (Rom 15:7).”

~ AwakeningRhema.com

As I said: I strongly believe that Jesus fully intends for His prayer for unity in John 17 to be answered before we meet him again at His second coming!

I don’t care what denomination or “non-denominational” division you see yourself as part of, if you embrace the true Jesus – the incarnated, crucified, resurrected Son of God – you are my brother or sister in Christ. I have to receive you as He has received you (Rom 15:7). As the shaking increases, this will become clearer and clearer to all of us.

Smaller Gatherings: Greater Impact

The early church turned the world upside down and spread rapidly without big gathering places or big budgets. Are these things a necessity, or could they be a hindrance?

In the words of Frank Viola and George Barna:

“The early Christians met in homes for their church gatherings (Acts 2:46; 20:20; Romans 16:3, 5; 1 Corinthians 16:19; Colossians 4:15; Philemon 2). Given the size of first-century houses, the early Christian churches were rather small compared to today’s standards. In his book Paul’s Idea of Community, New Testament scholar Robert Banks says the average-sized church included thirty to thirty-five people.

Some first-century churches, such as the one in Jerusalem, were much larger. Luke tells us that the church in Jerusalem met in homes all throughout the city (Acts 2:46). Yet each home gathering didn’t see itself as a separate church or denomination but as part of the one church in the city. … When the entire church needed to come together for a specific purpose (i.e., Acts 15), it met in an already existing facility that was large enough to accommodate everyone. The porch of Solomon outside the Temple was used for such occasions (Acts 5:12).”

~ Frank Viola & George Barna

You may ask: What is particularly wrong with larger gatherings?

An observable fact is that the larger the gathering, the greater the amount of people who are passive and who do not actively function in their gifts. Less people who participate means less people will learn how to function and, consequently, the impact of the group also lessens.

Most people in the modern-day conception of church come only to receive. In the first-century church, they came together to contribute. Everyone functioned in their gatherings.

This was not like today’s home cells, life groups, or Bible studies where everyone merely participates in the discussion of the topic at hand. Often people in these settings only have limited freedom to pray for others and function in their giftings.

In the first century, they had open participatory meetings led by the Holy Spirit, as described in 1 Corinthians 14:26-40. It was the responsibility of apostles to equip believers to function in this way.

The great shaking will increasingly force the church away from big, low-commitment, low-impact gatherings towards smaller, high-commitment, high-impact gatherings.

Biblical church gatherings tend to have greater impact on 4 levels:

1. Individually, members get the opportunity to function freely and develop their giftings within a safe and accountable environment. If people only receive and don’t have an outlet to contribute, they will never mature and learn to take responsibility. The biblical house-church model doesn’t just encourage everyone to contribute, it necessitates it. Otherwise, it doesn’t work.

2. Corporately, each member benefits from a wide variety of giftings and perspectives as everyone gets edified by one another. The beauty of the biblical house church is that it creates a space for authentic, vulnerable, and accountable relationships. It’s a place where each person can truly share their lives with others and grow together in Christ.

3. Interpersonally, members get the spiritual, emotional, and material support they need to deal with difficulties and hardships. The church according to scripture is a family, not only in name but in practice.

4. Societally, the biblical house-church model allows believers to be more intentional and strategic in their outreach efforts. They can identify the needs of the community and easily tailor their ministry to meet those needs in a more effective way, because there are no set-in-stone organisational structures.

I strongly believe Jesus is coming back for a prepared and fully functioning bride, not a half-functioning immature church. Whatever we do as the church, it should surely never cultivate passive believers.

Greater Networking: Increased Capacity

The great shaking will increasingly force the church to move away from a competitive brand mindset to a contributory, interdependent networking mindset.

The early church was made up of a network of smaller house churches in a city that saw themselves as the one united church in that city. Within this larger network, believers cross-pollinated, shared their resources, and had shared deacons, elders, and other five-fold ministry functions.

Because they pooled their resources together, they could accomplish far more for God’s kingdom than just one house church could on their own.

There was no competition between “churches” and “ministries”. They didn’t compete; they all contributed to the bigger picture for God’s kingdom on earth. They didn’t serve their brand of Christianity, they networked together to serve for God’s glory.

They took care of their weak, elderly, and poor. They also supported travelling ministers who evangelised and planted new churches, and they supported other outreach efforts. Because they all contributed materially and spiritually, this networked structure allowed the early church to grow and even thrive under economic difficulty.

In scripture, we learn that there was a famine in Judea. Paul asked the Gentile churches across the Roman Empire to pool their resources together and send relief to Jerusalem.

What do you think we could accomplish if we returned to this biblical networking structure of church? I believe the shaking will make it increasingly difficult to do it any other way. Again, we will be forced to unite as the economic climate worsens and social instability looms.

We are called to be the answer to the world’s problems. Not to fix the world’s institutions, but to serve as an alternative society people can escape to and find refuge, safety, and salvation in under Jesus as king.

Building on True Apostolic/Prophetic Foundations

The great shaking will increasingly move the church away from a pastor-headed paradigm to an apostolic-/prophetic-aligned, five-fold ministry equipped, Spirit-led, Christ-headed Ekklēsia paradigm.

Many that have moved towards a house-church model have rejected all forms of leadership. This is an overreaction. They have been exposed to leadership structures that control and limit the functioning of the body.

However, a lot of these brothers and sisters have also by now discovered that without any apostolic/prophetic foundations, they end up running into one of three problems: house church becomes frustrating, boring, or impactless. The antidote for these three problems is: kingdom culture, vision, and values.

God has called people with apostolic and prophetic giftings to help the Ekklēsia put these things in place. True apostolic people don’t seek to control the life of the churches they serve. They seek to equip them to function under the headship of Christ and according to scripture.

As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 1:24:

“Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, because it is by faith you stand firm.”

~ 2 Corinthians 1:24 NIV

Some circles in recent years have moved away from the inaccurate “covering” doctrine only to embrace a slightly different variation of it. They say that all believers and churches should be aligned to apostles.

Scripture teaches that we should be aligned to Jesus, the head, by those with apostolic and prophetic callings. There is a great difference between these two statements. The one fully preserves the exclusive headship of Christ; the other makes apostolic people more than what they should be: servants, not idols or lords.

If you are interested in reading about what is so damaging about covering doctrine, I suggest you read an excerpt from Frank Viola’s book ‘Reimagining Church’ linked below.

The difference between the pastor- or leader-headed paradigm and the apostolic-/prophetic-aligned, five-fold ministry equipped, Spirit-led, Christ-headed Ekklēsia paradigm is that in the one, the leaders dominate the ministry of the church and make all the decisions, and in the other, the leaders equip the members of the body to each function in their gifts under the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Persecution is always firstly targeted at the leaders and always scatters believers into smaller, more dispersed groups. As the shaking increases, the five-fold leaders will have to focus more on equipping the body for ministry rather than dominating the ministry. God will use persecution and hardship to move the whole body of Christ towards maturity.

We aim through SPIRIT-GYM TRAINING to provide a resource to the body of Christ that can be used to equip the body to function in kingdom culture, vision, and values.

Without kingdom culture, nothing moves. Kingdom communities that aren’t trained in kingdom culture will end up frustrated because very little of eternal impact happens. Either no-one takes initiative, or one or two people end up taking all the responsibility.

When no-one takes initiative, the church starts looking like a social club that goes round and round each week talking about their favourite topics. When one or two people dominate the meetings, the church ends up with another leader-dominated community where the rest are mostly passive.

The goal of equipping believers with kingdom culture isn’t like the traditional model where the life of the community gets organised and delegated. The aim is to help believers cultivate a lifestyle so that we will live as kingdom citizens and that all the functions of a true kingdom community will come to maturity naturally.

All the exercises in SPIRIT-GYM TRAINING are aimed at equipping believers with kingdom culture step by step, from the most basic to deeper levels.

Without kingdom vision, there will be nothing to rally around, nothing to get excited about and look forward to. Without the vision of God’s eternal purpose, everything disintegrates and nothing is worth dying for.

The first exercise you will have access to in SPIRIT-GYM TRAINING is ‘Exercise 0.0 – Desire: The Quest of GOD and the Battle of the Ages’. This exercise is an introduction to the grand vision of God’s eternal purpose in Christ.

Additionally, every stage in the training will align to one or two aspects of God’s eternal purpose, and Stage 4 will focus exclusively on what it means to live for God’s purpose.

Without kingdom values, we will never expand God’s kingdom in our own lives or in the lives of those we interact with. ‘Exercise 1.2 – Confess Your Faith in the Full Gospel of the Glory of CHRIST’ will introduce what it means to embrace kingdom values. Stage 6 will then focus exclusively on what it means to live by kingdom values.

Now that you have an idea of what God is moving the church into, you might also be interested in my journey to discovering God’s blueprint and the question I asked myself. Click on this video called ‘Is this God’s Ultimate Blueprint? A Personal Discovery’ for the answer.